Page 61 of Bastard

“Shit, he’s bleeding everywhere!” Someone yelled. Was that Agent Steel? It sounded a lot like him.

I looked down and saw that everything was red. Not just my hands. Knife got me good. That was probably too much blood. Did he hit something important? Fuck that would suck.

I was so close. The end was right there. “Sam?” I could see it all now. The house, the kids, her smile. Getting grey and wrinkled. Holding hands. Feeling freedom. Real freedom to be whoever I wanted to be.

Only to lose it all right at the finish line.

That’s when everything went black.

26

If it’s possible to be cold and hot at the same time, that’s what I was. I shivered and sweat simultaneously. I also bounced between floating in the clouds and intense pain. I was fairly certain I now lived in a medieval dungeon, slept on a stone floor with some hay, and guards in armor stopped by regularly to poke me with swords to make sure I was still alive.

“Jace?”

The weird guard without a face hovered over me. I was cold again. The guard left without saying anything else. A little while later a queen appeared in a crown and everything. She just sat beside me. For a really long time.

Then she was gone and the faceless guard was back.

It didn’t occur to me that I might be unconscious and making up a fantasy until the guard-queen came in. Yes, a guard and a queen. She had on all the same armor, but she also had a crown.

“Fuck this shit. Wake up already, Jace Malone. I mean it. Wake the fuck up.”

Georgia.

The castle faded away and became the fighting ring at the Ranch. I was on the ground bleeding while they carted off Knife. Agent Steel crouched beside me apologizing for taking too long and demanding that I not die.

“Don’t make me wait any longer, Malone. I have not waited all this time to have my daughter back only to lose her to grief. So wake the fuck up right now.”

Sam. Sam!

I blinked and immediately shut my eyes again. “Bright.”

“Give it a few tries,” Georgia said. “The lights are already off.”

“Sam?”

“Is fine but wrecked as you might imagine. You almost died from blood loss, you asshole.”

Georgia was the mom I wish I had. Fierce, powerful, and loving in her own special way. My mom was just…never around. Even when she was.

I tried opening my eyes a few more times. It got easier and easier. “How…are things?”

“Good. Bad.” Georgia lowered herself onto the bed beside me, her hand over the top of mine. “Your asshole of a stepfather is in jail, as are the Feyereisens and the Dragons. The man you almost killed will live, which a man named Agent Steel says is very important.”

So Knife would live to go to prison. That was nice.

“That all sounds pretty good.” Fuck my side hurt like a son of a bitch.

“Well part of the bad is you.” She waved at me and I had to admit I didn’t particularly feel like moving.

“And the rest?”

She didn’t miss a beat. “They expect the Feyereisens to be released on bail tomorrow. But,” she held up a finger, “their assets are frozen. So I don’t expect they’ll be able to do a whole lot. Especially with their favorite henchmen in jail.”

That was a pretty decent mix of good and bad.

“Where am I?”

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