“What are you doing to her?” Mikey’s voice again, louder this time.
“She’s fine, Lex will take care of her.” A laugh, deep and throaty.
I can hear scuffling around and more shouting.
“Jesus, fuck, shut up!” I peel my eyes open and kick out at the infamous Lex as he makes another grab for me. “And back the fuck away.”
I look up as Jon laughs again, and I scowl. I scoot myself backwards until my back hits something hard, and I push myself up to a sitting position. My expression must be something hilarious since Jon is still laughing. To be fair, it is pretty damn puzzling seeing Mikey pretty much strapped to the wall of the van by a series of ropes.
My eyes flit from Mikey to Jon back to Mikey again. “What the hell?” I look around the small cavity for Emily and realize that she’s not here. “Where’s Emily?”
If I were a dog, I swear you would be able to see my fur bristling along the back of my neck. As it is, I’m just one very pissed off woman, tied up, and sitting on the really un-comfy floor in the back of a van, with a numb ass and busted skull. Regardless, the outcome is the same and Jon stops laughing abruptly.
“She’s in a different vehicle,” he replies, tucking his long brown hair behind his ears.
“If you hurt one hair on her head…”
“She’ll be fine. As long as your boyfriend here keeps up his end of the bargain, anyway.” He smiles but doesn’t laugh this time, and my eyes flit to Mikey.
“He’s not my boyfriend,” I snark. “And will someone tell me what the hell’s going on?” I ask through pursed lips.
“Your boyfriend here skipped out on his end of a very important deal.” Jon glances at Mikey, but he refuses to look back. “Now I’ve spent six months hunting him down and I intend to take you back to the Bossman so that you can fulfill the deal.”
“What deal?”
Jon turns back to me. “Don’t worry your pretty little head about that. Mikey is going to make things right and then you can all be on your merry little way.” He smiles, tucking his lank hair behind his ears again.
“And if he doesn’t?” I don’t even know why I give a shit what Mikey does. The man seems to have turned into a damn mute since we have been back in contact with these guys.
“I’ll cut off your arms, let you bleed out, turn into a zombie and watch you eat your daughter.” He stares at me, his expression surprisingly blank considering what he just said.
My heart jumps to my throat. I don’t know if it’s the abruptness of his words that catch me off guard or the fact that I believe him, but my inner bitch seems to settle back down and I decide to shut the hell up. I don’t even bother to tell him that Emily isn’t my daughter. It all seems irrelevant when you consider having your arms cut off.
I don’t know how long we travel for, but my ass has lost all feeling in it, and I have to continually shift from cheek to cheek to even out the numbness.
“Nearly there, Princess.” Jon smirks at me again.
Fucking asshole. He doesn’t scare me; I survived behind the walls with worse than him, but I worry for Emily. If anything happens to me, what will she do? How will she cope?
I wish I had never met Mikey. My eyes flit to him. He’s still strapped to the wall of the van, all limbs kept separate like he’s doing a Jumping Jack, and his head is to one side with his eyes closed. He hasn’t moved for so long that I can’t decide whether he’s sleeping or not. That would be typical of him, to go to sleep at a time like this. Men! He finally moves, probably sensing the evil glares I’m throwing his way. He looks up and catches my eye before quickly looking away. He looks broken, and I feel some of my anger sliding away.
“Please…Is Emily okay?” I ask, my voice barely a whisper.
Jon watches me for a minute before speaking into a walkie-talkie. “Anthony, the kid okay?”
We keep eye contact while waiting for Anthony’s reply, Jon still smirking, me giving my best death stare. I don’t care about me, or about Mikey. I only care about that little girl who has no one else in the world to take care of her.
“Yeah, she’s sleeping. Should be heading in in about twenty minutes.” Jon raises an eyebrow at me and I nod. Mikey isn’t looking at me. I can’t blame him; I’m surprised that he hasn’t self-combusted with the amount of hate I’ve been mentally trying to send him, but I need to pull my shit together. We are not going to get out of this and rescue Emily hating on each other.
“So, how’s this going to go down?” Mikey asks without looking up.
Jon leans back, stretching his arms above his head and revealing his taut stomach in a lazy gesture. “Oh, I don’t know. If I had my way, I’d fucking kill you. Gut you like the traitor pig that you are.” He looks at me. “You and your bitch.”
“Like to see you try.” I narrow my eyes at him.
Shit, I need to shut the hell up.
“She’s got fire in her belly, Mikey. Just how you like 'em.” He laughs again and swats my leg, making me slump sideways. Yeah, Jon’s a real comedian. I scowl.
“Well it’s a good thing it’s not up to you then.” Mikey looks at me on the floor, his face pulling into a grimace. “So again I ask, how’s this going to go down?”
“Bossman wants you to stick to your end of the bargain, man. You do your thing, and the women go free.” Jon pulls his hair away from his face again. God I want to cut that fucking mop off.
“What about Mikey?” I ask.
“What about him? Dude’s a dead man walking as far as I’m concerned, and I’m pretty certain as far as Bossman’s concerned.” Jon slaps a hand across Mikey’s face. “Little bitch shouldn’t have run.”
“But you can’t kill him. He’s helping you, isn’t he?” I struggle to get myself back into a sitting position, careful to keep my legs far from Jon, lest he push me back over.
“Not my decision,” he leans over so that his face is close to mine, “or yours. Now shut your mouth before I put something in it to shut you up.” He smiles again, and I close my mouth abruptly.
I’ve dealt with worse than him before, but that doesn’t mean I want a recap on it. Now if I could just work out what the hell they want Mikey to do, work an angle on it, get myself untied, find Emily and a truck, and get the fuck out of here, things would be just dandy. Real fucking dandy. I scowl again.
Forty-One.
“Jon, cover her up,” The walkie-talkie crackles to life and I pause in my random brain ramblings.
Jon stands—well, half-crouches—and pulls out some scraps of material from his back pocket. He reaches over to tie it around my face and I dodge out of his way. He knees me in the stomach and I cough and splutter while he puts the blindfold around my eyes.
“Jon, man, you didn’t need to do that,” Mikey shouts, and I can hear him struggling against his restraints.
“Be glad that’s all I did to her. I didn’t have to bring either of them in. My orders were to find you, Mikey. Just you. These are just a bonus for the guys.” Jon lightly slaps the side of my face, and I can’t help it, I whimper, sounding like a little fucking girl.
“If you touch her…”
“You’ll what?” Jon laughs. “You don’t hold any cards here, Mikey.”
“Yes I do. You hurt her or Emily, and I won’t help you. You’ll have nothing over me, and no way to make me do it. Now get away from her.” I can hear Mikey’s jaw grinding away angrily. Jon doesn’t say anything, but I hear him sit back down.
“When this is over, Mikey…”
“When this is over, you’ll be letting these two go. You can do what you want with me, but those two go free.”
I wish I could see his face. I’m so confused. I hate him for ever being with these guys, after everything he told me about them, everything they did. I still find it hard to believe that he was ever one of them, but there it is. I want to ask him what they want with him, why he left, and why he lied to me, but Jon doesn’t seem the chatty type and I don’t want another knee to the ribs.
I feel the truck going over more bumpy ground. My ass is banging against the hard metal floor, and my head whips back and forth, making me dizzy again despite being blindfolded. The vehicle slows, and I can hear talking before it moves off again. A fresh trickle of blood seeps from the wound on my head just as another drop falls between my shoulder blades.
I think about what Mikey said—about the Forgotten letting us go. I have no idea where we are in relation to Ben’s cabin. Never mind whether we would be safe there. I think of JD, Britta, Crunch, Josie, and Duncan. So many new people, new names and new faces, and now they are all gone. Maybe they had the better end of the deal, being dead?
The van pulls to a stop with a slight screech of brakes. The doors open, but I can’t feel sunlight on my face as I’m dragged out of the van. In fact, it smells like we’re inside somewhere. Somewhere familiar, but I can’t place the smell. It’s a smell from before all this happened. A time from my past, of that I’m sure.
I’m pulled along what I assume is a corridor. The smell follows me, my feet sinking into softer flooring than previously, people’s voices echoing off the walls and ceiling. I hear a door open and I’m pulled inside.
“Fallon, I’m sorry man. I’m really sorry.”
I hear a hard smacking sound, and Mikey grunts.
“This his woman?”
“Yeah.”
I hear a click. I know that sound. I recognize it right down to my toes. That’s the sound of a gun cocking.
“Wait, wait, don’t,” Mikey’s voice again, to the left of me.
I try to be strong, refusing to cry, but my chin trembles anyway and a stray tear slides from under my blindfold and down my cheek. I don’t want to die. It’s as simple as that. Not now, and certainly not without getting Emily somewhere safe.
“Why the fuck shouldn’t I? After the shit that you pulled?”
“Loverboy says he won’t go through with it if we kill her or the kid.”
That was definitely Jon’s voice again.
“Well, pretty girl like her doesn’t need all her fingers, does she?” The voice next to my ear sends shivers down my spine. He grabs my hand, bending my fingers back, and I scream. Sure, I’ve lived through this type of shit before, but this is worse: I’m helpless—bound and blindfolded—and about to lose my fingers. I scream again and receive a slap for it.
Be strong, Nina, be strong. I take some deep breaths to calm myself.
“You hurt her in any way, her or Emily, and I won’t do a fucking thing to help you.” Mikey’s voice is sounding gruff and raw, strained even. “I’ll help you get behind the walls, but you have to promise me that you’ll let them go afterwards. Unharmed, and with all their fucking fingers.”
Wait, what? The walls? What have they got to do with it?
“Mikey?” I whisper in confusion.
Silence.
“Mikey, what’s going on?” I think of the innocent people trapped behind the walls under the control of Lee and all his men. I know the other walled cities are the same, from what Lee had said. Pieces are starting to fall into place. The Forgotten hated everyone behind the walls. They are deeply jealous of those living inside, but they don’t know what it was like in there. Would they even care?
“What are you going to do with everyone?”
“We’re going to kill every last one of them, princess.” The voice next to my ear wasn’t Jon. It was the other man’s. Fallon—the Bossman. I can feel him untying my blindfold, but I’m not sure I want to look into the face of this man. This man who would slaughter innocent women and children.
The blindfold falls to the floor and I blink for a second, letting my eyes adjust. When I can focus them, I see Jon to the left of me, grinning as usual. Mikey is on the floor, bleeding from a cut lip, and from behind me steps Fallon. He’s not so tough-looking—ordinary face, medium height, well-built—but there’s something in his eyes that screams crazy bastard. Well, there’s that and when he turns away from me I see he has R.I.P. tattooed onto the back of his shiny bald head.
I swallow hard. “It’s not like you think in there; it’s horrible.”
“Shut up!” Mikey all but screams at me. I look at him, confused, before looking back to Fallon. He stops mid-step and turns back to me.
“What did you just say?” He smiles. Several of his teeth are missing, making him look like even more of a psycho than I previously thought.
“I said…”
“Shut up!” Mikey shouts at me again.
Seriously, what the fuck is his problem?
“It’s not like you think behind the walls. It’s more of a living hell than out here most of the time.” I swallow again, the murderous glare coming from Fallon making my skin crawl.
“Fallon, I think she’s like a half-wit or something, man,” Mikey pleads from the floor. “She doesn’t know what she’s talking about.”
Fallon looks to Mikey and then back to me and I realize my mistake. Mikey always said that the Forgotten hated anyone who lived behind the walls. I guess that includes me right now.
“That right, pretty thing? You a half-wit?” He smiles again.
I nod. I can’t speak, and anything I might say would most likely dig my hole deeper right now. Best to nod and agree to being a half-wit, as embarrassing as that is. Embarrassed is better than dead, right?
“Funny, you don’t look like a half-wit.” He stands toe to toe with me, watching me intently, and I swallow loudly again.
What did he expect from a half-wit? A wonky eye and a gammy leg? Should I start mumbling my words and screaming out that I can see dead people or something? I chance a glance at Mikey, and the panic on his face—not to mention the swollen and bloody eye—all make my stomach twist and roll, and I’m tempted to pee myself just to prove my half-wittedness. Fallon, however, doesn’t give me a chance to. Gripping my arm, he drags me over to his desk and pushes me into a chair. Retrieving a pair of handcuffs from his back pocket, he slips one end around my wrist and attaches the other to a hook on the table.
“What are you doing, Fallon? I told you, I won’t do anything unless you promise me the women won’t come to any harm.” Mikey looks up at me from the floor and attempts to stand, but is pushed back down to the ground. “I mean it. You’re fucked without me. I’m the only one that can get you in there.”
My mind reels. I don’t want the Forgotten to get into the walled city. Any of them. The people there, they might be cowards, and they may have sat back and watched other innocents being tortured and sent to their deaths, but they are innocent too. None of them want this, but you do what you have to do to protect your family. I get that now. I guess after being on my own for so long, I forgot. I look up at Fallon by my side. A long curved knife is in his hand. His intent is clear, and I scream.
“Fallon! Get away from her.” Mikey scrambles up from the floor and is punched and kicked back down by two other men.
My eyes flit from him to Fallon and back again as the knife gets closer to my throat.
“So you’re one of the lucky ones, eh?”
“Hardly.” I choke on my words, my throat too dry and too tight.
“Luckier than my girls. My wife, my children. They were denied. Told the cities were full, told them to get away before they attracted too much attention.” His voice is rough like gravel. “Told them they weren’t good enough. But you, you were good enough, huh?”
The knife tip dips into my cheek, just below my cheekbone. I feel the sting and burn from it, feel the blood trail down my cheek to my neck. I don’t move, don’t cry out, though the tears run from my eyes as he drags the blade downwards, carving a path of pain in my face.
“NO! Fallon, no, please!”
My eyes lock on Mikey, and I release the sob which has been building inside me. My body screams in pain, screams in fright from what is happening. After all this time, after everything that I have lived through, this is the way I am going to die? Some crazy nut-bag is going to slice me open like a piñata.
“No,” I sob again, my face stinging even more from the movement. “I was just there.” My tears slide into gash along my face, making it sting even more.
“Right time, right place, huh?” He asks again, his features never softening. “Like all the others in there? All those other people that have lived in safety for so long. Well, time to move on and ship out, people. I’m going in there and I’m going to kill every last one of them, and then me and my boys can live in safety for a change.”
“You can’t do that—they don’t deserve that. The people there, they were just—”
“In the right place at the right time?” he interrupts, finishing my sentence. “You said that already.”
I nod. “Yes.” My voice comes out a squeak, and he presses the knife into the other side of my face.
“So you figure that you’re lucky?”
I nod again, then change my mind and shake my head and try to speak, but the words won’t come out. It seems like I’m damned if I do and damned if I don’t, regardless of what I say. Besides, my current predicament begs to differ that I’m lucky. In fact, the past couple of years beg to differ on whether I’m lucky or not.
He stands and turns to look at Mikey, whose eyes go wide when he sees my face. The knife didn’t slice my other cheek, but it did cut into it. There’s blood running down both cheeks now, a free flow of blood trailing down my face.
“What do you think, Mikey? You think she’s lucky?” Fallon laughs. Despite the situation being completely unfunny, he laughs a full-on belly laugh, the sound echoing around the walls of the room.
It only adds insult to my injury, and despite the pain, despite the humiliation, I feel anger more than anything else. Angry that this piece of shit man could take his anger and vengeance out on me, and on so many people, for something that was beyond their control. We didn’t stop him from getting behind the walls. We didn’t turn his family away. Yet we’re being punished all the same. And for what? For the deep fucking joy of being allowed to live in the so-called sanctuary of the walled city? In the peace and serenity they provided us with? He has no fucking idea the hell we all lived through on a daily basis. It’s bad out here, but at least you know who your enemies are. Inside, everyone turned on you.
Odium (The Dead Saga.) Page 30
