by Jadyn Chase
Logan didn’t fare so well. Instead of shifting when the shooting started, he leveled his shotgun at the enemy. The attackers’ fire pocked through his chest and sent him reeling.
I launched with a tremendous bellow of sheer rage. My wings sprouted out of my back so fast I didn’t feel the change. I extended them across the length of the truck to protect Logan and Kane from the bullets.
In a flash, the dragon burst from my soul and I lost the ability to think clearly. Pure, black, sizzling fury exploded out of me on its own free will. A torrent of flame shot out of my mouth, and I sprayed all my wrath on the truck.
The attackers got too wrapped up in their machine guns and their brilliant scheme to ambush us to respond very fast. I caught them off guard and several incinerated before they had a chance to shift. They flailed their pathetic arms and danced around trying to drop their weapons.
In the flickering flames, I noticed a hundred wooden packing crates stacked behind The Furies. The slats protected the guns inside—at least for a little while.
Watching my enemies roast in my fire satiated my lust for death enough to let the realization sink into my lizard brain. I wanted to get rid of these fuckers. I didn’t want to damage our shipment.
The last few Furies alive managed to shift and launch out of the truck. I didn’t dignify them with my notice. I turned my ire on the driver and torched my flame under the chassis to burn him up.
He tried to burrow further under the truck for protection, but my fire caught him and set his clothes alight. He staggered out the other side and pivoted this way and that trying to put himself out. His shrieks rose to screeches before he pitched over on the concrete. Another idiot. What human would be so stupid to get himself mixed up in The Furies’ operation when he couldn’t even shift to defend himself?
One of the enemies flapped into my face trying to fight me. Would their idiocy never cease? Didn’t he know better? Maybe The Furies’ leadership rounded up all their stupidest initiates and this was their way of culling the herd. They sent all the guys they wanted to eliminate on a suicide mission to fight Los Diablos. I couldn’t think of a better explanation for their brainless behavior.
I rounded on the youngster, roaring out my dominant primordial rage. I made a dive to catch him in flight when Kane darted out of nowhere. His long neck lunged through space and his jaws clamped the kid’s wing. He plucked the munchkin of the sky. He gave a vicious shake and the wing ripped out of its socket.
The young dragon screamed and catapulted to the ground. He flapped and flopped and smeared his blood all over the pavement, but he couldn’t take off again.
Kane spat out the severed limb and arched his snake neck to glare around the yard. High above us, several dragons circled the fence. One of them tilted toward us and swooped low over the truck. I recognized Rico. He surveyed the scene with a glittering eye, but when he saw the battle secure, he zoomed away and returned to where three others hovered.
They looked down to the street beyond the railroad tracks. Every now and then, one of them spat a jet of flame that ricocheted off the pavement. By its light, I recognized men fleeing. So I was right. The Furies did post their men around the yard. They planned to cut us down. They probably made connections in LA and planned to sell the guns themselves. They wanted to eliminate us as a middle man so they could reap the profits.
Rico came swinging back. He shrieked, but this time, it keened high and long in a note of triumph to tell me the perimeter was secure.
I let my wrath sink beneath my skin and regained my human form. A scattering of dead bodies littered the truck. Scorch marks blackened the crates, but they all appeared intact.
Kane touched my shoulder. When I turned around, I beheld Logan stretched out on the ground. He gasped for breath and gulped like a fish while he stared up into the rain.
I dropped on one knee at his side and gripped his shoulder. “Hold tight, little brother. I’m taking you to the hospital.” I raised my eyes to find Kane kneeling opposite me. “Get the truck back to headquarters. Tell him what happened.”
He jerked his chin toward the bodies. “What about them?”
“Leave ‘em here,” I ordered. “No one will mess with us.”
He stood up and hurried away. I leaned in and scooped up Logan in my arms. He whined in agony. I positioned his head against my shoulder and cast a glance around. I didn’t much care for the prospect of driving in this weather, but the hospital was too far away to walk.
I checked just long enough to see my orders carried out. Kane striding down the length of the trailer. He yanked the bodies down and they flopped on the pavement. He left them there along with their melted, useless guns. I would love to see a crime scene investigator explain that. Rico got into the cab and fired up the engine while Patrice and Kane secured the curtains, clamps, and straps.
I didn’t wait around to see anymore. I carried Logan to my bike behind the container. I climbed on and positioned him curled in a ball in front of me. I turned the ignition and drove onto the darkened street. I left the yard and that catastrophe behind me and concentrated on getting to the hospital.
Halfway there, Logan started babbling under his breath. He talked about his Mama and his girl back home and a lot of other things he wouldn’t want me to repeat.
I fell into a zone of my own. I murmured to him while I drove. “Don’t you worry about a thing. You’re gonna be just fine. In a few days, you’ll be back in LA with the club. You’ll be drinking beers and running errands for The Boss the way you did when you first got initiated. Do you remember that time he told you to change the tire and you forgot to tighten the axel nut back up? He got halfway down the block and the wheel fell off. Man, he was pissed at you for weeks after that. He wanted to kick you out of the club, but Kane defended you. He said it was an honest mistake that anyone might make. Shit, I think we all knew what a load of horseshit that was! I mean, everyone knows how to put air in a tire, right?”
I babbled more to myself than anything. I came up with all kinds of nonsense to block out the rain and the horror of driving a brother to the hospital through the small hours of the morning.
When I got there, I lifted him off and staggered into the Emergency Room. The receptionist’s mouth fell open. She was too stunned to move. I spotted a gurney nearby and lurched toward it. It took all my willpower not to drop Logan on it.
Just then, a nurse rushed over. “What’s the matter?”
“He’s been shot,” I told her. “I don’t know how bad it is.”
She and a bunch of other people surrounded Logan. They shoved me aside. I almost toppled myself. I couldn’t feel my legs.
He must have been pretty bad because they wheeled him away in no time. Only then did I see a trail of blood smeared across the pristine white tile floor. It led from the rain-soaked world outside to where the gurney used to be. It covered my clothes and saturated everything wherever I set my feet. No wonder the receptionist reacted the way she did.
3
Ruby
Christopher looked up from his iPad. “Will Grandpa be all right, Mom?”
I rubbed his neck and shoulder. “I’m sure he’ll be fine, sweetheart. He just had a little scare. That’s all.”
Just then, the nurse came over to us. “Ms. Lewis?”
I stood up. “Yes. That’s me. Is my dad all right?”
She sat down at the desk and rifled her paperwork. “He’s fine. We gave him some IV glucose, but if he’s not able to monitor his diabetes himself, maybe you should do it for him.”
I let out a shaky sigh. I became conscious of Christopher watching me. He took in every detail even when I thought he wasn’t paying attention.
“I can see I’m going to have to start taking over his care,” I told the nurse. “I thought he was still able to manage some things on his own. He was taking his own injections, but now I see he’s a lot worse off than I first realized.”
“He needs to eat no less than an hour after his insulin in
jection and he needs to eat regularly throughout the day.”
“Yeah, I realize that.” I tried to keep my voice steady. I had to remind myself I didn’t do anything wrong here. We were talking about Dad. “I thought he had it in hand. I’ll make sure nothing like this happens.”
She scanned the documents in front of her. “Here’s the invoice for the outstanding balance. You can pay at reception before you leave today.”
“Outstanding balance!” The blood drained from my cheeks. “We shouldn’t have any outstanding balance. He has health insurance.”
“His policy doesn’t cover lapses in prescribed care. That means if he—or anybody else—screws up his prescribed treatment regime, the policy doesn’t cover the costs. Since he had a prescribed nutrition plan that included regular meals within an hour of every insulin injection, the policy doesn’t cover the cost of the ambulance and the emergency treatment.”
She tore off a sheet and handed it to me. While I gaped at the total in shock, she got up and left us alone. I glanced over to find Christopher looking up at me. My cheeks flushed.
Poor Christopher. He was the one who found his grandfather passed out and unresponsive on the kitchen floor. I felt bad for the boy. He came home from school expecting his grandfather to take him to the ballpark. Instead, he wound up calling an ambulance and watching the medics take his grandfather away. A Police officer had to contact me at work to come and pick up my stranded son.
I put my arm around Christopher’s shoulders. “You see? I told you he was going to be all right.”
I did my best to sound upbeat, but I worried about myself more than anything. For the thousandth time—maybe the trillionth time—I sent up a prayer of gratitude for this young boy of mine. I didn’t know what I’d do without him. He kept me grounded and sane at times like this.
I didn’t have any choice but to keep going. Even if Dad wasn’t going to be all right, I had to keep the ship afloat for Christopher’s sake.
Dad would die one of these days. He’d done the hard years, and now he lived with some serious health concerns. That was why I moved back to Barstow in the first place, to help take care of Dad. One of these days, he would be gone, just like Mom. Then I’d have no one left but Christopher, and he would have no one left but me. It would just be the two of us against the world.
I mentally recalibrated my workday. I held down two jobs to pay all the bills for Dad, Christopher, and me. Dad’s pension check barely covered the rent. I waited tables at the diner during the day and freelanced doing accounting at night. I worked it out that way so I could be there for Christopher when he needed help with his homework and to read to him before he went to sleep at night.
I didn’t want to give up that routine, but I supposed I had to. I had to switch it around so I could take care of Dad during the day. I had to monitor every medication he took and everything he put in his mouth to make sure he didn’t have another scare like this one.
My blood ran cold when I read the number at the bottom of the invoice. This couldn’t happen again or we were all sunk. I owed it to Christopher to make sure I covered certain basic necessities every month. Rent, food, power, winter heating, clothing, and shoes—I would rather skimp on Dad’s medical care than let Christopher go without those.
I kicked myself for even thinking that, but desperate times called for desperate measures. Even Dad said Christopher’s needs came before his.
I couldn’t look at the invoice anymore. I folded it and put it in my handbag. Then I got to my feet. “Come on, sweetheart. Let’s go see Grandpa now.”
Christopher put his iPad in his backpack and I took his hand. We rode the elevator to the General Ward and I checked the sign near the nurses’ station to find out his room number.
Just then, I heard a familiar laugh. I looked over my shoulder and blinked through an open door leading into another room. There was Eli Walch as big as life. One of the guys that came into the diner with him the other night lay in the hospital bed and laughed up at Eli.
Eli sat on the kid’s bed. His eyes crinkled at the corners exactly the way I remember. He looked even better, now that he put on a few years. He filled out and his face matured to become more serious even when he laughed.
He still wore that motorcycle jacket he had on at the diner. The dragon logo glared out at the whole world, ready to kill and destroy. Bastard. He was still in that stinking gang.
The kid hugged his arms over his stomach to hold back laughter. “Stop, man! Don’t make me laugh.”
Eli hopped up and clasped the kid’s hand. Then he darted in and hugged the guy. The man in the bed tried to return it, but he couldn’t sit up.
“I better go, man,” Eli told him. “I’m meeting The Boss to decide what to do about this.”
The kid got suddenly serious. “You’re not leaving town, are you?”
“Naw, man,” Eli replied. “The Boss ordered me to stick around as long as you’re in the hospital, and whatever’s going to go down will go down here, so I’m stuck here.”
My heart sank. So Eli was staying in Barstow for the foreseeable future. I sure hoped he didn’t plan to come into the diner for all his meals. If he didn’t get the message that I didn’t want him around, I might have to take drastic action.
Just for a second, I caught a glimpse of him standing straight up and facing me while he looked down at his friend. That leather jacket surrounded sturdy, square shoulders. His torso ran down in a triangle of muscle to his narrow waist. His tight black jeans hugged ripped legs ending in steel-toed boots.
His dark scruffy hair was a little messier than I remember in school but other than that, he looked the same as I remembered him in school. His eyes sparkled with life and his lips…. those lips! I remembered those lips all too well.
It took me years to forget those lips, those legs, those arms around me. It took every ounce of willpower to push him away, but I did it in the end. I blocked wanting him out of my mind, and now he was back, as big as ever.
I thought he was long gone. I thought he would never come back from LA and the gang life and his newfound friends. Now he was here in Barstow to haunt me all over again.
At that moment, he looked up and stared through the door. His gaze came to rest on me standing at the nurses’ station. I froze in my tracks. Should I run away? It was too late now. Here he came toward me.
He stopped. “Hey, Ruby,” he murmured. “I want to apologize for the other night if me and my boys made you uncomfortable at the diner. I know it was probably a shock seeing me there. If you don’t want me coming into the diner again, I won’t. I don’t want to make you nervous or anything.”
His words snapped me out of my trance. “No, it’s okay. You’re welcome to come into the diner. You did surprise me, and I’m sorry if I was rude. I didn’t know how to handle it.” What in the world made me say that? I should have said, yeah, I didn’t want him coming around. That would have been the smart move to make.
He broke into a grin. “You and me both.”
I jumped. “Hey! I’ve got that money you left.” I dug into my handbag and pulled out the two fifty-dollar bills. “Here. I can’t accept this. It’s way too much.”
“You keep it,” he told me. “You need it a lot more than I do.”
I stood there like a fool with the money burning a hole in my palm. I couldn’t take it back, but he wouldn’t touch it. “I’m serious. It’s…. it’s…..”
“It’s what?”
I bowed my head. I shouldn’t even say it. “It’s gang money.”
I expected him to take offense, but he only burst out laughing. “Is that what you’re worried about? Call it compensation for that jackass throwing his food all over your shoes. Buy yourself a new pair of shoes and call it even.”
I waved the bills at him. “You really won’t take it back?”
“Nope.” He squared his shoulders, but his eye twinkled with fun. “If that’s the kind of asshole you have to deal with in that job, then consider
this my way of evening the score. I want you to have it, so keep it. There’s no obligation or anything. I don’t expect you to take my phone number in exchange if that’s what you’re worried about.”
My arm falls to my side. “All right. If you feel that way.”
I tucked the bills back into my handbag, right next to the hospital invoice. How convenient. Just when I really need money, Eli came along and gave me some. How did that happen?
He glanced around the ward. “What are you doing here, anyway? Are you visiting someone?”
“My dad. He had a health scare with his diabetes.”
His eyebrows flew up. “Yeah? Is he all right?”
“He’s fine. I just need to take more of an active part in managing his care. He’s not as compos mentis as he used to be, you know?”
He nodded. He didn’t make a joke out of it, thank God. “I’m sorry to hear that. That’s gotta be tough on you.”
“Well, that’s my job. That’s why I moved back here from San Diego when my mom died. I knew he needed help, so that’s what I’m doing. I was just thinking I need to change my schedule at the diner to the night shift so I can work from home during the day. So if you come into the diner, I’ll probably be there.”
He cocked his head. “You were working the night shift when I saw you there last time.”
“I was just filling in for someone. Usually, I work from home at night. I got my accounting degree at San Diego State and now I freelance online.”
“Wow,” he remarked. “You really did something with your life, didn’t you?” He glanced down at his jacket. “Unlike me.”
I didn’t know what to say. “Anyway, I guess I’ll see you around sometime.”
He brightened up. “I hope so.”
I turned away. Only then did I notice that Christopher wasn’t with me. He stood down the hall reading the notices on the bulletin board. When I checked over my shoulder, Eli was halfway down the ward on his way to the elevator. He waved to me before he turned the corner.
