Three Weeks On The Road Ch 19

Author's note:

This chapter of 3WotR contains no sexual activity. If that is your motivation for reading, please check back next week.

This chapter does contain a brief scene of violence. If you are sensitive to this topic, I would advise you to skip this chapter.

As always, thank you for reading, voting, and all your feedback.

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I rolled out from under Jessie's arm early the next morning and slithered off the bed, dressing quietly in shorts and t-shirt in the darkness. I was dog tired but ready to get the day started. I shut the door to the bathroom quietly, turned on the light, and gathered up the still-damp clothes into bags. Before we could get out of here, these had to go through the drier.

"Going somewhere?" Jessie asked mischievously as I exited. She and McKenna - both gloriously nude - were waiting for me by the hotel door.

"Yeah, gonna go do your laundry."

"Breakfast first?" McKenna asked hopefully. "Or you could come back to bed with us..."

"Tell ya what. If we can get everything dried, I'll take us all out for breakfast, and we can do a couple hours shopping. The Rockies aren't THAT far away."

"Even Taco Johns?"

"If you can find one, I'll buy you breakfast there."

McKenna sprinted off to her duffel bag to get dressed, and Jessie gave me an amused look before leaning in to give me a peck on the cheek. "I love you."

"I love you too."

With three people running the clothes driers, we were done in about an hour. It took us another hour to pack, and then we hit the hot Driver streets to look for food.

As usual, the sidewalks were packed, sounds of people talking and vehicles and somewhere a jackhammer filling the air. The air was hot and muggy and the sun shown down into the concrete canyon with an almost radioactive harshness, the edge taken off only slightly by a mild breeze rippling the leaves on the median-planted trees. Despite the awesome scenery ahead of us today, I wanted to stay. The blue sky over the tips of the buildings beckoned, promising beautiful urban sights, visions of man's awesome accompaniments, and a wonderful sweaty hike through the metropolis. I felt nostalgic for the city, oddly. Yeah there were some painful memories here, yeah I was looking forward to putting on my Sig again, but I'd enjoyed walking these sidewalks every day.

The women would occasionally run ahead to look for suitable restaurants, and I hung back watching them act like teenagers and basking in the unhurried feelings of sunshine and a day with little to do. It seemed like time had allowed just to allow me to experience this moment stretching on and on.

I got a couple of breakfast burritos at Taco Bell and munched on them while we walked. I couldn't tell what the big deal was - McKenna had refused the Bells breakfast, holding out for Johns. Oh well. Beautiful day.

There was a Taco Johns wedged in between a clothing store and a bowling alley in the Denver Pavilions, and I inhaled the scents of grease and potato while McKenna ordered and ate.

"Fuuuuuck..." the little programmer groaned around a mouthful of food as she read her email.

"What?"

"I gotta package up and transfer my code and a bunch of other shit within a week of getting back home, then verify with the other team that it's all off my system. I'm gonna be BUSY. Fuck!"

"Yeah, but think about how much money you made."

"That's still not settled yet. Harper is staying behind to do more negotiating."

"Still, it's gonna be a more than a few thousand dollars."

Her grin could only be described as "shit-eating."

"Could I go get a bagel and some coffee?" Jessie asked politely.

"Sure, where did you have in mind?"

"There's a Barnes and Noble just across the way. I'm just feeling like some really sweet iced coffee this morning."

"Stay up too late partying, young lady?"

She giggled cutely at me. "A bit. It was worth it though."

"Same here," McKenna interjected.

"Let's all go over there when Mickey is done eating."

That earned me a middle finger salute.

The bookstore smelled like coffee and sweets and paper. It was mostly deserted at this time of the morning, and Jessie got her coffee in record time. We wandered around the upstairs looking at books and what seemed like a bizarre number of toys and games while she drank and chewed.

McKenna found me in nonfiction, looking at South American history. "Jess said to tell you she and I are going to look at magazines."

"Ok."

I pulled out a book on Argentina, leaned against a shelf and started thumbing through, looking for the section on their monetary collapse. A friend of mine had traveled there after school, and the nation fascinated me.

Three chapters later, I wandered over to books on tape. I'd need a new one for the drive. Baldacci, Correia, O'Reilly, Child... What did I want to listen to?

My phone rang and I pulled it out - saw it was Jessie - and answered. "Hey."

Her voice was panicked, and her words turned my blood to sluggish ice water. "We should go, your parents called and want us to come over for dinner."

My parents died in a car crash at the same turnpike where I got my arm shredded in a gunfight three years later. Jessie and I reference each other's parents as a code for trouble - mine are dead, her dad is dead, and her mom hasn't spoken to her in more than ten years.

"Where are you, exactly? Safe?"

"Magazines, downstairs. Safe until they come in here..."

"Moving."

My heart started slamming that ice water around my body, and I jogged to the escalator, took it down two hammering steps at a time.

There was a crowd of people gathered at the entrance, some enterprising souls dragging a heavy bookcase across the doorway. I scanned the wide sales floor for Jessie and McKenna. There, back by magazines in the corner. I approached, and noticed Jessie had her extendable baton in one hand, her Skean Dhu held in a reverse grip, blade behind her wrist. "You guys ok? What's going on?"

"Yeah. Look outside."

I glanced out the wide ground-level windows. Smoke drifted past. Across the street, two men in black jackets were kicking a guy on the ground. More people ran past the window windows as I watched. Overhead, someone, the store manager probably, made an announcement that I didn't catch. The sound of it dragged me back inside though.

"Cmon, we're leaving." I started heading for the exit sign at the back of the sales floor.

"Seriously? We're going out there?" McKenna sounded incredulous. And panicked.

"Yeah. I'm not gonna be trapped in a killbox with nothing to defend myself with but a knife and my swinging cock. We'll sprint to the hotel. Might be another box, but at least we've got guns."

I pushed through the warehouse door, looked around at the stacks of books, located the receiving door. There was a guy with pink hair and gauged ears cowering behind a stack of water and air conduits in the corner. I pointed at him. "Block the door behind us!"

I didn't even wait for a response, just shouldered the door open, stuck my head out to make sure the coast was clear, and then held the door for the two women.

Somewhere, something was on fire. The smell of smoke drifted to us on the breeze. Sirens blared all around, and I could hear faint shouting. I scanned for traffic signs, found one. We were in a parking lot on Fifteenth. Our hotel was just a couple blocks down.

We sprinted down the street, past the cars parked in tree-lined lots, past the cars parked in the street as traffic was held up by...something. People were exiting their vehicles to look down the road, and I got a bad feeling about what was happening. There weren't flashing lights and official vehicles down that way...

The blast sounded like it ripped the world apart. A roiling, ballooning cloud of flame rose from the front of the traffic jam, and overpressure slapped me almost as hard as the wall of sound.

Fuck me.

I pulled Jessie and McKenna to a halt. McKenna looked numb. Dazed. Jessie's hands were shaking, and I looked at mine. Mine were too. "What are we doing?" she asked the frantic in her voice overrode the choked back tears. Almost.

I tuned out the sound of tearing metal, tires, horns. Screaming.

"Not going that way. You OK, Mickey?"

No response, and I shook her shoulder. "Mickey!"

"I'm here."

I glanced around as cars peeled off of the traffic jam and headed down sidestreets, regardless of collisions, glancing or otherwise, horns trying to convey a sense of priority that nobody gave a shit about right now.

"Welton should get us back to Sixteenth. Sixteenth and Stout should get us home. DO NOT lose me. Let's go!"

We sprinted across another parking lot to get to Welton, and my stomach pumped acid into my throat cutting between the parked cars. These fuckheads liked carbombs, and I had to continuously remind myself that there was no percentage in blowing up cars in a deserted lot.

The storefronts and buildings passed in a blur, cars whipping by, the shouting growing louder as we closed on the more pedestrian area. Sirens howled closer now and I marveled at how the day was still beautiful despite the horror. That blue sky...

Sixteenth was a battlefield, and I stopped the girls.

Crowds fought in messy unorganized skirmishes. A firework exploded nearby and we all flinched. Without exception, every voice echoed hate or pain or fear, and I felt helpless, wretched anger.

If it were just me, I'd wade into this scrum and beat my fists bloody on any leather jacket asshole I found, my own safety be damned. But I had two women behind me and I feared I couldn't protect them.

"Stay close to the buildings! We only have two blocks to go!"

"But..." McKenna's chin trembled and she looked like she was going to cry. I felt even madder at the sight. Mad at her for not being stronger, and more logically, mad at the people who'd done this.

"No buts, fuckin' move!"

"Follow me," Jessie shouted at her friend, taking her hand and dragging her after me, more certainty and bravado in her voice than she surely felt.

We skirted the storefronts, people locked inside watching the riot. Runners flowed around us in both directions, going... SOMEWHERE... trying to escape the violence. The fighting was mostly concentrated in the cobbled pedestrian area in the middle of the street, fortunately, and we made progress without being hindered.

Our luck was not to last.

My constant scanning glances caught a guy in a red hoodie break away from a knot of combatants and head towards us, and I felt a dangerous swell of hateful happiness.

He didn't know how to fight, at least not outside of a group.

I did.

He ended up on the pavement.

I heard Jessie scream "GARY!" her voice high-pitched with fear, and I turned to see her advance into the street, baton up as she interjected herself between another group of rioters and McKenna, cowering by a doorway. I took two steps and pain hit my face, my eyes closing reflexively against wet searing heat. I swung blindly with my right hand as my left clawed at my eyes, trying to rub the pepperspray out, succeeding only in rubbing it deeper.

Impact on my side and I turned and swung, my eyelids refusing to crank open even slightly. Impact against my leg, and I staggered. The world was stinging blackness and shouting and punches coming out of nowhere and I couldn't feel any emotion other than vile, brutal anger and worry.

Another impact to my knee and I hit the ground. I shielded my head with my arms as the blows started coming fast and hard, boots and shoes to my sides and chest and gut. I felt presence over me and a fist impact my caged arms. I grabbed that wrist lighting fast and brought my feet up in an instinctive motion, arching my back.

Someone screamed and I grabbed the next leg that struck me and pulled myself up it through the pounding I was taking. Fuck, I still couldn't see.

Legs kicked out again and my head hit the pavement and I felt disconnected, lightheaded. A shoe struck my temple and didn't help. Rage burned white hot in me and I could barely feel the kicks. The only pain I could feel was regret and worry about Jessie and McKenna.

I was gonna die here, and I couldn't save them from the same fate. Three more statistics on this ugly day of Denver street violence.

Something boomed nearby, half explosion, half supersonic punch, and the kicking stopped. I got my hands under my shirt, pulled it off to wipe at my eyes as I clawed to my feet."Leave him alone!" a woman sobbed. "Leave us alone!"

My eyes could open into slits and I saw McKenna heading towards me holding Jessie's revolver. There were tears on her face, and it was screwed up into the ugliest mask of anger and desperation if ever seen. What the fuck?

I forced my eyes wider, grabbed the gun, pointed out at the retreating knot of attackers. Where was Jessie? "Get the fuck outta here! Go!"

She was a few feet away, baton weaving defensively between her and a miniature crowd like a flickering snakes tongue, the Skean Dhu lashing out whenever someone got too close. Her face was cold, shut down. Resigned. I approached from the side and the assholes she was keeping at bay scattered with a storm of profanity.

Jessie's eyes went wide when she saw me. "Gary, are you - "

I cut her off. "We need to move! Let's go!"

The girls kept me standing, one on either side of me, and we staggered hurriedly down the street as violence played out around us. Several times, combatants made a break for us, sensing easy pickings, but a look at the half inch wide hole at the end of Jessie's Colt Anaconda convinced them we were a harder target than we initially looked. The police were nowhere to be seen, probably dealing with the car bombs instead of the brawl in the commercial district. Two more had gone off nearby as we walked, explosions rattling down down the streets, shaking the storefronts. The echoes down the glass and metal and stone hallway of Sixteenth could've come from anywhere. I didn't know if we were walking into a trap or away from one.

The hotel let us in when we flashed our card, the clerks worriedly asking if we needed anything, and I brushed them off as the elevator doors closed. Jessie sagged against my shoulder and I pulled McKenna close with the other arm. "You ok?" I asked quietly in the dead air.

"Yeah." Jessie's voice was equally quiet, and sounded like she was barely holding it together. McKenna just nodded against my chest.

The hotel safe was on the way to the bed and I stopped to key in the combination and retrieve my Sig and magazines, handed Jessie hers. Then I staggered to the bed and sat down. Very little had ever felt as good as that softness.

Jessie dug through my duffel bags until she found the trauma kit I always keep close by, and took it into the bathroom. "Do you need me to help you?" she asked.

"I got it." I levered myself up off the bed as McKenna flopped down on it and turned on the TV, and I l leaned on the wall for support as I made my way to the sink.

My face looked a fucking wreck in the mirror, blood matted and drying in my hair and beard stubble, flaking off my skin. One eye was black and that side of my face was crisscrossed with cuts, turning yellow and purple from the impacts. She gently helped me lift my shirt over my head, and my torso looked the same - shades of ugly bruising. Tentative pats of my chest revealed no broken ribs, and I probed my teeth with the same hesitancy. No emergency dental work needed

"You're a mess," she said quietly.

I chuckled. "That'll happen when you get kicked near to death."

"Let's get you into the shower."

I sat naked in the floor of the shower, Jessie kneeling beside me and gently scrubbing my own blood from my skin and hair, exposing new cuts and contusions and abrasions to the stinging touch of the rag.

I'm tougher than the movie heroes. I don't wince when a woman cleans me up after taking a stoic beating - I'm stoic all the way through. The pain comes later, as my body comes down from the high and tunnel vision of the fight.

The hot pounding water felt good though, and if I'd've been left alone long enough, I could fall asleep right here, against the shower wall. Wouldn't be the first time. My mind flashed back to a northern Minnesota cabin, drunkenly dreaming about one of my students as I sat in a now-destroyed stall.

Jessie finished wiping me down, cleaning all the blood off, cleaning the cuts out. She dropped the washcloth on the floor, watched as it leaked red rivulets across the white grout and down the drain. She sat on the floor in front of me, knees pulled up to her chin and arms wrapped tightly around her legs. I gazed tiredly into her eyes, watched her lips and chin start to quiver, her eyes turning to squints as she fought emotion down. Finally, she just said, "I'm sorry."

"For what?"

"For not getting to you. I couldn't...I couldn't save you. Couldn't even try to help you."

I snorted and my lungs hurt. "That's not your fault. You couldn't. We were in a fuckin' riot."

"I had to choose, in like an eighty-seventh of a second, if I was gonna stand between them and my best friend, or try to help you, and by the time I saw you go down, it was too late."

"It's not your fault, Jess. It's theirs. I was thinking the same thing, I couldn't get to you. It's just the way it works. We were in a battle today. You did nothing wrong. We survived, we're more or less intact, best we can hope for outside that is that we put enough of a hurt on them that the next time they even think about doing something like this, they remember."

She snickered, wiped tears from her eyes. "We did. You snapped someone's arm pretty good, and I think I dented a couple of heads with my stick."

"Gonna have to start calling you Daredevil."

She smiled sadly. "Gary, I..."

"What?"

"I saw you go down, saw you getting kicked, and I couldn't do anything about it. All I could think was 'He's gonna die ten feet away from me. I only got three years with him.'"

"It's ok, Jessie."

"No, it's NOT. I almost lost you today. I had to watch. And it was ugly and scary and I lived too long without you, I can do it again, I just don't want to." She was crying now, the sadness and anger and fear finally forcing themselves out of her body.

"It's over, we're safe. It's ok." I reached out to touch her knee and she tilted her head, grimaced at the memory.

"I remembered sitting in my rocket reading the newspaper after up north, thinking you were dead, and... And I can't take that a second time. I won't do it. If anything ever happens to you... If you die... I'm gonna conjure a way to follow you shortly after. I don't want to live without you."

Her words shocked me, and I hoped they were just depression, just emotion, just fear and tension. I'd been suicidal following my parents' deaths. I never wanted Jessie to feel that alone, that broken, that hopeless.

I took her wrist in my hand and pulled her to me. "It's ok. I'm here. We're safe." I guided her hand to the mass of ugly scar tissue that was my upper right arm. "I'm indestructible. Like the Rooster, ain't found a way to kill me yet."

Jessie chuckled at my reference of one of her classic rock songs and slumped at my side, head on my thigh. Her chuckles turned to sobs, and I stroked her hair as she cried.

"Aren't you glad I took those CNA classes now?" Jessie asked as I looked over her handiwork in the mirror.

"I could've done that," I joked.

"You would've used three ginormous bandaids, and you wouldn't have done it nearly as delicately as I did.

"True." After Florida, Jessie had gotten her certified nursing assistant license, thinking it would teach her to bandage my still healing wounds more effectively. Her nimble, slim fingers had applied butterfly bandages around my face a lot more tenderly than I would've.