Lightning Strikes (The Almeida Brothers Trilogy #3) (10 page)

“When’s the last time your girl took a comb to her hair?” he asked.

Nina tightened her grip, thankful when Jack didn’t immediately lunge like she’d expected.  When she heard his voice, she jammed her eyes shut.

“You see,” Jack started.  “She and I aren’t from around here, which I’m sure you could tell right away since we aren’t a couple of inbred…”

Nina’s eyes widened, and she tightened her grip, feeling his bicep flex to twice its size.

“Redneck…”

“Jack,” she begged, through clenched teeth.

“Ass backward Sons of Anarchy
rejects
with nothing better to do than harass a woman who hasn’t done a goddamned thing to you.”

“No one is harassing anyone here, sir,” the blond’s southern accent picked up.  “I’d just like to know if your girl ever plans on taking a comb to her hair; that’s all.”  The biker shrugged, turning to his cackling table of friends before throwing Jack his snow blue eyes; wide with the innocence he’d clearly lost ages ago.  “Just a question.”

Jack leaned forward as far as he could get from the grip Nina still had on his arm and motioned to her.  “You need to apologize to her right now.”

The biker chuckled.

“Apologize,” Jack said. “Right now.”

The biker’s beaming smile only went brighter when he looked back to his friends.  Their laughter climbed to full on howls; so obnoxious they caught the eyes of every patron in the building.

He turned back to Jack with a blinding smile, but that smile was gone in an instant when Jack lunged out of the booth, taking the cuffs of his leather jacket in a fierce grip and ripping him out of his seat.

Nina screamed, her hands frozen in mid-air, shocked at how quickly Jack had just moved.

Already halfway across the room, Jack dragged the blond to the door as he tripped, kicked and clawed for every table they passed.

Nina barreled out of the booth and went after Jack, cursing under her breath.

Behind her, she could hear the biker’s friends leaping from their seats too, the legs of their chairs squeaking against the tile floors.

The bell above the door chimed as Jack threw the blond biker into it, sending him stumbling onto the dirt road outside.

Nina raced outside just in time to see Jack’s fist fly across the biker’s face, sending blood spattering out of his mouth and flying through the sky.  To Nina, it looked like the blood was moving in slow motion.  Like she was watching a Hollywood movie with the best CGI team in the business, she could’ve sworn that the blood froze and floated in mid-air, just to give everyone watching a chance to understand what the fuck was happening.

The biker hit the ground face first, sending dust billowing up from the dirt road.  When he rolled onto his back, muck clung to the blood on his mouth, dripping from his lips like a batch of bad pancake mix.

Nina didn’t even have a moment to be disgusted by the sight before Jack bent down, snatched at his collar, and sent a second fist soaring across his jaw.

Nina screamed.

Jack went to his knees in the dirt, taking the biker’s jacket into fists and yanking him forward until they were nose to nose.

“People like you should be exterminated,” Jack spat.

A second later, all three of the biker’s friends raced passed Nina.

“Jack, behind you,” Nina cried out, screaming when she realized her warning came too late.

One of them got Jack around the neck from behind, forcing him to his feet.  The other two took hold of Jack’s arms, opening him to the blond—who was struggling to his feet, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

Nina broke into a run just as the blond reared back and caught Jack with a left hook square in the eye, then an uppercut straight in the gut.

“Stop!” she screamed, jumping onto the blond’s back and wrapping her legs around his waist.  She wrapped an arm around his neck and locked it in place, tightening until she heard him gagging.  He staggered and nearly took her to the ground, but she didn’t loosen her hold.  “Don’t you dare fucking touch him, you… you… you…” She couldn’t even think up a worthy insult, too stunned that people like this animal still existed.  Her heart seemed to be pummeling buckets of blood to every part of her body but her brain, because she couldn’t think straight.  All she saw in her mind were slurs, expletives, and grade school insults she’d learned when she was five—insults that didn’t hold quite enough weight with this group.

Taking her arm, the blond leaned forward at the hip, deep enough to unseat her and flip her onto her back.

Nina went flying, and just before she hit the ground on her back, she saw Jack rip his arm from one of the bikers hold, digging his shoes into the dirt as he fought to get at the blond, his strength nearly overpowering the three men that held him back.

“Don’t you ever put your fucking hands on her,” his scream was hoarse against the arm tightening around his neck, arms flexed against the fists holding his back.  “You goddamn redneck piece of worthless shit, I’m going to fucking kill you!”

As Nina rolled onto her side, cringing against the hard fall, a loud
crack
nearly split her eardrums open.  She fell to her elbows with a shriek, shielding her head with her hands, eyes flying to the diner just in time to find their waitress leaning against the door with a rifle pointed at the sky.  Billows of white smoke puffed out of the barrel.

She fired another shot.

The second
crack
made everyone freeze, even Jack, as all eyes found the waitress.

“That’s enough,” she said, in an authoritative tone of voice that was a touch too calm for a woman who’d just fired two gunshots.  “That is
enough
, Gret.  What in tarnation is on your mind?”

Nina’s eyes went back to the bikers.  All of them had released Jack and were now shuffling from one foot to the other, avoiding the waitress’s eyes.

“What have I told you about bringing this nonsense into my diner, boy?” the waitress spat out of the corner of her mouth, keeping her wide blue eyes on the blond biker.

“Sorry, Mama,” the blond biker, who they now knew as “Gret”, mumbled.

“Get back inside and stop harassing my customers.  I raised you better than that.”

“Yes, ma’am.”  The blond shot Jack, who was bent over at the waist, another sour look before limping back to the door of the diner.

Nina watched him go, enjoying the sight of his limp growing deeper, more pronounced, with every step he took.  She hoped his fucking leg was broken.

His friends followed, passing the wall where dozens of diner patrons had their noses to the glass, watching the entire exchange.

The waitress waited until all four of the men had passed her, looking at each of them out of the corner of her eye, daring them to make one false move or say another word.  None of them did.  Only when they were all inside did she lower her rifle, stepping out and letting the door swing closed behind her.

“Fuck…”

Nina’s eyes flew to Jack, who was cursing under his breath, still bent over at the ankle, pressing the heel of his hand into his eye.  She pushed herself onto her feet and raced over to him, wrapping her arms around his waist.  He was still stumbling as if he believed staying in motion would make the pain shooting through him a little less intense.  When she locked her arms around him, his weight made her stumble along with him.

“Jack, you didn’t have to do that.”  She pressed her cheek into his back, tightening her hold.  “You didn’t have to do that for me.”

“Yeah.  Well.  I did.  And it hurts.”

“Ice?” Nina cried, looking toward the door.  She was stunned to find the waitress already approaching them, rifle still at her side, holding out a fresh Ziploc bag of ice.  Nina snatched the bag away, glaring at her, before leaning over and handing it to Jack.  She made sure he had it over his eye before looking back up.  “That reject was your
son?”

The waitress sighed.  “I’ve worked hard to keep him on the right track, on the up and up.  To get him the hell out of this town.  But it’s hard to keep your kids from getting tangled up with the wrong crowd in a small place like this.  I don’t believe what he believes.”  She took a deep breath.  “And I’m still happy to get y’all to the train.  Matter fact, I’ll even make the three-hour drive to the airport if you’d like.  To make amends for my idiot boy.”

Nina straightened only when Jack did, groaning, as he stood tall.  “Yeah, well, you and your racist asshole son can keep your racist asshole ride.”  She tugged at Jack’s arm, pulling him away.  “And we’re not paying for your bullshit food, either.  Shit wasn’t even good.  Come on, Jack.”

Jack let Nina tug him away, still holding the ice to his eye.  When they were out of earshot, he gave her a look.  “How the hell do you expect us to get to a train now?”

“I don’t know.  What I do
know is that we’re not taking anything from those white devils.  Now stop ruining our dramatic exit.”

A few hundred feet into their
dramatic exit
, the diner was nothing but a speck in the distance, but Nina was still on a rampage, kicking at the grass under her feet as she moved.

“Fuck her and fuck her ride,” Nina roared, jabbing her finger toward the diner.  “That was
her
son back there.  Who the hell do you think taught him to be that way?  He wasn’t born with those inbred, redneck, mayonnaise monster tendencies.  Someone
taught
him to be that way.  Just because she says she didn’t doesn’t make it true.”  Nina huffed as she retraced their steps from earlier in the day, hearing Jack’s shoes crunching into the grass behind her.  “Besides, I have a better idea.”

“All due respect, that doesn’t bring me very much confidence.”  Jack made a face when she turned to him.  “And did you just say
mayonnaise monster
?”

“You can keep that one,” she said, pointing to the smile he was trying to hide.  “Free of charge.  Now come on.  I have an idea.  Trust me.”

***

Minutes later, they sat at the edge of the train tracks with Jack’s long legs stretched out on either side of Nina, and Nina between them with her legs crossed Indian style. The high noon sun blazed down without relent, sending dots of perspiration collecting across their foreheads, the bridges of their noses and all over their bodies as they passed the rapidly melting ice pack, back and forth.

“Thanks for sticking up for me back there,” she said.  “Guess he got you pretty good, huh?”

“I’ll be alright.”  Jack winced around the ice as he readjusted it over his eye.  “You should see the other guy.”

“Yeah, I
saw
the other guy.  Hardly able to hobble away like the coward he is after you busted him right in his big fat mouth.  I’ve never seen you so alive.  No idea you had it in you.”

“Expect an invoice within the week.”

She howled.  “If I’d known there was a charge for your services, I’d have clocked him in the mouth my damn self.”

He pushed his tongue against the inside of his cheek, passing her the ice pack.

Nina watched him wince, concluding he’d found yet another injury.

“We look like a couple of goddamn degenerates,” Jack mumbled, shaking off the water that had dripped down his arm.  “Like a domestic disaster.”

She pressed the pack her eye, squinting against the dull sting that permeated her skull the moment she did.  “At least whoever sees the two of us will know not to fuck with us.  They’ll assume you’re a man who beats his wife, and that I’m the wife who beats back.”

Jack’s lips tightened, and he looked away.

“It’s just a joke,” she mumbled, seeing his rapid change in demeanor.

“Yeah, well, it’s not funny.”  He cut a look at her.

“You’re the one who said we look like a domestic disaster.  You started this line of
joking
conversation, not me.”

“And now I’m ending it.”

She sighed.  “You and I are still in that place where we really don’t know a damn thing about one another, you know.  It’s going to take time to learn each other’s hot buttons, what makes each other tick.  It’s not really fair for you to get mad at me for accidentally pushing a hot button I didn’t know you had.”

Jack laughed into the distance.  “We aren’t going to be in each other’s lives long enough to learn what makes each other tick.” He looked back at her.  “As soon as we get back to New York, we will say our goodbyes and never see each other again.”

“This morning you had us saying goodbye at the train.  Now we’re saying goodbye in New York?  Have I been promoted?”

He laughed in his belly but didn’t let it reach his lips.

“Why do you do that, Aries?  Why do you act like you want to be away from me so badly, away from the world, yet you’re not willing to do a damn thing to actually make it happen?  According to you, there are at least four people walking around out there somewhere who would wire you more than enough money to get you back to New York
right now,
but instead, you’re sitting on the edge of the train tracks in the middle of Naziville USA—with me—praying that another train passes so we can hitch a free ride to wherever it’s going.”  She pulled his phone out of her bag and lugged it at him, watching him rear back as it hit his chest.  “If I’m so unbearable, if I’m such a natural disaster, if we’re just going to chuck the deuces the moment we land in New York, then why wait?”

Jack looked down at the phone, which was face up and gleaming under the sunlight, but didn’t pick it up.  “You’re not… completely unbearable.”

“You’ll have to forgive me if I’m not flattered by that half-assed compliment.”

He stood, brushing the dirt and grass off his pants before turning his back, shoving his hands in his pockets.

Nina watched him pace.  “Are you going to wait until we fall off the edge of another train, until we go down with another plane, or until we collect two more black eyes to match the ones we already have?  What’s it going to take for you to end all this, Jack, since that’s what you want so badly?”

“What’s it going to take for you to end all this?  You’re the one carrying that huge wad of money in your bag—which is the most stupid thing a person could do by the way.  Have you ever heard of a checking account?”

“I need this money!” she cried, clutching the bag at her side, eyes falling to the grass. “I need every last dollar.  Otherwise, yes, I would’ve bought us
both
a plane ticket home a long time ago.  I’m already down…” Her head fell.  “I’m already down a hundred from paying for that hotel room last night.”

“I didn’t ask you to pay for that room.  I didn’t ask you to do me any favors.  All I’ve ever asked of you, Nina, from the moment we met, was to be left alone.  All I want to do is get to New York, close the door to my house, and be
alone. 
But you can’t hear that.  You won’t hear that.”

She cringed up at him.  “You’re such an asshole.”

“And asshole who just took a Nazi fist to the face for you.”

“And I took a shoe to the face for you,” she cried.  “Your shoe! What else you got?”

Jack’s breathing picked up, making his chest heave.  “I can’t call my family, alright?  I would rather fall off the edge of ten more trains, take ten more fists to the face, and spend ten more years of my life enduring this sick karmic punishment with you than… than ever call them.”