The Roadhouse Chronicles Box Set [Books 1-3]

by Cox, Matthew S.

  Kevin raised a placating hand at him.

  “You got some balls, kid.” Tris squinted. “What the hell are you doing?”

  She sniffled.

  “You can skip the pathetic act.” Kevin folded his arms. “I’ve been around long enough not to fall for the old crying beggar kid with a hidden knife.”

  “Not acting.” Fix bit her lip. “Sorry for tryin’ to steal your stuff.”

  “Yeah, well. Be happy you’re a kid.” Kevin made a shooing gesture. “G’won afore the cook has a stroke.”

  Fix glanced at Tris’s chest, avoiding eye contact. “Thanks for the jacket.”

  “Lucky it happened to be there when I was leaving.” Tris shot Kevin an unreadable stare, somewhere between apologizing for being nice to the girl and guilt.

  “Yeah. Still, you didn’t have to give it to me.”

  “Apology accepted.” Kevin glanced at the windows again, relieved that no one hustled up in ambush while the kid distracted them.

  Fix didn’t budge.

  “Oh for fuck’s sake.” Tris scooted toward the window. “Sit down.” She waved at the cook. “’Nother burger please.”

  “You’re payin for it. Ain’t my charity,” yelled the man behind the counter.

  “Such friendly neighbors in this place.” Kevin winked.

  Fix eased herself into the bench seat, perching on the edge and sitting rigid.

  “Knock it off with the pathetic bit.” Kevin sighed. “We’re not going to hurt you.” He swabbed meat juice up with his toast. “Unless you try something shifty.”

  “You got a car, right?” She kept her gaze on her lap.

  Kevin squeezed the Uzi. She looked like an older version of the ‘hand grenade orphans’ from closer to the Mexican border. Round face, wide, innocent eyes, and a backpack full of badness to throw at you when you stopped watching them. They weren’t orphans though. If the grenade didn’t finish you off, Mom or Dad would… or one of their siblings too old to be ‘cute’ anymore. Fortunately, the Marauder had thick armor.

  Damn, I miss that truck.

  “The only way you’re going near my car is hogtied and in the trunk.” Kevin pointed over the table. “I’m not losing another one.”

  Tris chuckled. “Don’t feel bad, I had to be tied up to ride the first time too.”

  Fix looked up, fear plain on her face. “R-really?”

  Kevin frowned. “I found her like that.”

  “And he didn’t trust me enough to cut me loose. Thought I was gonna steal his car.”

  “The last woman I let near my car stole it.” He scowled.

  “Oh, so everyone with tits is a car thief?” Tris rolled her eyes.

  “No…” He tapped a finger on the table. “Everyone who’s alone and not as harmless as they look is a car thief.”

  Tris stuck her tongue out. “I never wanted to steal your car.”

  “I don’t.” Fix looked down. “I just wanna get out of this place.”

  The cook arrived with a plate. She cringed away, raising a hand to shield her face. The portly man set the meal in front of her and gave Kevin a look of mutual annoyance at her ‘overacted’ pitifulness. Kevin nodded. Tris handed him two coins.

  Fix stared at the food without taking her hands out of the sweatshirt pocket. “I gotta get outta Glimmertown. I don’t care if you tie me up. I’ll ride in the trunk if you want. Just get me outta here.”

  “What’s the rush?” Tris glanced at the window. “Who’d you piss off that’ll shoot us for helping you?”

  “Wow. I thought I was the cynic.” Kevin chuckled.

  Tris winked. “Must be rubbing off.”

  “Not yet. Too much pain.” Kevin managed not to grimace while stretching.

  A little pink appeared in Tris’s cheeks.

  “No one.” Fix risked making eye contact with Tris. “I’m fifteen. Won’t be long before those assholes at Cloud 9 come after me. I don’t wanna be a whore… you know, like you didn’t wanna be. They’da grabbed me already, but I’m good at lookin’ like a little kid.”

  Tris glared at the girl with such a look of rage Kevin started to reach over the table to grasp her hand.

  “I mean… you killed Neon right ‘cause he wanted to buy you.” Fix leaned away, shivering. “That’s all I meant.”

  “Oh. Yeah… and four of his guys.” She sighed. “It’s his car, but I don’t see the harm in giving you a ride to the first roadhouse we hit.”

  “I’ll have to buy some rope.” Kevin drummed his fingers on the table.

  “Okay.” After a moment, Fix summoned her most pitiful expression and looked up at him. “What if I did you a favor?”

  “I’m not sure I want to know where you’re going to take that.” Kevin pursed his lips. “You seem to be part of the scene here… Think you can set up a buy with Petersen for some stuff?”

  “The Salt?” Fix shivered. “Uhh, no. If I go in there, I ain’t comin’ out. You stole all their women. They wouldn’t even care how old I am.”

  “Dunno, man.” The cook walked over and topped off their coffees. “Rumor goin’ round Petersen and Neon weren’t rightly eye to eye.”

  “How’s that?” Kevin looked up at a sweaty face covered by a wild brown beard streaked with grey.

  “Petersen’s about power and business. Neon had his… vices. Slaving gets some people all sorts of sentimental. Tempers flare. No one comes blazing into town ready to die to rescue their drugs.” The cook gave Fix a pointed stare before walking off.

  “I mean another kind of favor.” Fix let a little hope creep into her green eyes. “I’m sneaky too.”

  “We know,” said Kevin and Tris at the same time.

  Fix pulled her hands out of the pocket, revealing a 1911 pistol. She cradled it flat across her palms, careful not to seem as if she intended to use it, and set it on the Formica table. Kevin gawked at the American Eagle grips and familiar scratches on the left side. “My real name’s Stacy.”

  Kevin grabbed it. Tris tried to hide a smile behind her hand.

  “Is gettin’ that back for you enough for a ride outta here?”

  “This is it.” He ran his fingers over the weapon before putting it back in its holster. “I think I can about forgive you for trying to steal my jacket.”

  Tris smirked at him. Her expression said ‘really?’

  Stacy seemed to relax. “I know someone lookin’ for a driver to move some stuff. Last I heard, they’re payin’ 1800 coins.”

  Kevin pointed at Tris. “This one offered me a thousand for a ride and I still haven’t seen a tenth of it.”

  The amused tone in his voice kept her from appearing too upset, but Tris still looked down.

  “Isn’t me payin’.” Stacy at last attacked her food, devouring it as if she hadn’t eaten in days. “I’ll set up a meeting, ‘an you can decide from there. It ain’t Cloud 9.”

  Tris drained her coffee. “If that other job pans out, you could offload that crap to Petersen for say one thousand… tell him you’ll take the loss as a ‘make-it-right’ gesture or something.”

  Stacy almost smiled at him. “Yeah, he might forgive you for killing Neon.”

  Kevin’s eyebrows formed a flat ridge. “I didn’t kill Neon.”

  26

  A Matter of Perspective

  By some strange paradox, Glimmertown seemed far quieter at ten in the morning than at two hours after midnight. Sun-beaten streets, some paved, most dirt, saw only a few scattered pieces of trash moving about. Old tin cans and battered plastic cartons scraped along in a fitful breeze. The distant shadow of the reinforced barrier around the settlement made it feel more like a prison than an oasis.

  Tris followed Stacy for five or so minutes, staring at the girl’s hands for any sign of deceit. Is this how Kevin felt when he first met me? She wanted to trust the innocent-looking face, but the attempted ambush with a drug patch validated Kevin’s worry. The girl paused to look back before taking a left turn, stepping over a collapsed stack of a
luminum shipping boxes. She’d gone into a narrow alley that ran in a rightward curve between the backs of two rows of ramshackle dwellings, thick with shadows despite the daylight. Somewhere, an electric fan motor whirred and rattled. Tris slid her katana out of its sheath.

  A quick two-step rush caught up to the teen. Tris grabbed her by the shoulder and flung her into the wall, leveling the sword point at her throat. “Okay, kid. What’s your game?”

  Stacy stared for a half second before the tears started. “G-game?”

  “You got us to split up, and now you’re leading me into a dark alley. Who’s waiting for us?”

  “N-no one.” Stacy held her hands up. “I promise… no bullshit. Please don’t kill me.”

  Tris stared down the gleaming length of steel and narrowed her eyes.

  “Please…” Stacy whined and rose up on tiptoe to get away from the point at her throat. “You’re the only one in this place who’s ever been nice to me. I wasn’t always like this. I swear I ain’t gamin’ you.”

  Tris lowered the sword one inch. “You’ve seen how fast I can move.”

  “Yeah.” Stacy nodded.

  “I’ve got some Enclave tech. One of my toys is a kind of lie detector.” Tris touched the point of the katana to the base of the girl’s throat. “It measures facial gestures and stress responses. Look me right in the eye and tell me you’re not leading me into some kind of ambush. If it tells me you’re lying, I’m going to cut your head off right here.”

  Stacy shivered, sniveled, and cried. She stared at Tris without blinking. “I’m not lying. Her name’s Jasmin. She runs the general store. Has a job. I wanna get out of this town.”

  If this kid’s acting, she’s pretty damn good at it. Tris sighed and lowered the sword. “Okay. Sorry. It’s been shitty for us lately. Gotta be careful.”

  Stacy covered her face with her hands, shivering and breathing hard. She wiped her eyes and moved away from the wall. “S’okay. I did, like, try to sleepy you and everything. I understand why you don’t trust me.”

  The teen’s sorrowful look bloomed into one of startlement. Instinctively, Tris’s cybernetic boost kicked on. A scuff of dirt came from behind. She whirled. A skinny man with wild hair and a thin goatee down to his belly leapt out of a gap between two huts, a syringe held high like an assassin’s dagger.

  Tris whipped her blade around, severing his arm midway between wrist and elbow. The pain from the strike only began to register on his face when her follow through took his head off. He hit the ground with a weak thump. Stacy whimpered.

  Tris glanced back to find the girl trembling. “Pee yourself?”

  Stacy shook her head. “Almost. Ain’t never seen anyone die before… not that close.”

  “Sorry. I’ve got a problem with slavers.” Tris squatted and gathered a bit of the man’s coat in her hand, using it to clean the blade. “If you’re with us for any length of time, you’ll probably see death a lot more.”

  “Hey… I ain’t like lookin’ to be adopted or some shit. Too old for that now. I just wanna get outta here ‘fore… you know.”

  Tris stood. “Kevin said most people out here are friendly and helpful.”

  “He ain’t from Glimmertown. This place ain’t ‘most people.’”

  “Lead on.” Tris slid the katana back in the scabbard and crushed the syringe under her shoe.

  “Sec.” Stacy cringed as she crouched over the body and rummaged his pockets. She collected a couple coins, a knife, and three needle-tipped ampules of white liquid. “’Kay.”

  Tris glowered at her until she dropped the drugs. Poor kid. “How’d you wind up here?”

  Stacy’s pleading look back and forth from Tris to the injectors failed to sway her. “Don’t really remember much. I was pretty small. When you’re real little, everyone’s nice. ‘Ventually, I stopped being a ‘little kid’ and it changed. People didn’t wanna give me food and stuff unless I did things. So I started stealing. The drugs… I don’t really remember how; they kinda happened.”

  “Just say no.” Tris smiled.

  Stacy blinked. “What?”

  Tris tugged her along by the sweatshirt. “I’ve seen historical documentaries about what drugs do to people. You’re supposed to ‘just say no’ and everything will be okay.”

  “Uhh, whatever.” Stacy trudged on. “I haven’t had any in a while. Startin’ to feel like ass.”

  “What were you taking?”

  “I dunno. Whatever I could get my hands on. Not VS. Fuck that with a capital f. Most people who take that crap don’t come back. They get high and stay there.”

  Tris cringed. The Enclave… I never should’ve let him take that stuff to sell. “It’s as much my fault as his now. I didn’t have to get it back.”

  “Huh?” Stacy looked back.

  “That box. It’s uhh… full of void salt.”

  Stacy’s light brown skin faded to almost Caucasian for a second. “No way. Uhh, maybe I shouldn’t go with you two.”

  “Oh, it’s not happening again.” She glared at the wall, where someone had painted a giant jalapeño pepper with a sombrero and eyes. “Guilt makes a person do strange things.”

  “Yeah.” Stacy gathered the purple sweatshirt tight. “I guess. Sorry.”

  Eighteen minutes later according to the time floating in the lower left corner of her vision, Tris followed Stacy along a passage between two large buildings. The alley forced them to turn sideways and shimmy in spots, except for a protruding ventilation fan that required a little crawling to get by.

  “Where the hell are you going?” Tris dragged herself past the gap and stood.

  Stacy replied in a whisper. “You got Petersen’s crew looking for you, and probably Tyrant’s as well. Jasmin’s place is right in the main quad. Sneaking in the back way.”

  The girl crept to the end of the building and poked her head out into the sun. A few seconds later, she slipped around to the right. Tris followed into a wide-open quad surrounded by various shops, casinos, and brothels. The garage where the Challenger waited sat less than sixty yards away, on the far side of the reinforced gate. Stacy kept close to the wall and ducked into the first doorway she reached.

  Tris walked in behind her, eyeing a room set up like an old-timey store with shelves of seemingly random stuff: canteens, coils of wire, a pile of mass-produced machetes, tackle boxes, a handful of mismatched boots, one sleeping bag, matches, candles, a number of shirts, and even some canned goods. Over the shelves on the right, a selection of cowboy hats hung on pegs. Tris debated getting one for Kevin, but expected he’d only complain about wasting money.

  At the back end of the store, a woman who could’ve been Stacy’s cousin by looks stood behind a glass counter. She had a pair of handguns in a nylon harness over a grey tank top that struggled to contain her rather generous bosom. The clerk had a second pair of handguns on her belt, camo fatigues, and flip-flops. A pair of well-worn black combat boots sat near a doorway that led deeper into the back.

  Tris approached, still mulling the hat. She pictured him wearing only the hat and grinned to herself. Red velvet material on the enclosed shelves bore dark spots in the shapes of handguns, though the only items inside consisted of a handful of chintzy rings and a box of bandages.

  “What’s this?” asked the woman, speaking to Stacy but giving Tris a look. “Somethin’ not natural here.”

  Stacy leaned back, elbows on the counter, and smiled. “Jaz, I found some people who might be interested in that job.”

  The woman regarded Tris with a critical eye. “Well, you definitely not from Glimmertown.”

  “No… no I’m not.” Tris nodded at Jasmin’s belt. “That’s a lot of hardware to protect a couple pairs of boots and some camping gear.”

  Little trace of warmth lurked in the eyes locked on her. “What’s the Enclave doin’ out here?”

  “Beats me.” Tris put her hands on her hips. “They want me dead. What’s a shop owner willing to pay 1800 coins for someone to dr
ive somewhere? I’m guessing you’ve got some special merchandise. We’re not interested if it’s drugs.”

  “Oh, a crusader.” Jasmin’s hard glare relaxed. “Next thing, you’ll be tellin’ me you’re the one that offed Neon.”

  Stacy coughed.

  Tris shrugged. “Not sure I know anything about that. Though, I’ve heard some guns tend to go off on their own if they’re brought too close to stupid people.”

  Jasmin smiled. “Took his pets too, huh?”

  “They’re safe.” Tris kept half an eye on the window, watching shapes she assumed to be armed men move around outside. “Not havin’ a whole ton of time here. What’s the run?”

  “Well.” Jasmin chuckled. “It is drugs, but not the kind you’re thinkin’ of. Medical supplies. Antibiotics, some pain killers, couple antivirals, basic stuff.”

  “And you’re going to trust someone you’ve never met to take it where you want it to go?” Tris blinked. “Seems like an awful lot of faith to have in a town like this.”

  “I’ve got a lot of faith in GPS and tamper-proof cases.” Jasmin folded her arms. “The kind of tamper proofing that puts a permanent end to thieves.”

  Tris tilted her head to one side. “GPS hasn’t worked in years. All the satellites got toasted during the war.”

  “Damn. Fuckin’ Enclave would know that.” Jasmin glared at the floor.

  Stacy covered her mouth to hide her grin.

  “Why would we steal it? Bandits aren’t all that interested in medical supplies. Besides, Kevin’s a driver for the roadhouse. If something goes wrong, you can take it up with them.”

  Jasmin tapped a foot, seeming to debate the issue.

  “Not to mention,” said Tris, “1800 coins is a lot to pay for a bunch of painkillers and antibiotics. Where’s it going? That’s the catch, isn’t it? It’s going somewhere shitty.”

  “Not that bad.” Jasmin pursed her lips. “Dallas.”

  That sounds familiar… must be a big city. Kevin’s gonna love that. “I think we can do it. How large a shipment are you talking? We’ve got car, not a cargo truck.”

  “One box.” Jasmin outlined a shape about the size of a footlocker in midair. “Should fit in a trunk. Sergeant Ralston is the contact in Dallas. He’s got the code for the box and the money for you. I’ve already got my cut of it, so you don’t have to come back.”