by Amy Lane
“Sorry I, uh… got you kidnapped.” He grimaced. “And thanks for everything. Thank you.”
Ace shrugged and handed Jackson the new clothes. “You helped us put a lot of shit in our rearview. We’re obliged. Text us if something changes. And definitely come by.”
“He’s gotta come by, Ace—we got his car.” Sonny was nodding urgently.
Oh God. “What’s left of it.”
Sonny shrugged. “The SHO was worse. Don’t worry. By the time you’re ready to take him home, we’ll have it drivable.”
“We’ll pay for parts,” Taylor said, and Sonny blushed and ducked.
“Tell her she don’t need to pay for anything, Ace. We’ll do it free on ’count of them keepin’ their word and all, ’kay?”
Ace looked at Taylor and inclined his head. “That’s not a problem, ma’am.”
Jackson reached for Sonny’s hand, not surprised when Sonny shook too hard and popped a stitch, but getting good at not letting it show. “Thanks, Sonny. We’re indebted to you.”
Ace and Sonny turned to leave the room, and Ernie came running back. Without slowing down he threw himself into Jackson’s arms for a hug.
Jackson hugged him back, and he whispered, “Give the money to Burton. He’ll hide it in their finances—he does that a lot ’cause they’re keeping me there.”
“Thanks, kid,” Jackson whispered back, and then Ernie hugged him tighter.
“Have faith,” he said. “Heal.”
And then he was gone.
Jackson and Taylor sat back down again, and Taylor texted her husband quietly. The phone rang in her hands, and she picked it up, answering with a calm and a self-possession Jackson didn’t have on his best day.
“He was shot, dear. Yes—Jackson killed the man who did it.”
She reached out and grabbed his good hand, which was nearer, and squeezed.
Maybe he was needed after all.
With a sigh he leaned back in the hospital chair and let his mind go blank. Ellery was alive; he was resting. Jackson could stop panicking now.
Forty-five minutes later the doctor came out and told them they could see Ellery in recovery.
It wasn’t until Jackson was throwing away the wrapper that he realized that, sometime between squeezing Taylor’s hand and going to the restroom to change, he’d managed to eat the goddamned cheeseburger.
Intravenous Fish
GAH! “EVERYTHING fucking hurts,” Ellery breathed. His brain thought it in hyperspeed, a thousand hundred times. His mouth and lungs managed to make it an entire speech.
“You think?” Jackson said from right next to his bed. “You kept acting like being on this side of the bed is fun. Where’s your circus tent, sparky?”
“Fuck—” Breath. “—you.”
“Your mother’s here,” Jackson said, voice strained. “So ask yourself, ‘How do I think Jackson will answer that?’ before it comes out of your mouth.”
“Hello… Mother.” Oh Jesus. His mother was there. “I’m dying?”
“No.” She stood at Jackson’s side. “But you did your best. I’d appreciate it if you picked another hobby if you can’t master this one in one go. It’s hard on my heart, Ellery.”
They were worried about him. Ellery studied them, his vision blurry but not so weak that he couldn’t see his mother looked sad, and Jackson…. Jackson looked like a man who’d seen hell.
“How’s… that… side… of bed?”
Jackson closed his eyes. “Sucks so hard. Almost ripped my balls out my eye sockets. I hate it here.”
“How about… a nice B and E… next… time.”
Jackson smiled tiredly. “We could do a breaking and entering in our sleep. I’m all for it.”
Ellery smiled a little and reached toward him. Jackson took his hand, his own wrapped in a disintegrating bandage.
“How?”
Jackson looked at their hands together. “Don’t remember. Too worried about you.”
He was lying, but Ellery hurt and, frankly, was just so warmed that the two of them were standing by his bed, together.
“Ace?” By Ace he meant everybody—he figured Jackson would know.
“They’re all fine.” Jackson’s eyes darted sideways, and Taylor nodded. “Burton’s… afraid some of the guys who got away will go after the kid, go after my family. He called in… well, the Marines, I guess, but the Marines who aren’t affiliated with the Marines. Whatever. I can’t keep that shit straight, you know that. They left about two hours ago—he texted they landed, but….” He shrugged.
“Waiting?”
“Yeah.”
“Hard.”
Jackson shrugged again. “Well, you know. Rest of the day was a cakewalk, right? Until somebody decided to shoot blind at the asshole shooting at us.”
Ellery grimaced. Yeah, he’d done that. He didn’t have words now for why.
“He needed to die.”
“I won’t argue. Can’t, really, since I killed him—a lot. I killed that fucker a lot.”
He’d said it to make Ellery smile—and it worked. “Thank-you note is in the mail.”
“Skip the note,” Jackson said, voice thick. “Get better. Just… heal.”
“Yeah.” Ellery couldn’t keep his eyes open. “Deal.”
HE WAS in and out for the next few hours, but someone—Jackson or his mother—was always there when he woke. Jackson wouldn’t move from his bedside, and even when he slept, head on the bed next to Ellery, he looked tense.
In the early part of the night, Ellery managed to stroke his head.
“You really scared him, son.”
Mother—she hadn’t been a dream. “He’s okay.”
“He’s a box full of broken dishes, and you just rattled him pretty hard. He’ll be sorting himself for a few days before we know.”
“Mm.” The night before—oh my God, really? Just the night before? Jackson, laying down his pain. Having faith. Having hope. “Stronger than you think.”
“Stronger than he thinks—and that’s really the point, isn’t it?”
“Mm.”
He felt his mother’s kiss on his brow. “I’m going to beg a cot from the nurse, sweetheart. If I try to sleep like Jackson, I’ll break my neck.”
Ellery closed his eyes again.
HE WASN’T sure what woke him again. His mother, true to her word, was asleep on her back, hands crossed over her middle like a painting, on a nearby cot. Jackson was… well, twitching, head still on the mattress next to Ellery.
Was that what had awakened him?
Wait. There was a doctor in the doorway. Familiar? Dark buzz-cut hair, cold hazel eyes, the face of an automaton, he moved toward Ellery’s IV with a hypodermic in his hand.
But Ellery had morphine, right?
Wait. Wait. Ellery knew this man. Knew him. He hadn’t spoken much but had driven the car… oh God.
He clenched his fingers in Jackson’s hair and croaked, “Leavins!” just as Lacey’s driver thrust the needle into the intravenous tube. Ellery kicked out, his core and chest screaming from the sudden exertion.
He tagged Leavins in the thigh just as Jackson jerked upright.
“Wha—”
“Bad guy!” Ellery rasped.
Anybody else—anybody else, even his mother, would have questioned that. Would have said “Isn’t he a doctor!” Any other person on the planet would have given Leavins the chance to depress the plunger of that deadly little hypodermic needle into the tube of the IV.
Would have signed Ellery’s death warrant with a breath of hesitation.
Jackson damned near levitated across the bed, screaming “Stop, asshole!” as he used his foot to push off from his chair so he could grand-fucking-jeté over Ellery’s prone body.
He and Leavins crashed to the floor, leaving the needle in the tube.
“Lucy!” Jackson screamed, struggling hard with his opponent. “Lucy! Get the needle!”
Leavins leveled an elbow at Jackson’s temple, and J
ackson went down hard. Leavins took a step toward the IV stand in the tiny room and then just… disappeared, yelping as his chin hit the floor. Jackson stood from where he’d apparently grabbed his opponent’s feet and aimed a kick at Leavins’s ribs.
And then Jackson disappeared because Lacey’s men were trained in the martial arts, and Leavins had grabbed his foot and yanked.
Ellery’s mother crept around the bed, avoiding the grappling men—but not avoiding Leavins’s notice. With a lunge he was on top of her, pushing her back onto Ellery’s legs while she struggled. Jackson wrapped his arm around Leavins’s throat just as Ellery’s mother lifted a violent knee.
She didn’t get him in the groin—Ellery was pretty sure that would have incapacitated him, given his mother—but she must have come close, because he moved protectively to the side. Jackson managed to pull him off her and back into the corner of the room by the lavatory. He held Leavins there while Leavins threw his elbow back again and again and again, straight into Jackson’s core, his ribs, until Ellery could swear he heard a crack. Once more, and Jackson’s grip slackened enough for Leavins to throw him off.
Leavins advanced to the IV rack again just as Taylor yanked the hypodermic out of the tube, and Jackson threw himself over Leavins’s back. This time, instead of pinning him to the wall, Leavins scrambled for the pocket of the lab coat he was wearing and produced a slim, glittering object that terrified Ellery as much as the hypodermic.
“Knife!” he croaked just as Leavins brought it down against the outside of Jackson’s arm, slicing cleanly through his sweatshirt and his flesh.
Jackson didn’t let go.
He kept hauling backward, away from the bed, away from Ellery’s mother, who was calling for help at the top of her lungs, away from where Leavins could do any harm.
Leavins shifted the scalpel in his hand, turned it downward, and threw his fist back, right under Jackson’s ribs.
And Jackson didn’t let go.
Again. Again.
Jackson whimpered—and then roared.
He spun them around and threw Leavins at the lavatory door, kicking him in the thigh for good measure. Leavins went to his knees with a grunt, and Jackson kicked him in the back of the head. Leavins’s forehead rebounded off the door, and he struggled groggily, trying to get to his feet.
Jackson paused for a moment, bringing his hand to his midriff, and that gave Leavins the moment he needed to whirl and rush Jackson, scalpel slashing.
Ellery saw it sparkle in the light and swoop downward. He saw Jackson reach forward, grabbing for Leavins’s wrist, and then propel himself toward Leavins, thrusting with his legs. Then Jackson was sitting, one knee pushing into Leavins’s middle as he used the leverage to drive the scalpel between Leavins’s ribs.
Straight into his heart.
For a moment Leavins caught his hands, clutching to stop him.
Then his bloody hands flailed, then slowed, then fell limply to the ground. The blood pooling across his ribs spread to the floor. And spread and spread and spread.
Security crashed through the door just as his last breath sputtered wetly through his lips.
Jackson raised his hands in the air as the door rebounded back, and let out a sound that Ellery knew by now.
“Mom,” Ellery whispered. “Mom—he’s hurt.”
Taylor let out her own sound, and Ellery looked up at her as she held the hypodermic needle between her thumb and forefinger. Her hair flew wildly around her head, and she massaged her throat gingerly with her free hand.
“You’re hurt,” he said, his heart in his throat. “Oh God.”
“I’m fine, Ellery.” He recognized her tone, even though her voice was roughened by, oh my God, that man’s fingers around her throat. “Jackson—Jackson, are you okay?”
“Peachy,” he rasped, and she let out a little moan.
“Stop trying to handcuff him and escort him to the ER,” she snapped. “I know that word—that’s the word he uses when he’s half-dead.”
“No ER,” he muttered.
“You know this man?” asked the security guard, a fresh-faced young man, heavier than he should have been but struggling valiantly to assist Jackson up in spite of the appalling amount of blood on the floor.
“He’s with us,” Ellery breathed. The adrenaline was fading from his system, and he hurt all over. God, he needed morphine, and he needed to sleep, and he knew his body would suck him under in a moment, but first…. “Can I see his front? Please? God, Jackson—he got you. I saw it….”
Jackson grunted, face turned away. “Maybe the ER isn’t such a bad idea,” he said, like this had just occurred to him. “Lucy Satan, you want to maybe dose him the fuck up with morphine? Lots and lots of morphine?”
“I’d like to make sure whatever our friend there was trying to inject him with didn’t hit home,” she said, her voice strained. “It’s okay, son. We just want to see your face.”
Jackson turned, and Ellery and his mother gasped. His sweatshirt and T-shirt—new, it looked like—hung open from his collarbone to his armpit, and they could see the flesh underneath, and the half-inch-deep slice that followed the line of his sweatshirt.
And the holes and blood below that, in his oblique muscle, a network of wounds that would need more than just a little stitch.
“You asshole,” Ellery said weakly. “You just couldn’t let me have the circus and the ponies all to myself, could you?”
Jackson shuddered, his first indication that it hurt as bad as it looked. “Lucy Satan, you’d better make sure we share a fucking room.” He paused then, grimacing, and reached painfully into his back pocket, where his phone was buzzing.
“Rivers.”
He listened for a moment, and then, horribly enough, started to laugh a little hysterically. “Missing one?” he said. “You got Adkins and Gleeson, but you’re missing one. You’re missing a bad guy. Missing. Heh heh. Missing one. Uh-huh. Like, a shoe. Sorry, y’all, got all the bad guys, but we’re missing a homicidal shoe. Why, yes. Yes, we found your homicidal shoe, why the fuck do you ask? Can you talk to him? No, Burton, you can’t talk to him. Because he’s dead. Yes, that’s what I said. Dead. Your missing shoe is bleeding out on the hospital floor. Yup. You heard me. Bleeding out. No—everybody’s fine.”
Taylor grabbed the phone from him.
“Jackson’s being admitted momentarily. You can debrief him when you return. I take it the Cameron families are both in good shape? Yes? Yes, I will. I’ll tell him that just as soon as he goes to the ER!”
In his entire life, Ellery had never heard his mother scream like a fishwife. The chaos in the room—the people who’d spilled in to work on Leavins, the security men who couldn’t decide whether to cuff Jackson or escort him by the elbow, and the nurse currently changing out Ellery’s IV—all stopped.
Taylor Cramer didn’t bat an eyelash. “Please do have them all text him. He needs to be reassured. But we have a body to take care of, and Jackson—”
Jackson was still laughing, bitterly and damned near insanely.
“The first thing we’re going to do is sedate him. Yes, young man, we will see you when you return.”
She hit End Call and glared about the room. “Could somebody get Mr. Rivers a sedative and a gurney? For Christ’s sake, you’d think this wasn’t a fucking hospital!”
“Ellery,” Jackson chortled. “Ellery, we broke your mother.”
Oh Jesus. “Get stitched up, asshole. We’ll fix her when you’re sane.”
And that was pretty much all he could manage. He saw Jackson being hustled into a wheelchair, and another nurse picking up the hypodermic and a doctor checking his pupils, and he checked out after that.
Goddammit, they’d been kidding about the fucking circus.
THREE DAYS later, Jackson, at least, would have welcomed the fucking circus.
He’d needed surgery, and his sentence had been a week for recovery. Ellery was still more damaged—hooray?—and he was awarded a two-week sentenc
e.
It had taken Ellery two days before he realized they were talking about the hospital the way criminals talked about prison.
The only good news was that Ellery’s mother had come through and gotten them the private room together, complete with a home entertainment center rental. While their enforced time together wasn’t under the best of circumstances, Jackson was at least not climbing the walls.
Much.
“You’d think we could at least go outside,” he grumbled on day five. “I mean, it’s nice outside, right? Sixty-five, not raining. Damned near springlike. Don’t you want to see blue sky?”
Ellery looked fondly at him, noting that a nick in the liver let a guy roll over to his side, while Ellery’s intestines of mushy goo kept him pretty much on his back for another four days.
“Of course,” he said simply. “I… I want to go swimming with you.” He smiled slightly. “I’ve always loved to see you swim.”
Jackson rolled his eyes. “I have no idea wh—”
“Because you’re graceful.” Ellery had been sort of loopy on morphine since he’d come out of surgery. He found he rather liked being able to just toss compliments out like dog treats. “You’re graceful in the water.” He smiled dreamily. “You’re just so damned pretty.”
Jackson chuckled, the sound nearly too robust for their shared hospital room. “You’re fun like this. You’re like a one-man ego-stroking show.”
“I’m the only man who should be stroking your ego,” Ellery said, but even under the morphine, this was only meant playfully. Nobody who’d watched a man fight to save his life the way Jackson had fought for Ellery would be in doubt.
“Well, lucky you, you’re the only person I want stroking it,” Jackson placated. Then he sighed. “But, you know. Not anytime soon.”
“The irony is incredibly cruel,” Ellery agreed. Enforced bed rest. No sex. There oughtta be a law.
“By the time we get sprung out of here, I’ll be lucky if you can stand me.”
Ellery scowled. “No. Not playing the hating-on-Jackson game. It’s boring. Let’s play something else.”
