Torch Song: A Kickass Heroine, A Post-Apocalyptic World: Book One Of The Blackjack Trilogy by Shelley Singer Read Free Book Online Page B

in two. Samm, fighting hand to hand with two mercs, one of them huge, bigger and heavier than her six-foot-three General. She forced a deep breath, swallowed her sickening fear for Drew, raced to clear-shot range and burned a hole in the giant’s chest. By the time she turned again toward her niece and nephew, Lizzie was back at Drew’s side, bloody footprints marking her trail from the dead merc back to her brother, and that new singer, Rica, was reaching down to Drew.
    Yes! He was shaking his head. Moving.
    Jo exhaled.
    Alive, then.
    He waved Rica away and began trying to get up on his own, blood dribbling down his arm. Maybe not hurt too badly after all.
    Jo focused again on the sounds behind her, the hiss of a laser, the pop-pop-pop of an old pistol, a man screaming, something heavy crashing metallically into something else. Thick glass breaking. A merc ran past her with a big overfilled sack dribbling reals. She shot and winged him, but he kept on running. Damn! Pulled between what was left of the battle and a desire to touch Drew, speak to him, assure herself, she looked around, desperately, and noticed Waldo peeking out from behind a slot machine.
    “Waldo! Go help Drew. Now!” Waldo came creeping out into the aisle, his eyes wide and fearful. Drew was on his feet, sagging in Rica’s arms; Lizzie was watching him uncertainly, her outstretched hand shaking. “Get him upstairs!” Waldo picked Drew up and tried to hoist him across his wide shoulders.
    “Put me down, you asshole!” Drew screamed, struggling out of Waldo’s thick arms and falling to his knees with a grunt of pain. Rica was right there, taking his good arm, trying to help him to his feet.
    Samm and the others were backing the mercs out the door. Not counting Drew, six people down that she could see: two customers, three mercs who were dead or unconscious, and over there, by the poker tables, a cashier, holding his bloody head and crying. The last merc out the door aimed at Jo, missed, and hit a poker slot slam in the screen.
    The battle seemed to be over. Samm turned around, flushed, tense, eyes bright, scanning the casino; looking for someone more to attack. There was no one. They were gone, leaving a mess of blood and broken machinery behind them. His body relaxed, shoulders slumped. Jo caught his eye and he straightened up again, nodding in acknowledgment. Showing her he was ready to deal with the clean-up.
    Always the soldier, just as she needed him to be. Because she certainly wasn’t one. She’d done a lousy job of defending the casino. Too smug, too cerebral, she thought, to think she might ever have to actually engage in a fight. No dirty hands for her. Well, she could do a little better. She could at least keep up with target practice.
    It was a lucky accident that Samm had returned from Sacramento in time for the battle. She hadn’t expected him until the next morning. Then she had an unnerving thought: time. She’d been thinking there was time, that she could plan and prepare and work on her own timetable. Make her moves when her people were ready. But today the choice of when and where and how to fight had not been theirs. Bandits? She doubted it very much. Bandits weren’t usually that clean, didn’t usually wear shiny boots. Sure, they’d gone right for the money, but why not? No rule that mercs couldn’t steal. If the Scorsis were behind this— and who else could it be?— it was a major escalation in their rivalry when the Colemans were trying to hold the line. And yet another thought: Had they known that Samm was on the road? Had they also not expected him back so soon?
    “Drew!” Her sister’s deep voice. There came Judith, cruising down the mezzanine stairs at low speed like one of those big old ships you could tour in San Francisco Bay for five reals. Jo went to meet her.
    Lizzie had returned to the dead merc with the cleaver in his neck. Staring at him, she vomited suddenly into the wide pool of his blood. Drew was