Chapter 19 – Jack
Chapter Nineteen
Jack
Paco sat in the back, with the gemstone cupped behind one hand where the driver couldn’t see it, and I could see him doing map-math, trying to get the man to aim towards whatever semi-public landmark was in the direction we currently needed to go.
It was rough though, because the gemstone seemed to keep shifting—making Paco seem indecisive, which I knew was probably killing him.
“Look, guys—while I want a good rating—I just need you two to make up your mind,” the driver protested, after our third course change, and I gave up.
“Just drive where we want and don’t ask any questions,” I told him, and he straightened up.
Paco flashed me an irritated look in the rear view. “Sure, take the easy way. Like always,” he said, and I lost my mind, whirling on him.
“I don’t know what crawled up your ass and died before I made you a vampire, but if I had known, I would’ve taken it out.”
He ground his teeth audibly, and I had a sudden flashback to the two of us off on a trip and him forgetting his bite guard and his grinding freaking me out the first time I heard it—and then me stupidly wondering if he’d need that now, or if he’d get a new one, to occasionally accommodate his fangs—and I rubbed my temples with the forefingers of both hands.
“Left,” he said, and the driver threw his turn signal on before taking it. At least my whammy had kept him legal.
“Look, can we truce or something right now?” I asked him, as my phone rang. I picked it up. “Luna?” I hoped, without looking at the number.
“No, Sam,” the voice on the other end of the line corrected me. “Any luck?”
“Yeah,” I said, casting a look back at a still pissed off Paco. “We’re using a blood-charm thing right now to follow her.” I watched the gemstone swing again. “But it seems like she’s on the move.”
“Take that soft right up there,” Paco told the driver around me.
“That’s . . . odd,” Sam said. “Where are you at?” she asked, after clearly putting me on speaker phone.
I looked out the window to get my bearings. “Freemont and Charleston, and headed east. Not sure how long that’ll last.”
“We’re on our way,” she said. “You still in your ridiculous muscle car?”
“Nope. We’re in a red Kia Sorrento, with an Uber sticker in the window,” I said, as I eyed the thing.
There was a sharp intake of breath on her side of the line. “Did you involve a human?” she asked, as Paco glared.
“There were extenuating circumstances at the time,” I complained to both of them.
“Okay, we’ve got you on traffic cams now,” Sam said, after a slight pause. “We’re on our way. Let me know if anything changes.”
“Sure, will do,” I said, hanging up. “Truce?” I asked Paco, again.
He inhaled to answer me, but before he could, his eyes widened, as the stone at the end of the chain went from a mere fifteen degree angle off of center to a forty-five, then a ninety.
I turned to look at what it was pointing toward, behind me, and saw a white-painted semi-truck up ahead of us, idling at the stop light, same as we were.
“Of course.”
It made total sense that she was in another vehicle—and when I looked around, I realized some of the cars nearby had drivers that had suspiciously vampiric looks to them.
But why the hell were they driving Luna around in circles?
I supposed it didn’t matter—I just needed to get her back. I tossed my phone into Paco’s lap. “Sam’s the last number in my recents, and the passcode’s still the same as you remember.”
“What?” he asked, picking it up with disdain, as I turned to the driver.
“Pull in behind that white semi and stay steady.”
“Jack? What’re you doing?” Paco said, leaning forward.
“Some badass Fast and Furious shit,” I muttered, rolling down the passenger window.
“No—” he said, then he inhaled again, and I knew he was going to try to whammy our driver.
“Don’t listen to him,” I told the driver quickly, before he could get a word in edgewise. “Not ’til I’m gone.”
“What the fuck are you doing!” Paco lunged forward as I pulled back.
“Why do you care?” I taunted him from just outside his reach, my back plastered against the Sorrento’s dashboard, while the driver wove up to position his car like I’d told him.
“It’s clear you don’t give a shit. You should be glad I’m gone.
” The window was all the way open now, and we were closing in on the truck.
I took a moment to drink him in, having no idea when I’d manage to see him next, and finally barfed up the words that’d been lodged in my throat for the past hour and a half.
“I wasn’t strong enough to just stand there and watch you die, all right?
But—I’m not fucking apologizing for it. Not fucking ever,” I growled at him.
“I loved you then, I love you now even though you’re being a dick to me, and I guess I’ll just get to keep loving you for eternity.
” I gripped the edge of the window tightly, readying to pull myself through, shouting at him over the rising wind because both the truck and car were on the move again.
“Even though today is probably the shittiest day of my life so far—which believe you me, is saying something—I’d still rather be here arguing with you about it face to face than you being underground! ” I snapped.
He rocked into the seat behind him, his mouth a little open, blinking at me like I were a very bright light.
“The only thing I regret is that I’m sorry you’re disappointed in being stuck with me for the rest of your life—but I’m fucking not and never will be,” I swore to him, then stepped up on the seat and pushed my way out the window.
A lifetime of action movies had made clambering out of a moving vehicle seem easier than it actually was. But what they hadn’t gotten wrong was the pure rocket fuel of the right kind of rage in your heart.
I put a foot on the windowsill, grabbed hold of the car’s roof for balance, and levered myself up ’til I could step out onto the hood of the Sorrento like I was surfing on it.
“Get back in here, Jack!” Paco demanded, having climbed into the front seat after me, hanging half-way out himself.
I ignored him; I was busy. I took one big step down the hood and then threw myself at the back of the truck, catching hold of one of the poles that were part of the lock mechanism, with my boots firmly on the diamond deck bumper.
I grabbed hold of the lock itself and fisted it with my hand, feeling the metal warp and give, as I yanked hard, and pulled the lock’s loop free.
“Jack!” Paco shouted for my attention. I looked up, out of habit—and saw several of the cars that’d seemed like they’d all belonged to the same vampiric car club flanking him. But half a block back, there was a wall of black sedans catching up, and I suspected that that was the Faithful cavalry.
I twisted the lock free, chunked it behind me onto a Rojo’s car hood, so that it’d bounce up and shatter their windshield, then slammed the truck’s door open, and threw myself inside.
I didn’t see Luna anywhere—just ten or so vampires milling, and some girl in a getup I couldn’t afford the time to currently parse.
“Luna!” I shouted, as the first one swung an uppercut.
I let him hit me, making my jaw clack and my brain ricochet, probably just like the night before in my poor Betty . . . because I knew to kill this many vampires, I was going to have to be very, very pissed off.
A panicked “Jack!” echoed back from up ahead, and it was like hearing a gunshot at the starting line.
I leapt on the nearest Rojo and fought like a caged animal.
I knew I’d be high on my anger and despair, but what I hadn’t factored into the equation was the current depths of my hunger.
It wasn’t picky, and it wanted a little carnage, as a treat.
So when I broke and ripped off one Rojo’s arm and proceeded to stab another with the pinkish-white exposed bone through his chest, before both dusted, it felt entirely natural to me.
I snarled, half feral, giving into all the hidden and dark parts inside of myself, letting them run amok.
I grabbed a Rojo’s neck and hauled him forward to bite through a part of his skull then spit it out like a bad piece of apple, before he could turn into ash on my tongue.
I disemboweled another with a rake of my hand, not even once wondering if I should stop, or if it was wrong—before I dove in again to wrap my hand around his spine and break it.
They did fight back, and all the while they were raining blows on me, but it was like either I couldn’t feel them or they weren’t trying very hard.
But long-term common sense didn’t matter when you were fighting like this—everything was narrowed down to the next move, the next opportunity for violence, the next bloody, dusty glory.
And then I was standing alone, my chest heaving, breathing in all sorts of the detritus of my kind—me and some blindfolded, naked girl who was spreadeagled out on some sort of fuck-table contraption, locked at wrist, waist, and ankles on a slowly spinning X.
If she’d been vertical, I’d assume she’d been called on stage to participate in a “hold this balloon while I spin the wheel” knife-throwing routine.
As it was, she was entirely helpless and all the horrible parts of myself that I’d just set free were noticing.
I took a lurching step toward her before I stopped myself, more to wipe my own blood off of my face than out of any sense of propriety, then I heard Luna shouting again.
“Jack!”
I quickly scanned the remnants of the Rojo on the floor, kicking through their clothes and belongings, sending up billowing clouds of dust, until I heard a set of keys, which I picked up and took with me, opening up a door that led further into the truck’s belly.