Page 23 of Kingston (Savage Dragons #2)

Jason decided that he wasn’t going back to jail.

And in order for that to happen, he was going to have to commit suicide by cop.

But he thought getting this lot of officers to do anything like that was about a million to one, not in his favor.

They didn’t seem to get riled up by anything that was going on around them.

Like the other day, one of the Connors had decided that their meal wasn’t what they wanted.

Instead of asking for something different, she threw their plate at the officer, and it hit him square in the face.

All the cop did was wipe his face off with his hand and walk away.

Nothing. No shouting. No cursing. Nothing to indicate at all that he was pissed off about what had just happened.

And instead of June being without her meal, he simply brought her another plate of food and left.

Crazy shit like that was going to get someone hurt.

Today, he was going to his pre-trial at the courthouse.

He’d been warned several times that it was going to be today, but he just didn’t want to believe it.

There had been more important things that he wanted to take care of, and this wasn’t it.

He wanted out of this jail before the courthouse, and now it looked like it wasn’t going to happen.

“Wagoner, you have fifteen minutes before we leave. Whatever you have left lying about will be boxed up for you if you are sent on to prison to await trial.” He said he didn’t want his fucking things touched.

“They’ll be put in a box for you to take with you, and that’s final.

If you have anything that doesn’t belong to you, we’ll find it then and return it to the proper owner. ”

See? He asked himself. He’d just said he didn’t want his things touched, and they acted like he’d not said a word. Like they were above getting upset when someone cursed at them. Stupid people. He just wanted to blow all their heads off.

When he was told to step back in the cell against the wall, he did so without hesitation.

He’d seen what happened to you when you didn’t listen to that bit of advice.

They brought in the hose and hosed you down with it until you complied.

It was cold out, and he didn’t want to be freezing his nuts off while on his way to the courthouse anyway.

Once he was cuffed up and ready to go, he walked by the Connors’ cells.

They were across from each other and would talk all hours of the night about how they were going to get that boy back and have him help them make some real money.

He no longer believed that they had a million bucks; had they had it then, they’d be out on bail and not sitting in this shitty hole waiting on the judge to come and talk to them.

He’d also heard that their trial was going to be sometime in the fall, and he wasn’t going to be hanging around that long either.

The jail wasn’t shitty by any means. It was cleaned once a day by someone who came in to do it.

The man would take out the trash and run a mop over the floors.

He would then leave you clean linens when he removed the ones from your bed.

He didn’t get that kind of service when he was staying at a five-star hotel when out on the road.

Even the food was good here. There were eggs and bacon for breakfast. Some kind of sub or sandwich for lunch, sometimes even a bowl of soup that wasn’t watered down.

For dinner, you had to pick if you wanted chicken or beef, and they’d bring you mashed potatoes with your meal and warm rolls.

He thought they were getting it from the diner in town, but wasn’t sure.

It had only been the three of them in the cells since he’d been arrested.

It was all Skye’s fault that he’d been caught.

If she would have just died like he had tried to get her to do, then he’d have the boy, and that would have been the end of it.

In hindsight, he didn’t think he would have given the boy over to the Connors.

They were too hyped up to have him making them some money for him to believe that they’d give him the million dollars they promised him for his work in getting him.

Then Skye had messed that up, too. She was like a cat with fifty lives, the way she kept getting one step ahead of him every time he thought that he’d killed her ass.

One time, he noticed that she was driving a car.

Where it had come from, he never knew, but there were people always helping her out of one jam after another.

Cutting the lines to the breaks had done the trick, he thought, but when he’d seen her driving it for the next week, he knew that someone was watching out for her.

There was no way that she’d been able to know that the lines had been cut and that she was going to die in a horrific accident.

It was things like that that would piss him off to no end.

And the boy, too. He would swear that he had the kid in his hands several times, only to find him not being there.

He had trapped the boy in a house, all exits were locked, and he would search the house, and he’d not be there.

Not only wouldn’t he be there, but it looked as if he’d taken all the things with him that made it so he could live there.

No clothing, no shoes. Nothing to say that anyone had been living in the house.

Damn it all to hell and back, it wasn’t fair the way they kept getting away from him like he wasn’t the best that there was.

The ride over to the courthouse wasn’t long, but it did give him a different view than his cell had given him.

He had a window with bars on it that didn’t budge, but all he could see was the parking lot where the employees parked their cars at the station house.

He could see where houses had been decorated with fall pumpkins as well as scarecrows in their yards.

Jason didn’t have any idea when Halloween was, but he figured that it was coming up on time for the kids to be out getting candy and such.

Remembering it from his childhood, he smiled a little.

It had been the only time all year that he’d get something for nothing, and he hoarded that candy like it was the crown jewels and there was a thief out on the loose.

He wouldn’t have a costume or anything along those lines.

But he had his pillowcase ready to receive the goods when he went from house to house.

Jason had been good about it, too. Telling folks thanks and have a nice night, even when they only gave you one piece of bubble gum.

That had been the time when he was happiest. Out of the house he’d grown up in and out among people who were just trying to get by like he was.

But his parents fucked that all up for him when, one day, coming home from school, the police were there.

His daddy had killed his momma and then himself.

The police told him that he’d been lucky he’d been at school that day, or he might have been a victim too.

He did think of himself as lucky right up until he was put in the system as unadoptable.

He’d been too big for his age and looked like a man at thirteen.

Going from house to house had him wishing that he’d been home that day and had been a victim like the officer had told him he’d been.

“We’re here. Don’t give the judge any shit, or he’ll send you right back to jail.

He’s not in the best of humor after yesterday with the Connors, and it won’t take much to get him going again today.

” He didn’t say anything, thinking that it was good that the man was in a sour mood.

It would suit him just fine in his own plan of getting himself dead today.

Going back to prison wasn’t going to be an option for him anytime too soon.

“Keep your mouth shut unless spoken to.”

Safe advice, he thought, but Jason was out of safe options. He thought of all the things he was going to say today to get himself in trouble and sent back to jail in a body bag. Or something along those lines.

The courthouse was packed full of people, even standing around the outside edges.

He wondered what was going on when he caught a glimpse of a couple of people he thought he knew.

Damned if it wasn’t Skye done up in some fancy-ass clothing and that boy that he’d been trying to get.

Christ, it was something to see when a few bucks’ worth of clothing would make you shine like the two of them were doing.

The men around them were big suckers, and he could only assume they were the Savage family. He couldn’t see their faces very well; he’d been plagued with farsightedness for a long time, and they were simply too far away. But he did get a good look at the one that seemed to be handling Skye.

He was treating her like she was something precious, and there wasn’t going to be anyone getting to what he considered his. Jason wondered if anyone would look at him like the man looked at Skye. Christ, it was damned near sickening, he told himself with a bit of jealousy.

When the courtroom was called to order, he continued to stand after everyone else was seated.

He had some things he needed to say, and he wasn’t going to wait his turn to do it.

Jason had been practicing his speech since he’d gotten arrested.

He wanted out, and this was the only way to do it. He was asked what he wanted to say.