Jackson Stiles, Road to Redemption (35 page)

My not-so-friendly looking friend stops eating to glance up at me just as I’m squeezing my way past his personal space. I freeze, wide-eyed.

“Hey there, dozer.” Bulldozer. Get it?

I talk soft, thinking if I give him a name, he’ll appreciate that.

I smile. He grunts and his front hoof stomps the floor.

“Don’t piss him off,” Nick advises from the safety of his hay bale-stuffed corner. No shit, Sherlock.

Dozer lowers his head again, and I can feel the hot, sticky air his nostrils blow out as I swallow down the fear he just instilled upon my ass.

I breathe out to squeeze past the last couple feet of Dozer’s space, then I want to fucking faint.

“Jesus.”

“You make it?” Nick calls out from the other side of the pen.

“Yeah.” I slink around, quietly calling out to the kid, in case he’s hurt or something. When I hear banging, I move in that direction. And then I see it. A room with no windows. The door is closed, but I hear the muffled sound of who I have to assume is Stix on the other side of it.

Just as I’m about to kick the door in, out flies the kid. He’s a banshee with a vendetta who’s been waiting for the opportunity to escape. He drops the inner workings of the door knob he just broke, and I should have fucking known he’d find a way to break himself out.

Fucking genius.

Before he sees it’s me, he starts swinging his hands around just hoping he hits
something
.

“It’s me, Stix. Whoa!” He doesn’t hear me. Or can’t hear through the anxiety and stress that’s no doubt pumping through his veins. But lucky for me, he’s dehydrated, so he doesn’t have a whole hell of a lot of energy.

When he throws another punch, not only does he miss me but he falls right the fuck into me.

“I got ya.” We fall to the ground, and it’s only now I see the state he’s in. He’s got a rag around his neck and a rope, that’s been cut, hanging from one of his wrists. He’s dirty and his lips are cracked. I can’t imagine the fuck-heads who brought him here have even fed him.

His eyes roll into the back of his head, and he lets out a sigh of relief. He tries to talk but it’s all jumbled.

“Settle down.” I try to get him to see reason, but he’s frantic.

“He heard shooting.” His voice is strained and rough. He swallows. “And he left, but he won’t be gone long, Jackson. We gotta go!”

“What? Who? Who left?”

“Me.” The semi-familiar, deep voice surprises me. I hadn’t even heard him come in, and I wonder why Nick didn’t fucking warn me somehow. I twist around to get my bearings and prepare for a battle of sarcastic wit, when boy-toy Connor’s fist meets my face.

For a split second, I wonder if Green knows his role in this fuckery. The next thing I know, there’s a white flash, some hot pain, and then nothing but black.

X X X

Massive amounts of cold water wake me.

I almost have myself convinced I’m dreaming until I breathe in the smell of hay, shit, and pot again.

To my right, tied up again, is Stix. To my left, Nick is still bleeding and on the verge of passing out. In front of me, is the head dick.

“Connor.”

“Mr. Stiles.”

“You’re Anonymous?”

“Not exactly.” He grins at me like we’re playing a fucking game here. I’ve had enough games to last me a lifetime.

“Meaning?”

He smiles but doesn’t answer me. Not that I expected him to.

“Man,” I cough out. “Green is so kicking your ass.”

He laughs but gives nothing away.

I still don’t know her role.

Which pisses me the fuck off.

“I gotta say, you really got me with this one. I was expecting dirty cops, and instead, I got a bad accountant.” I try to bait him some more. Let’s see where this goes.

The dick-bag laughs some more. “The police in Redemption don’t have what it takes to make this kind of plan happen, Mr. Stiles.”

I spit out some blood. “You mean the plan where we fall in love and run away together? That plan?”

My gut pays the price for that one.

I cough out, “Shit.”

“That’s enough, Mr. Riley.”

Asshole
. Of course, he’s here. I guess Hank had some ambition in him after all.

I’ll worry about his sorry ass later. Right now, I need to keep this conversation going, seeing as I can’t exactly seem to get myself out of this situation.

Yet.

“Why shed the shadows, Connor? You at least had the cover of mystery going for you. Now all you’ve got is”—I look up at him and it hurts. But fuck it—“bad looks and even worse decision-making fucking skills.”

A deep guttural laugh and he proceeds, “You haven’t put
all
the pieces together yet, have you, Mr. Stiles?” He tsks. “And Emma said you were smart. Pity.”

Hank strolls over with a tablet in his hand. He turns it on and starts up a news app. When it begins the live streams, Graham Black is holding a live news conference.

I look around for Green. You know, out of curiosity’s sake. I find her off in the background looking worse for wear and checking her watch. When she looks up and sees me, she tucks some hair behind her ear and looks away.

Typical.

“I’m guessing this is where you think I’m going to confess to my crimes. Explain my plan?” Now Connor’s baiting
me?
The stupidity of that comment makes me want to laugh. Too bad my ribs are aching too much to make it happen.

“Nah, I’m good.” I stretch my neck to wipe the blood off my face and onto my shirt. “Cops are making too much money off their drug rings. You want in with no middle man, so you’re staging drug theft within gangs and killing kids.”

Hank turns the volume up on the tablet.

“Simple, really. Pay attention, Mr. Stiles. You’ll appreciate this news conference.”

On the breaking news, Black’s voice has a solemn, grave tone to it. I make a note so when I hear it in the future, I know when he’s lying through this fucking teeth.

“Tonight’s shooting incident on the outskirts of Redemption just goes to show that drugs and corruption are a major threat in our community.”

A picture of Nick pops up on the screen followed by mine, and the kid’s.

“Detective Nick Stiles, the lead detective on the case, was gunned down in the line of duty.” His expression grows dark.

I look over. Nick’s clearly not fucking dead. I nudge him a little, and he groans, which is good. He’s conscious. Kinda.

“With the growing number of drug killings in this city, now including one of our own, we have no other choice but to legalize marijuana! It’s the only way to get drugs off the streets and stop the violence.”

Clapping and murmuring goes on in the background. The crowd has mixed feelings, clearly.

That’s when I read the captions on the pictures.

One of them, in particular, that is.

“You’re gonna make this look like one of your crime scenes.” I keep the conversation going because a) I need to think and b) I don’t want to fucking die. At least, not yet. I’ve already promised my liver it’s going to be the reason I croak. I never break promises.

Connor claps his version of a creepy, slow golf clap, and I am really getting irritated with this dickhead.

I raise my head to where it doesn’t hurt
too
much and tell him, flatly, “Lame.”

“I wouldn’t expect you to understand any of it.” He checks his nails for imaginary dirt. “These so-called children you say I murdered are nothing but criminals who would have, no doubt, corrupted the fine city of Redemption worse than it already is. I did them a favor. And the tax money Black will bring in by legalizing these drugs will improve roads, add benefits to our schools, increase─”

“Salaries?”

He doesn’t like my assumption. So he decks me again.

I guess I hit a nerve.

“Blah, blah, fucking blah.” I roll my eyes and spit out blood. But, seriously, how the hell am I getting us out of this shit?

“Regardless,” he says with a wave to Riley. “Too bad your so-called proof will be taken to your grave.”

Riley raises his gun. Probably one that can’t be traced back to him. “Now, who’d like to go first?”

He points the gun at me, and I gotta say, I’m a little ticked he didn’t wait for an answer from Nick. I mean, maybe he wanted out first. Not that I can see an upside to that, but hey, you never know.

As Riley clicks the safety off, I should be staring his ass down, but my eyes stay trained on Green who, I’m almost certain, flinches when she realizes what’s about to go down.

Out of the darkness, another voice interrupts the plan.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you, Hank.”

The slow and steady voice echoes across the room and sounds like a version of my father who might have existed a long time ago. It certainly doesn’t reflect the irresponsible, angry drunk I know today. But there he his, plain as day, standing about fifty feet from us with a loaded-looking piece of machinery that reminds me of something out of a war movie in his hands.

“At least, one of your boys will go down before you can get a shot off, Mr. Stiles,” Connor tells him.

“Not if my friend up in the rafters has anything to say about it.”

His steely demeanor is enough to make me wanna go clean my room without an argument as I peek up at the four-by-fours adorning the ceiling above and wonder if he’s bluffing or not.

Please do not be fucking bluffing.

When Hank’s eyes flash upward as well, a shot goes off.

Now, I don’t know what kind of a shot my father is or anything, but judging from the girlie scream that just came out of Connor, he’s not half bad.

Meanwhile, I take the opportunity to rush Hank and head butt him for decking me a few minutes ago.
Fucking ow.
He’s knocked off his game long enough for Walker, of all people, to point a gun in his face.

“Don’t. Fucking. Move, Riley,” he says. Hank complies, letting his face fall back onto the floor.

Maybe he needed a nap.

I hear sirens outside and realize that Dad was, indeed, fucking bluffing.
A genius bluff if I do say so myself, but still…

The cavalry is still a ways away, probably out by the fence, but close enough to catch a glimpse of the red and blue lights flickering against the barn walls.

I look back at Green, who’s giving me the stink eye now.

“That’s right. I called them.” Her brow is angry.

“I─”

“Jackson.” My dad’s strong arms surround me, and he squeezes the life out of me for longer than I remember him doing in about twenty years or so.

Sure, I could get caught up in the moment. Hug the old man back, let bygones be bygones. Right now, though, all I see is Walker standing in the sidelines, making like he just saved the fucking day, talking into his cell phone to some unknown person.

I stalk toward him. I kinda want to shoot him, but I also know that would be a really stupid fucking thing to do.

“Jackie.” Nick, who’s visibly in a lot of pain, might be using my nickname but his voice is stern. Urgent, even.

I stop. “What.”

“Walker was head of the sting, man. He’s not with Hank.”

“If you say so, bro.”

Then Green gives it a go.

“It’s true, Stiles.”

I peek over at her.

“He’s on the up and up.”

Unbelievable.

“He filled me in on the way here tonight.”

Seriously?

Walker watches me while he finishes up his phone call.

There are a few cops putting Riley into handcuffs, and another few who surround Walker to interview him about what went down here.

“Where’s Connor?” I ask them but all they do is shrug like they haven’t got a fucking clue.

EMTs jump out of an ambulance with a gurney. Nick is rushed over to the truck for full-on attention.

Stix finds me pretty quick. His tall, skinny frame wraps everything it’s got around me and holds tight for a long time.

“Mr. Stiles?”

“Yeah?” My dad and I both answer at the same time.

“Mr. Reed appears to be gone, sir. Are you sure he was here?”

“He was here.” Green answers before I do. “He must have taken off during the fight.”

“Mother of…”

“We’ll keep searching. He’s got to be around here somewhere.”

Or maybe not. Maybe Anonymous was waiting for something like this to happen and swooped him off to who fucking knows where.

Stix is still holding on for dear life. Try as he might to hold back the tears, it’s time I guess because they come gushing out.

This might have, once upon a time, been the moment where I tell him to grow up and grow a pair. That shit isn’t really playing into my mentality, though.