The Man Who Crossed Worlds (Miles Franco #1)
Page 7
CHAPTER SEVEN
I think I must have passed out for a while, because when I came to the rain was easing and the first fingers of light were spreading over the horizon, like God reaching over Bluegate to crush the last of the life out of it.
My arms were still bound. I tried to reach into my pockets before I remembered Ugly had taken my knife. I glanced back at the strip club, but even the bouncer was gone now. It was just me, alone, in the damp parking lot. I tried to get to my feet, but the world spun and I stumbled back down again.
It was hopeless. I had fucked up. I had really fucked up. For a moment I was filled with rage, rage at the cops, at Todd for his dumbass plan to talk to Peterson. But I was too tired and sore, and the anger quickly burned out. It had been me who’d stumbled around like the drunkest man at the party, picking fights and saying dumb things.
It wasn’t like this was my fight, not really. This sort of shit was what the cops were for. They got money, they got guns, they got support. Me, I was just their damn dog.
John Andrews had been scared of the cops. Maybe I should be too. Screw this Chroma rubbish. So what if there was another drug out there? Bluegate was a goddamn graveyard already, full of the skeletons of abandoned buildings. Maybe it’d be kinder to let it die.
Not for the innocent ones, a little voice whispered. Not for people like Tania. My job led me to see the bad side of Bluegate, but that wasn’t all there was to it.
Not that it mattered now. I’d failed. Andrews knew something about Chroma, but I hadn’t even been close to getting it out of him. I supposed I should be thankful I got out of there alive, but given the way my ribs ached, I wasn’t exactly in a grateful mood.