Page 11 of Shrapnel

Jackson grabbed his machete and stalked from the room. Jamie’s laughter followed him out into the smoky hall.

3

Show Me Where It Hurts

Jackson loweredhimself to the ground with a grunt. His entire back was on fire. Infection had already set in, and he could feel a mild fever beginning to work its way through his system. The duffel bag in front of him was littered with dirty clothes and half-filled prescription pill bottles. He knew their contents by feel rather than by the faded labels in a myriad of languages he couldn’t read.

He grabbed what he was pretty sure were antibiotics and washed them down with what was left in his water bottle. The water was warm and stale. It tasted like plastic. Unsatisfied, he tossed the bottle in the general direction of the trashcan and dragged himself to the bed.

After leaving the burning mansion, he retreated to his backup hotel to lick his wounds. He always had a backup plan. Operations tended to go pear-shaped with alarming regularity. While he had extra clothes and meds, it wasn’t his full stock. He couldn’t reach his back to treat the wounds and it wasn’t as if he could ask the hotel clerk—who looked to be all of twelve years old and more interested in the horrifying anthropomorphic cartoon rat on his iPad than anything else—to treat the wounds inflicted by a whip on his back.

He settled for showering and hoping the lukewarm water would wash them clean. It made him feel better at any rate.

Sliding on a pair of loose-fitting joggers he inspected his elbow. It probably needed a brace of some kind. Or ice. People iced their bodies when they got hurt, right? That was a normal thing to do.

Jackson preferred prescription painkillers and alcohol. Maybe some sleep.

He would have to settle for one of the two.

It was a cheap hotel room. Thin walls and no air conditioner. The window was propped open but all that did was let in the ambient noise from the street and the humid sluggish air. Fresh from a shower, he couldn’t tell if his skin was damp from the water in the tub or in the air.

Settling onto the too-small mattress, he let his legs hang off the edge. Feet flat on the floor, it grounded him. Gave his swirling mind a place to latch onto. He was upright. He was fine.

It was always like this after a near-death experience. Jackson had enough of them to know. Adrenalin hit his body like a freight train. It gave him the hyper focus and strength he needed to push through, to get himself out of a situation by the skin of his teeth. Adrenalin quashed his sense of self-preservation and stoked the flames of his prodigious rage.

People like Jackson didn’t survive by being ordinary.

He discovered at an early age that he wasn’t ok. That the anger inside of him was blinding. When it burned brightest, he was capable of anything. Monstrous acts that he couldn’t even remember at times. As a teenager, it wasn’t unusual for him to be set off. He would see red, hear the blood rushing in his ears, and then wake up somewhere hours later—blood on his knuckles and death in his wake.

Where he grew up, you didn’t waste talent like that. Through sheer force of will he wrangled his anger, pushed it down, and made it submit to his will. Like a secret weapon, he let it flare to life when he needed it most. Inaccurate and devastating, it was a nuclear bomb leaving nothing left in its wake.

The aftermath was never pretty. His body suffered and his mind roiled. Memories blurred together and feelings he didn’t like came rushing to the surface.

I know.

Jamie’s words echoed around his brain, and he shuddered.

It was impossible. There was no way that little asshole could know. No one knew. Jackson wouldn’t even admit it to himself. To admit it would give it life.

But somehow the assassin had hit the nail on the head. Like the trained killer he was, he struck a devastating blow to Jackson with just a few words.

The worst part was that he wasright.Insufferably smug, cheeky, and an absolute dickhead in every sense of the word, but he was right.

Detroit had been a shitshow. It ruined him in more ways than one, but he had made it out. Took the first flight to the farthest country he could find and stayed there. Distance was safe. Distance he could trust. Distance had always saved him from himself.

Distance kept him from doing something he would regret.

Jackson wasn’t ok, but there were moments when he felt like he could be. Precious moments soaked in lies watched through a distorted lens or normalcy.

When he was with him. When that beatific face looked up at him with all the love and warmth his little body possessed. He wasn’t afraid of the demon lurking inside Jackson. Maybe he was too naïve to know better or maybe he was just too pure.

He fell asleep on Jackson’s lap, head lolling to the side and hand grasping at his. He didn’t find terror in the big man. He found peace.

Jackson didn’t know what to do with that. So, he ran. He ran from him. He ran from the feelings he knows he shouldn’t have.

Raking a hand down his face he breathed in and out. Once. Then twice. His head was in a bad place if he was thinking about this stuff. Most of the time he shoved these thoughts into the back of his head. Like pushing an old box of stuff he didn’t really need into an overfull closet—throw it in and then close the door, deal with the aftermath the next time you needed to open that door.

Three sharp knocks made him jump.