Wild Wind: A Chaos Novella (Chaos #6.6)(7)

So yeah.

No hesitation.

He waded right into that.

Fuckin’ A.

In both ways he could mean that.





Chapter One



Touché



Jagger



The kid took a turn at the end of the block, and Jag took that turn on his bike.

He passed the kid, pulled up into a drive to cut him off, and to avoid Jag, the kid jetted right into the street.

Fuck.

Jag parked quickly, swung off and saw A racing across the street, following him.

In his motorcycle boots, Jag took off after her.

It was good he did.

She was losing steam.

The kid was not.

Jag passed her, sparing her a glance as he did, through which she wheezed, “Thief.”

Shit.

Great.

He kept motoring.

The kid was twelve, maybe thirteen, he had a little extra weight and was carrying a backpack, but he was twelve, thirteen.

He had legs that could go forever and the same kind of energy.

He darted around another corner, then, halfway up that block, he shot into an alley.

Jagger followed.

Bad luck for the kid, someone was moving, and the alley was plugged by a massive truck it wouldn’t be easy, even for the kid, to get around. Jag didn’t know how they got that behemoth wedged back there in the first place.

But there it was.

The kid decided to double back and take a shot at evasive maneuvering, but as he tried to cut past Jagger, Jag caught him by the backpack.

The pack was important, he knew this because the kid wasn’t losing it. He grabbed hold of the straps and twisted vigorously to get away from Jagger. In order not to lose hold, Jag had to catch him by the back collar of his shirt.

That was when the kid started shouting.

“Help! I’m being attacked! Pedo! Pedo!”

“Cool it, kid. I know more cops than hopefully you’ll meet in your life, and they know me, so trust me. That’s never gonna fly,” he advised.

Desperate times called for desperate measures, apparently.

“Help!” the kid kept shouting, pulling at Jag’s grasp. “Pedo! Pedo!”

At this point, A rounded the corner, jogged up to them, stopped about four feet away and immediately went hands to knees, head bent, her long black hair falling forward, her torso moving as she hauled in deep breaths.

“Shit,” he heard her rasp. Then her head jerked back, hair flying, and she squinted at the kid. “You little turd.”

“Fuck you,” the kid spat back.

Hmm.

No.

“What’d I hear you say?” Jagger asked.

The kid looked up at him. “Fuck you too.”

In an effort at control, Jag turned his attention to A.

“What we got here?” he asked.

She sucked in another big breath before she straightened and stated, “He’s a thief, and that’s why he’s no longer in the group. He was kicked out. But until now, it was never big. Cash register stuff. Candy. Gum.” She homed in on the kid and her eyes narrowed again. “Today, it was big. You take off with what you grabbed, I lose out and my consigner loses out and it’s never been cool, Mal, you lifting stuff. It’s really not cool now.”

The group?

What did that mean, the group?

“I didn’t take that shit you said I took to get me kicked out of group in the first place,” Mal retorted.

“Brother, I saw you do it with my own eyes,” A shot back.

“Did not.”

“Did too.”

“Did not!”

“I did!”

Christ.

To move this along, and stop the back and forth, Jag waded in. “What’d he take this time?”

A turned her gaze to him.

“Game controller bundle. Never been used. It’s worth two hundred bucks,” she shared.

Keeping a hold on the kid, Jag jostled the backpack.

“That bundle in here, kid?” he asked.

“You shouldn’t be touching me, and you can’t search me,” Mal sniped. “Let me go and fuck off.”

“Language, bro,” Jag replied.

“Fuck you, bro,” Mal returned. Jag sighed and turned his attention back to A as Mal lost it and shouted, “Let me go!”

Jag again looked down at the kid, saw his grip had loosened on his straps, and said, “Sure,” let his shirt go but did it stripping him of his backpack.

“Hey!” he cried, whirling and jumping on Jag as Jagger held it high and out of the kid’s reach.

Jagger ignored him and asked A, “You want me to look in it or you want it?”

“Give me my pack! You can’t take my pack! You can’t search my pack!” the kid shrieked, still jumping on Jag.

“Everything cool here?”

Jagger turned and saw the movers were now in the mix.

“Yeah. It’s cool. This kid stole a game controller from my girl here,” he told them, jerking his head to A.

The movers looked from Jagger, who was in jeans, a black tee, and a motorcycle club cut, to A, who was wearing a T-shirt with The Blob movie poster on it, a high-waisted corduroy miniskirt, white ankle socks and Doc Marten Mary Janes.

The movers visibly relaxed.