Page 33 of The Last True Hero
"They look like people," McClain finally said. "Deformed people. They're all hunched over, and I'm pretty certain I can see tumors on one of them."
The earth wasn't the only thing that the meteor had torn apart. Nuclear reactors went haywire, and radiation was still the number-one threat to people in this land.
One of the reasons most of the people stayed in such an inhospitable place as the Badlands was precisely because there were no Dead Zones nearby.
The wind slid straight through her, and she shivered. "Why do they want the reiver bodies?"
"Let's not go there," McClain replied, his lips firming.
Good decision.
Footsteps echoed in the stairwell. Jake stepped through, rapping his knuckles on the wall all polite-like, as if to interrupt the pair of them.
"Jake," she said. "What's wrong?"
He had his funeral face on, and he fanned himself lightly with his hat. "Mia, you mind if I have a minute with McClain?"
"Sure." She stared at him for a long moment. The two men looked at each other like a pair of wolves sizing each other up. Something was wrong. But she could find out later. So she shot McClain a faint, tired smile. "Thanks for the company. I'll go let Thwaites know what's out there, and get the guys to set up a watch. Then I think I desperately need some sleep."
* * *
"Iknow what you are," Jake told him, the second Mia was out of hearing distance.
The words took him by surprise. Adam looked up sharply, still hearing Mia's footsteps fading down the stairwell.
"What?" he asked, but ice was sliding down his spine. Surely he hadn't heard that right. Surely Jake was speaking about something else? But one glance at Jake's face, and the floor dropped out from under him.
"Open your shirt," Jake said, striding toward him.
Adam stilled. Of all the things to happen to him, this, right now, was the worst. "No."
A hand caught his collar and Jake was in his face. "Open it," Jake insisted, reaching for the buttons. "You show me what you fucking are. I know you're wearing one of them—"
Adam didn't think. Just reacted. He shoved a hand into Jake's chest and the man slammed back into the concrete wall, the breath rushing out of him. Jake stayed pinned there, as if sensing the sudden violence in the air, his face showing echoes of it.
Adam slowly withdrew his hand. He knew now. Jake didn't just suspect him, he was certain of the truth. It gleamed all over him. Wariness. And something else Adam could remember seeing, back at Absolution.
Fear.
He held up his hands, backing away. Jesus fucking Christ. It was too late. The game was up. Jake wouldn't back down from this, and from the amount of white in his eyes, Adam would be lucky if Jake didn't shoot him.
"You son of a bitch," Jake hissed. "Why are you here? Did you think it would be fun to ride along? Or were you just waiting until we were someplace out in the open. Or...." Thought raced in his eyes. "Were you luring us somewhere? Who's out there? Who's out therewaiting for us?"
"I'm not going to hurt you," he said, like soothing a man down off a ledge. "If I were really a monster, do you think you'd still be walking around without your throat torn out? I could have done it several nights now. And I'm alone. Use your head. You're a bounty hunter. You think this is a trap?"
"I think you were awfully insistent upon riding along with us." The anger was back.
And suddenly he was angry too. He was sick and tired of people looking at him like he was a monster.
"Christ, the reivers stole fucking women and kids! What type of man lets that slide? I could help. I knew I could help," he yelled back. Then his mind caught up with him. He couldn't afford to let anyone else hear this conversation. The warg was already aroused; it didn't need the anger either. His voice dropped. "Do you think that this curse changes who a man was before? Do you think—for one fucking second—that there's no part of me that merely wants to be just a fucking man? Because I still am. That's the worst of it. I'm still a man, even with thatthinglurking inside me. I still care. I still... hope. And I still give a damn about the innocents of the world. All this means"—he tapped his chest—"is that I have to fight even harder to keep the warg inside me. Where it can't do any harm to anyone."
Jake's eyes narrowed, but the anger melted out of him. He too was thinking now.
Adam turned, crossing toward the edge of the balcony. Dry leaves crumpled beneath his touch. Adam stared blindly out at the city, his chest heaving. Jake might have a gun and he might be behind him, but just as he could have ripped Jake's throat out several times over by now, Jake had had just as many chances to put a bullet in his heart.
A silver one.
After all, he'd been watching Adam for days now. Clearly putting together the pieces. At first he'd thought Jake had been keeping an eye on Mia and him, but now.... There'd been something else in the man's eyes. Suspicion.
