Black Jack

by A Parker

  I used the heel of my boot to put up my kickstand and noticed the fuel gauge on my bike was hovering just above empty. “Shit, I need fuel. I gotta go, Mase. Samantha is waiting for me. Keep an eye on Hogey. We’ll set our plans in stone tomorrow after the boys have a chance to get their heads on straight and cool down.”

  Mason grinned. “Give her a kiss for me.”

  I laughed as my engine roared. “Fuck off.”

  The night rushed in my ears as I opened the throttle and took the back roads toward the nearest gas station. Downtown Reno had changed a hell of a lot since I left, but the less populated areas seemed more or less the same with old single-family homes with sinking front porches, mom-and-pop shops, and yellow-grass lawns full of junk and shit like old cars, camping trailers, barbeques, and kitchen appliances.

  At the gas station I filled my tank and went into the attached store to buy a cold soda. I parked my bike on the edge of the parking lot facing Reno, and leaned up against it as I cracked the bottle and took a long sip.

  After the long day I’d had I needed a minute to shake off the slimy feeling crawling around in my stomach about bringing Hogey back into the fold. I’d sworn I would never have anything to do with him after he betrayed us, and going back on my word made me feel weak. But I knew deep down that it would have been weaker to let my pride lead and face Bates alone. He’d wipe me and my boys out if we didn’t play this smart, and unfortunately that meant relying on others to help us get the job done.

  Still, it didn’t quite sit right.

  Irritation had been simmering under the surface all night as my boys questioned me. I understood their concerns because they were also my own, but I’d never done well with my authority being doubted or questioned, and the whole thing had left a bad taste in my mouth that I didn’t want to bring with me to Samantha’s.

  She’d had a hard enough couple of weeks. She didn’t need me piling on my bullshit, too.

  We both deserved an evening separated from the mess we were in. After tonight things would likely change forever. It might be the last night I laid in a bed with her. The last time I felt her skin against mine. I wanted to make the most of it.

  It might have been selfish of me, but I didn’t care. I wanted her—needed her.

  I didn’t notice the smoke until I was halfway done with my soda. At first, all the plume of black looked like was a tower of some sort, and it took me a minute to realize there was no structure downtown that looked like that.

  It was smoke. Black smoke.

  Something was burning.

  I peered toward the eastern horizon, which had gone dark with night, and south and got my bearings. The smoke was dangerously close to Reno’s Well. Frowning, I got back on my bike and pointed my headlights towards Sam’s bar.

  When I was only a mile or so away the panic began to set in. The smoke was far too close to the Well for my liking. If it wasn’t the bar ablaze, it was something damn close by. A tightness in my chest told me that there was something wrong.

  Terribly wrong.

  I opened the throttle all the way. The bike lurched forward, the front tire nearly lifting a whole foot off the pavement. It dropped back down and I hunched over the gas tank and tucked my knees in. The engine screamed and the wind tore at my leather jacket. I swerved around cars as I came out wide around a corner onto the main street. People honked their horns at me and shouted out their windows, but I gave the bike more speed as I came out of the corner, wove around a semi truck, and finally laid eyes on the bar in the distance, four blocks back off the main drag.

  It was burning.

  “Fuck.”

  Every inch of pavement that passed under my tires felt like it taunted me. My bike was fast but not as fast as I needed it to be.

  Finally, after what felt like ages, the asphalt gave way to the gravel of the Reno’s Well parking lot. I sped right up to the porch, hopped off the bike, climbed the steps, and found a chain around the door handles.

  “Fuck!”

  Useless as it was, I tried to kick the doors in. They didn’t budge, but smoke crept out from under the doors.

  Then I heard it.

  Samantha was screaming.

  I rushed down the steps and nearly pitched forward onto the gravel at the bottom. I caught myself, stumbled forward, and raced around the side of the bar to find Samantha leaning out of her apartment window as smoke billowed out from behind her in a curling column of black.

  When she saw me, she sobbed my name.

  “Hold on!” I yelled up at her. “I’m going to get you out of there!”

  Where the fuck was the fire brigade? This damn blaze looked like it had been going long enough for someone to make a call. And where were people? There were a handful of local businesses in the vicinity, but nobody had bothered to come outside?

  Sam hunched over and descended into a fit of coughs.

  How long had she been up there? How much smoke had she inhaled?

  None of this added up. The tight feeling that something was wrong intensified into something worse—a sense of wrongness I’d only ever felt overseas right before shit hit the fan and machine guns started spitting bullets.

  Sam lifted her head and tried to speak, but all that came out was a barely audible croak. Then she mustered up the strength to scream my name and pointed behind me.

  It was too late.

  Something heavy slammed into the back of my head and shoulders. I fell forward, too dazed to catch myself with my hands, and landed right on my face on the pavement. My instincts took over and I rolled to my right just as my attacker moved to strike again. A baseball bat smacked into the pavement with enough force that it cracked all up the side toward the handle, where it splintered in the hands of my aggressor.

  I looked up at a tall man dressed in black and recognized him immediately from the night of the exchange on the railway tracks. This was Bates’s right-hand man.

  I should have known Bates was behind this.

  The man attacked again, but this time I was ready. I drove my foot up into his groin just as he brought the bat down toward my chest. I took some of the hit, but the sole of my boot in his jewels made him drop the bat. I caught it, rolled away, and staggered to my feet as warm blood trickled down the back of my neck. He’d hit me hard enough that there were little white spots in my vision but I needed to keep my wits about me.

  Samantha was going to burn alive if I didn’t get to her.

  “Walk it off, Clyde.” Bates came from around the corner of the bar puffing on a cigar and looking rather unimpressed that I’d taken Clyde’s weapon from him.

  This was a fight I could win. Two men were nothing, especially since one of them was too busy cupping his cock and balls and the other only had one good eye. I gripped the bat and wound back, ready to smash Clyde’s skull in before I moved on to Bates.

  Movement caught my eye as two more men came out from around the bar. Hitch and Jim.

  Samantha gasped for breath from the window above me and descended into another coughing fit.

  Bates tilted his head back to look up at her. “A damn shame such a pretty thing had to go out like this, huh, Black Jack? And all because she fell for the wrong bastard.”

  There was no time to talk. This fight had to end, and it had to end now. Otherwise, I’d never get her out of there. And if I didn’t get her out of there?

  I’d be trapped down here listening to her scream as she burned alive.

  That was a thought that made me see red.

  I rushed Bates with the bat held high. He grinned, like this was what he’d been waiting for, and stepped back just as Clyde came at me from the side. He took me down while he wrapped his arms around my waist, but I held fast to the bat as we tumbled to the pavement. He landed on top of me and tried to wrestle the bat from me, but I rolled sharply, chin tucked, and drove my knee back up into his crotch. He grunted and I rolled out and away, just as Jim arrived to stomp on my ribs.

  I lost all the air in my lungs.r />
  He kicked me again, this time with the toe of his boot right into my stomach.

  Sam screamed for me.

  Damn it. I cursed Bates and his men for doing this to her. She was innocent in all of this.

  “Get her out of there,” I begged, fighting for air as I pushed myself up onto my hands and knees.

  Bates only chuckled. “You think I’m going to go inside a burning building to save some other man’s whore? Not likely.”

  Hitch giggled like a high school girl. “Yeah, not likely.”

  Jim kicked me again, but I held fast to the bat. It was the only chance I had. If only I had my gun on me and it wasn’t under the seat on my bike. What the hell had I been thinking?

  Bates crouched down in front of me, resting his wrists on his knees while he watched me with his single blue eye. “She’s going to burn, Black Jack. She’s going to burn because of you. And once her screams stop, we’ll put you out of your misery too. Don’t you fucking worry.”

  A primal yell ripped out of my throat, and I had the front of Bates’s shirt in one hand before he realized I’d moved. I jerked him down and off balance. He went to his knees in front of me, blue and white eyes widening with surprise, and I gave the bat a sharp thrust forward, sending the blunt end of it crashing into his good eye.

  Bates roared with fury and lurched backward while the others rushed me.

  They would show me no mercy, but this was a fight I could not afford to lose, so I swung the bat in an arch as I pushed up to one foot. I caught Hitch on the outside of his knee and heard something snap. He screamed and went down.

  The swing lost its momentum and Jim caught the end of the bat in one large, meaty hand. “Time to die, you little prick,” he spat.

  Meanwhile, Samantha screamed at them to leave me alone between coughing fits.

  Chapter 31

  Samantha

  My throat couldn’t take any more screaming. It might have been my imagination, but there was a thick copper taste on the back of my tongue, and my lungs felt like they were growing smaller with every passing second, as if the smoke was slowly closing my capillaries. Maybe it was. I didn’t know about smoke inhalation or biology, and I didn’t know why I was thinking about it now while I watched Jackson fight for his life.

  Or rather, our lives.

  It didn’t look like he was going to win.

  Down below on the pavement, Jackson was in Jim’s clutches. Jackson’s blood dripped on the pavement and I had no idea where it was coming from, only that it was there, and Jim kept on hitting him.

  Over and over and over.

  Please stop, I begged silently, knowing even if I could scream it at the top of my lungs that the psychotic men down below wouldn’t listen to me.

  If we were going to get out of this mess, I couldn’t sit around waiting for Jackson to get to me because he very well might not. He might lose his fight, but it didn’t give me permission to give up on mine. Not yet.

  I had to act.

  Right as I mustered the will to do something—unsure yet what that something was—my legs gave out. I clawed at the windowsill as my legs buckled and I hit my knees on the hardwood. I yelped as a shock of pain lanced up my legs and immediately shut my mouth as I nearly choked on smoke.

  My skin was beginning to feel too hot. The fire was getting closer. I needed to stop myself from burning. Somehow, I managed to crawl on my hands and knees toward the kitchen where my smoke alarm was wailing. I opened a bottom cupboard and pulled out a thick stack of old dish rags and towels, and I hauled myself up by gripping the edge of the sink so I could run them under cold water. I wrapped the first one around my face, mostly my mouth and nose, and the wet material stopped the smoke from getting through.

  The fire was burning up too much oxygen for me to be able to breathe well, but it helped some.

  I wrapped the other towels around my arms, my legs, my hands, and my neck. I couldn’t recall exactly where I’d seen someone do this, perhaps a documentary or some fictional movie, but I knew it worked, and I had to stay alive.

  I’d been away from the window for probably less than a minute when dizziness broke over me once more. The air in here was very bad and I army-crawled back to the window, sucking in ragged breaths through the wet dish towel around my mouth and nose. It had bumblebees and flowers on it, and it matched my teapot. Morgan had bought it for me last Christmas when we did our Secret Santa gift exchange amongst the staff.

  Now it was ruined.

  Everything I held dear was ruined.

  Don’t think about that right now. It doesn’t matter. It’s just stuff.

  Back at the window, it took all of my strength to pull myself up and try to get some fresh air. The room felt hotter by yet more degrees, and the wet towels no longer felt cool against my skin. My knees threatened to fold once more, but I held fast to the windowsill, ignored the burning pain in my biceps, and leaned out so I could suck in gulps of air.

  Down below, Jackson was no longer on his knees.

  He had Clyde and Hitch both down on the ground. Neither of them were moving.

  Jim and Bates were still standing, and Bates puffed on a cigar with an air of disinterest as Jim and Jackson collided with ferocious snarls. Jim’s sheer size made it impossible for Jackson to land a decent hit that would bring him down, and all the while Jim battered Jackson’s ribs and back with huge brass-knuckled hits.

  When Jim struck Jackson across the jaw, more blood sprayed on the pavement.

  Hitch stirred on the pavement and tried to stand. He collapsed back onto his stomach, too dazed to get to his feet. Clyde remained motionless.

  Jackson got a hold of Jim’s throat. Even from all the way up here, I saw Jim’s eyes bulge with both surprise and pressure as Jackson’s grip tightened and tightened until Jim’s whole body started to wriggle and he let out a wretched sound.

  Bates moved forward.

  Jackson spun himself around, still gripping Jim’s throat and putting the big man between him and Bates. Jim took a swipe at Jackson, who ducked under his fist but never released his grip. Bates tried to move around them to get to Jackson as Jim sputtered and panicked, but Jackson used Jim to his leverage, keeping his giant body between them as a shield while he suffocated him to death.

  Bates spat a string of foul curses.

  Jim grabbed the front of Jackson’s leather jacket with both hands and lifted him clean off his feet. Still, Jackson didn’t let go.

  Jim’s arms shook as he held Jackson at least a foot and a half off the ground. Time seemed to stand still as Bates finally made his way around the big man, but just as he pulled a knife out of his belt, Jim went bug-eyed and unceremoniously collapsed. He released Jackson as he fell, who landed with bent knees while Jim slumped onto his front.

  I couldn’t believe what I’d just seen. Had Jackson just killed a man with his bare hands?

  Bates swiped at Jackson with his knife, who leapt back, but not quickly enough. The blade cut across the front of his stomach, tearing through the thin fabric of his T-shirt and leaving a bloody line across the fabric. I tried to call out to him, to tell him to get the hell out of here while he still could, but my voice died on my lips.

  The fire raged down below. More wood splintered, and the whole bar seemed to scream all around me as it died. I couldn’t hear the sounds of Jackson’s fight or even my own thundering heartbeat. All I heard was the fire.

  Until a new rumbling sound reached my ears.

  I leaned farther out the window, clutching the sill to stop myself from spilling out and over entirely, and strained my eyes to peer through the smoke to see an entourage of motorcycles coming down the road.

  From this distance, there was no way to tell who they were, Wolverines or the Devil’s Luck.

  I prayed for a miracle because Jackson lost his footing down below, and Bates plunged forward with his knife, narrowly missing Jackson’s shoulder.

  The bikes drew closer and Bates looked up. Jackson seized his chance to
make a move while the enemy was distracted, but Hitch came at him from behind and wrapped an arm around his neck. Hitch pulled back with his knee in Jackson’s back while Bates rushed toward the corner of the bar. He yelled at Hitch to leave him.

  Hitch shoved Jackson forward and went to Clyde, who he could not rouse, before running after his President. The two men vanished around the side of the bar and mere seconds later reappeared on their motorcycles and sped out of the parking lot and onto the street. They drove the opposite direction of the other bikes, who pulled into the lot shortly and sped right up to Jackson, who was getting wearily to his feet.

  Mason was the first off his bike. He grabbed Jackson by the arm and hauled him to his feet while looking him over with concern. None of the men had noticed me yet, and I didn’t have the strength to scream down to them.

  Jackson tipped his head back, and we locked eyes.

  “Hold on!” he roared.

  I can’t.

  Mason clawed at Jackson’s sleeve when Jackson took off running around the side of the building.

  My knees finally gave out.

  I collapsed on the floor and pulled my knees up to my chest as my world went dark.

  Please don’t die for me, Jackson Black.

  Chapter 32

  Jackson

  Mason stepped back to look up at the window where Samantha had just been mere seconds before. His eyes were wild with worry, his jaw locked, the tendons in his forearms standing at attention as his hands clenched into fists at his sides. “She’s down, Jack!”

  I spat blood and dragged the back of my hand across my mouth before barking orders. “Tex, Snake, keep that fucker here.” I pointed to Clyde who was still lying spread eagle on the pavement. He’d fallen easier than I expected. “We’re going to need him after this. Mason, call the fucking fire department. Someone tell me we have a fucking bolt cutter on hand!”

  Chips raised his hand. “Got one in my saddle bag.”

  He took off running for his bike before I had to ask him. Not many riders would carry such a tool on their bike, but bolt cutters were a necessary part of being a Devil’s Luck member sometimes.