Jack Thompson's Arc

Chapter 16 of 25

Jack pushed off the curb and limped hard down the street. His leg screamed. The trail was cold, but his head was hot. He couldn't think about Owl, about 13, about Amelie, not with boots landing soft behind him. Eight was back up. Eight was coming. He cut toward a small cafe with warm windows, hoping for a wall to put his back against. He never reached the door. The air popped. The streetlight ahead of him crashed down, pole snapping clean, lantern bursting on the stone. Eight stood beside the wreck, blade already drawn. They hadn't run. They had skipped the distance entirely. "You come back through me," Eight said. Jack swung Lady Luck up. The reels spun. He fired low and the shot bent under the blade and clipped Eight's hip. Eight stepped in anyway. The blade came down. Jack threw a card into the wrist and the blade went wide. He drove the shotgun stock into the white eight on the helmet. Eight staggered. Jack fired again, point-blank, and the reels chose the shoulder. Eight went down on one knee, then onto their back, blade ringing on the stone. Jack stood over them, breathing ragged, bridge held steady, Blackjack quiet behind his ribs. He kicked the blade away. "What is your deal with me," he said. "Why this hard. Why now." Eight tilted the helmet up. From inside their coat they pulled a folded dossier and let it fall open on the pavement. A red circle. Five stars. Three sharp question marks. "Yours," Eight said. "Five. Mine is four." A pause. Flat. "I have never missed. Until you." Jack almost laughed. Pride. That was all. A number on a page. "Doesn't matter now," Eight said. They didn't move to rise. "One is coming. One is five too. You won't outrun him." Their helmet tipped back against the stone. "I'm just the consequence. He's the next one." Jack picked up the dossier. The paper was warm. Somewhere down the street, a heat he couldn't see yet was already bending the air. He had won the fight. He had bought himself minutes. He turned and limped, faster now, into a street that already belonged to someone worse.