by JJ Knight
“Shit, Parker.”
“You can make it to the outside. I know it.”
Maddie clutches the phone. “I won’t leave you.”
“Yes, you will. Take the phone and call 911 if you need to. Do whatever you have to do.” I am done with Colt and his friend. Time to end this bullshit.
I can see the bare leg and fight shorts of somebody. They’ll be in any second.
“Time to go,” I tell her and press a quick kiss to her lips. “It will be fine.”
A face peeks into the hole. Maddie stifles a scream. I turn to look. It’s the mangled mug of Crunch, a guy I fought a year or so ago. I kick him straight in the nose and he falls back.
“Time to hit it,” I say. I unlatch the door and fling it open. I don’t even get a head count before I launch into action, cracking the broom handle against the arm of the first guy I see.
Maddie takes off down the hall. One of the guys acts like he’s going to follow, but I smash the handle into his knees, knocking him to the ground.
Someone jumps on my back. I ignore him, clearing a path with the broom handle. There’s only four of them. I handled three of them earlier, and by the looks of it, these have already been in matches today and are probably worn down.
They are not going to be able to manage me.
Whoever is on my back is clinging like a damn monkey. No one is approaching me for the moment, so I pry a hand off my chest. It has black fingernail polish. A girl.
“You have three seconds to jump off before I slam you backward into the wall,” I say.
She doesn’t move. I step over to the wall. When Crunch comes forward, I swing the stick at him. He barely jumps out of the way.
“One, two, THREE,” I say rapidly and lurch backward, although I’ve left room for her to bail.
Sure enough, she flies off me, landing on the floor in a tangle of arms and legs.
“What the hell is wrong with you people?” I say. “Are you all trying to get your asses thrown in jail? At least in the cage you’re making money.”
Striker isn’t in this group. No telling what he’s said to them to make them think they should come after me.
I back away from them, the direction Maddie went. They all look at each other, not sure what to do. Crunch holds his face, which is bleeding profusely.
When I’ve made it far enough that I can safely turn around, I take off in a dead sprint. Damn it. I finally got Maddie safe and now we’re separated again.
Chapter 10: Maddie
I’ve had enough of this night. I stop running for a moment, trying to catch my breath. The phone in my hand has buzzed several times, but I didn’t want to stop and look until I was sure no one was behind me.
I push against a door and blessedly, it opens.
It’s a break room with a rusty sink. I run over to the faucet and twist the handle, splashing water on my face. It’s blissful. I drink and drink, so tired and thirsty and DONE with this horror.
I snatch up the phone. Colt has said in one message that he’s on his way. Then another asks why Parker is running. An unidentified person who I assume is Jax has said, “STOP.”
I’ll go with the last one.
There’s another exit to the room on the other side, so I collapse to the floor halfway between them and lean against the cabinets. This way if someone comes in, I can run for the opposite door. I want to scream, cry, break things, throw something. I want to go home.
Another buzz. “Jax is almost there,” Colt says. “I’m going after Striker.”
I wrap my arms around my legs, folded up in a tight ball. When this mysterious Jax shows up, I’m going to ask him to guide me out of here. I can take a taxi back to the hotel. Or somewhere. To Jo, maybe.
There are almost no sounds on this end of the warehouse. The faucet drips where I must not have tightened the handle enough. No footsteps or voices.
I lay my head on my knees, even though I know I should watch the doors. I’m suddenly exhausted. It was just before midnight when Parker and I left the Strip for the tattoo parlor and started all this mess. It has to be two in the morning by now.
I open my eyes and press the button on the phone to activate the screen. It’s 2:17. I was close. In the background is an image of Parker and Lily. He’s dressed like a clown and Lily is laughing. I watch it until it starts to fade out, then the screen goes back to sleep mode. I click it again, just to see them.
I figure the cops aren’t here because that way we can avoid the press. If that happens, there will be names and identities that could lead people to Lily. Parker and I agreed when we got back together to keep very quiet after all that happened with Colt and Jo. Lily is more important than anything else.
I press the photos icon and start flipping through his images. Almost everything is of us. Lily at the park. In our yard. On the sofa with a book. Wearing her pink fight gloves. A few of me with her, handing her a piece of birthday cake. I’m scowling. That was the day I kicked him out, before we reconnected.
I let the screen fade out again. I should save the battery.
A movement makes me jump to my feet. The door on my left is opening.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” a voice says. Then the gray-shirt man steps in. Jax.
He enters like a shadow, mysterious and stealthy. His hair is immaculately cut and his face is chiseled like a movie star.
Jax moves with the precision of a tightrope walker with no unnecessary movements. “You must be Maddie,” he says. His voice is deep and smooth. He could do radio, I think.
This man could do anything.
I press into the counter behind me, clutching the phone. “You’re Colt’s friend?” I ask.
“An acquaintance,” he says. “I’m here to get you home.”
“Where’s Parker?”
“He’s with Colt now. They’re prepping Striker’s van for the last salvo.”
“Can I come?”
Jax smiles with white, perfect teeth. Is anything about this man less than flawless?
“I am absolutely sure you would be an asset to our little shindig, but you’re bound to be weary of all this drama. I have a car ready to pick you up by a back door. Do you want it?”
Now that I can actually get away, I’m torn. Yes, I want out. But there’s Parker.
“I tell you what,” Jax says. He moves toward me fluidly. “I’ll put you in the car and let you ride around and when we’ve tidied up here, I’ll have the car come for Parker. So you won’t have to wait alone anywhere.”
“Okay,” I say.
“You have his phone,” he says. “We’ll stay in contact.”
He holds out his hand. For some reason, I take it, even though as soon as his cool skin touches mine, I wonder why I did. It’s as though he has some command over me.
Jax presses a small circular dot onto the back of my hand.
“What’s that?”
“A GPS tracker. Just in case we get separated. I have one too.” He shows me his hand. “You can peel it off and toss it whenever you like, but it will help us find you.”
He lifts my hand with Parker’s phone and clicks the power button three times. A grid comes up with six pulsing dots in different colors. Two are right next to each other. “This is us,” he says, pointing to blue and green. “Parker is red. Colt is orange.”
The red and orange dots are about to converge. Parker must be done fighting. The pace of the dot is normal.
“Who are the other two?”
“My colleagues,” he says. He lets go of the phone so that it rests back in my palm. “Does that help you feel better? You can track him.”
I nod. I can tell a lot just by how fast the dots move. Colt and Parker stand still for a moment, then move forward together.
“All right. We’re going to go down four hallways. Then right outside.”
“Okay.”
“I don’t think we’ll encounter anyone, but if we do, just stay behind and to the right of me. Can you do that?”
/> “Yes.”
“Very good.” He lets go of my hand and we go out the opposite door into another corridor.
He moves so silently that all I hear is the tap of my own shoes. I feel loud and clunky coming up behind him, but he doesn’t ask for me to be more quiet.
We turn down another hall. “That’s two,” he says quietly.
This one is long and dark. He shakes his wrist and a green glow shines ahead. “Doesn’t set off infrared,” he says. “A little showy for this gig, but it works.”
I wonder what a normal gig is for him. Is he some sort of spy?
The doors on this hall are all propped open, revealing larger rooms with long assembly tables. Must have been a shipping section, which meant the main warehouse space had to be close.
We turn another corner. “That’s three,” Jax says.
Almost there.
But when we make the last turn, Striker and Blue Hair are blocking the way.
Chapter 11: Parker
The black van sits in the middle of a loading bay, just waiting for us. I turn to Colt, who is looking over the room to make sure there’s nobody around.
“I guess they didn’t feel like they needed anyone to stay behind,” Colt says.
“Maybe they all ran after Maddie,” I say.
We creep up to the van just in case, but the back doors are thrown open. There’s nobody inside.
“So what’s the plan?” I ask.
“Sam has an idea.”
“Sam?”
“One of Jax’s friends.”
I met Jax when Colt and I first arrived at the warehouse. He stuck a GPS sticker on my arm and tapped my phone with his, loading an app that would track us. Maddie was right about the 007 bit. I didn’t know people with gadgets existed.
A dark-skinned man with the body of a linebacker strides into the room like he owns it. I turn, ready to attack, but Colt lowers my arms. “That’s Sam,” he says.
“You ready to have some fun?” he asks, setting a black bag on the ground.
“Always ready,” Colt says. “Where is everybody?”
“Jax is getting Maddie out of the building,” Sam says.
“Where’s Maddie going to go?” I ask.
“Wherever she tells Jax’s driver to take her.” He reaches down to unzip the bag.
“What about that other dude?” Colt asks.
“Klaus is placing bets on fighters.”
“Really?” Colt says. “All play, no work.”
Sam pulls a red box from his bag and inspects it. “Everybody bailed on Striker after your fighter friend here took on four of them.” He looks up at me. “So they went to watch the fights. Klaus is down there keeping an eye on them. He had to fit in, you know.” He winks.
“I thought people didn’t bring girls to the fights,” I say. “Maddie said there were two girls in the van.”
“Weren’t any women down by the cage, but I’ll make sure we keep tabs on them.” Sam puts the box back in the bag and taps something out on his phone. “All right, let’s rig up this van.”
“What are we doing?” I ask. I’m annoyed. It’s been a night from hell for all of us, and this joker is acting like it’s a funhouse ride.
“A few pyrotechnics,” Sam says. He runs his hands along the back bumper. “This beauty has seen its last days.”
“You’re going to blow it up?” Shit. That’s hard-core. Are they going to kill everyone?
“They’ll think so,” Sam says with a laugh. “It’s my favorite revenge gag.” He starts unpacking some suspiciously dynamite-looking packages. He tosses one to Colt and I flinch, wondering what would happen if he dropped it.
“There’s a tab to pull off and show the sticky side,” he says. “Attach it inside the front driver wheel housing.”
Colt rips off a strip of green tape.
Sam hands one to me. “Rear passenger side.” He glances up. “Don’t drop it. It’s set to trigger on impact.”
Holy shit. And he just threw one! I grip it firmly and peel off the green tab. “How much blow does it have?” I ask.
“Just enough to pop the tire. We don’t generally set out to kill random punks like these.” Sam takes out the red box again.
But they kill other people?
Sam walks up to one of the rear tail lights, pops off the cover, and removes the bulb.
I kneel by the back wheel and stick the package up against the inside of the van body near the tire. Sam opens the passenger door and affixes the red box beneath the seat.
“What’s that?”
He reaches down again. An authoritative voice comes from the box, saying, “You have sixteen seconds to get out of the vehicle before it self-destructs.” Then it starts a countdown.
I back away. “What the hell?”
“It’s not hooked up yet,” Sam says as the number hits zero.
“What happens after the countdown?”
Sam reaches in the bag and pulls out six smaller versions of the mini-bombs. “These go off. Not much more than firecrackers, but it will damage the interior. If they don’t make it out, they could get some minor burns if they’re right on top of one.” He shrugs. “Technically it could start a fire, but nothing you can’t escape from.”
He says all this as if it’s an everyday thing to set fire to a van. Maybe for him it is.
Colt comes over and Sam passes each of us three explosives. “Find some spots for these. Under seats, though not the driver’s. Under the edges of carpets is good.”
We climb in the back.
“This is a wreck already,” Colt says. He kicks aside a pizza box.
I pull the tape off one of the explosives and stick it in the back corner under the carpet.
“I guess we’ll just go around the edges,” I say. There aren’t any seats in the van other than the front. Just open space.
“That’ll work,” Colt says.
“So what is all this supposed to do?”
“Sam’ll wait until they’re driving and rig the whole thing to go off. Scare the crap out of them.”
“How is this going to get them off our case?”
“Beats me. It’s just the start of the shit storm, if they don’t back off. Jax says this sort of intimidation is their specialty.”
“Who are they?”
“Think of them as the A-Team from those ’80s TV shows,” Colt says. “That’s all any of us needs to know.”
Sam’s head pops up over the passenger seat. “Finish up,” he says. “We’re about to have company.”
I shove the last package under the carpet. Colt and I jump out the back.
“This way,” Sam says. He’s got a more complex grid on his tablet than we have on our phones. It shows fuzzy red body shapes coming down one of the halls to the bay.
We head the opposite direction. “Let’s take stock of the situation,” Sam says. He pauses by a door, but it’s locked.
“You have one of those gizmos like Jax?” I ask.
“I’m old school,” Sam says. He removes a key from his pocket and jiggles it into the lock. He pulls the sleeve of his UCLA sweatshirt over the palm of his hand and pounds the end of the key as if his palm is a hammer. The handle turns and Sam pushes open the door.
“What the hell?” I ask as Sam pulls the key back out.
“Had a steel plate implanted in the heel of my hand,” Sam says. He turns over his palm.
“I can’t see anything,” I say, then notice a faint crease that is too straight to be just an ordinary line. “Is that the scar?”
“Indeed,” he says. “Comes in pretty handy.”
I glance back at Colt.
“That’s hard-core,” he says.
We go inside the room. Sam pulls up the tablet, then heads right back for the door. “Can’t sit back. Jax is in a situation with the girl,” he says. “Let’s go.”
The girl?
Shit. He means Maddie.
Chapter 12: Maddie
“Gotcha,” Striker says. He lu
nges for me, but Jax calmly steps in front, and in two simple moves he spins Striker around and pins him against the wall, smashing his face into the cracking plaster.
“We’re a little tired of your games,” Jax says. “So let me make this one thing clear. You lay off the pathetic little vendetta or I will cut off your legs.”
“What?” Striker says. “You’re one fucked-up motherfucker.”
“You have no idea,” Jax says.
“Ain’t nothing you can do that will change what’s going on here,” Striker says. “It’s got nothing to do with you.”
“It does now,” Jax says. “And I know you live at 34 B Street in Apartment 409. I know you fight here and at the skating rink near the plaza and two other locations. I know you hang out at a gym on North 7th and that you order your pizza with anchovies. I hate anchovies.”
“What the fuck?” Striker says. “Who the hell are you?”
“I’m justice.”
I hear a metallic click and whirl around to look at Blue Hair.
Oh my God.
She has a gun aimed at Jax.
“Who’s justice?” she asks.
Striker laughs. “You still packing that Saturday night special? I knew I kept you around for a reason.”
Blue Hair frowns. “Let him go or I’ll put a bullet in you,” she says to Jax.
But Jax doesn’t move or turn around. “You really don’t want to bring out the firearms,” he says. “I’m an expert marksman and I’ve disarmed criminals with twice your strength and a lot of training.”
She pulls the trigger, and the shot is deafening. A neat hole appears in the back of Jax’s shirt.
I start screaming and cannot stop. Jax drops Striker to the floor with one blow to the neck, and before I can even absorb what is happening, Blue Hair is on the ground and Jax is tucking her gun in his pocket.
Colt, Parker, and another man race toward us from the hall we just left.
Parker grabs me and yanks me against him.
Colt kneels to look at Striker. “Did you shoot him?”
I hang on to Parker. Tears are streaming down my face. I can’t breathe. This is too much.