Page 61 of Lawless
I was a big fucker, but I was silent and trailed behind the pack. Whenever I was with the group, people often ignored me. They preferred talking to Reaper or Jandro, and rightly so. I was not known for my stimulating conversation.
Onlysheattempted to speak with me, the woman all my brothers got themselves caught for. She didn't forget me and I couldn't begin to understand why. She said she liked it when I looked at her. I didn't understand that either.
It didn't matter. She would forget me eventually.
Eliminating the search party was child's play. When I reached a set of heavy, carved wooden doors guarded by four men, I knew it would be more of a challenge.
"Stop! Who are you?" their captain demanded as all four of them nocked arrows.
Saying nothing, I walked forward slowly with my hands raised and made a big show of dropping my bow to the floor.
"He's one of them!" one of the guards declared. "The Steel Demons! He has their patch."
"Smart of you to surrender to us," their leader sneered. "Tell us where your president is and you'll be a very smart man indeed."
I kept my mouth shut but mentality filed away that Reaper hadn't been captured after all. He had to be alive, in that case.
"No?" the archer captain's lip curled as he stared at me. "We'll get you talking soon enough. Search him."
His men shouldered their bows as they approached me—empty handed and too close for shooting range. Just how I wanted them.
The moment they came close enough, my hands snapped to my back where I had two more hidden daggers sheathed. In the blink of an eye, my arms extended out to my sides with the blades firmly embedded into their chests.
"Shoot him! He's armed!"
The captain had no one left to call out to as I withdrew my blades from his two men, spun and quickly slit the throat of his third trying to ambush me from behind.
How foolish of him to think he could sneak up on a shadow.
But turning my back and dealing with him gave the captain time to react. I felt the sudden pressure of something embedded into the back of my leg. An arrow.
I barely looked at him, but didn't need to. As he reloaded, I sent a knife flying at his chest.
He stared at it, frowning as if it puzzled him for a moment before falling to his knees and face-planting dead onto the ground.
I turned him over to retrieve my blade, wiped it down, and proceeded to the set of the doors they'd been guarding.
"Shadow! Holy fuck, am I glad to see you."
The declaration came from Jandro the moment I pulled the doors open. He stood in the center of the room in a barred cage, barely tall enough for him to stand at full height or turn around in. The other members of the crew were placed in similar cages spaced throughout the room as if they were a collection of pets. For bigger, taller men like Gunner and Big G, the cells looked especially uncomfortable.
"What took you so long, big guy?" Jandro grinned as I approached.
"I had to kill everyone in my way." I examined the lock holding his cell closed.
"Figures," Gunner muttered. "The captain of those guards should have keys—"
CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!
A few hits from the handle of my dagger had Jandro's lock broken in seconds.
"All right. Thanks, King Kong," the vice president laughed as he walked out. "You smash locks, I'll grab keys and look out for anyone else."
"They don't have Reaper," I said as I moved on to Big G's cage. "They're looking for him and the woman."
"She has a name, Shadow." Gunner called from across the room. "It's Mariposa."
I shrugged before getting to work on Big G's lock. It didn't matter to me if she had a name or not.
