Falter

by V. J. Chambers

  “Yes,” said Imri. “We’ve converted this barn into apartments, and it’s actually quite cozy. You needn’t worry that she’s been mistreated.”

  I parked the truck in front of the barn and got out. “Show me where she is.”

  Imri got out of the truck as well. “This favor I’m speaking of.”

  “Oh,” I said. “Right. What?”

  Imri walked ahead of me. “As you know, there are those out there who capture immortals and drain their blood for sale. Both you and I want those people to be stopped, even killed. They are abominations, treating a sacred gift like a product.”

  A sacred gift, huh? He sure acted strangely about the blood. “What’s so sacred about it?”

  He turned back to look at me. “Oh, Jason, there is so much you don’t know. But allow me to explain the favor first, will you?”

  “Whatever,” I said.

  He went to the door of the barn, took a key out of his pocket, and opened it. “There is only one large conglomerate left in the United States since you took down Bartholomew and Anita, but they are quite powerful.”

  “We’ve been looking for them,” I said. “I mean, I think that’s what Boone has been up to. I’ve actually been a little out of the loop.”

  “I know where they are,” said Imri. “As a favor to me, and a show of good faith, if you and your people were to kill the man at the head of it, effectively dismantling their operation, then I think I could convince my people that we were even. You see, not only is that man profiting from the blood of immortals, he also did me and my people and injury. He killed someone I cared about. If you were to dispatch the head of the conglomerate, my people would be satisfied.”

  I chuckled. “So, you spend all this time telling me how horrible it is that I kill people, but the minute you get the chance, you ask me to kill for you. And for revenge, of all things. You can’t kill him yourself, is that it?”

  “You and your people are uniquely suited to the task.” Imri led me up a set of narrow steps. “My people are not trained for such things.”

  Of course they weren’t. The hypocrisy of it. It made me sick.

  Imri opened a door at the top of the steps.

  “Jason?” said a voice from within.

  “Grace?”

  She bounded out of the room, throwing her arms around me. I hugged her back.

  “You came. I knew you guys would come get me,” she said.

  I reached up to switch my earpiece back on. “Guys, I’ve got Grace. She’s safe.”

  * * *

  Boone instructed me to take her back to his hotel immediately. I agreed. Until we had Grace off the property, it didn’t make sense to give up our hostages. That meant, however, that I had to keep Imri with me. So the three of us sat in the cab of the truck, Grace in the middle. It was a little bit of a squeeze.

  As I pulled away from the barn, Imri peered around Grace. “Well, Jason? About the favor?”

  “No,” I said.

  “No?”

  “You want me to risk my people and go into some dangerous situation just to make it right? I won’t do that.”

  Imri sighed. “I’m sorry you feel that way.”

  “I am too.”

  Boone’s voice interrupted me over the earpiece. He wanted to talk to Grace, so I gave her my cell phone, and I watched her blush several shades of pink as she talked to him. There wasn’t much on her side of the conversation, really, and I couldn’t imagine what Boone was saying.

  Imri didn’t speak again for the rest of the ride.

  Boone was waiting for us in the parking lot. I pulled the truck up, and Grace dropped my phone onto the seat and scrambled out, pushing me out in front of her.

  I kept an eye on Imri while I went over to speak to Boone.

  But the minute Boone saw Grace, she was in his arms, and they were kissing. Like not-the-kind-of-thing-you-want-to-see-in-public kissing. I found myself feeling embarrassed and looking away. Whatever issues Boone was having before about being with Grace, he seemed to be over them.

  Eventually, I cleared my throat. “Um, Boone, we still have hostages.”

  “You can handle that,” he told me. “Don’t bother us, okay? I’m turning off my earpiece, I’m turning off my phone. Consider Grace and I indisposed.”

  Right. Definitely over the issues, then.

  I watched as they went back into the hotel, arm in arm.

  Then I got back in the truck. “All right, Imri, let’s get you back to your family and put this whole thing to bed.”

  That was when I realized that Imri had my cell phone.

  I took it from him. “What did you do?”

  Imri smiled sadly. “I’m sorry, Jason. I’d really hoped you’d voluntarily do that favor for me.”

  Stupid. I was an idiot. I should have watched that phone. When Grace dropped it in the car, why hadn’t I picked it up? “Who did you call?”

  “I have some men who’ve been instructed to capture your son if I send them the proper text. I’ve just done that.”

  My son? Chance. “What do you mean, capture?”

  “He won’t be harmed, Jason. I promise you. I won’t shoot him in the leg.”

  I felt like the air in the truck was getting thicker, like it was sticking to my lungs. He had Chance?

  “Now I suppose we’re even,” said Imri. “I have your son. You have my children. It seems we might be at a bit of an impasse.”

  I swallowed, trying to catch my breath. I didn’t know what to do. I felt helpless and terrified. Chance was only a little boy. A very little boy. I’d worked so hard to keep him out of all of this. And now he was being captured—

  Wait. All I was going on here was Imri’s word. “How do I know you actually have him?”

  Imri held out his hand. “Can I see the phone again?”

  “No,” I said. I didn’t want him to have it. Who knows what other horrible things he could order done if he had a phone in his hand. “Tell me what to do, and I’ll do it.”

  “Fine,” said Imri. “Text ‘proof’ to the last number I texted.”

  I did as he said.

  Nothing happened. I stared at him across the cab. I was shaking. He was calm. He’d been too calm this whole time. I really didn’t like this guy.

  “You’re bluffing,” I said to him. “You’re making it all up. I’m not doing what you say.”

  “You’d like that to be true, I know. But it isn’t.”

  The phone vibrated in my hands, emitting the little noise it made when it got a text. I clicked on the notification that popped up. It was a picture.

  Chance, tied up. His brown eyes were full of terror. There was duct tape over his tiny mouth.

  My grip tightened on the phone. Anger surged up inside my body, hot and liquid. I clenched my teeth. I wanted to rip Imri to pieces, tear out his organs. How dare he do this to Chance? To my Chance?

  “So, you’ll do it, then?” said Imri. “You’ll kill the leader of the conglomerate that sells blood?”

  “Don’t have much choice, do I?” I slammed the keys to the truck back into the ignition.

  * * *

  ~azazel~

  “He’s got Chance,” said Jason’s voice in my ear.

  “What?” I said. “How could he have Chance?”

  “He knows everything about us,” Jason said. “He’s been watching for a long time.”

  “Yeah, well, Mary here is crazy,” I said. “She thinks she’s doing the work of Jesus.” I’d shut out everything the woman said after she had made that pronouncement. The lady was clearly off her rocker. Maybe they were running some kind of weird blood cult out here. I didn’t want to know.

  “Jesus?” Jason let out a frustrated sigh. “I can’t think about it. I can only think…” He sighed. “I think we fucked up bad here, Azazel.”

  “What do you mean?” I said.

  “I don’t think these people are the bad guys,” he said. “I think we killed a bunch of people who didn’t deserve it.” />
  I chewed on my lip. “Must be Tuesday.”

  “It’s not funny. I don’t know what he’s going to do to Chance.”

  “Jason, I didn’t mean—”

  “Look, just let them go. Take guns off his family and get out of the house. I’ll meet you guys at the contingency spot, all right?”

  “Are you sure about that?” I asked him. “If we leave the hostages, then we lose leverage. What can we use to stop him from hurting Chance?”

  “I already shot his little girl,” said Jason. “I don’t think if we shoot more of them, it’s really going to ensure Chance’s safety. No, I don’t want to piss him off any further. Get out of there, okay?”

  “Copy that,” I said into the earpiece.

  Jude eyed me across the room. He’d heard all of it.

  “Well, let’s get out of here,” I said to him.

  “You’re leaving?” said Mary.

  I put my gun into its holster. “Consider yourselves free.”

  * * *

  When we got to the contingency spot, where our getaway van was parked, Jason was already there.

  I ran to him and wrapped my arms around him. “I’m so sorry.”

  Jude patted Jason on the back. “We’ll get Chance back, all right?”

  Jason pulled away from both of us. “We’ve got our work cut out for us. The guy he wants us to take down apparently spends all his time heavily guarded.”

  “What? He wants to take someone down?”

  Jason laughed bitterly. “Oh, yeah, he was very annoyed with our violence. And eager to use it for his own revenge.”

  “Revenge?”

  “This guy killed someone he cared about. He wants us to kill the guy, and once it’s done, I get Chance back. That’s the deal. I had to take it. I didn’t have any other option, did I?”

  “No,” I said.

  Jason ran a hand through his hair. “Maybe it’s punishment. Maybe it’s karma. For all the bad shit I’ve done recently?”

  “The world doesn’t work like that,” I said.

  “You can’t know that,” said Jason. “But the thing that’s bad, that’s really bad, is thinking that Chance is suffering for what I did. Me.” He tapped himself on the chest, and his face twisted.

  “We’ll get him back. He isn’t going to suffer. We can kill this guy. That’s what we’re good at.”

  “Yeah, the guy is the head of a big time blood ring,” said Jason. “I guess it’s even our job.”

  * * *

  “Wait, are you sure he’s okay?” I asked Jason as we walked up the hall in the hotel. “He’s not answering his earpiece, his phone’s going straight to voicemail.”

  “Trust me, he’s fine,” said Jason. “If it were anyone besides my six-year-old child, I’d leave him and Grace alone.”

  “You would?” I said.

  “I would,” said Jason, halting in front of the door to Boone’s hotel room.

  I scrunched up my nose, confused.

  Jude cleared his throat.

  And then I got it. “Oh, you mean, they’re—”

  “Open up!” Jason rapped on the door.

  There was nothing for a second, then a muffled voice yelled, “Go away!”

  Jason knocked again. “Can’t do that. Sorry. You better open the door.”

  Nothing.

  Then the door opened, and Boone was standing there, shirtless, his hair mussed. He looked annoyed.

  “Sorry, man,” said Jason.

  “Yeah, sorry,” said Jude.

  “You guys are asswipes, you know that?” said Boone.

  “Your mothers suck cocks in hell!” came Grace’s voice.

  “They’ve got Chance,” I said.

  Boone’s expression changed. “Seriously?”

  “Why do you think we’re here?” said Jason.

  “Shit.” Boone slammed the door in our faces.

  “Hey,” I said. “What the hell was that?”

  The door swung back open. Boone was completely dressed now.

  We stepped into the hotel room. One side looked identical to the way it had looked the day before. There were open laptops all over the bed. The covers on the other bed had been hastily thrown up.

  Boone scratched the back of his head. “So, um, they have Chance?”

  Grace poked her head out of the bathroom. “How’d they get Chance?”

  “You dropped the phone in the truck cab,” said Jason, “and I didn’t pay any attention. Imri got it, and he sent a message to his people.”

  Grace came out of the bathroom. Her shirt was on inside out. “It’s my fault?”

  “No,” said Jason. “After everything you’ve been through? It’s my fault.”

  “It’s my fault,” said Boone. “The stuff I was saying to Grace over the phone probably made her distracted.”

  Grace blushed. “Yeah, that was a little distracting.”

  “Look, it doesn’t matter whose fault it was,” I said. “It happened. And now we’ve got a guy to kill if we want Chance back.”

  Jude gestured to his shirt. “Grace, your shirt…”

  She looked down. “Shit.” She threw herself back into the bathroom.

  I elbowed Jude. “Why’d you have to point it out?”

  “She would have noticed later, and she would have been even more embarrassed,” said Jude.

  Boone stared down at the carpet. “You know, my day was going really well until you guys showed up again.”

  Jason slapped him on the back. “There’ll be time for all of that later. Right now, we need you to do some hacking.” He gestured at the computers. “Gaston Fleming. Find out who he is and where he lives.”

  Boone shot him a look.

  “Please,” said Jason. It was his turn to look at the carpet.

  Grace came out of the bathroom. Her face was beet red. “So, let’s save Chance, huh?”

  I rubbed my forehead. Awkward. Really awkward.

  * * *

  “Actually, this is good,” Boone was saying, holding the laptop as he paced in the hotel room.

  “How is it good?” said Grace.

  “Uh, because this is the guy we were looking for? He’s running the blood ring. We take him down, and we’ll be doing what we wanted to do all along. It’s like this whole Grace-being-captured-thing was just a sideline distraction and now we’re back on track with our main mission. I mean, you know, aside from kidnapping Chance, this Imri guy is kinda on our side.”

  Jason was sitting at a desk, resting his head in his hands. “Yeah, he said something like that. He wanted me to agree to do it just to make up for all of his people that we killed.”

  “Well, you should have,” said Boone. “Because I bet we all would have been up for it.”

  I glared at Boone. “Jason did what he thought was best.”

  “Right,” Jason muttered. “I keep forgetting that you guys just go out and kill people for fun.”

  “We do not,” I said.

  “Sometimes we kind of do,” said Jude.

  “I know I don’t have any room to talk,” Jason muttered. “I don’t know how many people I’ve killed since Grace went missing.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Let’s try to focus here. Chance is in danger. We have to kill Gaston or whatever.”

  Jason looked at me. “It’s only that I’m confused about everything. If he’d asked you to do this for him, as a favor, would you have said yes?”

  I shrugged. “I really don’t know.”

  “If I’d said yes, Chance would be fine,” said Jason. “But because the idea of killing a guy as a favor made me uncomfortable, I put Chance in danger.”

  “Jason, stop,” I said. “Let me sum it all up for you, huh? You think you’re the worst person to ever walk the earth, and you’re guilty about it, blah, blah, blah. Who cares?”

  Jason’s jaw twitched.

  “I care,” said Jude. “I don’t want to kill people.”

  “I know where Fleming is,” said Boone.

 
We all turned to him eagerly. “You do?”

  “Virginia,” said Boone. “He has a big mansion there, and I only found out, because I managed to dig up his name on a receipt to a catering company.”

  “A catering company?”

  “Yeah,” said Boone. “See, he’s having a big party, and he’s hired this company to make the food and serve it, and there will be a lot of people going in and out of his house. The party’s the best bet. We can use it to get in and get close to him.”

  “When’s the party?” said Jason.

  “Tomorrow,” said Boone. “We have just enough time to pack up and get to Virginia. At which point, we’re all getting separate hotel rooms. Clear?”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Jason was sitting on the edge of the bed in our hotel room. It was late, and we had to get an early start the next morning. I was already in bed, the covers pulled up around my chin. I was nervous. Jason and I hadn’t been alone in bed since the thing happened with Jude. I figured that Jason would be too worried about Chance to want to mess around, but I still felt awkward.

  I was afraid to touch him. I lay on my back, staring at the ceiling. I tried to think of something to say. All I came up with was, “You okay?”

  Which was dumb. Of course he wasn’t okay. He was worried about his son. How could he be okay when Chance had been kidnapped?

  “I’m fine,” he said. He lay down next to me, slipping under the covers.

  My heart sped up. I took deep breaths, and I didn’t look at him. I just stared at the ceiling. I couldn’t help but thinking about what Jude and I had done. I thought of his hands on my skin. His lips. I squeezed my eyes shut.

  “We’re going to get Chance back,” Jason said. “Right?”

  Good, something to distract me. “We are. We definitely are.”

  “Right, because we’re good at killing people.”

  “We are,” I said again.

  He rolled over on his side, facing me.

  I turned slowly to look at him.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  I gulped. “Yeah. Totally fine. Worried about Chance, but… fine.”

  He started to reach for me, then he stopped. “Is it, um, okay, for us to… I just… I want your arms around me.”