“Are you a risk taker, Clementine?”
Though her face and voice show nothing, one of her hands taps out a nervous beat on the table. I stare at the hand, and she stops.
“I am if I’m paid enough,” I say, folding my arms across my chest. “What, is it one of Jedediah’s men?” I should be wary, but it’s hard to keep the hunger out of my voice. I lean forward, and she leans with me, allowing me to drop my voice. “I’ve taken out almost a dozen of them over the years.”
She studies my face, showing no hint of surprise at my words.
“So I’ve heard,” she says. “But this isn’t one of Jedediah’s men.”
I lean back again, disappointed despite myself. There’s a certain thrill to hunting down the scum who work for our not-so-benevolent overlord—the risk, the challenge, the sense of justice, and of course the more personal thirst for revenge. But I push those thoughts aside. A job is a job … and more importantly, I’m starting to wonder what mark would make the job such a challenge, if it’s not one of Jedediah’s underlings. There isn’t anyone else who poses a threat around here; Jedediah’s made damn sure of it.
The informant glances around the room, licks her lips, and gestures for me to lean forward again. I sigh, but oblige, and she leans in even farther so our faces are a mere half foot apart.
“The mark is Jedediah Johnson himself.”
My head snaps back. I’m shocked into silence for a moment—and burst out in a harsh bark of laughter that causes every head in the room to turn toward us. The informant sinks down in her chair, her cheeks growing red. By the time I finish laughing, all but one passed-out townie in the corner have fled the room. In the silence following my laughter, the townie snores quietly.
“Well,” the informant says. “Now that you’ve succeeded in drawing far too much attention to us, I think we’re done here.” She stands up and moves to leave, but I grab her arm before she makes it far, yanking her back. She stares down at me, and I stare right back.
“What is this?” I ask. “Some kind of convoluted scam? An ambush? What’s the point of telling such a stupid lie?”
“I’m not a liar,” she says. “I’m sure Alex told you as much, or you wouldn’t even have showed up.”
I chew that over, relaxing my grip on her arm just a bit. While I wouldn’t go so far as to say I trust Alex, he doesn’t have any reason to waste my time. I bring in a lot of business, and a lot of his beloved souvenirs.
“Getting to Jedediah is impossible,” I say. “He never leaves the Wormwood mansion, and he’s surrounded by his goons.” I’ve looked into it, hunted for information that could lead me to him, even risked scoping out the place myself a couple times. I’ve wanted to kill him for years, but it’s just not feasible. There are guards at every door of his mansion, armed patrols, impenetrable defenses. The place is a fortress.
The informant sighs. She pulls her arm back, and I let go after a moment, gesturing to the seat across from me. She slowly sits down.
“There’s new information,” she says. “From someone on the inside.”
My eyebrows shoot up.
“Why would one of his men betray him?” It doesn’t make sense. Jedediah’s men have it made, and they’d be dead if they went against him in any way.
“They say he’s been acting strange,” she says. “Upping the taxes, tightening his noose a little too snugly. The townies are pissed, and his men are taking the blame. There’s been talk of dissent in the ranks, maybe even an uprising. Maybe they think they’re jumping off a sinking ship.”
I’ve heard no such rumors of an uprising—but then again, why would townies tell me? They’ve made it pretty damn clear that they trust me just a hair more than they trust the raiders. And I know the part about raising taxes is true. I gesture at her to continue.
“Whatever the reason, this person came to me. And they told me there’s something hardly anyone knows about the place. Something that, if you knew, would make it easy to get into the Wormwood mansion, right to Jedediah himself.”
She stops there. I know she wants me to ask more, but I’m still wary. I want to believe—want to believe so badly that I’m trying very hard to hold myself back. My mind keeps flashing to what a job like this would mean for me. Jedediah Johnson is the reason that my home is now a pile of ashes. He’s the reason my family is dead and my face is burnt and my life is the way it is.
But taking him down would be about more than revenge, or honoring the memory of my people … It would be a chance to show, once and for all, that I’m on the good side. I could liberate the eastern towns, get rid of a tyrant, save people from this oppression. People would love me for it. No more unwelcoming stares, no more mistrust, no more looking at me like I’m some kind of monster. They would let me in with open arms.
I’d be a hero. I’d have a home.
But I’m getting carried away here. No matter how much this would mean for me, and how badly I want it to be true, I can’t let that blind me. It’s still highly unlikely that this is true, and far more likely that I’d be wandering into a trap.
“Fine. Give me the information and maybe I’ll consider checking it out,” I say, even as I will myself to walk away.
The informant looks far too satisfied for my liking. She knows she’s caught my interest. I plaster on a scowl, waiting for her to stop looking so smug and continue.
“Near the mansion is a scrapyard,” she says. “Bunch of rusty, good-for-nothing old cars, all the good parts stripped. But beneath one of them—a red truck—is a hidden trapdoor.”
“Seriously?” I ask, rolling my eyes. This sounds more and more like another urban legend about Jedediah.
“Inside is a tunnel. A tunnel leading right under the Wormwood mansion, that opens up right in Jedediah’s bedroom.”
I stare at her.
“There’s no way it can be that simple.”
“Jedediah’s a smart man. He knows he needs a way out in case shit ever goes down. But hardly anyone is allowed into his room, and nobody’s going to bother to check under rusty old cars. Very, very few people know about this, as far as I understand.”
“And you’re sure there are no guards waiting on the other side?”
“Like I said. Hardly anyone knows the tunnel exists, including his own men.”
I tap my fingers on the table. I still have so many questions, and so many doubts. And yet, I want so badly to believe it could be true, want so badly for there to be a chance to take out Jedediah. If there was even a half-believable shot, I would be willing to take it. And yet …
“What a load of bullshit.” I shove out my chair and stand up, shaking my head at her. “Thanks for wasting my time,” I say dryly, and head for the door.
“Clementine!” she calls after me. I don’t turn around, but she continues anyway. “If you get him, get him alive. No one will believe you otherwise.”
I pause at the door, scowling over my shoulder at her.
“I’m not chasing some fairy tale,” I say, and leave without another glance back. I head to my truck, start her up, and hesitate for just a moment, my hands gripping the steering wheel tightly. The information has to be fake … it has to be. All signs point to this “job” being absolute bullshit. And yet … what if it’s not?
I jam my heel on the gas and head straight for Wormwood.
IV
The Tunnel
The tunnel is real.
I sit back on my heels, staring at it. It was waiting beneath a rusty old red truck in the middle of a scrapyard, exactly where the informant said it would be. The metal trapdoor was coated with dirt, making it virtually invisible unless you were looking for it, but it was here. The darkness of the tunnel stares back at me, an awful smell drifting out of its open mouth.
Goddamn do I wish the tunnel wasn’t real. Would’ve made things a whole lot easier if I could’ve just dismissed the whole thing as bullshit. I could’ve laughed at myself for being stupid enough to believe it for even a second, for risk
ing my life coming out to Jedediah’s headquarters in Wormwood, hiding my truck, and sneaking past his patrols into this abandoned scrapyard. I could’ve walked away kicking myself about nearly falling for such a stupid trick.
But the tunnel is real. So now what?
I chew my bottom lip, keeping my gun aimed at the open tunnel just in case something comes crawling out of it, but inside it’s still and silent. There’s no hint of what’s within, aside from the smell, and no hint about what’s waiting on the other end. It could be an ambush. It could be a dead end. Or maybe, just maybe, it could be the self-declared king of the eastern wastes.
It seems far more likely that it’s a trick … but if I don’t find out for sure, I’ll wonder about this moment forever.
“Fuck it,” I mutter. I scoot under the car and lower myself into the darkness.
Inside, it’s cramped and earthy, and I have to crouch to prevent my head from hitting the ceiling. The terrible smell is ten times worse than it was outside. I cough, and cover my mouth with one hand to stifle any further noise, the other keeping my gun aimed at the darkness in front of me. It’s impossible to see anything ahead.
I remove my hand from my mouth and grope along the wall, pressing forward. After a couple minutes, the dim moonlight from the entrance is barely visible. Muffled sounds come from above—voices and footsteps. I must be directly underneath the Wormwood mansion. I pause, looking up and imagining Jedediah’s men right above me. The ceiling of the tunnel trembles, raining dust whenever it gets too loud above. It’s easy to picture the whole thing collapsing on me, burying me as punishment for my stupidity, but I brush the concern away. Clearly the tunnel has stood for this long, and it will continue standing tonight. I push forward, half-listening to the sounds above, just in case there’s a clamor that means they may have found my truck, or the disturbed trapdoor, or some other sign of an intruder. None comes.
After a few minutes longer, I bump up against something. I step back, so startled I almost make the grave mistake of firing my gun, but it’s just another wall. My stomach sinks at the thought that I’ve hit a dead end. Is this it? The end to my fantasy of killing Jedediah?
The ceiling groans, and I look up. There are footsteps above, and barely visible in the darkness, another metal trapdoor. I reach up to run my fingers over it, and my heart thuds wildly in my chest. I haven’t hit a dead end after all. This is it: the exit, and the moment of truth.
Someone is right above me, in the room this trapdoor opens into. I listen carefully for a couple minutes, but I can only hear one set of footsteps. Perhaps not an ambush, then. But could it really be him? The raider king himself, Jedediah Johnson? Is this the moment where I prove myself an idiot for believing what the informant told me, or the moment where I prove myself a hero?
Time to find out.
Gun held ready, I push open the trapdoor, grab the edge with my free hand, and pull myself up to the other side.
V
The Capture of Jedediah Johnson
“Oh, hello,” Jedediah Johnson says, going slightly cross-eyed as he stares down the barrel of my gun.
I’ve imagined this moment a thousand times, in a thousand different ways, but it never played out quite like this. I thought the infamous Jedediah would be angry about being captured, or afraid, maybe even impressed. At the very least, I thought he’d be surprised. But instead, he just seems curious and progressively more cross-eyed.
He doesn’t look the way I’d expected, either. Rumors abounded about his appearance, of course, mostly involving hideous scars and jewelry made of human teeth. I was more realistic; I knew he was the brains of his crew, with more than enough brawn eager to do his dirty work, and he wouldn’t have to be huge and intimidating like his made-of-muscle tax collectors. But still, this guy looks like I could deck him with one good punch.
And he has a very punchable face, with a mouth that seems on the verge of smirking, even at this moment. He’s surprisingly close to my own age, and has no scars, burns, tattoos, piercings, or any marks of the life of violence and depravity I know he leads. And he’s shorter than I am. It’s not unusual, but still, I would’ve assumed a man with such a towering reputation would top five foot ten. In a room full of strangers, I never would have picked this man as the infamous raider-turned-ruler. In fact, I wouldn’t spare him a second glance for any reason.
But this is him. It must be. Against all odds, everything else the informant told me has been correct—and why else would there be a secret tunnel into Jedediah’s headquarters, if not as an emergency escape route for the man himself?
“Get on your knees,” I say, gesturing impatiently when the gun in his face doesn’t seem like enough of a clue for him. “Put your hands behind your head.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he says, sinking to his knees on the carpet. I can’t believe the bastard actually has carpet in his bedroom, plush and beige and offensively clean before my boots smeared a trail of dirt across it. He also has a real bed, with real sheets, and a closet full of clothes that look like they’ve been barely worn. It’s exactly the life of luxury I would’ve expected an evil, conniving dictator to lead. At least that makes sense about this situation.
But his attitude is really throwing me off. He seems completely unconcerned, even with a gun to his head, even when I roughly jerk his hands down and tie them behind his back. He doesn’t struggle, doesn’t yell for help, just sits there patiently waiting for me to finish. Once his hands are secure, I circle around to the front of him, jabbing the gun in his face again. This time he doesn’t go cross-eyed, but looks right past the gun and meets my eyes. One corner of his lips curls up.
“You don’t have anything to say?” I ask. I know it’s a bad idea to engage an extremely dangerous prisoner, but I can’t resist.
“Oh, is this the part where I’m supposed to beg for my life?” he asks. “Or ask how you got in here?” His eyes swivel to the trapdoor. “I mean, that one is pretty obvious. I suppose a more appropriate question would be ‘Which traitorous asshole told you about the secret entrance?’ but that’s a mystery easily solved. There are a very limited number of people who know about it. It shouldn’t take the crew long to figure out who spilled the beans, find them, and kill them.” He says it very matter-of-factly, and smiles as he turns back to me.
I stare at him. Maybe there’s nothing fishy going on here after all; maybe he’s just this damn arrogant.
“I thought about yelling for a guard,” he continues, “but I figured you’d likely shoot me if I did that, and I’d prefer not to get shot.”
“So you think I’m not going to shoot you?” I ask, keeping my voice even and flat.
“Don’t think so. I’m worth more alive, right, Clementine?”
I jerk at the sound of my name.
“How do you know who I am?” I ask, trying to hide how much it rattles me to hear my name from his mouth. I never thought the raider king himself would know about me. I thought he’d have his goons worry about things like bounty hunters, while he stayed holed up in this pretty little room.
“Oh, please,” Jedediah says. His eyes slide across the burnt half of my face, his gaze so penetrating I can practically feel its touch. His eyes reach the twisted corner of my mouth, pause, and shift up to meet my stare. “You’re prettier than I thought you’d be.”
I stuff my handkerchief into his mouth to make sure he’s thoroughly silenced. He waggles his eyebrows at me, the corners of his eyes crinkling in amusement.
I have yet to decide if he’s utterly insane or just ridiculously confident, but either way, I need to keep this job professional. Clean. The way I always do things. It doesn’t matter that this is goddamn Jedediah Johnson I’m dealing with, and it doesn’t matter that I’ve been dreaming of taking him down for years, and it doesn’t matter that this could change my entire life. For now, all that matters is getting the job done, and getting it done right.
Collecting a mark usually means a lot of struggling and fighting and yelling, a
t least until I knock them out. I certainly wouldn’t mind landing a couple of good punches on this bastard, but he’s behaving himself remarkably well, and I’d rather avoid dragging him all the way to my truck if I can help it. Still, I’m not gentle as I shove him into the tunnel, my gun aimed at the back of his head. I jump down and pull the trapdoor shut behind us. When it closes, it’s just him and me and the darkness of the tunnel. I can barely make out his shape ahead.
“Move,” I say. Jedediah balks, hesitant for the first time. I wonder if it’s the sudden realization of his own helplessness, or that he’s leaving the safety of his headquarters, or maybe just the fact that his secret escape tunnel smells like something died in it a while ago and was never discovered. Regardless, a sharp jab with the barrel of my gun gets him moving again.
I move slowly, quietly, listening for any sound of a disturbance above or company joining us in the cramped tunnel. But I hear nothing; no one approaching, no sign that anyone has noticed my presence or Jedediah’s absence. I’m listening so carefully that a sudden noise makes me jump. It takes me a few moments to realize what it is. Jedediah is … humming. Humming cheerfully under his breath like this is a pleasant stroll.
“Stop that,” I hiss once I’ve shaken off my surprise, poking him in the back of the neck with my gun. He shuts up, but I swear I hear muffled chuckling.
At the end of the tunnel, I make him wait behind. I pause, my hands on the trapdoor, listening for any voices or footsteps outside. When I hear nothing, I push it open—first just a few inches so I can peer around, and fully when the area appears deserted.
The trapdoor scrapes against the bottom of the car above as I open it. I climb out and reach back to help Jedediah up. Thankfully he’s a scrawny bastard, and easy enough to pull upward. I move on my hands and knees to the other side of the vehicle, and glance around once more before dragging Jedediah out and pulling him to his feet. He coughs on dust, frowning, unable to wipe himself off after the drag through the dirt. I almost smile at the look on his face, but stifle it, reminding myself I’m still not in the clear.
Raid Page 3
