Raised
voices and violently slamming wood jarred Jax from a deep sleep and he groaned,
rolling on his side to rub the kinks from his neck and shoulder. His first
conscious thoughts weren’t about the noise, but about the lumpiness of the bed
and how happy he’d be when his furniture arrived. Throwing the abandoned frame
and mattress in the dumpster was going to be the highlight of his week and for
a moment he contemplated grabbing a bottle of rum so he’d have something to
properly toast scrapping it.
“Leave, now, Sean or I swear I’ll…”
Something shattered against the wall adjacent his bedroom and
Jax swore and reached for his pillow. He hadn’t even been in his new apartment
long enough to meet his neighbors and he already knew he was going to hate
them. The place had seemed pretty quiet when he’d done the tour and decided to
fill out the paperwork for his apartment and one downstairs for his friends.
They were gonna be pretty pissed if it turned out to be frat party loud with
people passing out on the stairwell and pissing in the halls.
“What! Just what the fuck are you gonna do? You reach for
that fucking phone and I swear to god I’ll beat you to death with it!”
Great, just what Jax didn’t want to hear. Annoyed as he was,
there was no way he was just going to lay in bed and listen to some chick get
the shit beat outta her by her old man, or drug dealer. Whoever the hell he was,
he sounded pissed enough to follow through on his threat. Jax knew all about men
like that and what kind of damage they could cause.
An image flashed through his head as he shoved the blankets
aside. His mother’s face, eye blackened, cheek bruised, the split in her lip
leaking blood on her lavender shirt as she’d huddled on the floor, vase and
half dying flowers in a pool around her.
“You lying bitch, who gave
you those!”
Hiding beneath his bed, Jax
shivered, hands balled into fists, tears streaming down his cheeks as he
listened to the fear in his mother’s voice and the sound of glass breaking.
“My son picked them on the
way home from school!”
“Do you think I’m stupid?
Tell me the fuckin’ truth.”
“No, Henry, I know you’re
not stupid. I’m not lying to you, I swear it, I swear, Henry, please!”
The sound of something heavy
slamming into the wall made Jax cry out and shrink back to the furthest corner
he could crawl to, blankets pulled up over his head, the stuffed moose in his
arms clutched tight.
“If I ever catch you messing
around with another man, I’ll kill you, do you understand me! I’ll kill you
dead and leave you in pieces for your brats to find!”
Shaking off the memory, Jax yanked on a pair of jeans with
trembling fingers and snatched his kubotan off the stand by the door. Shoving
it in his pocket he stomped through his apartment and shoved open the door into
the hall. It seemed like the fight had spilled out there too. Jax paused,
taking a moment to realize he’d been wrong about who was involved. There was no
woman, just two guys, one considerably larger, and angrier than the other. He
hadn’t been wrong about the danger though, the big guy had pieces of the broken
telephone in his hand and the smaller guy seemed to be trying to ward him off
with a chair. A highly ineffective tactic as the big guy easily snatched the
chair away, half dragging the smaller man from the doorway in the process. The
big man tossed the chair to the side, effortlessly, not even bothering to
glance in its direction when it struck the wall and broke, his entire focus was
on the smaller man.
Hands up and cringing, the man backed up, nearly tripping
over his own feet as the big guy lunged for him. Jax chose that moment to step
between them, anger and adrenaline making his heart pound.
“Get outta the fuckin’ way; this ain’t no business of yours!”
Jax cocked his head to the side and studied the frat boy
haircut and pinprick eyes he was suddenly faced with. Stupid fucker was high as
hell, just fuckin’ great. Planting his feet, Jax settled into an easy fighting
stance, waiting to see what the big bastard was going to do.
“Didn’t you hear me!” the man barked, spewing whiskey breath
in Jax’s face. “I said MOVE!”
Jax chuckled and cracked his knuckles. “If you don’t shut the
fuck up and leave him alone, I’ll kill you.”
The look on the other man’s face might have been comical, if
he hadn’t fucked the whole thing up by taking a swing.
What a way to meet the
neighbors,
Jax thought as he ducked and fired off an uppercut of his own. Nothing like a
good brawl to get the blood flowing.
***
Scrambling backwards, Danny moved from between the much
larger men, not that he had very much room to move, but at least further down the
hallway he wouldn’t be an accidental target as fists started to fly.
“What’s it to you what I do to him?” Sean grunted as he shook
off the glancing blow and stepped right into their new neighbor’s face.
Danny hoped Jax would back off. He didn’t know the tall
brunette, outside of an introduction, Jax having just moved into the building three
days before, and while he looked jacked, Danny had no way of knowing how he’d
handle himself in a fight. Especially against someone like Sean, who loved
fighting.
“You woke me up with all your yelling, for starters, but
since I’m out here and your attitude sucks, I figure I might as well fuck up
your night the same way you’ve fucked up mine,” Jax stated as he held his
ground.
Sean went to shove him, but Jax moved out of the way and gave
Sean a shove of his own, sending him staggering into the wall. Danny scrambled
further back, desperate for a dark corner to get lost in as Sean’s wild eyes
scanned around, looking for him. When they landed on him, Danny froze.
“Call the cops,” Sean snarled. “I’m going to have this fucker
arrested for assault!”
“C-call them y-yourself,” Danny stammered, then fell back
with a strangled squawk when Sean lunged for him. Jax had caught hold of the
back of his shirt and hauled him backwards, away from Danny, who stared up at
Jax’s pierced face, shocked at the man’s strength. Sean kicked back and managed
to drop Jax to one knee, freeing him to go after Danny again.
“Son of a bitch!” Jax roared as Sean lunged for Danny and wrapped
his hands around his throat. In the scuffle that ensued, the only thing that
Danny could see was Sean’s pinprick eyes and the spittle flying from his lips
as he cussed and threatened. Just as everything faded to black, Danny though he
saw a snarling demon rise up behind Sean, the rage twisted features scaring him
so badly he was grateful when everything faded away.
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