School of Fish (Fish Out of Water #6) - Amy Lane Page 0,121

bleeding from a cut on his head and cradling his own shoulder like it had taken a beating.

But that didn’t stop Jackson from scrambling between the two front seats to the back. He grunted a couple of times, probably from pain, and Ellery got a glimpse of blood running down from his backside, probably from ripped stitches.

But he made it, twisting with a yelp of pain and landing heavily on his bottom so he could roll down his window and stick his head out.

“Hey,” he hollered. “Hey!”

The guy in the back seat of the SUV turned to him with saucer-wide eyes. “Oh my God!”

“Dude, reach over the front seat and steer!”

The guy gaped. “What—”

“Steer, goddammit! Right now we’re the only thing keeping you from veering into oncoming traffic. Now steer. You’re slowing down. Steer until someone can get in and stop you!”

“But… but… the cops!”

The guy was weeping, and Ellery could almost hear Jackson rolling his eyes, even with the blast of wind coming in through the window.

“But… but… but… you should be dead!” Jackson mimicked. “Now steer this piece of shit to the side of the road and get out and deal with the cops.”

And to Ellery’s relief, he did, the buffeting against their own vehicle stopping as the back-seat passenger began to steer to the curb that guarded the grass inset of the Mall itself.

“Slow down and let him pull over,” Jackson told him. “Then go around the circle and catch up with Burton’s friend.”

Ellery’s vision was coming in firework sparklers, but he couldn’t imagine Jackson’s was any better. For a few blissful moments, he just drove, the car screaming in their ears because they wouldn’t scream themselves.

By the time they got around the Mall and pulled off alongside Stanford Park, their engine was starting to smell suspiciously like burning oil, and the steering wheel threatened to break his other wrist. He parked practically perpendicular to the giant school bus that was up against the curb and killed the engine before the car exploded.

“Fuck,” he said weakly, and he felt Jackson’s hand over the headrest, stroking his hair.

“It’s okay, baby,” Jackson murmured. “You did great. You stay here where it’s safe. I’m going to go check on our status and get you an ambulance.”

“You’ll ride with me?” Ellery begged, feeling stupid.

“Couldn’t stop me.” Jackson rubbed Ellery’s cheek. “You were a fucking hero. Man, that was some driving. Now stay put. I’ll be right back.”

“You’re hurt—”

“Yeah, but I was premedicated,” Jackson said, and Ellery could hear his smirk. “I was practically swimming in ibuprofen. When I come down from this high, they’ll see my footprints on the moon!”

Ellery laughed again, and Jackson reached into the center console, digging under the airbag and swearing for a moment. He came back with a water bottle and the ibuprofen, right where Ellery kept it, and Ellery heard him chuckle.

“You’re right, Ellery. It always pays to be prepared. Now, I’ll be right back.”

As Jackson shoved, swearing, against the warped door and then slammed it shut, Ellery could only be amused that he’d thought they’d need his legal expertise, not his driving prowess, when he left the house that morning.

One Last Dirty Stinking Crappie

JACKSON TALKED a good game to Ellery, but he could barely walk. His knee felt dislocated from the pressure on the door, and he knew he was bleeding from his stitches again. His head, neck, and back were on fire, he had blood dripping in his eyes, and he was pretty sure his wrist was sprained.

Ellery’s arm was definitely broken, though, and he’d managed to drive their bustedass vehicle through a high-speed chase. The least Jackson could do was make sure everybody was okay. That didn’t stop him from checking on his gun in his holster, almost groaning when he realized he’d have to reach for it with his bad wrist.

God, let there be people here in better shape than Jackson and Ellery.

Jackson limped around the front of the Infiniti, grimacing at the smell of cooking engine and burned rubber, and stepped up on the curb of the small park. There he found a stunningly handsome African American covert ops officer in bicycle leathers talking to a tallish, pale, dark-haired country boy and an almost seven-foot, bald Russian bear, who all looked like they’d spent the night rolling around in gunpowder.

“You wrecked that nice SUV Sonny made you,” Ace Atchison—the country boy—said as Jackson rounded the corner in front of the school bus.

“Sorry,” Jackson muttered. “Couldn’t be helped. There was this