A Few Good Fish

by Amy Lane

  “Fuck,” he muttered, brain numb. “Fuck fuck fuck fuck—”

  “You’re Rivers.”

  Jackson whirled, empty gun out, the small rational voice in the back of his mind telling him he should have grabbed Ellery’s Sig, which still had a full clip.

  “Who are you and why shouldn’t I kill you?” The hands holding the empty gun were covered in blood.

  He was covered in blood.

  Ellery’s blood.

  The man in front of him wasn’t tall—was, in fact, about Sonny’s size, small, compact, and wearing, of all things, an impeccable pinstriped suit. He had trimmed salt-and-pepper hair with a goatee, tanned skin, and a sort of sleek otter look that indicated he was moisturized, manicured perfection, right down to his pubes in fancy cotton boxers.

  “I’m Lacey’s business partner—to my shame. Rufus Hamblin—I run—”

  “Corduroy,” Jackson said numbly. “Why are you even fucking here?”

  “Because Lacey’s dead—well done, by the way. But my plane is intact, and I’d like you to let me and my men leave.”

  Jackson gaped at him. “My gun is empty,” he said, because that should be obvious. “What in the fuck—”

  “Your friends—they will back off.” With the word “friends” Jackson could suddenly hear chaos again—Ace was still shooting, the broken helicopter was still flopping, and a fierce firefight had opened up from the other hangar. The world was still burning, and Ellery was lying injured in it. “They can fix the rogue helicopter—as entertaining as it’s been. You order them down and I’ll take the Cessna and my six decent men and leave.”

  “Why should I do that?” Ellery was still breathing. Jackson could hear his breath, rattling through his punctured lungs. God, Saunders was a medic—he could help. They could put Ellery in the SUV and drive like fucking bats out of hell and call an ambulance and—

  “Because if you know someone who can fly, I can let you have the Jayhawk,” Hamblin said, unmoved by the man bleeding at Jackson’s back. “Provided your men haven’t sabotaged it, of course. And I can send you files of Lacey’s… assets.”

  Jackson’s breath caught. “The psychopaths—”

  “Yes—and their intended targets. This is your call, Mr. Rivers. Lacey was not a good soldier—he was easy to kill and foolish to shoot blind. I am a good soldier—and my men are well trained.”

  The man Jackson had fought—the refrigerator-white-boy who’d been going to kill Saunders, the one who’d been going to shoot the guy Jackson kneecapped—he’d been amazing in combat. Jackson hadn’t wanted to tell Ellery, but he would fall asleep to the thudding of their flesh, the flexing, dancing muscles, the sheer poetry of the man’s violence, and wake up screaming for many years to come.

  “They are,” Jackson said through a dry throat. “Give me the keys. I’ll call to my men.”

  Hamblin half laughed. “Oh dear God. Who are you?”

  “I’m nobody. What’s your fucking problem?”

  “Helicopters don’t have keys. All you need is a pilot—and not to get shot when you’re trying to get in it. Now what’s it going to be, young man?”

  “Sonny!” Jackson screamed at the top of his lungs. “Ace! Stand down!”

  Hamblin held a walkie-talkie to his mouth. “Corduroy!” he barked. “Stand down!”

  Abruptly the shots, the shouting, the chaos that had filled the air around them ceased. The only thing still going was Sonny’s sabotaged helicopter, but Jackson wasn’t sure how they’d fix that without blowing it up.

  “Rivers? Status!”

  That was Burton’s voice—from the long hangar.

  “Ellery’s down!” Jackson shouted back. “He’s injured but still breathing. Lacey’s dead. I’ve got an offer of a helicopter and jackets on Lacey’s trained killers if we just let Hamblin the fuck out of here. I’m taking it!”

  “Fucking Jesus,” Burton swore. “Hamblin’s the goddamned leader!”

  “Oscar, is that you?” There was a certain disappointment in Hamblin’s voice. “Oh dear. You were one of my six.”

  “I’d say choose your men better,” Burton snapped. “But—”

  “But you’re the best of them. And now I know why. Your friend here is right. Standing down is your best option. I like you, Oscar, but I won’t hesitate to kill him as he sits. You know that.”

  “Fuck.”

  As Burton swore, Jackson knew the guy’s innards must be twisted in a knot. “Sonny’s friend is here!” he called, knowing what would move Ernie’s lover more than any other plea. “He’s safe now!”

  Burton’s next words sounded defeated. “But not for long. I hear you. Go, Hamblin—but don’t count on the US military to just let this go. This is a mercenary flag on American soil. It might not be me, but—”

  “But we will all live to fight another day!” Hamblin called back. “I understand. I was offered assets—that was all. The rest of this—the flag, the base, all of it—delusions, you understand? A dead man who wanted to make the world in his image. All petty demagogues are like that.” He gave Jackson a razor-thin smile that chilled Jackson to his groin. “I should know. I’ve killed plenty. Good luck with your man there, Nobody. You should be proud. You toppled a minor king.”

  Hamblin turned then and walked unhurriedly toward the front of the hangar, and Burton rushed to Jackson’s side.

  “Ellery?” Jackson said quietly, turning to see him. “Ellery, you with us?”

  “Fucking. Ouch,” Ellery mumbled, lips thick with blood. “What in the hell?”

  “Sucks, right?” Jackson took a breath and realized he couldn’t see. His vision was black, everything in his body shutting down. “Keep breathing,” he whispered. “You gotta promise me, okay? We got a ride to the hospital, but you gotta promise me you’ll keep breathing—”

  “It hurts…,” Ellery whispered, eyes rolling in confusion.

  “I don’t fucking care!” Jackson shouted. “This hurts. I’ve got your blood on my hands and it fucking hurts, and I’m not stopping! C’mon, asshole—I’m like made of promises! ‘Talk to me, Jackson, tell me things! Open up your heart, Jackson, open up a vein! Promise to be faithful, Jackson, trust me!’ Well, I did! And I do! And look at you! You’re bleeding! So you’d better promise me to keep breathing and keep that fucking promise or I’ll never fucking forgive you for it, you hear! I’ll curse your name until the day I die—which’ll be fucking tomorrow if you don’t keep breathing!”

  “Rivers!” Burton snapped, his voice like a slap to the face. “Move! Ace and me got a backboard—we’re gonna get him to the Jayhawk, you understand!”

  Jackson nodded dumbly, not surprised to see Ace or Burton. The shooting had stopped. Even the Blackhawk had stopped.

  All Jackson could hear was the roar of the small plane in the hangar and… oh God. “Is that the Jayhawk warming up?” he asked. An hour from Barstow—by car. Ten minutes, maybe, by helicopter.

  “I can fly it,” Burton said, kneeling by Ellery’s head while he belted Ellery to the board. “Just pull your shit together and follow us.”

  “Saunders is a medic,” Jackson said, his brain seizing on that one thing.

  “So I fly, you and Saunders come with, everyone else meets us there. Let’s hurry—your guy’s breathing like he promised, but he’s gonna need a little help. Jackson, you and Ace get the board to the copter—it’ll be a squeeze, but you can make it fit. I’ll go get the medic. We got shit to do.”

  It wasn’t until Jackson was on the copter that he realized Burton had used the excuse to go to the SUV to talk to Ernie. He hadn’t seen them, but privately he hoped Burton had kissed him. Held him. Yelled at him. Told him to never fucking do that again.

  Let Ernie know he cared. That what they had was real. That it would have ripped a hole in the world if his other half had been injured or killed.

  But Jackson couldn’t say that, not even with Burton calmly behind the controls, because Ellery was next to him, struggling for breath. Because Ja
ckson and Saunders had to keep their hands on the backboard, which was awkwardly placed on the two seats between them, and watching Saunders work with gauze and tape and a tube he’d shoved into Ellery’s chest with an alcohol chaser was taking all his attention.

  Because he couldn’t think about Burton’s pain for more than a minute, couldn’t think about how much it might have scared him to have his gentle lover drive up to a land mine and shove a load of C-4 on it.

  Because it hurt too much.

  If someone had tried to rip him from Ellery’s side at that moment, he would have snapped their neck.

  BURTON SPENT the trip on coms with someone—Jackson couldn’t hear who. Whoever it was, they knew how to make stuff happen, because there was a response team waiting for them on top of the hospital in Barstow.

  Jackson clutched Ellery’s hand tight as the building came into view.

  “How you doing?” he asked, making himself look. Still breathing. Blood spattering up with every breath. “Keeping that promise, right?”

  Ellery focused on him, shaking under the trauma blanket Saunders had produced from apparently out of his ass. “You keep yours, I’ll keep mine.”

  “You’d fucking better,” Jackson said, but without heat. “Because you know what this means, right?”

  “You’re not the one getting flowers?” Ellery rasped.

  “I have to call your mother, dickhead. I have to call her Taylor. You fucking owe me.”

  “I expect you to collect.” He could barely whisper it, and his eyes closed just as the helicopter touched down.

  After that it was mostly staying out of the way as the team took the backboard and transferred him to the gurney, calling out stats, taking vitals even as the medic team ducked their head to avoid the blades and wheeled toward the building, taking Ellery away.

  Jackson stood, shell-shocked, and watched him disappear into the emergency roof entrance, Saunders forgotten at his side. Saunders bumped his shoulder, and he realized Burton was calling to him.

  “Go inside!” he ordered as Jackson leaned into the copter. “Go inside and follow him—he’ll go straight to surgery prep, so that way. I’m taking this guy to my CO to get debriefed. Saunders? Hop in.”

  “Shit,” Saunders muttered. “I was really hoping this was my get-out-of-the-Navy-free card.”

  Jackson held on to his sanity with both hands. “Debrief and beg for mercy,” he told the guy. “I’m Jackson Rivers, PI—look me up in Sacramento when you’re done.” He almost said Ellery too, but he couldn’t. Just couldn’t.

  “Thanks.” Saunders shook his hand and hopped into the copilot’s seat.

  “Rivers!” Burton called, stopping him from running for Ellery just in time. He turned. “Tell Ernie I’ll be back. I… I need to make sure nobody knows about him and Ace and Sonny, you understand?”

  “I’ll back anything you say. Keep them out of it. Nobody needs to know.”

  Burton’s smile was a little bit wicked. “Knew you got it. See you before he gets out of surgery—promise.”

  Burton gave a two-fingered salute, and Jackson ran toward the entrance.

  Once in the hospital, he managed to find the waiting room for surgery without a problem. It wasn’t until he approached the gimlet-eyed, retirement-aged nurse, who assessed him with a cool top-to-bottom scythe, that he remembered how much of Ellery’s blood he was wearing.

  He swallowed and opened his mouth.

  “The trauma victim that just came in,” she said, reading his mind. Well, Barstow was a little town. He wasn’t sure how many gunshot victims they got helicoptered in, but he’d wager it was less per year than he had fingers.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Doctors are scrubbing in now, and he’s being prepped. You’re his partner?”

  It took him a minute to realize she meant, like, “police partner.”

  “Yeah,” he graveled. “We work together.” Work together, fight together, live together, sleep together.

  “Do you need us to call his family? His injuries were fairly serious—”

  “I’ll call his mother,” Jackson said, starting to shake. Blood was crusting on his hands, in his nail beds, in the ridges of his knuckles. It was sticking his sweatshirt and shirt to his skin. “She’ll need to… she’s on her way… she needs to….”

  “Here,” the nurse said, more kindness than he’d expected given her no-bullshit gaze. “Scrubs. Have you been in a hospital like this before?”

  “I’m usually the one in surgery,” he told her as he took the scrubs out of her hands.

  Her eyebrows went up. “One of those. How’s the view from out here?”

  “It’s fucking awful. I’d give my right nut to be gutted like a trout right now.”

  “I’m not the one who makes those deals, sweetheart. The bathroom is down the hall and to the right. The chapel is the hallway past that, to the left, follow the corridor down to the end. I suggest you use them both.”

  Jackson nodded, proud of how still he kept his face, how his lower lip didn’t crumple. He could smell the hospital all around him, feel it pressing down against his chest. But he couldn’t leave, couldn’t run, couldn’t go anywhere without Ellery, because dammit, that’s just the way it fucking worked.

  “I’ll clean up and make the call,” he said, and she got one of those looks that sometimes crossed Ellery’s mother’s face. It hadn’t been until recently that he’d identified it as compassion.

  “Visit the chapel too,” she said softly. “Doesn’t always help, son, but it really can’t hurt.”

  He nodded in spite of himself and made his way to the bathroom in silence, the scrubs swinging in their little plastic bag.

  Ten minutes later he’d changed and washed his hands and chest in the bathroom sink again and again until the water ran clear. He looked at himself in the mirror and grabbed paper towels for his face, schooling his expression to blankness. Who wanted to see him cry? Seriously. Ellery was the only one remotely interested in that, and Ellery had his own shit to do.

  He could finally put the scrubs on, and he checked his phone as he pulled it out of his pocket.

  Me, Ace, and Ernie are at Walmart. We’ll bring you clothes.

  He stared at the text for fully a minute before he realized it was Sonny, telling him they were coming to the hospital. He almost asked why but realized that would make him sound like a dick.

  Burton says he’ll meet you here. He’s reporting to his CO and keeping your names out of it.

  He’s a good guy. See you there. We’ll bring food.

  Jackson just gazed at the text string for at least a minute. There was no reason for them to do that. He and Ellery had brought them nothing but fucking trouble. Clothes? Food? Why would they even want to know if he was dead or alive?

  But apparently they did. Jackson swallowed against that knowledge and pulled up Ellery’s mother’s number.

  Hospital in Barstow. He looked at the plastic bag which had the name and address on it, which he relayed. He’s in surgery. I’m so sorry—it’s bad.

  Awesome. He had to text the woman that her son had been shot? Fucking Jesus. Motherfucking Jesus H. Christ—

  He screamed and hit the mirror with his fist before he even knew what he’d planned. For a moment, he just stared at the glass embedded in his knuckles, at the blood trickling down them, at his shattered reflection in the mirror, at the disaster he’d made of the antiseptic beige bathroom like he’d made of the one good thing in his life.

  And then the hospital started to close around him, pressing against his chest until he couldn’t breathe.

  Oh God. He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t breathe. He was going to die here, shaking like a coward, because he didn’t have the courage to take his next breath.

  For a terrifying second, his bladder threatened to void, and he pulled himself together just enough to slide down the wall next to the sink, in front of the trash can, arms wrapped around his knees.

  It was where Ernie found h
im twenty minutes later, Ace hard on his heels.

  Ernie sank to a crouch in front of him and took his hand. “You’ve got glass in it.”

  “I’m fine,” Jackson lied. “Pulling myself together. I’ll wash it off. Sorry. Just—”

  “Oh Jesus,” Ernie muttered. “Shut up. You’re more honest when you’re not talking.”

  “How’s he doing?” Ace asked, matter-of-fact like. “How was he when they took him in?”

  “Breathing. Like he promised.” God, Ellery. Keep that damned promise.

  “Great. Now stand up.” Ace’s voice rang with authority—probably used to ordering terrified recruits around.

  “Fuck you,” Jackson replied without heat. “I like it here. It’s awesome. Great view of the hospital.”

  Ace crouched in front of him, looking totally serious. “I been where you been,” he said, voice quiet. “Now see, you’re lucky. You got to kill the guy right off. I had to plan that murder after Sonny got out of surgery, and I’m lucky I’m not in jail. But I know this part sucks. I know what it’s like when the one thing holding you together might just not be around that long. But he’s breathing for now. You gotta just keep acting like that’s not gonna stop, you hear me?”

  Jackson glared at him. “I can’t breathe. I hate hospitals,” he confessed, and it hurt. It hurt worse than his hand, where Ernie was picking out glass. With Sonny it had felt detached, like he was talking about someone else, but this was the pain, the fear, up close and personal, and it was terrifying.

  “I can’t… I can’t breathe. Months of my life in these fuckin’ places. Months. But I’m not gonna leave. You get that? Not gonna leave until he does. But I gotta remember how to breathe.”

  Something in Ace’s face softened. “Oh,” he said.

  “Look at me,” Ernie told him. “Just… look me in the eyes—”

  Jackson closed his eyes. “Don’t wanna fall.” God, he could barely talk. How was he going to be there for Ellery when his courage, his mind, his words were all deserting him?

  “You won’t fall,” Ernie murmured. “Just… just trust me, okay?”