Jessie Ch. 15

I made lunch for the child - fish sticks and carrots, her favorite - with my AR laying on the counter.

And when I finally trudged upstairs to fall asleep on the messed up sheets, all I could do was sit on the edge of the bed and stare at my hands. I couldn't describe the profound loss and grief I felt, compounded by the worry and horror of knowing Sienna was in Morgan's hands.

The most likely outcome was hearing a news broadcast about a body found on the side of the road.

And then I'd have to identify her. I remembered her in this bed, happy, full of life, warm and smooth and solid and...and MINE.

The thought of her suffering, her dying, made my breathing pick up, and I glared a hole in the wall, gritted my teeth, fought back tears.

I was helpless. Useless. I couldn't fucking DO anything.

I fell asleep reading A Tale Of Two Cities.

###

"Should we call her parents?" Jessie asked as we made dinner.

Fuck, that was right. She HAD parents. "I dunno. She made it pretty clear they didn't want to have anything to do with her."

"Think they'd want to know their daughter is missing? Or..."

"Yeah, probably."

Jane was up on the third floor playing dolls with McKenna, who was supposed to be sleeping. After my short, restless nap, it had been her turn to get some sleep, but she'd insisted on entertaining Jane, trying to keep her mind off Sienna's absence. The little girl had been alternately crying for her mother and entranced by McKenna, but ultimately seemed to be in a funk.

I couldn't blame her. I was in a funk too, but I was hoping the mac and cheese Jessie and I were making from scratch would do something to elevate the child's spirits.

I looked at Jessie's back as she stood before the pot of boiling water, staring intently at the noodles. She'd been managing her emotions with whiskey and cigarettes, and now I walked over to wrap my arms around her, bury my nose in her tobacco smelling hair.

"Hey."

"Hey." Her voice sounded dead.

"I love you, woman."

"I love you too, man." She reached back to pull me into her with one hand, stirred elbow noodles with a long wooden spoon with the other.

"We'll get through this."

"I know we might. But will See?" Stirring momentarily complete, the slim gothic girl turned in my arms.

"I don't know. We'll deal with everything as it happens. I...I can't fix this. Just taking the hits as they come."

The doorbell rang.

And we looked at each other, both of us hoping for one moment that, impossibly, the world might just be a place where wishes were answered.

Jessie bolted for the door as I turned the heat down on the stove. I heard her feet stop at the door, and a pause. My heart soared when she said, "It's See!"

I sprinted for the living room as the door creaked open, and a black cylinder bounced into the room as Sienna collapsed on the threshold and Jessie stared uncomprehendingly out the door.

"Jessie! Get do - " I was drawing my Sig as I shouted, and the grenade went off, nine earsplitting bangs in quick succession, and a blinding flash of light. I staggered in place, disoriented, the world fuzzing and buzzing in and out of my vision and hearing due to the explosive overload.

Someone punched me in the chest and I went down, trying to support myself and failing. Hard rubber ground down on my right arm and fingers pried my gun from my useless hand, and I barely heard the thump and skid of metal on wood as it was tossed to the other side of the room. I blinked away afterimage after afterimage and a blonde guy I recognized looked down at me, smiling. I could barely hear his drawled words. "Good to see you again, old sport."

I swung at him with my left, tried to stand, and he stomped on my chest so hard I heard something snap, unholstered a suppressed Beretta from inside his leather jacket, pointed it at my face. "Behave now."

I looked down my body at where a man and woman wearing black with red bandanas dragged Jessie, unconscious, into the room so that they could shut the door. Sienna was crying, and she crawled to her friend, held her hand, kept throwing glances at me. She was expecting me to save them. To save her. To fix this. I could barely see straight.

Sienna looked terrible, her face and clothes were bloody, her skin was pale and sweaty, and she seemed too weak or in pain to stand.

She looked worse than she had going through withdrawal.

One of Morgan's comrades tased Jessie again and she jerked and twitched as the stun gun cracked and popped. I felt my heart lurch, and I grabbed for Morgan's ankle, trying to break it with a wrenching twist. He just turned and kicked me in the side. Another crank and I could barely breathe.

Sienna shrieked at the sight and started crying harder, incoherent with pain and emotional overload, and she cowered when Morgan swung the gun in her direction. "Bitch, shut the fuck up or you're gonna be an even uglier corpse than I was planning!"

"Morgan." It was hard to speak with him practically standing on my chest, but I got it out.

He grinned down at me. "You rang?"

"Point that gun at me, man. C'mon."

He tilted his head, thumb-cocked the hammer at Sienna, and she shrank back farther, mutely quivering with terror.

"Those two women mean more to me than anything in this world. I will do anything for them, anything at all. C'mon, point it at me. Please."

He kept the Beretta aimed at Sienna. "You've got one chance before you watch your friends die, bitch, and I'm killing him first. Where's my fucking flash drive?"

Her mouth moved, nothing came out, and the muzzle turned towards me. I tried not to flinch. Tried to ready myself mentally for dying. Tried to steel my muscles for a surge that would dislodge him but assuredly get me shot to rags. His friends stood mutely by the door, rifles in hand, waiting for his command.

"Upstairs." Sienna croaked after an eternity. "In my shoe." Her voice was shaking and broken, weak and punctuated by coughs and snot bubbles. "Just please, don't hurt Jane, not my baby, please..."

Morgan stepped off me, kicked her in the chest, was back on me by the time she'd sprawled, again sobbing. "You don't ask for anything, you don't demand anything. You are not in fucking charge here."

He motioned to the pair standing by the door. "Upstairs. Bring me every shoe in this house."

I watched them walk past me upside down, and Morgan leaned over me, smiling. "She held out through some pretty gnarly shit, bro. That's one tough chick."

I grimaced at the implication. "Not about the rifles?"

He straightened, rolled his eyes. "You two delayed that show we put on in August, but - "

Booms came from the kitchen, four fast explosions echoing through the house, punching through my skull and ringing my ears. Morgan aimed the gun at the kitchen. Waited for a minute, his lips set in a grim line.

"Fred? Angela?" he called out.

"Fred and Angela aren't here anymore." The flash suppressor of an AR pistol slid past the brick wall of the kitchen and half a youthful face followed before retreating to just behind cover, one eye barely visible behind the red dot scope.

I'd forgotten about McKenna.

Morgan grinned. "That's a pretty big gun for such a little girl. You fire that thing, don't you think you'll end up on your ass?"

"Fuck around and find out," she shouted back.

Beside the cowering Sienna, Jessie stirred. I tried not to look at her, tried not to draw Morgan's attention. If I could get to my knife fast enough...

"Put your gun down, put your hands on your head," McKenna called out.

"No can do."

"I've got a rifle and cover. You've got a pistol and you're standing in the open. How do you think this ends?"

"With you watching your friends die." He pivoted, aiming for Jessie, and I grabbed the heel and toe of his boot with both hands and wrenched. Morgan fell backward, twisting, and the bullet punched a perfectly circular hole in the floor by my lover's head.

The two of us scrabbled away, me going for the gun on the other side of the room, him going for the door. The room shook as Morgan and McKenna hammered out bullets at each other and his return fire caused her to duck behind the brick wall. I got my hands on my Sig and turned to see his Beretta swing towards me, and I took the extra fraction of a second to aim. Better that I take a bullet and kill this fuckstick than let him get away. We missed each other and then he was out the door.

I thought for a moment about following him, but the sirens approaching from the distance convinced me not to. I practically jumped across the room to the women. Jessie was waking up groggily, and Sienna looked like she wanted to lay down and die. I took her hand and she screamed in pain. "You oka - what the fuck did they do to you?"

Neither of us could hear me over the ringing in our ears.

###

But don't be alarmed

You're not alone anymore

I'll be right by your side

When The Wolf Is At Your Door

- Wolf At Your Door, Sixx A.M