Lost World - C.J. Bishop Page 0,1

letters of Axel’s name. “Sometimes a man’s best… isn’t fucking good enough.”

Jax shifted his focus to the tattoo and Clint withdrew his hand. “How long has it been?”

Clint frowned. “Since… what?”

“Since you were last with him.”

“Over a week.”

“Feels like a hell of a lot longer, doesn’t it?”

Clint stared at the small table. “Feels like fucking forever.”

“I know,” Jax whispered.

Facing his newfound ally and friend, Clint said, “When I asked you before how long you’d been here, you said you didn’t know. What’s the true answer?”

Jax sighed and sank into the chair. He leaned forward and dropped his head into his hands. “Two years.” He shook his head. “I guess even when you stop counting—consciously—your subconscious mind still tallies up the days, weeks, months… years. I just stopped paying attention.” He straightened. “I don’t remember the last time I thought about it before you showed up and asked me.”

Glancing into the corridor outside the cell and content no one was nearby, Clint went to his bunk, dug beneath the thin mattress, and retrieved the handgun he’d taken off the dead guard. Stocked with two extra clips—gifted by Cochise—Clint left those hidden while he fashioned a makeshift holster inside his jumpsuit to house the concealed weapon.

“Be careful,” Jax warned. “The warden lets us get away with a lot, but he doesn’t permit us to have firearms. If they find it on you, they’ll know it’s one of theirs and slap you with Willard’s murder. That’s something else they don’t tolerate—attacking the guards.”

“I’ll take my chances.”

Jax stood and followed him to the cell door and halted when Clint stepped through. “How’s this going to end?” He stared doubtfully at the cowboy. “The true answer.”

“Those who deserve to die—will die ugly.” He reached out and gripped Jax’s shoulder. “And those who deserve to live… will live free.”

●●●

“Where the fuck is Willard?” Hallahan fumed. Any second, his head might explode. Cochise would pay to see that. On second thought, he’d rather explode the fucker’s head himself. Hallahan turned on Cochise. “Have you seen him this morning?”

“No.”

“Where is he?”

Crispifying in hell, would be my guess. Maybe getting ass-fucked by the devil’s prickly cock. Cochise suppressed all expressions of amusement. It wasn’t difficult—he was hardly in the jovial spirit. He worried about Clint. The incident with Grace was bad, but the cowboy had found her after the fact. By the time Clint came on the scene, the child was too far gone to comprehend her circumstances.

That wasn’t the case with the little girl from last night. Clint showed up right in the middle of her assault and was forced to watch—helpless to stop the attacker. Too many times throughout his life, the cowboy had been helpless to save a loved one—while forced to watch the horror show. Cochise was genuinely afraid how Clint would process this one in days, weeks, even months to come.

Fuck—how will he handle it today?

In the past, they got rid of the traffickers and rapists—and then they went home. Clint to Axel. Cochise to Kane. The men in their lives eased their pain, quieted the nightmares playing through their heads. They provided an escape from the hell the two men had waded through to save the children.

But this was different. They were stuck in hell. They had to pretend to align themselves with the traffickers and rapists—pretend to be them. But Clint… after last night… could he go back out there without revenge consuming him? Cochise was ninety-nine percent convinced he could. It was that remaining one percent that concerned him.

“Fuck him,” Hallahan barked. “He’s probably passed out in some nigger’s cell with a big black cock still crammed up his ass.” He snapped his fingers at Cochise. “Let’s go. We don’t need him.”

Cochise followed the other guard to the parking area inside the prison walls. Their breath steamed the bitter morning air as they climbed into a small prison bus with heavily tinted windows. Hallahan started the engine and cranked on the heater.

“I fuckin’ hate the cold,” he muttered. “Then again, I hate the heat, too. Summer’s a nasty bitch in Texas.”

Cochise didn’t plan to find out what Texas was like in the summer. If all went as planned, he would be home before Valentine’s Day. It would be his first with Kane and he didn’t mean to miss it.

The van pulled out through the front gate and sped across the barren wasteland. Cochise didn’t like leaving Clint alone in the prison. Jax was there. Gunther. And Ishmael. But they didn’t know