“Oh, I think a little hand-holding would be good for all of us right now,” Jester said cheerfully. “It's a holiday, we've all had a very stressful few days, and I think the closeness would do us a world of good. Besides, we have so much to celebrate! I've got my memory stick back, I'll finally get the sweet revenge I've been dreaming about for seven long years—and best of all, you and your girlfriend here will get to spend the rest of your lives together! Short lives, granted, but still, I think all's well that ends well, as your Shakespeare-quoting president would probably say. If he were still alive, that is.”
The words cut through my skull like an axe. I couldn't believe Bard was dead. And it was all my fault. Just like Jewel being here was my fault. I should have kept the Reapers out of all this. I should have just let Jewel run off to the cops after I'd gotten the information I needed from her. I should have fucking died in prison and everyone would have been better off.
“We've got some time to kill before the big light show,” Jester said, “so I'm game for some entertainment. Hey, how 'bout a puppet show? Would you like that?”
“Blow me, you pathetic freak,” I snarled. My words sounded wet, and I realized my nose was starting to bleed again.
“Oh, there'll be plenty of nookie later, sugar plum, don't worry,” Jester laughed. “But first...”
Jester bounded over to a couch next to the chairs, ducking behind it. I heard some light struggling sounds and my eyes flicked over to Jewel's. It looked like she was starting to come out of whatever stupor she'd been in, and she looked scared to death. She was sweating and trembling, and her eyes were silently begging me to get us out of this.
I don't know how, baby, I thought. I'm so very sorry. All this way, all these risks, and all for nothing. You deserved better than that.
I felt my blood burning again. This rage, Jesus, it was like nothing I'd ever fucking felt before. It was like a thousand atomic explosions in my brain—poisoning the soil there with a radiation of hate that wouldn't bake off for a thousand years, so that everything that grew there afterward would come up twisted and ugly.
Bard's head popped up from behind the couch. His skin was pale, his eyes dead and staring. Jester bobbed him up and down from below, causing his mouth to flop open and closed obscenely.
“You know, Bard's lips are still feeling nice and supple. Maybe I should have a little fun with him before rigor mortis sets in, what do you think? I can have Richie here video the whole thing, and then send it to the rest of your Reaper morons. If there are any left, I mean. I heard my fellow Thorns did a pretty thorough job on the ol' Nest earlier when they came to collect Jewel.” He mimed spraying the room with a machine gun, making a “Brrrrt-brrrrt-brrrret!” noise.
The explosions in my brain kept thundering and roaring, relentless, scorching, apocalyptic. More Reapers dead. And all because of Jester. All because of his stupid, stubborn, useless grudge over something that had never even happened. All because of the dumb decisions I'd made afterward.
My need for revenge had been nothing compared to what I felt now.
“You know, you were supposed to be in prison a hell of a lot longer than seven years,” Jester said conversationally, cleaning his fingernails with his razor. “Framing you was just the first act in a grand symphony of revenge. Did you really think I sent those men in Potawatomi to kill you? Of course not! They were people I wanted to be rid of, and I expected you to kill them. That way, every time you'd get close to parole, you'd have to off some guy and you'd get more and more years tacked onto your sentence instead. I wanted you to watch your freedom ooze away a few years at a time until one day, it became a life sentence and you'd hang yourself by your shoelaces or something. But you couldn't even do that right, could you? You had to leave those idiots alive and get out on time.”
Jester pointed his gun at me and walked closer to Jewel, brandishing his blade. “I can't wait for the fireworks. They're going to be lovely, don't you think? All those blues and greens and yellows splashing across the night sky. Of course, I tend to prefer red splashes myself, so I guess I'll have to make some fireworks of my own.”
All over something that never happened, I thought again. So many dead bodies, and all because I dated the wrong girl and she told a lie. It was enough to break my mind, when I thought about it that way. It was almost funny, really.
“I think I'll start with these nice, big, soft tits of hers,” Jester said, his blade drawing closer to Jewel's chest. She started to struggle, but Richie was holding her hands too tightly. “But what should I do with them? Hmm. Some fun arts and crafts project or other, no doubt.”
I laughed.
Through the throbbing in my head and the ringing in my ears and the blood pouring from my nose, through the fear and the hate and the heartbreak and the insanity, I laughed.
Jester stopped in his tracks. His own smile fell from his face immediately and the tip of his pistol lowered a few inches, quivering.
“What are you laughing at?” he demanded.
I laughed even harder. My sides ached, and my head felt like it was trying to contain a supernova. Jewel looked at me like I'd lost my mind. Fuck, maybe I had.
Jester scowled and marched over to me, putting the gun to the center of my forehead. “Stop that!” he yelled. “What's so fucking funny?”
I stopped laughing and looked him right in the eyes.
“Enjoy your fireworks, motherfucker,” I said.
The timer on the window hit zero minutes and zero seconds, and just beyond it, the first firework whistled into the night sky trailing green flames like an emerald comet.
Before the firework went off, there was a series of three sharp bangs on the deck of the yacht, just outside the cabin.
In case Jester didn't fall for our bluff about copying the memory stick, Sperm's back-up plan had been for Boomer to rig the duplicate sticks with explosives. There hadn't been enough time for Boomer to cobble together a whole new remote system to set them off, so he'd had to improvise by setting them to the same remote frequency he'd used when helping to rig up the Fourth of July fireworks. That meant they'd go off at the same time.
The idea was that at least we'd know when they were going to go off, and we could use them accordingly as a last-ditch weapon or distraction. There wasn't much room inside the memory sticks once they were hollowed out—just enough for a dab of Semtex and the remote activator.
But it worked.
I felt Richie's hands loosen around my wrists for a moment as he reacted, surprised. Jester flinched and turned to look in the direction of the blasts.
It was now or never.
I pulled free from Angelo and jumped forward, reaching for the barrel of Jester's gun. My vision was still blurred and my fingertips lightly brushed the gun, just missing it. I landed on the floor at Jester's feet and tackled him around the legs, sending him down in a tangle of limbs. He let out a frustrated yell, trying to kick me off.
I saw Angelo and Richie reaching for their guns, and I knew I had one chance to make this work or Jewel and I were both dead. Angelo would have to be my first target, or else he'd have time to put his gun to Jewel's head. Plus, Richie's wounded shoulder would slow him down, buying me time.
I climbed up Jester's prone body and put my right hand over his gun hand, using my left hand to bat away his straight razor as it slashed at my face and shoulders. I felt the blade sink into my left palm several times as I used my hand to move Jester's gun hand, aiming at Angelo and squeezing the trigger. The gun fired three times. The first shot missed, the second went through Angelo's hand, and the third drilled right through his heart. He dropped his gun and fell backward behind Jewel's chair.
I quickly pivoted and aimed Jester's gun hand at Richie, feeling his razor slice into my face just below my eye. “Get off me, you fuck!” Jester shrieked. “Let go of my fucking gun!”
Richie was just raising his gun to aim it at me. I squeezed Jester's trigger again and two more bullets came out before it clicked empty. Both hit Richie high in the chest and he doubled over, sagging to the floor.
I let go of Jester's hand and turned all of my attention to him just as his razor came at my face again, cutting across the bridge of my nose and up my forehead. I felt the cut and blood started to flow into my eyes. I could barely see through the red haze.
Jester was scrabbling on the floor with me, yowling a long string of cuss words as he swung the blade. I seized his wrist with both hands and we grappled. He delivered a swift punch to my head, then another. The world started to spin and go dark again. I felt my grip on his knife hand weakening. Just a few more seconds and I'd pass out and he'd cut my throat before turning his attention to...
Jewel shoved me aside roughly and brought one of the chairs down on top of Jester, pinning his torso to the floor. The breath left his body in a loud groan, and I heard several of his ribs break. The empty gun fell from his fingers and he flailed his other arm weakly, waving the knife around.
“Kill you...fucking kill you...” he gasped.
I bent down to pick up the gun Angelo had dropped and lost my balance, almost falling over. I took a deep breath to clear my head, then grabbed the gun and straightened up, pointing it at Jester.