Page 68 of Shrapnel

“You want me to put the glass back in?”

“God, I love it when you’re hostile.”

Jackson grimaced. “Who raised you?”

Jamie’s lips twitched once, then curled into a stupid smile. “No one. I was hatched.”

How this kid ended up with the Weavers of all people, Jackson couldn’t guess. The fact that the old man hadn’t caned him into obedience must mean he was going soft in his advanced age. Grant and Roland never would have been allowed to get away with this bullshit.

“Do you think love makes you human?” Jamie asked.

Jackson turned to look at him. The vapid grin was gone, and his eyes were glassy from the alcohol and painkillers. His lips were pressed together, and he was staring up at the textured ceiling.

Jamie didn’t elaborate and Jackson let him spiral into whatever post-injury bullshit he needed to. As long as he did it silently, he didn’t care.

Even as he started on his second beer, he couldn’t shake the question.

Contrary to what most people would think, Jackson did feel things like love. It was one of those pesky emotions he wished hecouldturn off. Love was the root of all his problems.

His love for his mother led him to join a gang.

His love for his brother made him run away to the Army.

His love for her made him a fugitive.

He swallowed back bitterness that had nothing to do with the cheap beer. These were the kinds of thoughts Jackson tried not to have. They seemed to crop up with annoying regularity whenever Jamie was around.

“How do you know so much about me?” he finally asked, even though he didn’t want to.

Jamie was silent but Jackson knew he wasn’t asleep. Every now and then the bed would tip as he took another drink of the beer he probably shouldn’t be drinking.

“I watch.”

Jackson rolled his eyes. “Even a sniper doesn’t have that good of sight.”

He snorted. “It doesn’t have anything to do with that. I watch because I don’t understand. I never have.”

“Understand what?”

“Feelings,” Jamie answered groggily. “People are easy, feelings are hard. When I was a kid I used to watch the other kids because I didn’t know how I was supposed to act. When to laugh, when to fight, when to cry.”

“And watching me told you all about my past?”

“Not all of it. It gave me the start I needed.” Jamie tossed his empty can across the room. Even sedated, lying on his back, the can hit the wall and bounced into the trash.

“Your mom was a good girl. The kind of girl who tells herself those gunshots outside her window are fireworks. She met your dad when he came to Chicago for business. He thought slumming it with a local girl made him cultural. She got pregnant. He didn’t care.”

Jackson should have choked him out. Wrapped his fingers around Jamie’s neck and stopped the words spilling from his mouth. But he didn’t. Or couldn’t. Maybe a sick part of him wanted to hear it. Wanted to hear the way it sounded coming out of someone else’s mouth.

Maybe he just needed someone else to know.

“She was a good mom. Worked a lot, so little Jackie Boy was left alone. You tried to keep your nose clean but several juvenile offenses for assault and battery tells me even as a kid you had an anger problem. Is it any wonder the Blades were interested in you?”

Interestedwas one word for it.

“When you were fifteen you met your brother for the first time. Daddy dearest married a politically savvy girl from one ofthosefamilies. She thought it would be a good human interest piece—rich guy tracks down the poor son he didn’t know he had.”

Jackson had known he was just a chess piece. He didn’t have any desire to meet his father until he found out about his brother. Seven years his junior, Evan was everything he wasn’t. He had taken one look at Jackson and just…smiled. Somehow, against all odds, the kid had found something to love in Jackson. There was no fear in his eyes when he saw the tattoos on his arm or the brooding look on his face. He took Jackson’s mangled hand and showed him his favorite toys, asked him to play games with him, and took him for walks in the park.