Empty Bargains ~Jason McCann~

~9.05...2~

    The shouting began soon after.

    It was so loud I wanted to cover my ears, everyone yelling at the top of their lungs.  I couldn’t make out a single word.  My body was stiff, confused and horrified.  Jason McCann wanted me.

    Sam was suddenly in front of me, eyes wild and hands grasping my shoulders.  “Get upstairs now.”

    I stood for a minute, eyes wide.  If my brother was so panicked about this, Jason must’ve been serious.  Jason wanted me.  Now that everything had gone to hell, I didn’t have to go quietly anymore.  I turned for the stairs and bolted.

    I remembered three years ago, when I was thirteen and Sam was seventeen.  Jason and Sam are the same age, and Sam had been mentally competing with him for as long as I’d ever known about Jason.  I’d been sitting at the table, joking around with a sixteen-year-old Tyler.  I’d punched him playfully in the shoulder when Sam walked in, mad as I’d ever seen him before.  He’d been out on a run, and I know now that Jason had been giving them trouble for a long time, and Sam had finally blown.  Sam had glared and thrown a few words at Tyler and I, and I’d gotten defensive.  My brother had called me crude names, then stormed upstairs, all the while hissing under his breath, “You get whatever you want, just like Jason.  Jason gets whatever the hell he wants.”

    Jason gets whatever he wants.

    My foot landed on the second stair as a gunshot rang out.  Everything went silent except for a cry of pain, so loud it made my teeth rattle.  I recognized the voice–it was Emmett.  I felt frozen, but thawed enough to turn back.  My chest squeezed as my eyes fell to him, writhing on the floor with his leg held out from his body.  Blood was already gathering on the floor beneath his calf, and my stomach lurched.

    Nothing happened for a second, but it felt so much longer than that.  Emmett’s jaw was clenched so tight I thought all of his teeth might break inside of his mouth.  He wasn’t making noise anymore, but I could tell by the look on his face that he was in way too much pain.

    All at once, Markus, Tyler, and Sam all moved for Emmett.  But before any of them could get a hand on him, Jason and his guys all raised their guns.  Each barrel was trained on all three of the boys as they dropped to the floor, and my chest clenched tighter.  No, they couldn’t shoot them.  They couldn’t.

    “Get back,” Jason growled.  My gaze landed on him, his lips curled back in an ugly snarl.  “He’ll live until I get what I want.”

    “You shot me, you prick!” Emmett forced out of his mouth.  He sounded strangled, holding back emotion.

    “And I’ll gladly do it again,” Jason snapped back.  He glanced over at me, and whatever part of me that wasn’t frozen yet went solid.  “Climb back down the stairs, and lets go, Sweetheart.”

    “No!” both Tyler and Sam shouted at the same time.  They shared a glance, and Tyler was the next to speak.  “You’ll get nothing from us.  Fuck off.  Go home.”

    “We’re going to be here a long time, then,” Jason commented nonchalantly, shifting his weight but keeping his gun trained on Tyler.  “Your friend is going to bleed out in a while, but I could make his pain easier.”

    I felt the blood drain from my face as I realized that Jason was right—there was already too much blood around Emmett.  I couldn’t let Emmett bleed out.  Jason was here because he wanted me.

    “You’re a bastard,” Markus spat at him.

    Jason hardly reacted.  “I’m not the one who’s going to kill him.  You’ll be the ones who let him die by dragging this out.  All I need is Phoebe, and I’ll leave.”