Read Online Fool's Ride (The Jenkins Cycle Book 2) by John L. Monk - Free Book Online Page B

I realized what was going on. She was the muse I’d been hearing about—the inspiration for Ernest’s next sad little book. I wondered how many muses he’d had over the years.
    I shook my head, for once at a loss for words.
    “Jacob actually had a good idea for once,” Lana said, eyes dancing. “If the baby lives, we could raise it ourselves, just the three of us. A new mind untainted by the world, fresh for us to mold. Our own little apex fiend.” She laughed her real laugh, hoarse and desperate. “Think of the possibilities!”
    “No,” I croaked out, but she wasn’t listening. Too lost in the possibilities.
    “Sorry about the bedpan,” she said, staring hungrily through the window at the woman. “I still don’t trust you, and once I start cutting … well, I have to control the bleeding. I can’t be running in here if you have to pee. I’ll make it up to you when it’s over, I promise. All night, if you want. I’ll even save some of her blood.”
    She flicked a switch I hadn’t seen on the wall and suddenly I could hear the quiet sobs of the woman in the other room playing in surround-sound.
    Shaking my head, I shouted, “Let her go! Don’t do this! You don’t need to do this!”
    This couldn’t happen. I couldn’t let this happen. No way could this happen. If I could just get free…
    Lana glanced back at me. “You’re not yourself. I want my Ernest back.”
    Then she was out the door, shutting it firmly behind her, leaving me to stare helplessly through the window at that sad, lost woman and her doomed child.
    Refusing to give up, angry and desperate and willing to try anything, I closed my eyes and bowed my head.
    And made my case.

Chapter Ten
    “ L isten ,” I said, under my breath. “I know you’re there. You’re always there, and I know you can hear me. I can’t see why you chose me or even what you want most of the time. But if you don’t do something to stop this, right now, help me get out of this goddamned wheelchair, then we’re through . I mean it—never again. I’ll stay in my hole and rot for eternity, no matter how many portals you send for me.”
    When nobody said anything, I shouted, “Do you hear me? Help me now or it’s over! Do you hear me? Do you? ”
    When the walls didn’t reverberate with a ghostly voice saying help had arrived, when the straps on my arms didn’t rot away like I needed them to, I hung my head in defeat, cursed with the knowledge that God or something like him existed and didn’t actually care for us at all.
    Fuming, I decided the Great Whomever could take a flying … no, scratch that. I wasn’t calling him that anymore. I had a new name for him.
    “You hear that!” I shouted. “How do you like your new name, asshole? You’re now the Great Who Gives A Shit! ”
    Because when you’re sitting with your pants off perched on a bedpan, about to watch a crazy woman start cutting pieces off an innocent pregnant lady, and you can’t do anything but shout insults, you shout insults.
    Just when I’d nailed down my new name for the Great Wherever, almost as if someone was tired of all the whining, my olfactory senses flooded with the smell you get after a hard punch in the nose, and everything turned upside down and sideways. Seconds later, I got kicked again, leaving me dizzy and blinking at thousands of little lights trailing everywhere.
    “No,” I said, shaking my head. “That’s not what I meant. Help me, dammit! Don’t kick me out!”
    In the room with the sobbing woman, Lana flipped a switch on the wall and the plate glass pulsed with the sound of grinding death metal: chaotic, hellish, and loud. Shocked by the sudden cacophony, the woman began to scream.
    Rocking to the almost non-existent tune, Lana wheeled over a tray of glittery surgical instruments and pushed it near the table with the screaming woman.
    The third kick hit me so hard I thought I’d pass out, but didn’t.
    In all my rides, I’d never felt a fourth kick before,