MIDNIGHT QUEST: A Short 'Men of Midnight' Novel by Lisa Marie Rice Page A

blowing up the school.
    It turned Jacko’s stomach.
    The explosion of craziness began when she started going out with the new guy, RJ for Robert Jackman. But more than the guy, it was the drugs. Weed, uppers and downers led fast to blow and coke. The kind of drugs that would mess up a young mind for good, forever.
    A couple of weeks of frenzy, where her life seemed to be made up of sex and drugs and then…nothing.
    Sara was gone, leaving two brokenhearted parents behind.
    It was late afternoon when Jacko read the last of the notebooks. The golden light of the setting sun lit up the room—which was pretty and orderly, in contrast to the ugly mess of Sara’s mind just before she ran away.
    It was so hard for him to imagine anyone throwing away the life she’d had because he knew firsthand the life she ended up with. The filthy trailer house, the succession of low-wage jobs until she couldn’t hold any job at all. Constantly scrambling for money to feed her habit, willing to do anything to anyone just to get one more high. Sara Garrett had left such devastation behind her—the grieving Garretts, himself. He was lucky he’d escaped intact from the disaster that was Sara.
    What a waste.
    Jacko’s heart swelled with pity for the Garretts and with contempt for his mother. She wasn’t a worthy daughter, and she sure hadn’t been a worthy mother. But at least he knew her craziness wasn’t hereditary. It was born with her and died with her.
    Jacko was free.
    As darkness filled the house, he realized his business here was over. There was one more stop to make but it was to complete the circle. The low-level hum of anxiety that had plagued him all his life—the fear his blood was somehow tainted on both sides—was gone.
    In this pretty room of a teenager who’d thrown her life away, Jacko was made whole and would go back to his Lauren a better man. The man she deserved.
    As the sun slid beneath the horizon, he pulled out his cell and called Lauren.
    “Hello?”
    Lauren’s soft voice froze him. He opened his mouth and his throat clicked. He couldn’t say anything at all. Goddamn , he was over this shit, wasn’t he? He had a lot to say to her. Things she had a right to know. So why the fuck couldn’t he talk?
    “I hope you’re finding what you’re looking for, darling.” He could just picture Lauren, in one of her jewel-tone track suits she never ran in, but wore when she created. Like an art goddess ninja. Right about now, she’d be curled up on the couch with a cup of tea and a book. Soon, she’d move into the kitchen for dinner. If he was coming home, she’d cook a nice meal. When she was alone, she often just had something light—a slice of cheese and fruit with a glass of wine.
    No wine tonight, though. Because she was pregnant.
    For the first time, that thought didn’t send off alarm bells in his head. Before, he hadn’t known how to handle the hot, jagged emotions flooding him every time he thought about the baby. Now?
    He breathed out.
    Her voice turned amused. “I just want you to know you’re going to get a lot of flak from Metal when you get back. And Jack and Joe, too. I told them you’d come back just as soon as you could, but they’re sort of mad at you. They’ll get over it. I made it clear I’m not mad at you. You’re doing what you think you need to do, otherwise you’d be here with me. I believe that with all my heart.”
    Jacko clung to his cell, fingers clutching tightly. It was a miracle he didn’t shatter the plastic and Gorilla Glass. He was listening hard to every word she said, and to what was underneath the words.
    Love. Love for him was in her voice.
    “So do what you have to do, my darling. And take care of yourself. Stay safe.”
    His breath whooshed out of his body. She must have heard.
    “I remember the first time I said those words to you,” she continued. Her voice was lower now, softer. “It was the first time you left for a business trip after we started living