The three swamp dwellers took them farther and farther into the heart of the bayou, and farther away from both West Lowellton and the area that housed the swampie settlement. The path was labyrinthine, snaking between deep pools of stagnant water, covered with weeds and swamp plants that emitted an even more foul stench than the waters themselves. They crossed tracks of relatively hard earth, covered in moss and grass, and squelched through mud puddles that sucked at the soles of the boots.
Overhead, the sun was beginning to fade into the dusk of early evening, and as they traversed deeper into the swamps, so the thick cover of the trees made the light less and less amenable to ease of travel. They had to stay close on the heels of the three natives in order not to fall into the treacherous quicksand that surrounded them on all sides, ready to claim another victim.
The foliage on the drier sections of the swamp was tightly packed with lobster grass that caught at their ankles, and taller plants that loomed over them, making it hard to cut through the path forged by the natives. It was a path that had been used before. There was enough of the foliage cut back to make it possible for the smaller members of the party to make a rapid progress, but not enough for it to be immediately obvious to the naked eye.
Marissa, LaRue and Prideaux moved quickly and with ease. The companions, exhausted and having to cope with a path that they didn’t know, in darkness, found it hard to match their speed. Only Jak was able to keep pace, and even the albino was finding that it stretched his energy level.
There was no discussion but they were all thinking the same thought: could they trust these three, and whoever else was waiting back at their settlement? True, they had stepped in and helped them drive back the swampies. But they had been ambivalent about Jak’s presence, and even Marissa’s comments about him being sent to them in a time of trial had an edge of suspicion about them…almost as if she couldn’t tell whether this was a good thing.
But in the final analysis, there was little else they could do. If they wanted to move on, they might have had to fight the three and risk being hunted by their compatriots from the settlement; and even if they did manage to part amicably, there was still the matter of having no idea where they could safely camp for the night. If nothing else, these people offered them food, bed and rest.
And right now, that was important—more so than anything else.
Still they continued. It seemed to most of the companions that they were going in circles, seemingly passing the same stagnant pools several times. But Jak knew differently. His childhood and youth had been spent hunting in the swamps, and there were few who knew the land as well as he; right now, he could see that they were headed for a section that was almost dead center. It was the most treacherous area of the swamps, and one that had no settlements of old predark villes anywhere near it. It was a dangerous place to live, but a perfect place to hide.
So what—or who—were these people hiding from?
They arrived at the settlement before they even knew it: a collection of huts and tree houses that clustered around a pool that was about 150 yards in diameter. The pool was fed by a small river that ran in a trickle, and supplied the settlement with as much fresh water as it needed—or, at least, water that they could boil and purify. As they closed in on the settlement, they could see that there were some lamps and small fires going, but these were shielded by opaque materials to make detection from outside almost impossible. Unless you were on top of the settlement, all you would see was darkness by the pool.
There was some noise—voices, some singing, a few babies cries—but it, too, was masked, this time by the natural screen of foliage in which the huts and tree houses were nestled, acting as a natural cushion to soak up the sounds.
“It’s Marissa,” Jak heard one voice announce a little more loudly than the others. It came from off to the left, and as the albino looked around to its source he saw a potbellied man of about fifty step forward. He was holding a Sharps rifle, and it looked highly polished and cared for. He held it casually, barrel pointing down, with both hands. It seemed to be careless, but from the set of his hands Jak could tell that it would take him a fraction of a second to bring it up ready to fire. And his eyes were slits, taking in the procession carefully, assessing any danger that might be present.
“Hey, okay, you put weapons away,” Melissa said to the assembled throng. “They okay—found ’em blasting swampies, gave ’em some help. Fuck, man, they tired and pissed off, and so would you be. Give ’em some slack, let ’em rest up. ’Sides, seen who they got with ’em?”
The companions were now by the side of the pool—lake would be a better description, as its depths were dark and unimaginable, and even though it wasn’t fully dark the far side was now lost in gloom—and it didn’t escape their notice that LaRue and Prideaux had moved surreptitiously into position so that they now flanked the group. With Marissa in front, and the lake behind, that left them fully surrounded.
Not that it would matter too much. The dwellers who were still descending from their tree houses and coming out of their huts were clustering around, and they were all armed. A rough estimate showed that there were around a hundred of them, and all looked less than friendly, if not outright hostile.
“Shit, recognize that little fucker,” one of them said, coming out of the throng. She was a woman a little older than Marissa, and perhaps an inch or two taller, with perhaps an inch or two more on the hips. Other than that, the women looked very similar. Jak recognized her, though it took a second for her name to come back. Luella, that was it. She had been the wife of one of his old hunting companions—Luke, a man he couldn’t see among the others.
“Recognize you,” Jak said blankly. “Where Luke?”
“Bought the farm ’bout two years back. Same as most around here. Not many of us left didn’t get the big chill or go over to the old ways.”
“Old ways?”
“Voodoo, sweetie, or something like it,” she said with a bitter laugh.
“Only ain’t really voodoo, not like we learn it used to be,” Marissa cut in quickly. There was something in her tone that suggested this wasn’t just for Jak’s benefit. “Ain’t no such thing as the old ways, just ways of making the new look like it.”
“Don’t matter whatever you call it, still works,” Prideaux growled.
Marissa shot him a black look. “Only ’cause he feeds them full of shit so they don’t know what they’re thinking,” she snapped back impatiently. “How many times have to tell you that?”
Ryan held up his hands, partly to stop them and partly to show to the twitchy settlement dwellers that he was unarmed. “Hey, c’mon… Listen, we don’t even know why we’re here, let alone what you’re talking about. Mebbe if you started at the beginning, then—”
“Ask Jak,” Luella butted in, “ask him what. But he won’t be able to tell you ’cause he don’t know. Don’t know ‘cause he fucked off with you and left us to it,” she spit out angrily. There was a mumble of agreement from the crowd.
“Shit, you people so stupe,” Marissa said in an exasperated tone. “Don’t you see that him coming back is a sign?”
“Two things that are bothering me, John,” Mildred whispered to J.B. as Marissa spoke. “First is that I don’t know what they’re so wound up about, and the second is that Jak isn’t exactly Mr. Popularity around here.”
Before the Armorer had a chance to reply, Marissa’s voice cut across everything.
“Listen—least we can do is give ’em food and shelter, then tell ’em what’s happened. Mebbe Jak’ll want to help.”
“Yeah and mebbe he’ll fuck off like before,” Prideaux growled, glowering at the albino.
But the tattooed man’s warning was ignored by the people. After a brief discussion among those who were the elders of the settlement, including the man with the Sharps who had first spotted their arrival, they were shown to one of the tree houses, which was vacated by the woman and child who were living there. Before they were taken to their billet, they were stripped of their blasters by LaRue and Prideaux. They also took J.B.’s canvas bags with the ammo and plas ex, his Tekna and Ryan’s panga. They overlooked the scarf wrapped around his neck, which was weighted at the ends to form a garotte if wielded correctly. They also left Jak with his patched jacket, failing to remember or to recognize that it contained his leaf-bladed throwing knives.
“You stay here. Zena and Kyle will stay with me,” Marissa said as she led them up the rope ladder and into the rickety construction. Inside, there were a few sticks of furniture, but the house—only fourteen by fourteen—was sparse, with only the doorway, covered by an old screen door taken from a suburban house, and a small chimney hole in the ceiling for ventilation and light. The light itself was provided by a small tallow lamp in one corner, which cast long shadows over the far wall and ceiling.
It was going to be a tight squeeze to fit all six of them in, and as the tree house was really only built for three or four at most, all of the companions were worried about the structure taking their weight. Mildred voiced this.
Marissa response was to laugh. “Shit, you lucky if that’s all you get. Some of ’em down there want to chill you now, in case you come from him. So you lucky you got somewhere. Don’t argue ’bout it. Up here, you easy to guard. Wait now, and I get you when it’s time to eat.”
“One thing, my dear,” Doc said hurriedly as she turned to go. “You keep talking about ‘him’ as though it should be someone we know. But I, for one, have no idea what you mean by this.”
“I believe you,” she said softly, “and mebbe a lot of others. But hard to trust anyone from outside since it started. Long, long story. You hear it when you eat, okay?”
“Great. Why do I get the feeling it might just give me heartburn?” Mildred muttered as Marissa disappeared out the tree house door and down the rope ladder. “And another thing—what the hell do they have against Jak?”
The albino smiled wryly. He knew only too well why he was resented by many of these people, and while they waited he told Mildred about his previous life in the bayou, and how he had met Ryan, J.B., Krysty and Doc. He continued by detailing how his father, who had led the resistance against Baron Tourment, had been tortured and chilled before they’d had a chance to eradicate the sick baron and his regime. He also told her why he felt they resented him. With his father gone, in many ways he was the next natural leader: certainly, he had the necessary combat and hunt-honed skills to be a baron. But instead of taking the reins, he had opted to leave the bayou and travel.
Without him, this—whatever it may be—had happened. Maybe it would have with him still around. Who knew? But obviously some of the residents of the settlement felt that he could have made a difference, and that he had betrayed them by leaving.
“Well, that’s gonna make dinner a whole lot of fun, isn’t it?” Mildred said dryly when he had finished.
They didn’t have to wait long to find out. Just long enough for them to begin to settle and for Doc to fall off to sleep. They were discussing what options they had open to them—whichever way they looked at it, it always added up to wait and see—when LaRue pulled his barrel-chested frame over the lip of the doorway.
“Hey, stop making stupe plans you got no hope of carrying out and come down,” he said roughly. “Marissa made sure you get to eat, and get to hear what’s going down. Then you get to decide.”
“Decide what?” Ryan bristled, having already decided that he and LaRue would come to blows—regardless of the rest of the settlement—if the sec man continued in this way. Even as he thought it, Ryan realized that it wasn’t like him to be so hair-trigger. Had to be the fatigue. He’d have to watch that carefully.
Oblivious to Ryan’s train of thought, LaRue continued. “You gotta decide whether you with us, or we find some way of getting rid of you.” He leered at them then disappeared from view.
“Guess we’d better make our way down. Pity we couldn’t dress for dinner,” Mildred remarked, continuing her own private joke, even if it was lost on the others.
Except perhaps for Doc. “Hardly the right standard for white tie and tails, I would have said,” he murmured, tapping on the floor with his silver lion’s-head cane. As with Jak’s patched jacket and Ryan’s scarf, he had been left with the seemingly innocuous cane, the settlement dwellers not realizing that nestling within was a blade of the finest honed Toledo steel. Therefore, they could muster some blades between them, and maybe the scarf would be useful for swiftly and silently eliminating a guard whose blaster could be taken. But in truth, they didn’t have enough weapons to really mount an escape.
Not a feasible one, not until they were sure it was necessary.
One after the other they descended the rope ladder until they were all under the watchful eye of LaRue, Prideaux and another pair of sec men. One of these had one eye, like Ryan, except that his scar ran across the bridge of his nose and down, dragging his lip into a permanent sneer beneath his eyepatch. At least it distracted from his protruding gut and drooping chest, which were covered in thick, coarse black hair.
The other guard looked a little like Prideaux. He, too, had tattoos and a ponytail, except that he was less lithe, more muscular across the chest and shoulders. Both men were carrying remade Sharps rifles, and both in that deceptive manner, with the blaster pointing down but the grip right for a quick aim and fire.
“C’mon, let’s go,” Prideaux grunted, leading them across the shore of the lake, past a couple of huts, until they came to one that was larger than the others. Sounds of discussion crept out through the half-open door, a thin sliver of light cast across the shore toward the water.
“In,” Prideaux snapped, moving around them, keeping his blaster down and pulling the door open to allow them entry.
Inside, the room was hot, lit by tallow lamps and filled with steam rising from the wooden platters that were lined up on the table that centered the room. Fillets gumbo, black-eyed peas, some kind of pumpkin that had a strange pink tint to it, sweet potatoes, and hunks of meat that looked like it might be pork were piled high on the platters. Despite the severity and uncertainty of their situation, the smell of the food reminded them that they had eaten little else but self-heats for several days, and it was all they could do, in this relatively relaxed situation, to concentrate on what was about to happen.
Because, much to their surprise, the atmosphere from the people within the shack was far more congenial than they had expected. Certainly, it was a giant leap on from the hostility they had encountered on their first arrival.
Marissa was there, as was the man Jak had seen on their way in. He was reserved when he was introduced, but certainly less hostile. His name was Beausoleil, which Jak recognized. The man had known his father back in West Lowellton, and they had worked together to try to build the resistance. Jak could see why Beausoleil would see his leaving as a betrayal, no matter what his true reasons.
Marissa bade them to eat, and they did so. It wasn’t until they began to pile their plates with the steaming food that they realized how long it had been since real food—not self-heat chem-processed garbage—had passed their lips. They noticed that the settlement dwellers also ate hungrily. It was puzzling, a sign that all was not as it seemed. Doc stopped, a quizzical expression crossing his face, and watched for a while before speaking.
“I can understand why we are so hungry, and yet you, too, eat as though you had been starving.”
Beausoleil stopped, openmouthed, for a moment, and shot a venomous glance at Marissa before answering. “Some say that we should use a lot of stocks to impress you. Some say that you help us fight Dr. Jean if you think we have much to offer. Some do not realize that if we lie to you like this, we cannot lie to our own stomachs.”
“You mean to say that you’ve been rationing your food to make it last, and now you’re blowing it on making yourselves look good to us?” Mildred asked in amazement. “Are you people crazy?”
Marissa threw her plate at Beausoleil and turned her dark eyes, flashing fury, on Mildred. “Crazy? It crazy to want to live free and not hide? It crazy to risk a few less days with food or get a sec force that can smash Jean and his stupe ville? That can free everyone so we can go back to what was before, mebbe even make something better? Yeah, then crazy it is. But stupe old bastards like him more crazy if they want to die like rats slinking in the mud,” she added, directing her glare now to Beausoleil.
“Things not that bad,” Prideaux said, spitting onto the floor of the hut. “Could be worse. We free, we hunt and so if we don’t catch we make do. How many of us? How can we go up against Jean? Mebbe some people think slinking in mud better than throwing ourselves into firefight we can’t win. Better a live rat than a chilled hero. Or is that what you want, Rissa? You want to be like your pa and be a chilled hero that no one remembers?”
“You stinking bastard…” The woman threw herself at Prideaux, a left haymaker coming around as she landed. It caught him at the temple, and despite the fact that he was heavier than her, she took him down. They rolled on the floor, fighting and yelling curses at each other until two of the other dwellers pulled them apart. Prideaux dusted himself down and smiled slyly.
“Hey, baby, think I could smell your pussy, there… That what it is? Fighting get you hot?”
“Scumfucker. You’ll never find out,” she hissed. It seemed that there was history between the two of them that had colored their spat. And yet to the watching companions, who had been almost forgotten in the exchanges, it seemed as though this kind of infighting would make any kind of action to break out of their hiding place a fruitless task.
Beausoleil had been thinking on similar lines, as he turned to them, raising his voice to be heard above the arguments that had broken out among the others. Eventually, his louder tones—and what he had to say—quieted the arguments around.
“You see why this is pointless? Jak Lauren left the swamp for a good reason—because he knew we were too stupe to survive for long, and weak enough to let some other dipshit baron come in and take over. And that’s exactly what happened. So we waste food trying to persuade him and the ones who took him away to come back and do our shit-clearing for us, ’cause half of us don’t want to do it and the other half are so hotheaded that they would buy the farm as soon as a firefight started.
“Face it, people, we’re fucked whatever way up. We fight among ourselves, and soon Dr. Jean is gonna find where we are and come for us. And when he does, some of us are gonna buy the farm and some of us are gonna get in line and worship his ugly fat ass. Just gotta make your minds up which.”
He walked up to Jak so that he was staring him in the face, so close that Jak could feel his hot breath. The albino stayed impassive and unblinking.
“You should never have come back, son,” Beausoleil said softly.
Then, turning to the rest of the now silent room, he added, “We’d be better off giving up or chilling. This isn’t any way to live.”
Slowly, and with no sign of the pent-up anger that had spurred him, he turned and walked out of the hut, pulling the door closed behind him.
He left a room that was silent. The settlement dwellers didn’t know what to make of his outburst—particularly, in the case of Marissa, as it blew any chance she had of showing a united front to the companions; and the companions were left to digest the implications of what he had said.
They were in a small settlement that had little food, and seemed to be in disarray, with a split over whether they should fight the new baron, and even if they should request the help of the strangers. Come to that, the companions knew nothing about this new baron and his far-reaching powers beyond the fact that he used some kind of voodoo—or something that traded on the old ways—and that he seemed to have had little trouble in sweeping his way through the Bayou.
Which made him a formidable enemy to watch out for whether they stayed to fight, or decided to move on and find the redoubt.
The first thing they had to do, though, was to stop the dwellers arguing among themselves and get some answers that made sense.
“Fireblast! Will you people shut the fuck up?” Ryan yelled over the swell of argument. It worked; they all turned to the companions. Some were just dumbstruck that an outsider had yelled at them in this way. Others were prepared to do something about it. Prideaux raised his blaster.
“Just who the fuck you think you are, telling us what to do?” Prideaux gritted, his temper barely contained.
Jak stepped forward. More than that, he moved across the room with a speed that was startling. Before Prideaux had time to move, Jak had snatched the blaster from his hands and had it turned on him. It sat well in his grasp. It was an M-4000 like J.B.’s, and so Jak was familiar with its weight and workings. Then, with a grin breaking across the otherwise blank features as he saw the sweat begin to spangle the ponytailed warrior’s forehead, Jak emptied the shotgun and let it fall to the floor, useless.
“Think quicker, move faster, know out there better than you. That’s who I am,” he said quietly. He stepped back to let Prideaux bend and retrieve the blaster and its cartridges.
“That’s why you’re the one who can help us,” Marissa said softly. “The only one who can, mebbe.”
“And mebbe we can all help you, if we know what the hell we’re supposed to be up against,” Ryan countered. “So far, you haven’t told us anything that makes any sense.”
Marissa looked around at the four other settlement dwellers in the room. Impressed by Jak’s speed—and the fact that he hadn’t taken out Prideaux when he had the chance—they agreed to her unspoken request. She indicated that the companions should be seated, and then began to speak. While she told them her story, the other dwellers remained silent. It meant either that she had included every detail, or that the others thought her best equipped to speak.
Ryan kind of hoped it was the former. Otherwise they might get a few unwelcome surprises at a later date.
But for now, they listened without questioning her. Her story was long, at times rambling, but answered a lot of the questions they had wanted to ask.
It seemed that soon after Baron Tourment had been routed by the companions on their first trip to the bayou, the entire swampland had descended into internecine warfare. The peoples who had been ruled by Tourment couldn’t come to terms with the different way of living that the rebels from West Lowellton had wanted. It seemed to them too soft after the iron fist of Tourment. The irony being that it took more strength to try to live in a fair society than it did to knuckle down to an oppressor.
So small groups appeared within the populace, all vying for some power over the others. But none of them had a man of the physical and mental stature of Tourment to lead them. Despite the fact that he was a perverted and sadistic lunatic as well as being a giant of a man, he had a great intelligence and an instinctive grasp of gaining and holding on to power. There had never been anyone like him in the bayou before…or, so they thought, since.
But there had been one man biding his time. A man named Dr. Jean. There had been rumors that he had been one of Tourment’s sec men, and had watched and learned from the master. Other rumors suggested that he had come from out of the bayou. If that was the case, then he had picked up the ways and superstitions of the bayou with ease. Whatever the truth, the only thing known about him for certain was that he had suddenly appeared deep in the swamps with this name that no one had heard before, and he soon started to attract followers with his use of voodoo ceremony, and talk of going back to the old ways to go forward into the new—a better world where there would be more of everything.
The old ways were still spoken of, but no one had taken them seriously for generations. The fact of the matter was, when the old world had been eradicated by the old tech of skydark, then the idea of spirits and ghosts vanished. But it meant a chance to dress up and go wild. Perverse sexual rites and blood sacrifice were all part of the “old ways” espoused by Dr. Jean. Rumors also spread that ghosts and demons had been seen at his rites, conjured up by his hand. Perhaps, after all, there was something in the old ways?
It soon became apparent that these were hallucinations caused by the powerful drugs he was giving to his followers. They had the same high and addictive kick of jolt, but were cut with some kind of hallucinogen—like licking a toad’s back or eating the right mushrooms, as Marissa put it.
Even when the secret of the “spirits” became known, people no longer cared. Those who were addicted followed him blindly; others wanted to be part of his ville because he offered them something—no matter what—other than the existence they already had.
As if that weren’t enough, he had another weapon in his armory. Somehow, the reinvented man who became the baron known as Dr. Jean had access to old tech resources. He had comps and other items that were indescribable, but had the effect of subjugating any who may prove “difficult” in his quest to rule the bayou. To the companions, this sounded like some of the brainwashing weaponry developed by the whitecoats of the Totality Concept, which they had encountered along the way. The real worry for the companions was the question of where he had obtained this equipment: did it mean the redoubt they had been headed for was now under the jurisdiction of Dr. Jean, crammed with sec forces? And had he worked out how to operate the mattrans unit?
But that would have to wait. For now, Marissa still had more to tell. For Dr. Jean had a master plan: once he had gathered together the people of the bayou and had them under his control, he planned to use them as an army to spread out and take over the Deathlands, ruling it according to his own ideas of preserving regional purity and building races in each sector that could be used as his tools as his plans grew larger and more ornate.
He sounded insane. But dangerous, for he had power to go with that madness.
“So we have to stop him, ’cause he won’t let us be. If he get more powerful, then we chilled meat anyway. “Least if we go trying to stop him, we go free. No matter what Prideaux say, we not be free for long,” she concluded.
None of the settlement dwellers contradicted her. Instead, they were focused on the companions.
“You expect us to answer without discussing it among ourselves?” Ryan asked in amazement.
Marissa shrugged. “Easy answer.”
“To you, mebbe. No, we talk first among ourselves, then we come back to you.”
He led the companions out of the hut. They didn’t go back to their tree house, but instead walked down to the edge of the lake, where curious eyes followed them from the huts and tree houses around.
“So what d’you reckon, Ryan?” Mildred asked. “It’s a crappy call no matter which way we go.”
“Got that right,” Ryan agreed. “I figure that this Dr. Jean is nowhere near as powerful as Marissa says. Even if he is, he won’t have the manpower once he gets beyond the swamps to do anything. But at the same time, we’re gonna have to get past him to get to the redoubt and get out of here. So mebbe it’ll be better if we have some help—make it of mutual benefit to us all.”
“While I agree with your reasoning on broad lines, my dear Ryan,” Doc mused at length, “I feel we should turn to the good Mr. Lauren for guidance. He knows this area and the people far better than we ever will. So what do you say?” Doc asked, turning to Jak.
The albino shrugged, as unreadable as ever. “Ryan leader. Let him decide.”
With which, Jak turned and walked away into the darkness.
“What’s he really thinking?” Ryan wondered out loud. He felt Krysty’s arm on his shoulder.
“Mebbe he doesn’t know himself, yet. Leave him for a while.”
They let Jak wander off into the darkness. A darkness that was inside him as well as all around. Was this all that was left? The rebels that had fought so hard to defeat Tourment now reduced to a bunch of starving people, fighting among themselves and wallowing in the mud to survive.
JAK KEPT WALKING until he was sure that the settlement was far behind him, then he sat on the rocks by the lakeside, looking out over the featureless darkness of the water. He was trying to reconcile his thoughts and feelings when he heard a noise behind him. In an instant he was on his feet, one of his knives in his hand, balanced for attack.
He only halted himself when he saw that it was Marissa emerging from the darkness.
“Figured you’d find this spot. Only one around here that’s away from the other fuckers, and dry enough to sit and think,” she said, pointedly ignoring the knife, coming up beside him and settling herself on the rocks.
Jak sank down beside her. She was cool enough to be a good fighter when it counted, he figured.
“So what you thinking about?” she asked after a long pause, knowing that he wouldn’t be the one to break the silence. “About how you alone now?”
Jak gave her a sharp glare. “How you figure that?”
She shrugged. “Lost my family to Dr. Jean. Lost my dreams, too. Got nothing except those miserable bastards back there.”
Jak spoke without looking at her, his eyes focused somewhere out in the dark. “Yeah. Figure everything gone. Nothing left inside now. Pa chilled by Tourment, didn’t want to stay. Knew others keep fighting. Knew they carried on. Went, made new life, had family of own. Taken away from me. Bastards pay for it, but not bring back wife, not see daughter grow up…but still had something. Still belonged here, even if not live anywhere near. But now that gone, like tree roots ripped up and tossed aside.”
The words came slowly. Jak couldn’t remember the last time he’d talked that much in one speech, and when he’d let something of what went on inside come out for someone else. But he figured Marissa would understand better than Ryan or the others. She was from here, too.
“So what you gonna do about it?” she pressed. “Walk away ’cause there’s nothing there for you? Or try to get some of it back in some way?”
Jak looked at her, his unblinking red eyes a match for her own dark, fiery orbs in their intensity. “Inside like fire that not stop burning until something done…vengeance not bring back, but it feels good, stops the bastard doing any more shit.”
A sly grin crossed Marissa’s face. “Fuck it, Jak Lauren, I knew you were sent to save us. How else, why else would you be here right now?”
And to Jak’s surprise, she grabbed him and kissed him. It was long and hard. It had been a long time since he had felt a woman this close to him.
“Hey, Jak Lauren—we don’t have to go back and tell the good news right away, do we?” she said as she pulled away from him, lifting her dress over her head. “Shit, can’t do anything else till sun up, anyway.”