Mercury Striking (The Scorpius Syndrome #1)(17)

A burning truck at the edge of the vacant lot set the surrounding weeds on fire, and the smell of charring metal corrupted the air. Several other vehicles flanked the burning one, with men firing from the other sides. The empty apartment building rose behind them, silent and dark. “What the fuck?” he muttered.

Automatic weapon fire pinged against the nearest van. Wyatt ducked, his weapon out. “They sent in a truck to explode.”

Jax jerked his head, his gaze focusing on Wyatt. “They wasted fuel like that? How much?”

“Too much.” Wyatt coughed. “Your boy isn’t thinking.”

“We don’t know it’s Cruz.” If it was Cruz, and he’d wasted so much fuel, he was using meth again. Without question.

“Yeah. We do.” Wyatt shifted over and pointed. “Check out the carcass.”

Dread dropping like lead into his gut, Jax peered through a broken window at the Twenty symbol painted and burning on the side of the Mazda. His old gang. “Fuck.” He checked his clip and yelled out, “Cruz? What the hell?”

The weapon discharge ended. “Mercury? That you, buddy?”

“Who the fuck else would it be?” Jax loosened his hold on his weapon and took a deep breath. If he had to end Cruz in front of everyone, he’d do it. “What do you want?”

“The medical supplies and guns. All of them.” Cruz sounded closer, as if he’d stood up. “Take a look at what I can give to you, hermano.”

“You and I have never been brothers.” The words felt false, cut like a knife. At one point, Jax would’ve died for Cruz without hesitation. Things had changed. Jax stood, and his gut froze. “Shit.”

Cruz smiled, angled to the side of a truck, his arm wrapped around a teenage girl’s chest, his Ruger 23 pointed at her temple. Tears streaked down the girl’s pale face, mingling with dirt. Terror filled her blue eyes. “I have something of yours.”

Snyder’s kid. Haylee had gone scavenging earlier that day. “He’s got Snyder’s kid,” he said to Wyatt.

Wyatt groaned and stood, his gun pointed toward Cruz. “Remember? She was part of the group scouting earlier in local businesses. Didn’t even know she didn’t make it back.”

“I remember.” Jax kept his gaze on his old friend and not the girl. “We need better procedures in place.”

“No shit. We need more people in general.” Tace crab-crawled to his other side, still wearing his combat gear. As usual, he’d probably spent all day in the lab and hadn’t bothered to sleep or change. “What’s the play here? That prick won’t really kill a kid, will he?” He stood, set his elbows on the van, and pointed his weapon toward Cruz, who stood at the edge of the vacant lot with the girl.

The attackers hid behind cars they’d driven into the abandoned lot. Maybe the cars still had gas.

Jax studied Cruz across the distance. Olive skin, gang and kill tats along his neck, lines of experience too hard for the face of a thirty-four-year-old. His former buddy had had a rough life on the streets and behind bars. “Yeah. He’ll kill her.” Hopefully he hadn’t done anything else to her yet, but it wouldn’t surprise Jax. “Stop hiding behind a little girl,” he yelled.

Cruz smiled and nuzzled his nose into the kid’s hair, his mouth moving as he whispered something.

She answered him, fear all but shooting from her eyes, but the crackle of fire covered her voice.

Cruz nodded. “She’s not so little. Sixteen, apparently. There was a time, brother, when we fucked our way through sixteen-year-old girls.”

Jax settled into kill mode. “We were in the tenth grade, asshole. Now you’re just a pervert with a gun.”

“And you’re a coward who ran.” Cruz must’ve tightened his hold, because the girl cried out, tried to struggle, and then quickly stopped. “Away from home, away from us, and decided to act like a soldier boy. While I did time.”

“You deserved time.” A snap of a board springing loose caught Jax’s attention, but he didn’t turn. If he had to guess, he’d say Lynne had just uncovered his window to watch the action. If anybody saw her, he’d kick her ass. “It was your third offense, and you fucking deserved to go away.” The prick had shot at a defenseless shopkeeper.

Cruz grinned, and a gold front tooth glittered in the sun. “You half-breed piece of shit. I should’ve never allowed you in Twenty. Jax Mercury. A boy with a white daddy who probably paid for your mama’s cunt. You have a made-up name.”

Yeah, and he’d earned it. The second he’d been born, his mama had changed her last name to Mercury, giving them a family name that sounded strong. “You’re boring me. Let the girl go, and I won’t blow off your head.”

Forces of three, guns drawn, spread out alongside Cruz. Some former Twenty members, others from rival gangs. Jax’s chin lowered. Apparently Cruz had discovered how to bridge the gap and combine forces. With everybody but him. “I don’t like you, and you don’t like me, but we have the numbers to work together against Rippers and whatever else is coming.” He didn’t like it, but he’d do it, and then he’d probably kill Cruz. The bastard deserved to die.

“Work with a traitor?” Cruz tangled his fingers in the blonde’s hair and jerked back, exposing her jugular. She cried out and went up on her tiptoes.