31. JAX
JAX
Cartilage cracked beneath my knuckles.
I was sure I had a dream about this once.
Well, not this, exactly. Never, in my wildest fucking dreams could I cook up this level of chaos.
We were trapped on a plane, an hour from landing, with a zombie horde of lawyers trying to take us down.
I’d done some drugs in my life, smoked some wacky shit.
Somehow, reality proved to be the biggest trip of all.
I swung my fist again, straight into the bespeckled face of another lawyer who tried to rush past me. We’d made it as far as the staircase before the floodgates opened. Panic soured the air. The plane rocked and rattled around the pendulum of violence.
I was in my element.
Not that I wasn’t fucking panicked. I was. It just took a different form, one that drove me harder, wiped out the pain signals in my brain. I felt nothing but the satisfaction of hitting back.
Turned out, I had some repressed frustration toward lawyers. Namely one lawyer named Bart, who I saw in every man that charged at me.
They wanted Olivia. I’d kill every fucking one of them before I let them take her.
There was a groan of pain behind me. I turned just in time to watch Madoc drive his fist into a man’s gut. Then Madoc grabbed the fucker’s tie and choked him to his knees before driving a swift knee into his face.
Madoc was also in his element. Face blank, green eyes bright, blood splattered on his throat. Fresh tattoos.
But they kept coming.
We couldn’t let them reach the upper deck where Olivia was. We had to find her first.
I just fucking prayed Ryle and Nate used their shared brain cell and barricaded her somewhere safe.
We were outnumbered. But not yet overpowered.
We weren’t going down without a fight.
“On your left,” Madoc grunted.
I turned and ducked just in time to avoid getting a laptop smashed over my skull. I punched the fucker in the gut, then kicked out his knees.
The beast in me roared.
Find the girl.
I launched forward, through the bodies. A flash of silver. I jerked aside, expecting a knife aimed at my face.
It wasn’t.
It was a fucking pen.
A fancy-ass silver pen used to sign on the dotted line. Or, in my case, the paperwork on my rejected parole application. No option to appeal.
I grabbed the pen, and the hand attached to it, and snapped bone. There was a sharp yelp as I plucked the pen from the man’s fingers and plunged it into his shoulder.
Messy, but cathartic.
I was fucking pulsing. Hard as steel. I glanced at Madoc, who unleashed a demonic flurry of elbows. Noses exploded. Bodies crumpled. He was glorious.
Madoc’s eyes met mine, then dropped lower, to the very prominent bulge I was sporting.
I didn’t miss the flare of heat in his eyes.
Fuck.
Not the time.
I flipped him off just as I heard footsteps pounding above us.
Shit.
“Jax!”
My head snapped up.
There she was, bursting out of the upper galley, a swarm of furious men at her heels. She spotted me at the same moment I spotted her. Her eyes widened.
A fist smashed into the side of my face.
My head whipped to the side, iron flooding my mouth. A pale hand snapped out in front of me, blocking the next hit.
I was dazed. Seeing spots.
Then I was seeing red.
I charged like a bull, ripping back the fuckers trying to reach her. On the third step, my shoe slipped in blood. I grabbed the railing, balancing as the plane threatened to tip us like marbles in a tin can.
Olivia panicked. She came to the top step, then looked back at the angry horde behind her.
I braced my burning knee and opened my arms. “Right here, baby!”
Olivia ran. She ran and launched herself down the last few steps straight into my chest.
My hand cradled her head, bloody knuckles gripping tight. I wrapped her up and spun us around, using my body like a shield.
Madoc glanced over at me, then at Olivia in my arms. His jaw ticked, dark bruises molting across his face. His nose was bloody. His eyes were blazing, protective, possessive. A reflection of mine.
I pointed above his head. He nodded in understanding.
We had to get out of the thoroughfare. Madoc cleared a path for us toward premium economy. Olivia squealed as someone tried to grab her. I punched the fucker so hard, he was still spinning like a bottlecap when I looked back.
We made it to the galley. I pressed Olivia to the wall and shoved the nearby trolley in front of the opening.
It wasn’t enough. A pack of ten or so bloodthirsty lawyers bolted towards us down the aisle.
Individually, they were easy targets. None of them were fighters.
None of them had the credentials for violence and mayhem that we had.
But as a pack, they were unrelenting. When one went down, another was ready to take his place.
“Stop, just stop!” The flight attendant, Marcus, was trying to call for order from across the cabin. “This is madness!”
He was quickly shoved aside.
Then they were climbing over the trolley like mindless fucking androids. Hands grabbing, faces desperate. One of them had the balls to shout: “She’s just a girl! Give her up!”
I punched him out.
If I could give her up, I would’ve done it months ago. That was the problem. She was under my skin, burrowed into my chest. The thought of any of them touching her made my blood boil.
She was my problem, and she’d stay my fucking problem.
A body slammed back into me.
I raised my fist on instinct, then paused when I realized it was Madoc. The swarm had driven him back. He was breathing hard. We both were.
We couldn’t keep it up. Not like this. Not forever.
I grabbed Madoc and pulled him into my chest. “Stay here,” I grunted in his ear. “I’m going to end this.”
His lip curled in a snarl. He didn’t like the idea of staying behind. Too bad.
One of us had to guard the princess. And I didn’t trust anybody else.
I launched over the trolley and fought my way through the tide.
I tried to punch out as many as I could to buy us some time.
My knuckles were raw. Pretty sure two of my fingers were broken.
My stab wounds were bleeding again—I could feel the one around my knee dripping down my leg and pooling in my shoe.
Blood loss aside, I was still going strong.
When I reached the cockpit, I limped toward the door and smashed my fist against it. I did it again, and again, until pain radiated down my wrist.
Finally, the phone rang.
I picked it up and barked: “Call them off!”
The Viper laughed, but it was a sickly, gasping sound. Good. “You know what you need to do,” he said.
“Fuck you,” I spat. I wasn’t playing his game. “Call them off,” I warned, “or I’ll break that fucking watch and the prototype with it.”
That made him pause.
“If you do that, we both lose.”
“Fucking try me,” I snarled back.
He paused again, weighing up his options. I could hear my own heart pounding in my head. But as desperate as I was, he was worse.
He was bleeding out every second. Soon he’d be unable to stand, much less follow through with whatever crackpot plan he had. He needed that first aid kit. I needed him to call off the manhunt.
Another stalemate.
“I’m willing to bet I have more time than you and your crew do,” he said. “You can’t fight them all. Their survival instinct will overpower your fury. So, bring me the kit.”
“Call off the manhunt first.”
“No,” he wheezed, sounding amused. “I still have the gun on the captain. If I feel like I’m losing consciousness, I will shoot him. Just to be sure you go down with me.”
My jaw clenched. We were out of time. Madoc could only hold them off for so long. He wasn’t actually invincible. I knew he’d keep fighting until there was nothing left of him. He’d die protecting Olivia.
“Clock is ticking, Jax.”
He hung up.
Where the fuck were Ryle and Nate?
I smashed the phone back into the bracket. My whole body fucking throbbed. I couldn’t lose a second. I turned back to the cabin, then immediately zeroed in on Marcus.
He was squashed up on the wall like a bug on a windshield, his hands cupping his bloody nose. When he saw me approaching, his eyes widened in terror.
He squawked like a chew toy when I grabbed him and hurled him into the aisle. “First aid kit!” I barked at him. “Where is it?”
He gulped. “Overhead.”
“Which one?”
He pointed a shaky finger to the other side of the cabin. Fucking brilliant.
“You’re coming with me,” I growled. He tried to resist, but he was no match for me. Gripping his shirt, I thrust him ahead of me like a sweaty shield. Anyone who swung at him, I swung back.
It took him three attempts to open the overhead. Another three to unlock the lockbox with his key. His hands were shaking so bad, he dropped the kit and then stared at me like I was going to slap him for it.
I considered it. My patience was a frayed wire.
Instead, I let him be and returned to the cockpit, kit in hand. I bashed on the door, blood clotting in my mouth. I spat just as the phone rang.
“You got it?”
“Yes,” I snarled. “Now call it off.”
He hung up the phone.
A second later, the cockpit door handle blinked green. The door cracked open, and a gun poked through, attached to a blood-soaked sleeve. I didn’t move. Didn’t flinch when it pointed directly at my chest.
Call. Them. Off,” I gritted out.
The door opened fully, and the Viper stepped forward, his face ashen, his eyes alert. His gaze dropped to the kit in my fist.
Then he cocked the gun and laughed.