Page 74 of Karma

A gun is fired, the bang echoing over the trees and ripping right through everyone’s stupor. After that, more bullets start flying.

Joker reacts fast, dragging the girl into the back of the van and screaming orders for them to move out. Scorpio gets behind the wheel of the van.

“I’ll shoot out the tires,” Karma says and runs towards the van, taking aim. But Ruin knocks her out of the way. Thankfully.Scorpio was in that van. She’s a good shot, but she could’ve hit him.

More bullets are exchanged, one of them narrowly missing my head. But then all is quiet again. And the van with the girl we wanted to save is gone.

We failed.

That is the only thought in my head and it’s louder than an explosion that just won’t quit.

Karma should’ve taken that shot. Her aim is always true. She would’ve hit the tires and then we would’ve had the girl. And Joker. And Scorpio too.

Now we only have the betrayal. That thought is very loud too.

“Let’s get out of here while the getting’s good,” Psycho says to me. I barely hear him over my echoing, thundering thoughts of utter and complete defeat.

“No,” Karma says. “We don’t need the Devils as enemies. So we can’t leave them thinking we had anything to do with this.”

She turns to Ruin. “Joker’s main compound is in a town called Roaring Brook on the Nevada border. We’ll be at the Inn if Cross wants to know more.”

Ruin nods and I hope he’s buying all this. And I hope I’m the only one who can hear the shaking in her voice. She knows how bad we messed this up as well as I do.

“You heard her. Let’s ride,” I tell my guys and hang back while the rest mount up.

“Maybe we can still stop this by getting in with the Devils. Without actually telling them everything we know and making this betrayal any worse,” Karma says to me, speaking so quietly I barely hear her.

“It’s all my fault,” I say. “I did it again. I lost us Scorpio, just like I lost us Reaper.”

I was the one who insisted we take that job that took him from us. And I insisted we do this crazy stunt today with no real plan, just lots of hope for success.

“We’ll fix this,” Karma says.

“How?”

She shrugs, her eyes empty and lost. “We gotta.”

But the fear and doubt is loud in her voice. And my chest. I don’t have that feeling of time slipping through my fingers like sand anymore. Because it’s just all gone.

39

Scorpio

Just being back in Justice, just riding towards it, down the long dusty road running between the tall, rolling, desert hills took a huge weight off my shoulders. A weight I didn’t even know I was carrying.

But between worrying about the Devils getting wind of Joker’s plan and Karma and Grim pestering me about it, I’d been wound pretty tight, it seems. Not so much anymore. The Devils won’t just find us here. This town doesn’t exist on any map and in all the years since Joker found it on one of his soul-searching solo rides, no other person has come near. Not even by accident.

And seeing Eden all defiant, talking back to Joker like he wasn’t leading her around on a chain was nice too. The way he looked like a lost little boy when she talked back to him, instead of crying and being afraid like he expected she’d be once he brought her here was absolutely priceless. I wanted to spend the rest of the night, and the rest of our lives, for that matter, making fun of him for that. But it’s best I let him realize how much he likes her on his own. Too much mocking will just get his back up and delay the process.

Karma and Grim have absolutely nothing to worry about. I just wish they were here. They staged quite an attack on us as we were leaving the forest compound. But I’m sure that was just some sort of last-minute ploy of Joker’s that he didn’t see fit to tell me about.

Karma aimed the gun right at me, and if I didn’t know better I’d be sure she was about to shoot me dead. But I did know she’d never do that. So I know it was all just some weird plan of Joker’s.

He’s upstairs with Eden now, calling her father, Ice, to explain in detail how he plans on getting his revenge by torturing Eden. I don’t hear any screaming, so I guess they’re just talking.

I’m enjoying the desert evening on the front porch of the big house on the hill in Justice, which Joker claimed for himself. It would be even nicer if there was a breeze tonight, but the air is solid, like a very hot wall. To make up for it, some evening critters are chirping in the bushes nearby and I feel safe like I rarely do anywhere.

I should probably go down into town and clean my own house before Karma and Grim get here. If they see that pigsty they might want nothing to do with me anymore and I don’t want to risk that. But I’m enjoying the peace and quiet up here while one hell of a party seems to be going on down in town. We’d left all the club whores here when we left to get Eden and they seemed to have missed us. That scene’s not for me anymore. Even before, no woman measured up to Karma and now that I’ve had her, none can. As for Grim, I get very clear vibes that he feels he owns me now, and I don’t want to mess with that either.

---