Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Randal appear from around the house, soon followed by Calen and Reese.
Jack ignored them as he breathed into her mouth over and over again. He could hear them talking, each one sounding just as panicked as he was, but he stayed focus on his task.
Breathe, thump, thump, thump. Breathe…
Bit felt something hitting her chest. She wanted to get away from it, but her body wouldn’t respond. Then suddenly the beating stopped and she felt soft lips on hers, followed by air being forced down her throat. Bit coughed suddenly, half her mind wondering why a kiss would make her cough.
Her world tilted and water spewed from her mouth as she coughed and coughed until her battered body felt as though it might fall apart. At last, she sucked in a deep breath of air and turn to look up.
Jack held her limp body, hovering over her to protect her from the rain. Water dripped from thick strands of his black hair, splattering on her cheeks and throat. She thought she saw tears in his eyes, but she suspected it was just rainwater.
“Jack?” she croaked, sounding as though she had been smoking all her life.
“Oh, Bit!” he cried, crushing her to his chest and planting his lips on hers once more; only this time, it wasn’t for CPR.
Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted Oden trying and failing to keep a glare off his face. Before Bit could respond, Jack pulled away and lifted her out of the water. The men surrounding them cheered. Bit spotted Zandri, held by Oden and Reese.
“Everyone inside. Let’s get out of this rain before we drown,” Jack ordered, leading the way toward the front of the house.
They traipsed into the beautiful mansion, acting as if they owned the place. Jack took Bit to the couch and laid her down. She immediately pushed herself up into a sitting position, though her ears were full of water and she felt like she might throw up.
“Now, Bit, you get the info you needed from this shmuck?” Jack asked as he kicked Zandri’s boot.
Oden had placed Zandri in a chair, his gun pressed to Zandri’s temple.
“What?”
“I know all about your lost family member. Blaine spilled the beans.”
“Oh, uh…” Bit felt disoriented, her head still buzzing as she coughed occasionally. “No. I haven’t. Where’s the child, Zandri?”
Zandri let out a long sigh, his eyes flicking to the gun pressed against his temple. “I gave her to a family who was moving to the city of Seattle. I’ll get you the contact info they left me.”
“You want me to kill him?” Oden asked, moving his finger to the trigger of his gun.
Bit hesitated. She wanted the ghost from her past long dead, but she doubted killing Zandri would do that. After a long pause, she shook her head. “Let him live.”
Oden nodded and escorted Zandri up the stairs.
Bit kept her eyes glued to the floor. Jack was helping her get the information from Zandri, but Wic was still present, his fists planted on his narrow hips and his eyes glued to her. Would Jack hand her over to Wic once it was all over, or would he save her from the gang leader? All she cared about was her niece. If Jack would go after her, Bit would gladly resign herself to whatever fate Rudy had in store for her.
She didn’t deserve Jack’s forgiveness. Bit glanced around the room, seeing signs of their hardships on her crewmates. It hadn’t been easy, tracking her down, and though she felt a sense of pride in having evaded them, she knew the result would be their hatred.
Just save my niece, she begged in her mind, unwilling to speak aloud.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Bit watched as Oden descended the circling staircase alone.
“Got an address,” Oden announced, waving a piece of paper around; he went straight to Bit and handed it to her.
Big snatched it out of his hand, rising despite her knee. She held the small scrap as though it was the key to her freedom. Seattle—so far away it might as well have been on Mars. Even if Jack hadn’t caught up to her, she never would have been able to reach her niece on her own. She needed Jack. Slowly, she turned to look at Jack. He looked tired, almost as tired as she felt.
“Jack… uh… Captain, will you find my niece for me? Will you save her?” she asked, holding out the scrap of paper.
Jack approached her slowly, folding his hand over hers and wrinkling the paper. “Bit, all you had to do was ask.”
Bit nodded, tears pressing in her eyes. She didn’t know if the tears were the result of her exhaustion, her relief in knowing Jack would find her niece, or fear at what was to come.
“Thank you,” she whispered, pulling her hand free from his and leaving the paper with him.
Bit crossed the room, all eyes on her, and stopped in front of Wic.
“I’m ready,” she announced.
Wic frowned down at her, confusion playing in his eyes until he burst into laughter. “What are you talking about?”
“You’re taking me to Rudy.”
Wic’s laughter increased until all the men were chuckling. Bit gnawed on her lip, too close to tears. Their laughter wasn’t helping. She wasn’t in on the joke, and she didn’t like being outside the pack. Wic finally noticed her pensive expression.
“Rudy is dead, Bit. Oden killed him. I’m not here to take you away from your crew.”
Bit swallowed against the tension in her throat as tears welled up, spilling over her eyelids. She turned to look at Jack, the question still visible in her eyes. Her captain approached her, and she took a few tentative steps towards him.
He grabbed her chin, being careful not to touch her bruises. “Don’t misunderstand, Little Bit, you are in serious trouble for running away.”
Bit saw a twinkle in his eye and the slightest twitch of his lips, and though part of her mind still whispered that he hated her, she knew that he was relieved to have her back. Bit sighed, letting out a heavy breath, and collapsed against his chest, right where she had wanted to be from the very beginning. Jack wrapped his arms around her and squeezed until she cried out.
“I think we should get her some medical aide, Captain,” Reese said from across the room.
Jack looked down at her. “Yeah, she does look like she needs it.”
Bit forced her features into a glower, even though tears still rolled down her bruised and swollen cheeks. “What about Zandri?”
“I tied him up in his office,” began Oden. “He informed me a maid would be here in the morning. She can release him, and we’ll be far away by then.”
Bit climbed to her feet and limped over to where she had lost her gun. Two rounds left, she reminded herself, just as Randal had taught her. Bit tried to think back to when she had gotten the gun. Was it from Rudy? Bit couldn’t believe it had only been a few days since she had given her crew the slip. So much had changed since then.
She turned to look at the men, all their eyes on her. “Let’s go home.”
Jack smiled, giving her a spirited nod.
They filed out of the mansion and into the fading light. The sun had to be nearly set based on the dark gray light filtering through the clouds. The rain had finally stopped and the waters were slowly beginning to recede.
The world erupted into chaos as they neared the door, all the glass panes of the mansion shattering at once. Each crewmember dropped to the floor on reflex as bullets whizzed through the air above them.
“What now?” barked Jack in exasperation as he lay across the floor, his hands over his head and glass raining down on him.
Bit ignored his outcry and army-crawled toward the front door. Randal and Reese were already firing back into the darkness by the time she reached the door. She reached up and slapped at the light panels. The main room suddenly went dark, a slim ray of light shining down from the third floor where Zandri sat tied up. Bit squeezed her eyes shut, giving them time to adjust to the darkness, as her hands instinctively covered her head.
After a moment’s wait, she opened her eyes and gazed out into the yard. She could see
much better but, evidently, the others were having better luck. She heard a scream from the yard and spotted a dark smudge falling from a tree.
While her crewmates continued to fire, she crawled into the kitchen section and pulled a slim knife off the magnetic strip across the backsplash. With the knife in hand, she crawled back to the door and slipped out of the house, hoping no one noticed her escape.
She limped down the grand steps of the mansion, trying her best to stay in the darkest shadows. It was growing darker by the minute. Soon they would be fighting in the utter darkness—except for the dim light emanating from the third floor. Bit wondered if she had one more fight in her. With the safety of her crewmates came the release of her adrenaline, and her adrenaline was all that kept her going.
Now, though, as shots rang out between the mansion and its surrounding yard, fresh adrenaline coursed through her veins. All the same, her various injuries wouldn’t be silenced now that they had found their voice. Even the idea of lying in her hammock sounded painful.
She reached the ground without drawing attention to herself and shuffled into the undergrowth. She wanted to crawl, but her battered knee would not allow it. She had already abused it too much over the weekend.
With the knife clamped between her teeth, she eyed the branches of the first climbable tree she encountered. She spotted a muzzle flash a few branches up. Grabbing the first branch, she dragged herself up into the tree. As much as the tree would allow, she tried to keep the trunk between her and the gunman. Once she reached his height, she slipped onto a nearby branch. Holding onto the next branch up, she took the knife from her teeth and in a swift motion, dragged the blade across the side of the man’s neck. For a split second, a spurt of blood erupted from his neck. Dropping his gun and releasing his hold on the tree, he grabbed his neck, uselessly trying to stem the flow of blood.
It only took a few seconds before his muscles went lax and he fell from the tree. Bit ducked back behind the trunk of the tree, worried the men higher up might have noticed the thud. She forced herself to hold perfectly still and counted to sixty before she began to climb again, the knife back in her mouth despite the blood.
She reached the next gunman just as he stopped to reload. Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted a few shadows creeping toward the door of the mansion. She wanted to call out and warn her crewmates, but doing so would have drawn attention to her location right behind one of their men. The best she could do for her friends was kill the elevated gunmen.
As her next victim struggled with his clip, she reached around the thinning trunk and jabbed her knife into his neck, yanking it free as quickly as she could. Like the last man, blood spurted from the wound, dousing her arm in red. The gunman grabbed his neck and fell to the ground, breaking a few branches on his way to the ground.
“Hey,” cried the man on the highest branch before adjusting his aim.
Bit jerked back, the round racing by her head. In her fright, she dropped the knife. Bit didn’t hesitate to grab the gun from the back of her pants. She squinted into the darkness as she took aim and squeezed off a single round. To her astonishment, the last man fell from the enormous tree, screaming all the way to the ground. She heard the splat of his body from her perch in the tree and breathed a sigh of relief.
She leaned her forehead against the trunk, too shaken to begin the climb back down.
Chapter Thirty
Jack glanced around at his crew, checking on their safety. Each one had found some degree of cover, a few falling back into the kitchen and behind the island. He did another scan, something seeming off about his group. They didn’t heed his inspection, continuing to fire at their new enemy—or was it Zandri’s enemy, Jack absently wondered as he stared at his crew from behind an overturned love-seat.
Finally, he realized what was missing: Bit. Where has she gone, now?
“Bit,” he hissed. “Bit.”
Oden, who crouched behind a nearby chair, heard his whispered call and looked around, soon echoing Jack’s cry. Bit did not appear from any hiding place, though it was growing harder and harder to see now that someone had turned the lights out.
Bit did not appear, no matter who called for her. Jack just hoped she had crawled into a cabinet to wait the fight out, but knowing Bit, he doubted it. He tried to narrow his focus on those shooting at him, but his mind kept running back to Bit and wondering what scheme she was up to. His chest tightened at the thought of her in danger again. He had just gotten her back into the safety of his company, and the idea of her at risk made him sick.
Jack squeezed off two more rounds before ducking back behind his cover. As he dropped down, he heard a cry from his side. Oden fell back, almost out of his cover’s shadow. Jack blindly fired twice before sliding across the glistening wooden floor to where Oden lay in a growing pool of blood.
Jack came to a stop beside Oden, the blood quickly soaking through the knees of his pants. In the dark, he couldn’t tell where his first pilot had been shot. He groped around until he found the open wound and Oden cursed.
Jack let out a breath of relief, fearing Oden had been killed by the shot. He peeled off his shirt, cringing at how it stuck to his skin with sweat and rainwater. It was hardly sanitary, but stopping the bleeding was more important than any fear of germs. He wadded the shirt up and pressed it into Oden’s wound while his other hand slipped under Oden’s body and felt for an exit wound.
“He okay?” Randal called from his spot on the edge of the room, standing behind the cover of the rounded staircase.
“Yeah. It’s a through and through in the shoulder. He’ll live.”
“Doesn’t feel like it,” Oden grumbled as he took over pressing the sodden shirt into the wound. “Keep fighting.”
Jack grinned at the order, retrieved his gun and Oden’s, and began firing again. From his place beside Oden, he heard the young man tear his shirt open and off of his chest. Jack glanced down to see Oden wrapping the shirt around his shoulder and under his armpit to create a makeshift bandage.
The stubborn pilot shifted to his knees with a grimace and snatched his gun back from Jack. Oden had just started firing again when the front door to the mansion opened. Jack and Oden—and everyone else for that matter—spun around, their guns aimed at the door.
A crowd of men burst into the living room, heading in all directions as though they already knew where everyone was hiding. Jack and his crew fired, taking two of the frontrunners down. Before they could take any more out, the men were on them and their guns became less useful. Jack had a suspicion they were all nearly out, though he hadn’t been counting his rounds.
Randal’ll hate that, he thought as he raised his arm to block a blow from a muscular stranger.
Jack took the next swing to the face. He took a step back and balanced on the balls of his feet, finally gaining some perspective of his enemy and his surroundings. Blocking another blow with one arm, he slammed his fist into the man’s gut. He stumbled back, right into the pool of Oden’s blood. Jack gave him another punch, easily sending him to the ground thanks to the slick liquid. Jack kicked the man in the gut, sending him rolling. Jack scrambled forward, pouncing on the man. Kneeling on the man’s back, he grabbed his head and twisted. A sickening pop greeted him, bringing his gag reflex to life.
Jack wasn’t a killer by preference. Not by a long shot. He hated the idea of taking a life, but if anyone threatened the safety of his crew, he would be willing to do more than kill. Much more.
Jack looked around, glad to see they weren’t outnumbered. In fact, his crew had just started tag-teaming those left.
“Dimitri, your crew is dying,” Wic suddenly said as he blocked another blow from his dark-skinned enemy.
The man wasn’t dark, but compared to Wic’s pastiness he had a natural, permanent tan. His head was shaved and his had slightly effeminate features. Despite his looks, his strong arms jabbed out in quick succession, showing him to be a deadly fighter.
“You took Rudy, you
are not taking his turf,” growled Dimitri.
“I don’t give a crap about his turf,” argued Wic as he blocked more blows from Dimitri’s speedy fists.
Understanding what the fight was about did not help Jack. His stomach tightened in disgust. All these men were dying because Oden had ordered Rudy’s men to follow Wic, and Rudy’s second wasn’t falling in line. Jack didn’t blame Oden. He knew the pilot couldn’t have predicted this outcome. Besides, of everyone in the crew, Oden was the only injured party.
Unless Bit…
Jack stopped himself before the thought could form. He jumped forward, placing the muzzle of his empty gun against the back of Dimitri’s head.
“Freeze or I shoot,” Jack ordered, using his “captain” voice.
“And if I don’t?” Despite his words, Dimitri froze.
“I’ll blow your head o…”
Before Jack could finish his sentence, Wic had retrieved his handgun from the floor and fired into Dimitri’s skull, splattering Jack with blood and brain matter. Dimitri dropped.
Jack glared at Wic. “He might have surrendered.”
“You don’t know him like I do…did,” Wic countered, scanning the room.
With the death of their leader, the last two gang members had raised their hands in submission. Wic walked over to them, eyeing their dirty and bloody bodies. He gave them a dark glare that would have made Jack take a step back had he not been too busy wiping brain matter off his cheek.
“Now,” began Wic. “Am I going to have a problem with either of you?”
They shook their heads.
“You step one toe out of line and you’ll be dead faster than Dimitri over there.”
They nodded.
“Get out of here. Tell the others they answer to me.” Wic jabbed his thumb into his chest.
Mayhem and Mutiny Page 19
