Page 32 of The Reaper

“I had a beautiful woman by my side who wanted to be with me… and I found I wanted to be with her, too. You were lying, yes, but your lie kept us all safe. I know the value of the truth, and the cost of a lie, I know sometimes a lie can save and the truth can kill. It was all just a game of pretend at first. One that I was all too happy to play along with. Until it stopped feeling like a game,” he finished wryly.

She licked her lip. “And, does it still feel like a game?” she asked.

Jack was crouched on the ground still, over the man’s unconscious, nearly naked body. He picked up the man, and shoved him into one of the lockers, without any form of dignity or ceremony, closing it from the outside.

He gave her a long, hard look. She didn’t breathe. He took a breath but at that moment, the radio crackled.

He reached for the walkie talkie. For a dizzying second she thought he might tell them she was hiding here, he might give her up, and run. Leave her.

“Anderson here,” he said into the radio.

“Go ahead.” The speaker crackled.

“There is movement on the 1st floor… one of the rooms… blonde hair, confirm status.”

There was a crackle on the radio.

“Hannah Wells. Jack Hunter. Shoot on Sight. Over.”

He looked at her then. “Copy that, over and out.”

They both sat on the floor, silent, thinking, panting.

She reached out her hand, tentatively, across the dusty tiled floor.

He looked at it, out of the corner of her eye for a second, not turning his head, not looking at her.

She held on a moment longer, her hand extended, reaching out for him.

And finally, finally, he reached back and took it.

“I remember it all, Hannah,” he said quietly. “I remember, the Reapers MC… we found out we had a mole. Someone was pretending to be a member but they were actually from the Bratva, a spy, sent to undermine us and mess with our plans, to report back to the Bratva. I was sent to kill them. I didn’t want to. I warned him instead, I helped him escape… Reapers MC didn’t like it. They came, they took me in a van, they beat me up, they left me outside the prison, it was meant to be a statement to the Bratva. They were the power in this area, the Bratva shouldn’t mess with them. They thought I was dead…”

Hannah listened as her world fell apart and reformed in front of her eyes. He was a good man. He had tried to warn an innocent person, he had taken the fall for it.

He cleared his throat, pulling himself back to the present. “We have to move Hannah, they are trying to find us and kill us.” He paused, thinking.

His steely eyes met hers. He could probably see she was reeling. She couldn’t adjust like he could. She wasn’t used to this type of life, despite working at Eastward, Hannah was still an innocent baby to all of this. She forced a breath into her lungs.

“Back with me, Hannah, think about the here and now. Don’t think of anything else. We have to get out of here alive, okay, that is the priority for now, everything else can wait, do you hear me?” He shook her slightly, his eyes boring into her.

She found herself nodding. Numbly nodding.

He opened the door of the room quietly, slowly, holding the handle in his hand. He peered out, up and down the corridor, then moved out. He scurried down the corridor. She paused for a second, left behind. Did he honestly expect her to let him go like that? She followed, crouching, like he had. She wasn’t about to let him get away.

“Why are they trying to kill us?”

“Cleaning up.”

The radio crackling. “Shoot on Sight.”

He paused by the nurse’s station. Looked about. He was moving like a Navy Seal. His clever eyes were roving up and down, thinking.

“Need to move,” he said simply. He looked at her again, battling with himself.

“Jack, let’s end this,” she said.

“We should just get out of here, escape… We have to move,” he ground out.

---