Kickass Anthology (5 page)

"I'm gonna kill him," Tom growled four days later, standing over his open dresser drawer with tightly clenched fists. His favourite polo shirt was missing and the drawer's contents were a mangled mess. Tom didn't have a lot of stuff and he kept his possessions neat. The only one who walked in, helped himself to anything he wanted, and left the place looking like a tip was Declan Flanagan. Most days, Tom let it slide even if the behaviour irked him, but this time Declan had gone too far. The backpack spilling its guts on Tom's bed was evidence of that. "He's taken my fucking hammer, the ruddy sod. I am going to
end
him!"

He found Declan in the common room, holding forth about some crap or other to the first year students. The big Irishman could be entertaining when he stopped being an ass and made an effort, but Tom wasn't in the mood to make allowances. Not now. Not after Flanagan had laid hands on something that
did
define Tom Walken.

"Oh look, one stupid redhead."

"Says the ginger," Tom snarled from the back of the knot of undergraduates that had congregated around Declan. "Get a salon appointment, idiot. Your blond roots are showing." Laughter rose and Tom moved as if to cut through the throng, when a hand closed around his arm and held him back.

"Don't start shit here," a deep voice rumbled in his ear.

Tom's head whipped around and he stared at Jack, momentarily shocked out of his anger by the iron grip on his arm. "You're telling me to stand here and be insulted? You?" he hissed, incredulous. "What happened to standing up for oneself? You're just spouting crap like everyone else!"

He strained against Jack's hold, but Jack held on. Tom could practically feel the bruises grow across his bicep, but none of the strength he exerted showed in Jack's stance. If not for the spark of anger in the narrowed green eyes, Tom could have believed that his friend had not a care in the world.

"I'm not telling you to let him walk all over you. I'm simply telling you to pick your battles. You've always been in favour of that."

The tight grip on Tom's arm didn't shift until he gave in and followed Jack back to their apartment. After having been prevented from doing damage to Declan Flanagan, Tom was in no mood to talk. He stalked into his bedroom, slamming the door so hard it flew right back open and clanged into the far wall.

"Fucking entitled asshole," he fumed. His hands shook as he tried to return order to his messed up dresser. "Thinks he owns... everything... just because he's rich. He so needs taking down!"

"Need a hand with that?" Jack’s nonchalant voice carried from the doorway. Tom didn't have to turn around to know what expression he would be wearing. The smirk came across loud and clear. "From someone who knows what he's doing, I mean."

"I know what you meant, jackass."

"Language."

"I was stating a fact," Tom finally turned around for a brief look. As he'd imagined, Jack leaned against the doorway, arms and ankles crossed. And as usual, Tom's breath caught a little at the sight. A sleeveless grey t-shirt with a faded purple anarchy symbol on one shoulder drew attention to Jack's toned, muscled arms, while skin-tight black jeans showed off his endless legs. Even his trademark smirk was a thing of beauty, adding a gleam of mischief to Jack's grey-green eyes.

The vagaries of bureaucracy had made Tom and Jack roommates – though Tom was no longer sure that bureaucracy was entirely to blame here – and Jack Horwood had become a close, trusted friend in less time than it usually took Tom to retain someone's name.

"Are you serious?"

Tom nodded. He'd spent years while growing up teaching himself not to react to taunts, whether they mocked his deep red hair or the fact that his family had rejected him. Over the last two years, he'd learned to accept Declan's stupid comments, learned to tune out the way the guy swaggered around as if he owned the place and they were all mere serfs there to make his life easier. No, Tom Walken was no longer the easily riled hothead he'd once been. He could handle Declan taking liberties. But taking his hammer.... That was one liberty too far.

"Took you long enough."

"What?"

"Don't front. You know exactly what I mean." Jack uncrossed his arms and straightened. "What's your plan?"

"Get him alone and beat the shit out of him sounds good right now."

"Don't you have any imagination at all?" Jack looked properly disgusted. "What's a beating gonna achieve? He's a bully. He'll just feel vindicated in what he's been doing. He'll play the poor, wronged victim and then he'll come after you."

"So I should do what?" Tom riled against Jack's common sense approach. "Let him get away with being obnoxious?"

"Leash that temper and use the brains I know you have." Jack tipped his head towards their living room, waiting patiently until Tom took the hint and settled on the sofa. Jack fell into his favourite armchair, leaned back and laced his fingers behind his head. "You sure you didn't dream the orphanage?" he asked. "I shouldn't have to explain that to you."

"What?"

"For Christ's sake, Walken! There's more to fighting than just going in guns blazing. When you go after a vindictive oaf like Declan, you do it so that not a single finger points at you. You take him down in public and broad daylight, when he's clearly in the wrong, so he just cannot get back at you."

"And how am I supposed to accomplish that? I'm not a snitch and I'm definitely not Merlin."

"No, you're not," Jack agreed and his smirk grew progressively evil. "I, on the other hand, am made of awesome. And I had two kickass teachers. So watch and learn, grasshopper. Watch and learn."

IT TOOK a little over a week before Declan Flanagan's life started to go off the rails and Jack could honestly say that he hadn't had so much fun in a very long while.

For a solid week he'd not left the apartment he shared with Tom Walken.

L'Arc-en-Ciel, Clapton, Knopfler and Santana wove a curtain of sound around Jack and his laptop, and the enticing scent of freshly brewed Java hung in the room whatever hour the clock showed.

Sleep wasn't important while he worked. His phone lay forgotten on the bathroom counter, ringing in annoyance until the battery died. He ate when Tom waved comestibles in his face, and didn't bother with anything but coffee for the rest of the time.

His thesis and freelance jobs didn't cross his mind. He followed data trails and finagled his way into locations he had no business even knowing about while laying traps and digging up Declan Flanagan's secrets. Now he remembered why he loved hacking, recalled the thrill of the chase and the buzz he got from simply being ace at his job.

Every now and then he felt eyes on him and looked up, expecting to see Gareth Flynn hovering nearby with a tiny smile lifting the full lips and fond exasperation darkening the amber eyes, only to find that it was 3am and the burning glance was nothing but a memory.

Weeks earlier, a moment like this would have ripped him apart, sent him out of the house in search of oblivion, an agonising reminder of what he'd given up. Now, he slid his fingers over the healed tattoo at his temple and the emptiness inside him burned dully like a barely closed wound, slowing him down but no longer holding him back.

He laid his plans with a field marshal's diligence and wasn't at all surprised when Tom dragged Paul Grabin into their room one afternoon, making him a fully paid-up member of their little conspiracy. The kid needed a sense of achievement. And they needed his help.

Two days later, Jack's campaign took off with a shouting match in the Dean's office after Declan Flanagan demanded his maths test results be adjusted. He couldn't explain – and neither could anyone else – how his completed test paper had turned into a sheet bearing his name and the phrase
I'm a little teapot
repeated over and over.

The Dean didn't respond kindly to Declan's attempts to bully her. Neither was she amused by Declan's accusations, protestations and excuses. The test result remained in place and Declan Flanagan stormed from her office, red-faced and furious, only to find that his car keys no longer worked and the Aston Martin was towed when the traffic warden took exception to being yelled at.

A day later, police arrived at their apartments in the middle of the night after receiving a 999 call from Declan's mobile phone. They weren't impressed with finding a clearly drunk Irishman, who argued hotly that he hadn't made any calls. And Declan didn't relish the fine he was handed for wasting police time.

The following morning, Jack slipped his boots from the windowsill and moved from his favourite armchair. While everyone was attending classes, he grabbed a hammer, nails and a paintbrush and entertained himself for a couple of hours before going grocery shopping.

In Jack's book, the result was totally worth the effort he'd made.

"Ye're so gonna pay for this," Declan howled later that afternoon, as he stalked through the building in search of the person who had nailed the door to his apartment shut and then given it a coat of anti-burglar paint. The non-drying grease covered Declan's hands and clothes and everything else he'd touched. And the big Irishman was in a full-blown strop. "I'm gonna ask me father to buy this dump, and then I'm gonna throw ye all out on yer asses," he riled, just as Jack came through the door.

"Never gonna work," Jack commented blankly. "I wouldn't sell to you. Or your father." He allowed himself a tiny smirk at the black greasy smudges on Declan's face and ginger hair, wishing he could be a fly on the wall when Declan found out how badly the stuff stained. For a moment, he contemplated tipping off the cops and get Flanagan arrested on suspicion of burglary, but then he restrained himself. Plans were plans for a reason, and Jack wasn't done with Flanagan. Not until he'd avenged the shame and defeat he'd seen in Tom's eyes.

"Ye wouldn't sell to
me
? Fuck you, Horwood! Ye don't own these flats!"

"And you know that... how?" Jack asked gently and waited just long enough for Declan's mouth to fall open in shock before he turned and disappeared down the hall. Definitely, the most fun he'd had in months!

TOM WALKEN had never considered that he might feel sorry for Declan Flanagan, but by Saturday night he was coming close. There wasn't a thing in the man's life that was going right just then, and Jack had barely gotten started. It was almost as if he'd made a list of all the instances when Flanagan had thrown his weight around and worked through them one by one to pay the man back. It was chilling, if Tom stopped and thought about it.

Tonight, it seemed to be the turn of Declan's debit card to benefit from Jack's attention.

They were at their local haunt, just around the corner from their apartments, and though it was still fairly early, trade at the bar was brisk. The queue of thirsty students moved quickly – until Declan Flanagan's declined card turned him into a roadblock.

Prudence and discretion had clearly been omitted from the dictionary that governed the Flanagan’s life. He snarled at the card, growled at the bartender, and finally called his bank.

Why he put the call on speakerphone, Tom would never comprehend, but everyone clustered around Flanagan heard the man being told that his card had been blocked because his account was overdrawn.

Flanagan was speechless for approximately five seconds. Then the yelling started.

Tom leaned against the wall, a pint of his favourite ale in hand, and watched the spectacle with a sort of horrified fascination. Flanagan had no sense of decorum, though that didn't explain why or how his money had disappeared. There was a chance that he'd been exaggerating the size of his trust fund, but...

The solution that suddenly occurred to Tom was like an itch in his brain. He skipped out of the line for the pool tables, drained his pint and made his way home, finding Jack where he had left him three hours earlier: stretched out in the armchair with his feet propped up on the windowsill and the computer in his lap.

"You won't believe what just happened," he said. "Declan is broke."

"Is he?"

Jack couldn't have sounded more bored had he tried and Tom's suspicions grew. "Yeah. The bar wouldn't take his card and then the bank told him his account was overdrawn."

"Hilarious."

"Jack!"

"What?" Green eyes glinted in the lamplight, the look blending with the tiny smirk at the corner of his mouth to give Jack the expression of a mischievous imp.

"You
stole
his money? Ow!" Tom rubbed his head where Jack's notebook had struck him. "Asshole."

"Don't insult me, don't get hit."

"What?"

"You just called me a thief," Jack enlightened. "Not something I appreciate."

"Okay, sorry, not theft. But Declan's bank says the money's gone and you've not given him a moment's peace all week. You're behind that one."

"If you think so."

"I do think so," Tom maintained stubbornly, cheered by Jack's smirk growing into a wide grin. "What d'you do with it, then? If you didn't steal it?"

"I... relocated it."

Tom could only stare at his friend. "Jack, you can't. There are rules."