Page 81 of Jasper
One clean shot. The drone hiccups in the air, sparks, and spins out towards the dirt. The last eye in the sky just went blind.
There are no flares tonight. Not one. We can’t afford attention from county sheriffs or worse. So we fight in the dark, in the smoke, with our own blood and grit.
I step back into the hallway, reloading with hands slick and fingers stiff. My vest is torn. I’ve got a split lip, and my shoulder’s still bleeding, but I’m standing. That’s enough.
“All units,” I say into the comm. “Push.”
I don’t wait for confirmation. I lead.
Onyx at my flank. Slate and Jinx just behind us. We move room by room, floor by floor, driving them out like rats flushed from a cellar. They start to break—no more formation, just retreat. I see one of them dragging a wounded man by the arm while another tries to cover them both with a jammed pistol. Ilet them run. Let them haul their broken dead back into the dark where they belong.
We reach the front, and it’s ours again.
Smoke coils through the open door, the porch scorched and glass glittering like frost. Mica limps over with a look that says he’s done pretending the leg doesn’t hurt. He hauls a fire axe off the wall—one of the old ones from the station days, red-handled and dulled with age—and jams the blade deep into the floorboards, barricading the door shut with the embedded head. He wedges it tight, metal shaft bracing across the frame like it’s been waiting its whole life for this moment.
I breathe deep. My chest is tight, and my lungs are scorched. The bastards finally turned tail and ran, taking their injured and dead with them. And we’re still here. This is surely what victory looks like.
The yard looks like something out of a nightmare. The yard is ripped to hell, and everything is either burned or riddled with bullet holes. Twisted metal and shattered glass are glinting beneath a haze of smoke. Pools of blood dot the landscape with bloody trails heading towards the tree line. No corpses litter the yard, not one. I can’t help but ask myself why they dragged their dead away. These men don’t seem like the type to care about proper burials and such.
The more I think about it, the more I think I may know why. I saw the ink on a few exposed arms before the fires took them. Gangs from farther south, some with reputations for doing things even the Hyenas wouldn’t brag about. That ink connects them to more than just street violence. It connects to cartel cash and black markets south of the border. It tells stories they don’twant the world to hear. And whoever’s funding this war doesn’t want any proof left behind.
I limp across the debris field, stepping over shell casings and spent mags. My ribs ache, my shoulder is slick with blood, and my right ear still rings from the first blast that rattled the east wall. But I’m moving under my own power, and my legs haven’t collapsed out from under me yet. And most importantly, we didn’t fail the people we love.
Onyx hauls one of the wounded off the porch and hands him over to Stitch to be patched up. Slate’s standing over two busted rifles, muttering about parts salvage. Jinx leans against the outer wall, binding a gash in his side with his own damn shirt.
Brotherhood means bleeding together, and tonight we did just that.
The front lot is quiet now, but the dust is still hanging heavy in the air. That’s when Rock drags the piece of shit prospect who betrayed us out of the clubhouse and throws him in my general direction. Rock kicks him forward, and the bastard stumbles face-first onto the concrete. He’s got zip ties around his wrists and my old man’s boot print on his back. I was gonna put him in the ground earlier, but something made me spare him.
I nudge him over with my boot, and he blinks up at me, dazed and bloodied, lip split down the middle. I’m still holding my knife in one hand, the one I used to kill his club president. He deserves to die. He infiltrated my club and almost cost us a lot of lives tonight. But he’s so fuckin’ young, confused, and a fuckin’ moron to boot.
“See this knife? It’s covered in your club president’s blood. Go back to whatever’s left of your fuckin’ club,” I tell him, my voice rough and angry. “Tell them we’re not prey to be pickedover by predators like the Hyenas. Tell them that this is what happens when you recklessly choose to make an enemy of the wrong club.”
He doesn’t dare speak back, for fear of saying the wrong thing and blowing his one chance at escape. Instead, he nods once and hauls in a deep breath, before scrambling to his feet and taking off on foot towards the tree line.
Chapter 29
Tessa
It’s been hours, and the silence is worse than the gunfire. I come to my feet in the safe room and begin to pace. Rubbing my belly, I feel anxiety swarming me, making me irritated and scared that something might have happened to Jasper or one of the others.
Around me, the other women cling to each other, whisper fearfully, and breathe in shallow, uneven gasps. The atmosphere is rife with tension, and the air heavy with the scent of the club girls cloying perfume and sweat. But there’s also the odor of something else, it seems familiar, but I just can’t place it.
There are subtle sounds down here but practically nothing from above. I can’t help but wonder if the battle is over and if our loved ones survived. I keep pacing, making longer strides between the back and front of the room. I’m full of nervous energy and have to walk it off or go mad.
Queenie stands near the door, her stance is stiff, her fingers flexing. She hasn’t spoken in a while. I know her well enough to know that she’s worried about Rock and her boys. She just keeps her eyes on the heavy steel door, probably wishing it would swing open at any second and Rock would be standing there to meet her. Whoever comes through that door—be they friend or foe—she’ll be the first to meet them.
Silver whines, “Are you sure you don’t have the key to the restroom? I’m seriously about to piss myself.”
“I already told you that I didn’t even know it was locked. You’re going to have to wait, just like everyone else.”
I turn and walk towards the back of the room, wishing Silver would shut the hell up. She’s irritating and a lot to handle, especially in a crisis. I get that she’s scared, but we all are. The shadows are long now, cast by the emergency light overhead. My pulse beats low and steady in my ears.
I keep worrying about Jasper. He said he’d wait to come for me. He’s got to be okay. I close my eyes and press both palms to the round curve of my belly. He has to come back. For me. For the baby. For all of us waiting in the dark.
Suddenly, the bathroom door swings open, and a tall form steps out and grabs me from behind. It happens so fast that my brain can’t process it. I thought we were alone down here and don’t know how we missed him. He’s apparently the one keeping the bathroom door locked from the inside.
The women scream. A panicked shuffle fills the room as they scramble back towards the opposite wall, pressing into one another. I try to move, but he’s already on me. The scent of his expensive cologne filling my nose. I suddenly realize who it is.
