by Amy Lane
Jackson’s stomach rolled when Ziggy’s head gave a hard bounce with the sound of a dropped watermelon. Right as he and Burton got to Ziggy’s prone form, Ellery stuck his head out the door and got quietly sick, the shock and pain of doing what he’d just done with his injuries obviously hitting his nausea centers hard.
“Got him?” Jackson asked Burton, who nodded once. Jackson watched as he ripped Ace’s knife out of Ziggy’s shoulder and handed it to Ace, who had arrived in time to see Ziggy go down. They were rolling him over, binding his wrists and ankles with zip ties, as Jackson stepped gingerly around the mess on the ground to help Ellery back into the SUV.
“Sorry,” Ellery said weakly, tears of pain rolling down his cheeks.
“There’s no sorry for that,” Jackson told him, voice all gentleness, as he reached over Ellery for the water. “Here. Rinse and spit, and I’ll dump the rest.”
They’d had nothing more than coffee in their stomachs that morning, so there wasn’t much to clean up, but Jackson knew the misery of being that kind of hurt.
Ellery nodded, meek as a child, and did what Jackson said. Jackson dumped some water on his T-shirt and went to wipe Ellery’s face with the hem when the pain in his shoulder stopped him.
Like wildfire and lighter fluid, the graze on his bicep roared through his adrenaline and across his nervous system, hitting him hard enough to make him weak with it.
“Oh my God,” he muttered, leaning against the door frame of the battered Tank. He used the other hand to wipe Ellery’s mouth and took a couple of deep breaths to clear the spots in front of his eyes.
“What’s wrong?” Ellery asked. He was leaning back against the headrest, eyes closed, face pale, working hard on breathing.
“You took out the bad guy with a car door, Ellery. It was fucking epic. Once we get some breakfast and some doctoring into you, I’m going to make you call your mother and tell her that story. She’s going to be so proud.”
Ellery’s shoulders started to shake, and his rusty chuckle told Jackson that he was going to be all right.
In spite of the many places on Jackson’s body that felt like shit, Jackson was pretty sure they both were.
JACKSON MADE sure Ellery stayed put until the ambulance got there, but as soon as Ziggy was bound up and rolled to the sidewalk, where he lay limply and bled without pity, Jackson, Ace, and Jai went to check on the kids. And on their driver, who had been frighteningly quiet.
The children were all seated, two by two, in the first four rows of the bus, and they greeted Jai with tentative smiles and waves. He crouched near the front of the aisle and began to speak to them, low and in what was probably Russian. Jackson heard his own name mentioned, and he turned and waved over his head, relieved beyond words.
Sophie and Maxim were sitting together, wearing travel-stained clothes and clutching each other’s hands. They looked tired, but Jackson could see a trash bag full of fast-food wrappers and empty water bottles in the back of the bus, so he was pretty sure everyone there had been fed and watered and might even have gotten some sleep.
They weren’t battered or bruised—scared, possibly for a long time to come—but not hurt physically, and that was a win.
For a moment, Jackson let his heart slow, let some joy seep into his chest. Tage, who’d gone through hell in the hopes that he could save them, would have at least part of his family back again.
But the joy was short-lived. Their safety had come at a price, and while they were going to walk away from this school bus unaided, the same couldn’t be said for their driver.
Jackson could barely remember seeing Jason Constance before, when he and Ellery had gone into the desert and almost not come back.
The man had looked tired then, but fit, in command, militarily crisp and ready to go face the bad guys.
This was not the same man. This man had his shoulder and arm wrapped in a dirty bandage that might have once been a cheap T-shirt. His face was bruised, and he was as worn as a discarded shoe.
One with no sole—or soul—left to speak of.
Ace got there first, wrapping his arm around Constance’s waist and helping him out of the bus. He stumbled when he got to the stairs, and Jackson reached around him, he and Ace forming a sling between them and walking sideways to get Constance to the sidewalk and help him sit on the grass.
“What in the actual fuck?” Ace said, his twang more apparent than ever. “You were in one piece when we left you on the road.”
Constance glared at Ace sourly. “And you still had eyebrows,” he muttered.
“Well, I lost my eyebrows blowing up a dirty, no-good, child-trafficking, drug-selling mob boss,” Ace said defensively, handing Constance a water. “What’s your excuse?”
“The US military wanted the children to get to the dirty, no-good mob boss,” Jason said, weariness etching lines in the corners of his eyes. “So they could say how they knew he was dirty and no good. I guess they’d been trying to pin down his operation for a long time, and part of it involved stealing guns from the military itself. The kids were their way in.”
“Fuck that!” Jackson couldn’t help it—he flailed when his shoulder and his back and his neck all hurt and then everything hurt more. “They actually—they shot you so they could do that?”
Constance grunted. “The mobsters shot me. Someone in the military who was making money from the guns told the mobsters where I’d be.”
“Well, that sucks,” Burton said, giving Ziggy a fuck-you kick in the ribs before moving over to crouch at Jason’s side. “Are those people dead?”
Jason shook his head. “Not all of them. And the guy in the military is still there. We haven’t figured out who it is yet.”
“Goddammit, Jason,” Burton muttered. “There is now a price on your head. That’s just swell.”
“I got nothing,” Constance said, stifling a yawn. “I… God, I need my wound irrigated and some antibiotics and some sleep and a computer and….” His voice trailed off, and whether he was about to pass out from exhaustion, blood loss, or illness, Jackson couldn’t be sure, but he knew the man was done.
He looked down the block to where everybody—everybody: EMTs, rescue vehicles, DAs, detectives, and police officers—had begun to park, and singled out Henry’s brand-new luxury sedan almost immediately.
“Ace,” he said urgently, “can you help me get him?”
“I’ll do it,” Burton muttered. “You go talk to your buddy, and we’ll follow you.”
Jackson shot him a look, and Burton rolled his eyes.
“You are bleeding, asshole. Now move it so you and Cramer can get some first aid. You both have head wounds, are you aware?”
Ugh! No, he hadn’t been. “Bleeding before breakfast,” Jackson muttered. “Not a good idea.” With that, he headed toward Henry, who was looking pissed off.
“Twenty minutes. It took me twenty minutes from a cold start to get dressed and get my ass down here, and you still managed to wreak havoc across three city blocks.”
Jackson couldn’t help it. “Heh heh heh heh heh.”
Henry shook his head, his blond hair looking seriously sex-tousled, and Jackson didn’t feel bad at all. “Lance says he’s down to help. What do we have?”
Jackson nodded to Ace and Burton, who were on either side of Jason Constance, helping him walk toward the brand-new town car that Henry had driven up in. As far as Jackson knew, Henry didn’t own his own vehicle; he just drove Galen’s car, because most of the time, it had Galen in it.
“We have one battered military guy whose whereabouts need to be unknown,” Jackson told him.
Henry nodded. “Yeah. I explained to Lance how the guy is pretty much a hero. He said he could deal.”
“Well, there’s the ADAs in charge of human trafficking cases getting out of their vehicles now. Let me go talk to them for a minute, make sure everybody’s on board with ‘No, sir, that bus drove itself.’ I would really like Lance’s name to not even get mentioned, but there are still
bad guys out there who might be very interested in where Jason is, and someone on the inside in the military who might be giving them tips.”
Henry sucked air in through his teeth. “Now that just hurts. Goddammit. Drove a school bus full of children through a meat grinder to get them to safety. Guy should get a parade.”
“I think he’d settle for some painkillers and a good night’s sleep,” Jackson told him. “But if you’ve got a parade in mind, go for it.”
Henry snorted and called to Burton and Ace. “Here, let me put a towel down first.” He grimaced to Jackson. “All-new leather upholstery. Feels disrespectful to let someone bleed on it the day after we bought it.”
Jackson felt an absurd chuckle coming on and went to where Burton and Ace stood, most of Constance’s weight supported between them. “Guys, Henry’s going to take him to safety. I, uh, know where he’s going to be, I think, but if we could, I don’t know, keep watch over the place? There are some really innocent dumbass kids in that building, and I’d love for them not to get hurt.”
Burton let out a sigh. “Me and Jai can do it,” he muttered, and Ace made a hurt sound. Burton shot him a glare. “Ace, I love you, and I love Sonny, but if you don’t drive something back to Victoriana in the next ten minutes, Sonny is going to lose his shit. How many times has he texted you in the last three days?”
Ace’s high cheekbones went dull red. “Not so many as you’d notice.”
Burton blew him a raspberry, which was so far out of character that Jackson stared. “Bullshit,” he said, to follow up the rude sound. “You probably used up your entire data plan telling him to hold tight. Jai can follow what’s going down on the street, so we know who to worry about. You need to go back to Sonny.”
Jackson watched as a part of Ace seemed to shore itself up to accept his fate and another part lit the man up from the inside. Obviously he was missing Sonny as much as Sonny missed him.
“Well, fine. If either of you two get your asses shot off without me, just remember, I know where your boyfriends live, and I can sic them on you with one goddamned phone call.”
Burton looked like he’d swallowed a bug. “You would not—”
“Hell I wouldn’t. I would drive Ernie and George up here and kick them out of the SHO, aiming them at you two like a tank gun.” Ace scowled. “No fun without me, hear?”
“Zero fun, sir,” Burton intoned levelly, and only Ace’s cocky grin showed that he recognized the movie reference.
“That’s a good friend right there,” Ace said, and they both moved forward as Henry finished his business with the towel and the back of the car. “Here you go, Colonel. We’ll keep you safe, right?”
Jason gave Ace a weak smile. “Thanks, soldier.”
Ace and Burton helped him into the car, and Burton squatted down by the curb to speak earnestly to his boss for a moment. Jackson took that as his cue to go talk to Mira and her bosses.
Eleanor Sodhi wore another black suit, this one accented with a gloriously threaded gold-and-scarlet scarf. Her hair and outfit were impeccable, but her expression was haunted.
“Fourteen children?” she asked, voice rough. “You’ve done an amazing thing, Mr. Rivers.”
Jackson scowled, gesturing with his chin. “Those folks over there did this,” he said, meaning Jason Constance, Ace, Burton, and Jai—who was still in the school bus, getting names from the children. “I just poked a hornets’ nest and tried not to get stung.”
“You failed,” Mira said dryly.
“You are seeking medical aid, aren’t you?” Ethan Pasternak asked. He did not look like he’d just stepped off a magazine cover. His thinning hair was sticking out in all directions, and his shirt was haphazardly shoved into his slacks. No jacket or tie either. Jackson realized he sort of liked his lawyers rumpled, and he gave Pasternak a sober nod.
“I need to get Ellery to the ambulance first,” he said, nodding to the three busses that had parked up the street as he’d been talking. “One more minute. I need to make sure you can process all the children,” Jackson told them. “Get the kids to their homes?”
“We need an interpreter,” Eleanor began, but Jackson shook his head.
“You have one, and here he is now.”
Jai emerged from the bus, his face set into its usual implacable lines, and Eleanor Sodhi and Ethan Pasternak both took a terrified step back.
“Guys, you do not need to know this man’s name, but he’s got—”
Jai held up his phone and nodded briefly to Jackson. “Forwarded,” he said.
Jackson grimaced. “Jai, my phone is toast. I can’t forward it to them.”
Jai huffed. “Cramer?”
“Yeah. Do that.”
“Done.” And then he turned away to stride toward where Burton and Ace stood after Henry had pulled away from the curb.
“Give me a moment,” Jackson told them. “You can go talk to the kids. I need to get Ellery’s phone.”
“Jackson,” Mira whispered, eyes on Jai’s enormous retreating back. “What was that guy’s name?”
Jackson gave her a half smile. “I told you, honey, you don’t need to know.”
And then he absolutely had to go see Ellery.
JACKSON MANAGED to retrieve Ellery’s phone and forward the information to Mira and her bosses before the same EMTs who treated Ellery’s arm with a pressure bandage and helped him into the stretcher for the ride to the ambulance focused their attention on Jackson.
“All right, all right,” he muttered. “I’m riding with Ellery. Let me get in, and you can do whatever.”
Whatever proved to be a lot, and Jackson was in a foul mood when they arrived at the hospital and the two EMTs—strangers this time, which was unusual—insisted on admitting both of them for treatment.
“I don’t do hospitals,” he muttered.
“Yes, Jackson, but you weren’t going to leave me in there alone anyway,” Ellery told him, looking less woozy but still in some pain. “You might as well come in, get it over with, and deal.”
“I’m so pissed,” Jackson said, his voice sounding peevish to his own ears. “I was so going to stay out of them this go-round. That was, like, my driving goal! I was going to visit other people in the hospital if I had to, but I wasn’t going to need to go myself.” Some of his peevishness bled away under the roar of the ambulance, and some of his exhaustion seeped in.
“And by ‘other people,’ I didn’t mean you,” he added miserably.
Ellery’s chuckle had an edge of hysteria in it.
R.O.R.
X-RAYS AND CT scans and painkillers, oh my! Jackson kicked up a fuss about not leaving Ellery’s side, so he sat, shirtless, in the hallway while a pretty physician assistant, with tawny skin and wild curls pulled back in a ponytail, irrigated and stitched his arm and his head wound and then had him shuck his pants so she could apply more glue to the stitches in his backside.
Ellery remained in the stretcher, blissed out on painkillers, with temporary splints on his forearm, wrist, and knee, listening to Jackson shamelessly flirt with the PA in order to hide the shaking in his voice and the frantic fear of the hospital that had not stopped dogging him just because he hadn’t been incarcerated in one for the last two months.
“You’ve had a busy couple of days,” the PA muttered, prepping more gauze and another needle. “Were you trying collect as many small injuries as possible so you could win a free week in ICU?”
Next to him on the stretcher, Ellery snorted. “I’ll remind him you said that the next time he gets stitches in his ass.”
She glanced up at Ellery, taking in his recent stitches and the temporary splints on his arm and leg. “You appear to have no room to nag,” she said bluntly. “Is this your first trip to the ER?”
Ellery paused to think about that, because the painkillers were good, but Jackson answered for him. “No. Would you like to hear how he kicked bad-guy ass with a broken wrist and a dislocated knee?”
Ellery regarded him with true ho
rror. “No. No. That is not how we’re telling that story. I refuse!”
The PA gave Jackson a wicked smile. “Is that really how it happened?”
“Oh yeah.” Jackson nodded. “Totally badass. I left him in the car because… well, look at him. Sad, right?”
Ellery glared at them both, wishing he could just pass out and wake up at home, while the PA gave him another once-over.
“Like a sad little kitten in the rain,” she confirmed.
“See? And I’m talking to some total badasses—like blowing shit up and motorcycle assassin badasses—and suddenly, a bad guy shows up!”
Ellery heard the thread of hysteria in Jackson’s voice and let him go. If he could flirt a little, tell a good story, pretend to be someone else who was somewhere else, he might get out of the hospital without having another heart attack.
“How do you know he was a bad guy?” she asked. “And speaking of badasses, I need to see more of yours so I can get these stitches under the thigh.”
Jackson obliged her, turning a little more, while Ellery answered.
“He was the bad guy because he shot Jackson in the arm. You just stitched that.”
She snorted. “You guys are a laugh riot. It’s like Abbott and Costello in here. Okay, so, bad guy shoots and….”
“And one of the badasses throws a knife. Into his chest—well, a little north and west, so his shoulder, but I swear, it was a thirty-yard throw and he missed the heart by that much. And bad guy can’t aim the gun anymore, so he turns to run away, and one badass chases him one way and I chase him another. And Ellery here, whose only job was to stay put, waits until the bad guy is too close to stop and throws open his door—”
“With a broken arm from a car crash that just occurred?” the PA double-checked, sounding like she didn’t believe a word of it.
“Sweartagod,” Jackson confirmed. “And the bad guy goes over backwards, and his head bounces off the pavement like a watermelon—”
“And I keel over and vomit,” Ellery inserted dryly.