“Nice try. I fell for that look once. Woke up bare-ass in the desert wrapped around a cactus, minus one pickup truck and all my gear.” Kevin drained the beer and slammed the mason jar down. “That ain’t happening again.”
Wayne chuckled. “Did you ever find that bitch?”
“Nope.” Kevin got up and tromped toward the exit.
“Hey, you can’t leave me tied up like this! Come on.” She hopped to face him as he went by.
He didn’t react, heading outside to the Challenger.
4
Think Fast
The white-haired woman slumped against the counter, eyeing the patrons and trembling. All efforts to catch Wayne’s attention failed as he seemed to make it a point not to even look at her. An attempt to glare the rope off her ankles failed as the room returned to the usual din. The regulars didn’t try to hide their conversations about if she’d become Wayne’s property, Kevin’s property, or ripe for the taking. Some seemed hesitant to risk tangling with whoever might still be chasing her. She stared at the door, pondering hopping outside, but decided against it. Wayne ambled by, once more ignoring her. She bent forward, wringing her wrists around, but the rope proved too tight, and her skin too sore. A glint of metal caught her eye from a knife on the floor under the bloody table.
Cord bit into her ankles each time her weight came down as she hopped back across the barroom. Once close enough, she squatted and let gravity take her sideways. After rolling onto her belly, she wriggled between two chairs and reached out for the utensil. Bee tottered up alongside and worked a rag around the tabletop overhead. Two fingers touched the knife and got it a few inches off the ground, but the greasy metal slipped loose and hit the floor with a clatter.
“Oh, dear.” Bee stooped to pick it up. “This’ll need to be washed.”
“Hey!” yelled the girl. “Cut me loose?”
Bee shifted to stare at the bar, but Wayne wasn’t there. “I must ask permission.”
The woman growled. “Someone? Anyone? Please help!”
When no one acknowledged her, she scrunched around and tried to grab the rope between her ankles. The more she fought, the tighter the rope felt. Soft grunts escaped past clenched teeth. She bit her lip as one finger teased at a knot. Feeling trapped and helpless, she sagged limp and out of breath.
“Wayne?” she asked, voice raised. She shifted onto her knees and threw her weight back, managing to get on her feet without falling. “Hey… Wayne?”
After a minute of staring at the empty bar, her eyes lit up with hope when Kevin returned, carrying an improvised cloth pouch. Shoulder-length light brown hair lofted from his brisk stride. He returned to where he’d been sitting, slapped a hand on the bar twice, and Wayne re-emerged from a curtained doorway.
He’s gotta help me. He’s not like rest of these people.
She bounced across the room again, stopping a few feet away, tired and disheveled from her futile battle for freedom.
5
New Problems
Kevin set the bag of bullets down and pushed it like a stack of poker chips across the bar. “Twenty-six .40 cal. Trade you for the eighteen .45 rounds.”
Wayne picked open the bundle, holding up each bullet in turn as if examining diamonds. He dropped the last one into the batch with a click. “Fine.”
Kevin folded one arm across his chest, bracing his elbow in his palm and picking at his lip while staring at the woman. I’m an idiot for even considering trusting this bitch, but a thousand coins would do the trick and then some. After a pregnant pause, he sighed. “Alright, suppose I do get your ass to Harrisburg. You think your doctor buddy will pay two thousand?”
She looked up at him like a child given a pony for her birthday. “I’m sure he would. You don’t know how many lives you’re going to save.”
Wayne handed him back the pouch, a change in shape indicating fewer, heavier bullets. Kevin peeked, earning a smirk.
“What? You’re the guy that told me never to take anything on faith.”
“True.” Wayne grinned. “Thought you’d forgotten that when you lost the Marauder.”
Kevin’s eyes burned. “I miss that damn truck. Two inches of armor and a rotating turret.”
“You gonna plate up your new one?” Wayne gathered the empty mason jar mugs. “Guess not till it gets shot up a bit, awful pretty machine.”
“I dunno. I’m kind of liking being fast and agile.” Kevin went for the door. “Alright, come on.”
The girl hopped twice, lost her balance, and fell to her knees. When Kevin didn’t stop, she yelled, “Hey, come on. You can’t leave me tied up.”
“Sure I can. It’s easy. All I have to do is”―he opened his mouth with a mild gasp, feigning shock―“not untie you.”
She wobbled back to her feet as he reached the door and fell again after one more hop. “Ow.” She whined, and sniffled as if about to burst into tears.
Goddammit. “I’m not going to carry you.”
The woman attempted to get back on her feet and fell flat on her chest. She rolled side to side for a few seconds and thrashed before sniveling. He tromped back over and shook his head. She whimpered. Kevin lifted her by a hand under each arm and set her on the nearest barstool. When he pulled a knife from his belt, she smiled and spun so her back faced him.
“Thank you.” She tensed her arms.
Kevin pulled her around to face him and sawed the cord binding her legs. Her black shoes were heavy like boots, but short enough to expose bare ankles rubbed raw. He blinked at her, wondering how skin could turn that white. He hadn’t seen anything that color since he’d found a few packs of old copier paper in a sealed cabinet. That had been a nice little payday.
The woman swiveled around and held out her wrists, but he walked away.
“Hey.” She ran up behind him. “What the hell’s wrong with you?”
He stopped on the porch. “You’re worth one, maybe two-thousand coins. That, and the last bitch I let in my car stole it. I’m not taking any chances. I only cut your feet loose because I’m too lazy to carry you.”
A little color appeared in her face, turning it pink around her nose. She stared at him with an expression halfway between exasperated and angry when four members of the ‘New’ gang wandered over and gathered around him.
“Cute bounty. Where’s the turn in?” asked a stocky man he knew as Juan.
“She ain’t a bounty, she’s a client,” said Kevin.
“Horseshit, man. You’re runnin’ her up to Roswell,” said a New with a long scar down his face. “You know we run the law around here. We’ll be takin this one off yer hands. Give us the details o’ what she’s wanted fer, and get lost.”
“If you’re some kind of law, why’d you let those idiots kidnap me?” The woman narrowed her eyes at Scar.
Kevin shook his head. “The only ‘law’ these shitheads enforce is whatever that fatass Raphael tells them to do, and four on one is their kind of odds. Four on three, not so much.”
“Look, man…” A tall, thin biker, Weed according to the name patch on his cut, pulled the leather aside to show a pistol. “This don’t need to be ugly. We’re gonna take her and get that bounty.”
“I ain’t gonna warn you humps again.” Kevin glared at Scar. “She ain’t no wanted bounty. She’s a fare.”
“You keep all your fares tied?” Weed pulled his gun. “Or you inta slavin’ now?”
Kevin dove with a roar, tackling the thin man flat. The gun bounced into the street as small armor plates in his glove pounded into the ganger’s cheek. A longhaired New grabbed Kevin by the shoulders and tried to haul him off. Scar and Juan went after the girl. She backed up down the long porch, twisting and pulling at the binding on her wrists.
“I’m not a bounty; he’s just being an asshole. Thinks I want to steal his car.”
“Yeah, right,” said the scarred one, reaching.
She feigned a whimper that lured him off guard. A snap kick to the crotch stunned him long en
ough for her to jump into a flip-over kick that left a shoeprint on his cheek. He kissed the wall of the Roadhouse and fell unconscious. The woman landed wobbly without being able to use her arms for balance, but stayed upright. Juan hesitated, staring at her.
Kevin shoved himself up, driving his elbow into the gut of the longhaired man above him. Beer-flavored wheeze washed over his head as the New enforcer stumbled to all fours. Weed sat up and punched for Kevin’s balls, but he caught the skinny man’s arm. Holding him by the wrist, Kevin pulled him forward into a kick that struck the side of the head, knocking him flat, and out cold. The longhaired man pulled a knife and lunged at Kevin as he recovered from the kick. The blade stalled on an armor panel in his jacket. Kevin trapped the knife-wielding arm and fell on it, using his weight to drag the man to the floor. He pinned longhair’s arm under one knee, trapped the man’s free arm with his left hand, and punched him repeatedly in the skull until he looked unconscious.
Kevin sat back on his heels, panting. Longhair didn’t seem likely to get back up any time soon, but he punched him again for good measure.
Juan screamed and rushed at the woman. She spun out of his grab, escaping with only a torn breast pocket, and whipped her leg into a roundhouse kick. Her heavy-soled shoe caught him in the left ear, sending him flying headfirst through the Roadhouse railing onto five of the New gang’s e-bikes, which collapsed like a row of dominoes. Juan moaned, still conscious, but apparently in too much pain to get up. She backed away, shaking her head in an effort to get her hair over her shoulders and out of her eyes.
Kevin helped himself to some loose coins from the two men he’d knocked out, keeping her in sight the whole time. She trotted up to stand nearby; her body shook from adrenaline, though her eyes held fear. The woman stared pleas at him until he walked to his car. He opened the passenger door and gestured for her to get in.
“Gonna untie me?”
He glanced at the two men she put down. “You’re dangerous enough without hands. Be glad I’m too lazy to carry you. Now, get in.”
She gave him a pouty face for all of four seconds, but the clatter of gangers waking up nudged her into the vehicle. Kevin disconnected the charging cable from a bank of plugs and let it reel back into its compartment in the right-front fender. He pushed the hatch cover closed with a click, made his way around, and opened his door. Juan tried to get up off the pile of bikes, but wound up tripping and rolling face first onto the road. Kevin shook his head.
“You guys are gonna feel dumb when you figure out she ain’t no bounty.” He fell into the driver’s seat. “She’s right, I am just an asshole.”
Slam.
The closed door muted their grumbling.
6
A Little Sympathy
Silence filled the car for almost a half hour. The girl fidgeted, trying to squirm into a position to rub the soreness out of her ankles. Rope burns against such white skin looked like lipstick marks. Kevin kept his eyes on the road, heading north.
“Why won’t you trust me?” She stared at her lap.
“’Cause you’re a woman.” He glanced at her for a few seconds. “And a pretty one at that. Think you can get anything you want out of a man with a cute stare and a little bit of whimpering. Acting more helpless than you are. I saw how you moved on that porch. That spill you took in Wayne’s was a pity plea.” He scowled. “I shouldn’t have let it work.”
Her face turned pink around the nose again. “I’m not like that. I’m not gonna steal your damn car. I could even help if you cut me loose. I know my way around a gun.”
“That’s exactly what I’m afraid of.”
She kept quiet for another twenty minutes before she sniffled.
“Go ahead, cry if you want.” He tossed a rag in her lap. “You can blow your nose on that.”
“You gonna hold it for me?” She glared. “You’re going to think I’m trying to manipulate you into feeling sorry for me.”
“I already do, so get on with it and sob already.”
Her eyes narrowed. “In case you didn’t notice, I have no weapons, I’m not very strong, I’m alone, and I have no idea where I’m going or where I even am. Even if I did want to steal your car―which I don’t―I have no damn idea how to drive or which way to go.” She worked herself up into a huff, seeming much closer to angry than scared.
“Lying won’t help.”
She flashed a look of confusion.
“Not strong? You knocked Juan through a railing with one kick. I wasn’t that out of it. Wayne’s gonna be pissed at the damage.”
The woman got quiet.
“Didn’t figure a mole’d know their way around.”
She glanced past her hair at him. “What the hell is a mole?”
He tapped his fingers on the wheel for a moment before squinting at her. When her innocence didn’t flinch, he sighed. “You look like one. Pale as a ghost, white hair. Moles are them dumb bastards who think the war’s still going on and hide underground in old government shelters, sewers, or subways. After a few generations, they decided to expand the bunkers into cities rather than risk the outside world. Bunch o’ crazy idiots.”
She looked out the window on her side. “I’m not a mole. Please, I promise I won’t steal any of your things. I’m trying to save humanity.”
Kevin laughed. “You’re just full of big promises. A thousand coins, two thousand, saving all of humanity now?” He waved his hand about as he spoke. “Can’t say I blame you much. I don’t expect those three would’ve been very gentle with you.”
“What’s your name?”
“You’re trying to get in my head now. Get me to trust you. First it’s a name, then it’s a hug, maybe a kiss, maybe a handie, or maybe if you’re really desperate, full-on head. Then, I let my guard down and I wake up naked and tied hugging a cactus without a car. Look, the only difference between you and my usual cargo is that you talk. I ain’t gonna touch you. I ain’t gonna hurt you. I’m going to take you where you wanna go and hope to get paid. If I don’t get paid, then we might have a problem. Until we get there and I get my money, I’m not gonna take the chance of you runnin’ off. I should probably have carried you.”
“I’m Tris. I swear you’ll get paid. The doctor’s been waiting for this information his whole life.” She lifted a leg and wiped her nose on her knee.
“What information? You’ve got nothing anywhere on you. Not a tattoo down your back is it?” He chuckled, swerving around some potholes.
The motion knocked her against the door; she grunted. “It’s in my head.”
“Of course it is.”
“No, really. Look behind my ear.” She twisted, exposing the side of her neck.
After a momentary pause to make sure he had enough clear road to glance away, he reached across to brush her hair aside. Behind her left ear, a tiny metal socket glinted. Tris didn’t flinch from his touch, but she did curl into a ball when he screamed and pounded the wheel.
“Shit!”
“W-what?” She raised her knee as if expecting the next punch to be for her.
“That’s an interface jack. You’ve got cybernetic implants.” Kevin’s glower darkened. “You’re from the goddamned Enclave.” He seethed.
Tris pressed herself into the passenger side door, trembling.
“Oh, knock that simpering shit off already. I’m not going to hit you. You’re probably boosted to hell and back and could kill me with your hands tied behind your back.”
“Doesn’t seem like there’s much point to leaving me tied then, is there?” She eased herself out of her fearful pose.
“Nice try.” He glanced at her feet. “I should.”
She stared at her lap. “Please don’t.”
His gloves creaked on the wheel. Several silent minutes passed.
“It worked a little, didn’t it?” Tris didn’t look at him. “You do feel just a little sympathy for me?”
“Yeah, maybe a little. Don’t confuse sympathy with desperation. I’m a hundre
d coins short of my dream, and you offered a thousand. It’s shit pay for this kind of drive, but it’s enough to let me retire. Don’t get too excited yet, sweetie. At least now I know why those three didn’t rip your clothes off.”
“What?”
“They must’ve figured out you were Enclave. If you’re out here alone, that means you’ve run away or escaped or something. Probably ten thousand coins on your head if you’re brought back alive―but they won’t take you if there’s any ‘genetic impurities’ going on. They find one swimmer, no cash.”
Tris blushed a little again. “They don’t need me for that anymore.” He shot her a look, but she kept going. “My implant has data with medical information stolen from the Enclave computer. I’m carrying a cure for The Virus.” She stared urgency at him, eyes widening.
“Oh bul―” He glared at her. Unable to find any trace of deceit in her face, he grumbled at the windshield. “If that’s bullshit, you must believe it.”
“It’s not.”
“You’re not a fuckin’ android are you?”
“No. Just tweaked. If I was an android, I’d have snapped the cord already.” As if on cue, her stomach growled. “Those bastards didn’t give me much food.”
“Great. I got some Enclave chick in my car that’s either batshit crazy, or has something so valuable the entire damn world is going to come after me for it.”
“Nobody knows. Not even the Council of Four. I escaped. They don’t want the cure getting out here.” She squirmed, twisting at her arms. “It’ll be easier if I can help.”
Kevin stared into the distance, tracking the orange sun as it slipped westward, into the teeth of the mountains. When he didn’t answer, Tris slumped in her seat with a sigh. As time dragged on, she alternated between seeming angry and terrified. Another attempt to brute-force her way to freedom left her sweating and out of breath.
The Roadhouse Chronicles Box Set [Books 1-3] Page 3
