by Ric Beard
He would either imply she was his guest or play it straight and call her a prisoner. Or, he could go with the third option and not answer the question at all.
“What else would you be? I tend to be a straight-forward man. So, I’ll just come at you straight.”
“Great.” But she wasn’t sure it was great.
“You’re here because you got different priorities than us. I plan to let you die here.”
Well, that was definitely straight-forward.
“You’re that insecure, huh?”
“What do you mean?”
“Sampson’s so afraid of having his authority questioned that he would have his lackey kill someone who came in peace?”
“In peace? You bring this giant bastard, so violent I was forced to kill—.” He ticked a finger in the air. “No. I don’t think so, Jenna. I’ll be asking the questions.”
Did he say…
Jenna’s head jerked. “Kill?”
“Oh, yeah. Well, I guess I kicked that rooster. Your friend jumped his guards and almost killed Terry in the shock room. If we hadn’t killed him…” He shrugged. “Well, we couldn’t let him get ahold of them again. Ray gave him a gun butt to the back of the head long enough to force him off, but that dude was determined. It was pretty scary, from what I understand. The guys had just managed to get through the door in time for Jack to fry him.” Her captor faced the cube, raised his forearms, and jerked his whole body violently. “But to his credit, Ray tells me that giant fuck stayed on his feet longer than anyone he’s ever seen. Imagine a room filled with water to your ankles with electric current pushing through it, and your friend manages to stay on his feet, probably until his heart stops. Guess he was a pretty tough guy, huh?”
The lights flickering on and off. That was…Scruff.
Jumping off the glass bench, she charged and slammed into the wall.
Her chest heaved and fell as her heart thumped faster. A rushing sound of air in one ear silenced the ambient hum of the room, and the floor tilted as if a boat underfoot made a hard rudder to port. The airy sound morphed into a low, steady tone as Jenna’s ears filled with the silence of a vacuum. Her captor stood in a tunnel, surrounded by blackness, his face blurry. Heat flooded her face as blood rushed through her capillaries while her fingers twitched with a longing to plunge the man’s eyeballs deeper into his head.
Scruff. He…flicker…he…
Hands danced in front of her as his lips moved silently beyond the glass, but the face Jenna saw was Scruff’s. The complex, blonde beard, braided down the center of his chest. Glaring eyes filled with a quiet intelligence contrasting a chin molded of brick. The features hiding the kind man beneath from the eyes of the ignorant and fearful.
The fingers snapped now, hands waved. Jenna felt a sneer creep onto her face as she refocused. The suction in her ear canals released with a hiss.
“—hearing me woman? Jenna, was it?” His head tilted to one side, his lips slightly parted as he awaited a response.
“Pray to whatever ass-backward, country bum-fuck god it is to which you pray, that I never escape this box.”
“Well, that’s the kind of spirit I like to hear!” A smile snaked across his face, the gap in his teeth making a nasty encore. “But, no. If there’s anything my soldiers will tell you, it’s that I’m a man of my word. If I say you are going to die in there, you might as well lay down and stop breathing.” He spoke through the perpetual, nasty smile. “It’s all gonna come down to how you choose to die. You tell me what I want to know and I’ll make it quick. Don’t, and I’ll just make you suffer.” He gripped his hips, glanced up at the line of glass at the top of the prison cube, and his pushed the grin wider.
The purple gums of decay flashed. The doctor in Jenna hoped they really did correlate to heart disease. Her captor’s eyes traced from corner to corner.
“You’d be surprised how many ways I can make you miserable in there. The shock room is great and everything, but it’s simplistic. Flip a switch, show them some pain, get them to talk.” He tapped the glass as he returned his eyes to her. “But this room? This is art.”
I’m honored to be included in your redneck masterpiece, asshole.
A step ladder folded and leaning against the far wall made a similar screeching to the chair as he dragged its uncovered metal feet toward the encasement. It teetered side to side as he scaled it, one meandering step on one dust-caked rung at a time. The static of numbness covered Jenna’s forehead and cheeks, the ringing in one ear having subsided as she stared into space, thinking about Scruff’s harsh demise, but the harsh slap of glass against glass snatched her attention.
Her eyes flicked toward the offending noise as a panel smacked against the glass, and the rubber stopper popped into place to seal a hole. A pound with the side of the asshole’s fist competed the task. He lingered between each panel’s closing to regard Jenna.
She slackened her facial muscles.
Give him nothing.
He inserted the backs of the hooks into slots cut into the glass beneath each hole, securing them with a snap. Considering the way the rubber stoppers squeaked as they filled the holes, the hooks were likely overkill, which said a lot about him, if he’d designed the solution as part of his supposed art. It wasn’t like she could reach the stoppers to push them out, anyway.
Smack! Pop! Squeak. Snap.
His eyes sought a reaction, but Jenna’s mind split time between the image of Scruff’s face and her bloody fantasies about her captor’s dismembered body. Plopping down on the bench, she showed him her back.
Smack!
Jenna jerked.
Pop!
Through the fog of her fury, Jenna surmised his plan.
He’s cutting off my air.
Snap!
When he finished one side, he dragged the ladder to the other, but he didn’t mount. Instead he leaned on it and peered through the glass at her. She spun on her backside to reverse her position on the bench.
“Now we get to business. Ruby tells me you’ve been sticking your nose where it don’t belong, trying to stop our progress by making it difficult for men to hold down regular hours at work. That true?”
Let him have silence for an answer.
“You might not understand this, Miss Jenna, but we don’t exactly have a surplus of able-bodied men in the MidEast. After Horace recruited them—although I guess you could call it kidnapping—and led them to their deaths in that God-hating Triangle City, we were left with a predominantly woman population.”
“Predominantly. That’s a big word for you, hick. I’m impressed.”
“I get the impression you look down your nose on simple folk, like me.”
“No, I look down my nose at ignorant inbred assholes who kill people for no good reason.”
After a moment of silence, a thought occurred to Jenna, and she felt one side of her lips tick up.
I’m going to die in here, anyway. Why not.
She cast a glance over her shoulder. “I was there, you know.”
The man’s forehead wrinkled in response. “What’s that?”
Jenna forced her grin to stay level as her hot blood had her longing to spill his.
“I was there. I was standing over Horace when he died.” She threw up her hands like an old-world preacher. “I bathed in the glory of the heat of the explosion in the forest that wiped them all out. I saw all of it. I heard their screams, saw them running through the burning trees, alight.” She swung around on the bench and steadied her eyes on his. “It was beautiful. I’m the one who killed them.”
Okay, that was actually Lexi, but same thing.
His expression turned to stone as his eyes ticked from hers, to her chest, to her boots, then around the room. Jenna pondered whether the absorption of that little tidbit was straining him, but then his broken smile crossed his broken face and those rotting teeth reappeared.
“I wonder how the people you were trying to help would feel if I told them you killed
their brothers and sons.” He chuckled. “Talk about evil. You sit there reveling in your murder.”
Jenna didn’t respond.
“Ruby thinks you’re the ones killing our lawkeepers.”
So, the rumors are true. Hm. Play dumb.
“What are you talking about?”
He went on like she hadn’t spoken. “If you’re here to help, why would you kill the lawkeepers, Jenna?” He pushed away from the ladder, looked down at his feet, and paced in front of the cage again. “Hm. Unless you’re trying to erase Sampson’s presence from the towns, claim power for yourselves.”
“Are you retarded?” Jenna asked.
He stopped pacing and turned toward the cage. “What’d you say to me?”
Bingo. Insult his intelligence.
“I asked if you were retarded. Are you retarded?”
He turned and climbed the ladder.
Smack!
He thrusted a finger at her. “You know what you look like?” When no answer came, he continued. “You look like a soldier. Not that I got anything against soldiers.”
Snap.
“Hell, I got enough of ‘em working for me.”
“You call your extortionist goons soldiers? They aren’t soldiers. They’re marauders. They’re feeble-minded assholes who prey on the weak. Just like their leader. If you kill me, my friends will come and then you’ll know what soldiers are.”
Holding the final hook in his hand, his inflection became level, his accent instantly dissipating.
“You might have a couple hours of air, though I can’t be sure, with the way you huff and puff.” He closed off the last hole, and shouted through the airtight case. “And hey. Look at the bright side! At least you don’t have to grieve the loss of your friend for long! Some soldier he was!” The new smile seemed so generous and full of humor, Jenna felt her fingers tense into claws. Jenna scoured the cube for gaps, flaws—any sign of structural flaws where air might seep in—but found none.
Sean Stone’s voice echoed in her mind.
That’s tighter than a second coat of paint.
During the couple years since her return to the compound after the mission on the interstate, she’d laughed often at his unique expressions. Though they’d flirted with the idea of a relationship, both seemed to be satisfied with the casual affair they’d been having until it was time to separate and go to work months earlier. But now, as one of his expressions drifted through her head in a ghostly reflection of his voice, she felt a hollow in her chest and wondered if she’d missed an opportunity for something real. After the recurring pains of a century of loss, she’d closed herself off. Now, as she sensed the demise she’d evaded for longer than anyone should, she found her inner voice of reason had given away to a chastising self-berating.
The glass hardly made a noise as she kicked it with the sole of her foot. It didn’t rattle. There was no quivering response. The asshole stood outside and watched, but his expression was of disinterest, like he’d grown bored with her. He shook his head derisively and waved with a quick flick of two erect fingers. Jenna didn’t hear a thing when the heavy metal door closed, leaving her alone in an airtight glass cage.
Chapter Twenty-Three
YOUR GRATITUDE
23
“Stone?”
Sean released a chuckle. “Hey, look man, he remembers me.”
Carson peered around uncertainly. “Who’re you talking to, bro?”
Sean glanced over his right shoulder at the open warehouse, filled only with crates, the high-cabbed truck and the limp bodies of the mercenaries who’d been neutralized by his gunfire and Moss’s grenade. True to form, the man in black had vanished once again.
“I’ll ask the questions,” Sean said.
One side of Carson’s mouth raised up, but it seemed he knew better than to show any teeth.
“Life’s one big circle, ain’t it?” Carson asked. “Shit. I thought you were dead. Guess I should’ve known better. If what DuPont wrote was true, you’re a slippery one, my old friend.”
“I don’t think I was ever what you called a friend,” Sean said, waving the rifle around.
“Sean! Buddy! You offend me!”
Sean glanced down at the gun, and then at Carson again. “Do I look like I give a shit?” He thrust the weapon forward as he spoke, using its barrel as a pointing finger. “You set me up, asshole. You sent me out to the badlands…you and that cunt boss of yours.”
Carson winced at the description and his forehead wrinkled.
“Oh, does that offend you, too, Carson?” He wagged his head back and forth. “I still-don’t-give-a-shit. You sent me into the waiting claws of an anemic psychopath in Triangle City.”
“What psychopath? Hey man, all I knew was the boss needed a courier and you were being well-paid. She said that truck was a bad ass piece of machinery and my courier shouldn’t have any problems against those Chain weaklings. I figured you were getting set up for life!” He splayed his hands out, palm up as he leaned on the wall. “I thought maybe I did you a favor.”
“Some favor, hanging my ass out to dry.”
“Humph. I never understood that expression.”
Sean threw his head back and rolled his eyes. “Don’t change the subject!”
Carson looked him up and down. “Doesn’t look like you’re going hungry.” He threw his chin up. “Nice duds. Not my style, of course, but I don’t see any holes. Did the famous loner actually make some friends in the East? We know you haven’t been in Triangle City. Where’d you go?”
Faces flashed through Sean’s mind. Lexi, Jenna, Lucian, Scruff, Killian—he made friends all right.
“See?” Carson said, reading his expression and punting the faces from Sean’s mind. “Doesn’t look like you did so bad.”
Shit. He’s right. I would’ve never found Lexi if he hadn’t set me up. I would’ve never found Jenna.
“That’s beside the point. You set me up.” His reply lacked conviction in his own ears.
“Hey man, I get it. You’re pissed. You got a raw deal.”
“Those are the same words you said to me on Alexandra’s couch. You told me I got a raw deal and that everyone gets raw deals. You told me to get over it.”
“Well, it looks like you got over it.” Carson turned his head and Sean watched his eyes flick around the space. “Are my guys dead?”
“One,” Sean said. “It wasn’t intentional, but sometimes even pulse weaponry has a mind of its own.”
“Right. Because you’re the good guy, right? You didn’t mean to kill anyone.”
Except you.
Jenna’s best smile painted his mind’s eye and Sean felt a thump in his chest. Sure, Carson screwed him over, and he seemed to have some part in this drug smuggling operation, but what would Jenna do? Even worse, what would she think of him if he pulled the trigger? Everything Carson was saying was true. He’d screwed him right into a better life. To top it off, Sean had enough credits on his wrist chip to live comfortably in OK City or Triangle City, if he so chose…except for the little detail, that he was a wanted man in former.
Triangle City…
“You said you knew I wasn’t in Triangle City. Morgan is out of circulation, so how did you know?”
Carson shrugged.
“A shrug?” Sean asked. “Really, cowboy?”
“Am I wearing a cowboy hat, Sean?”
“You were last time I saw you. And it looked stupid, by the way.”
Carson gave him the full off-putting grin this time. “Real mature, hoss. Things change, Sean.”
“Answer the question.”
Carson eyed the front of Sean’s gun and nodded. “Alexandra has people in Triangle City. Since the zeppelins burned Nashville to the ground, and the interstate is clear, she’s found a little easier time sending people.”
“What kind of people?”
“What kind do you think, Sean? You know! People!”
“So, she’s been hunting me.”
&n
bsp; Carson didn’t reply.
Sean shook his head. “How’s it feel to be that bitch’s lap dog?”
Carson’s face went slack and he turned his head to look toward the bay door. He lowered his head, picked dirt out of a finger nail in his lap, and spoke quietly.
“What else is there for someone like me, man? The Helium distillery? Slinging drinks? Sleeping on a cot in the back of a bar or at a shelter? How long do you think I’d survive snorting green packs and moulding glass?” Sean saw no hint of the gentleman’s grin when their eyes met again. Carson’s voice was devoid of the salesman’s timber. “That life ain’t for me, Sean. Prices were going up everywhere. Inflation was out of control. If we hadn’t joined up with Triangle City, no one would’ve been able to afford life in OK anymore. Look at our last business, man. All those gems, and they wouldn’t have even bought you six months. Alexandra gave me a role in her organization because what I did to you proved my loyalty…because she knew I didn’t want to do it. I just couldn’t make ends meet, man.”
God dammit.
It was all true. Sean knew it as soon as the words were out of the traitor’s mouth. He’d calculated the numbers right before he found out he was made by the OK city authorities, and the haul would’ve bought him six months, tops. The economy had been out of control as gouging city-wide represented the uncertainty of a unified currency.
God-mother-fucking-dammit.
“She sent people to the city to find you.” Carson added. “She needs you.”
“Why?” Sean asked. “So she can leech my blood like some kind of vampire bitch?”
“She’s sick, man. Every morning she goes through treatments that torture her. They inject stuff into her that gives her migraines. All so she can scrape out another decade or two.”
“Maybe she should let go.”
Carson pressed his lips into a white line and locked eyes with Sean for a few heartbeats. Then, leaning the back of his head on the wall and tilting it slightly to the side, he let his hands drop into his lap.
