Path of Ranger: Volume 1 (6 page)

“Okay,” he said.

The man didn’t look that happy, though.

“Yeah! Sweet, man!” JB shouted. The ovations followed. “So, here are the rules: I’m gonna ask questions very fast, you gotta answer instantly, just the first thing that pops into your head. And we are doing this until you flounder. If so you lose, and your punishment is up to the gang. Got it?”

The audience went smiling and whispering, this time they were one hundred percent invested in the show.

“Yeah, easy enough,” Tyris said.

“Yeah!” the gang shouted.

Everyone tried to get a bit closer. JB went to the center of the half circle. Guys were everywhere: sitting on couches, chairs, standing around, at the bar, and just leaning on anything near them. It was so tight that no one could get out easily. The boss made a small pause to hit up the spirit even more. Then he continued.

“What is your name?” he pronounced very slowly as if he was mocking his own game.

“Tyris T Jackson,” the player answered casually.

“Where ya from?” JB went very fast this time, mispronouncing half of the syllables.

“From Compton,” Tyris tried to answer quickly as well.

“What’d ya had-fo-breakfast,”

“Scrambled-s… eggs” he almost floundering.

“What’s ya girlfriend’s name?”

“Melisha.”

“Her ass size?”

Tyris lingered a bit, his face flinched, but he involuntary answered, “Three”.

The crowd went wild. Obviously, the reaction would have been similar no matter what the guy would say, of course. But Tyris felt ashamed. His anger started to show up. Yet, the game was on, and he was ready to go to the end. He wanted to win JB in his own tournament.

“Why did you betray me?” JB said fast, but each sound he pronounced as clear as it was possible.

“Because you’re fuckin…” all that Tyris could push out before he stopped.

During next few seconds, the mad laughter of the crowd morphed into awkward silence. They stared at Bridgers, his eyes filled up with anger, his cheek muscles were tensed, and no shadow of joy could be seen on his face. As if the funny guy that had been entertaining the crowd a minute ago was never there. Tyris couldn’t believe that he let himself be tricked that easily. That game, those silly questions were meant for confusion and to pull a confession out of him. It worked. He broke, JB proved himself right about everything. The traitor stood still, small drops of cold sweat appeared on his forehead, his skin was shivering.

“You’ve lost,” JB said. “Now it’s up for men to decide.”

This one wasn’t going anywhere, every gang member was watching him carefully. But there was another one, Markus. He wasn’t in front of the crowd anymore, as he was a minute ago. JB scanned for him between the rows, and couldn’t find what he was looking for. Suddenly, he noticed a tiny movement behind the crowd. Markus was short, so he could hide behind his tall comrades quickly. Soon as he saw JB’s look on him, he jumped running to the door. But the big guy didn’t rush to chase him, since he had locked the door earlier with the master key.

The boss walked down the room to the main exit, where his former ‘left hand’ was beating up against the metal door. After a few unsuccessful tries of getting out, Markus moved to the armory. That door was locked too. The man realized that he wasn’t going anywhere, so he finally turned to JB. A silver Desert Eagle in the big guy's hand pointed at Markus.

The traitor shifted his arms up a bit. He moved towards the boss slowly. Most of the gangsters stood behind JB as one whole.

“Hey, B! It’s not what you think it is,” small guy said desperately.

He moved his hands down. Then he silently shifted his right hand behind his back trying to pull out his gun. It was dumb and useless since there were more than twenty people and most of them armed. But apparently the man wasn’t thinking straight.

“I swear to you, man, I…”

JB wasn’t rushing, it looked like he was listening carefully, but all that was on his mind was waiting for Markus to draw the gun. Markus paled, his face looked as lifeless as his eyes. He was mumbling something with his lips, silently. The panic attack blinded his mind, he looked aside as a distraction and swiftly pulled out his gun. He nearly managed to shoot, but JB’s bullet reached him first. His right shoulder was hit. Markus dropped the gun and grabbed the wound. The pain took all of him. He looked down at the pistol, tried to pick it up, but fell down on the knees instead. The sound of that massive gun went almost unnoticed, all they heard was an echo running through the dungeon.

The wounded man dropped into the puddle of his own blood. The bullet hit the bone, the right side of his body was immobilized, but his feet never stopped moving even when he just lay there bleeding. Meanwhile, the thugs had brought Tyris there too. They put him on the knees close to Markus.

JB stared at Tyris, his hand squeezed the gun so hard even the veins noticeably inflated. Everyone kept silent, no one dared to speak before the boss. But he remained silent on purpose, to make the traitors more nervous. The uncertainty seemed even more frightful than the direct menace of death. Nearly a minute they all kept standing that way until JB saw something in Tyris’ eyes. A realization that it was the end.

“You, motherfuckers, betrayed me. Burn in hell.”

It seemed that Tyris was going to say something, but all he accomplished was some slight lips shivering and dry uncertain sounds. He looked hypnotized, wasn’t able to talk or move. He got covered in sweat, the tears were running down his cheeks. And he kept shivering.

“I would stigmatize them both and put in the trunk,” JB said to the people, still looking at Tyris, “but, as I said, it’s up to you to decide.”

Two thugs picked up Markus, another two came out of the crowd to get Tyris. After the gang went on to deal with the traitors, JB finally had a chance to talk to the one of his people.

“Beat them up. Hard.”

“Don’t you want ‘em dead?” the man asked.

“It's not up to us to kill 'em. You bring them to D-Kay after, trash them on his lawn,” just as JB was going to leave, he noticed that they were alone so he caught a moment to talk to Hakim about something else. “One more thing, Hakim. This is our last meeting. Make sure of Chris’ safety and your own.”

“So that’s it? There is no crew anymore?” the black man raised his voice for everybody to hear him.

JB looked at the crowd that suddenly stared at him.

“Yeah! That’s it. Now each one of you has a second chance, don’t waste it. For those of you who still want to die out there, Big Dog would be more than happy to take you in, I think,” he finished ironically.

The crew’s leader gave out his last order, he did everything he was supposed to. Nothing held him there anymore. He said goodbye to Hakim and all of those who still were around, then he moved on.

All of a sudden Chris called him out from behind, “Is it time yet, B?”

JB stopped, looked back at him and nodded smiling. He froze in solemn waiting, watching as Chris took out a remote with a single red button on it. These three had been waiting for that moment for a long time. The last phase. There was no turning back after. The black man pushed the button and the greenish gas started to come out from the wall sockets to erase everything it could get to.

JB had a lot to think of on the way out of dungeon. His feelings were divided, on one hand he was glad that it was finally over, but on the other – he had imagined it differently. No matter what happened lately, they were his friends, he cared about them as his own brothers. And he sort of understood why they had done that. Nevertheless, letting it pass would have been a sign of weakness.

The big guy cheered up and tried to switch his mind to the next phase, the escape itself. The last part of the plan seemed easy enough. Take the Escalade and get to the airport.

Bridgers walked through the living room. The kitchen door was wide open. He looked inside, no one was there. Only the noise of a rabble echoed from the backyard to which kitchen led to. JB watched for a few seconds how the others were beating up Tyris and Markus, then he turned around and left. They got what they deserved, so JB was relieved from his anger. Finally, things went in their natural order, justice thrived. That brought a great deal of peace to him.

The gangster went outside from the front door. Looked around. Nothing caught his attention. Sunlight vanished with the dusk, yellow streetlights lit the surroundings. JB went down the ramp to get on his motorcycle. Suddenly, in about twenty yards from him an old gray sedan darted off towards him. The wheels were squeaking, burning up rubber, and a cloud of smoke raised behind them. The car ran near him instantly. He couldn’t even react yet, but it was already too late. The windows went down, JB made a try to outrun it to get behind the house. The effort was useless. Two men in ski masks showed themselves, both pulled out automatic rifles.

Bridgers barely made a few steps when bright yellow flashes of firing guns blinded him. Those couple of seconds of being under assault felt like an eternity. The road was covered with shell casings. The gangster was thrown towards the house, for a brief moment he thought that he died. Even after the firing stopped, he still heard the echoes inside his head. Soon he realized that the car passed far away.

Taking that hit felt terrible. JB tasted sickness, he nearly threw up all his insides. His body was burning in pain as if he would be torn apart. Everything mixed together in such a short time. The pain bandwidth lowered to block the confusion. His mind snapped back to balance. Bridgers realized that the menace passed, he couldn’t move yet, but he was sure that all of his organs were fine, the vest stopped all of the bullets. Rear gangsters were good shooters, JB was lucky that these two were not those.

In just a few seconds, he already held a gun of his own. He pushed up against the ground with the fingers of the left hand and with the pistol’s muzzle in the right. The vehicle reached the end of the street by that time, but the gangster still could see it. JB ran around the house for his bike. Other thugs showed up from the back yard. Confused by the firing they stared at their boss.

“B, are you alright, man?” one of the gangsters asked.

“After them!” JB shouted when getting on the bike.

“How many boys do you need?” the gangster asked.

“Just one whip,” he finally looked at them. “What are you waiting for?! Go!”

There was no need for delay anymore, after receiving an order the men went to the Caddy parked nearby. JB put on his helmet, turned on the engine, and rushed forward, not waiting for others. The vest pressed on his chest hard because of the bullet deformations, but he still was afraid to take it off. Those probably weren’t the last shots that he might take that night.

A sick cloud appeared from the motorcycle’s rear wheel and the vehicle stormed through the road insanely fast. In a matter of seconds, he reached the end of the block to turn after the runaway car. Four other gangsters followed JB.

Riding on the road he didn’t know exactly where that car headed, it wasn’t in his sight anymore, but JB had a good idea. His gut told him to stick to the path to D-Kay’s territory. Another block passed. After taking a turn, he saw a lone vehicle about a hundred yards ahead, his target. JB’s speed was already much faster than his foe's, so he didn’t elevate it more. An old abandoned motel showed up at the end of the street, it was likely to be empty. If anywhere was a perfect place to finish the chase, it was there.

The furious gangster was racing on between lanes, the car came to the next turn, it had to be stopped that moment or never. JB took out the gun, aimed as accurately as he could, he had only one chance and he knew it. The gangster pulled the trigger. He didn’t care about the speed or the risk of losing control over the motorcycle, all that concerned him were his aim and his pistol.

Two bullets went out of the muzzle. Right after shooting JB grabbed back the handle with both hands, just that very moment he realized how lucky he was not to go off the road. The bullets flew through the air that glossed with white dust, going lower and lower, almost touching the ground. They almost fell down, but not quite, their target was reached. One bullet hit the tire, another went through the wheel itself, cutting the connection between the disk and the axle. The left rear tire of the car blew up and went off the axle, then jumped aside. The driver lost control of the vehicle. The gangster exhaled with relief when he saw as the car zig-zagged on the road and streamed to the hotel's parking area, where it hit the cable pillar and crashed at the building’s corner. The broken pile of metal released a sizzle and let out a white steam as a last breath of a dying mechanism.

JB stopped near the sidewalk, a few yards from the crash. He jumped off the bike and looked around, there were people staring at him from the windows of surrounding buildings. He took off the helmet, despite the air, despite that he was under watch. On his slow walk to the smashed car he saw a gas leaking from the tank, gathering into a puddle near the vehicle. He could not see much inside because of the thick smoke. Still, JB noticed some movement behind the air bags. Someone there was still alive. Bridgers was not going to ask survivors any questions, he just wanted to make sure that there wouldn’t be any survivors.

The backup car stopped near his bike, no man went outside. Yet, they were ready to give the boss a hand any minute.