Page 43 of The Last True Hero
This wasn't just some reiver town, cobbled together out of scrap.
"You okay?" Mia called in his ear, giving his waist a squeeze.
He tried to ignore the way her thighs straddled his own, her breasts pressing into his shirt. "I don't like the look of this place," he called back. "It looks more organized than I'd have expected, and they have some serious hardware mounted on those walls."
He should know. It was similar to the setup at Absolution when he'd been running the town. Enormous chain-wire gates loomed ahead of them. Rolls of barbed wire crowned the perimeter fences. Anything clearing that fence would then have to contend with the stark walls beyond it—where they'd be sitting ducks for the turret guns.
"One way in," Mia noted.
"There's always a back door," he said. "We just need to find it. You ready?"
Men stared at them, dressed in reiver brown with padded vests over their chests and rifles in their hands. One wore a leather face mask. Adam eased off the throttle, dust spewing out from beneath the bike as he began to slow. Six guards. Two more in the gatehouse by the look of it.
Whoever was running this place, they had military experience, he'd bet on it. Which suggested someone from the Eastern Confederacy who'd escaped the heavy-surveillance state, or maybe one of the road warriors from the Nomad bands who drove up and down the coast, hiring out as small mercenary armies.
Adam pulled in as a guard stepped forward, his hand on his shotgun. There were nails sticking out of the reiver’s helmet, and he had an old gas mask hanging around his throat. Typical reiver, in a faded pair of much-patched pants, a vest, and a grotty shirt underneath that might have been white once upon a time. A bandolier slung across his broad chest, with little shiny caps on the ends of each shell. Freshly made by the look of them.
That was interesting. A lot of people knew how to make ammo, but getting your hands on critical components like gunpowder wasn’t so easy.
"New to Rust City?" the reiver demanded, spitting on the ground beside Adam's boot.
Adam glanced around. The other guards looked curious, but not suspicious. "Heard you could get a good time here. Thought we'd check it out." He let a slow smile bloom. "Just finished a job and I've got coin to spend." He jerked his head behind him as Jake pulled up beside him in the jeep. "So does he."
"Bill of sale?" the reiver asked, strolling in a slow circle around the jeep and eyeing Ellie.
"Who said I bought her?" Jake replied, meeting the reiver's eyes.
A nod. The reiver stepped closer to Mia, whose hands trembled faintly on Adam's waist. He reached out but Adam caught his wrist, and not gently.
"Don't touch the merchandise?" the reiver asked.
The click of the safety on a pistol being removed echoed in Adam's ear. Mia pointed the barrel directly in the reiver’s face. "I'm not merchandise, you piece of shit."
"She's with me," Adam drawled, sweat licking his spine. "And I wouldn't piss her off if I were you. She bites."
"I only bite you," Mia pointed out. "Everybody else gets a bullet. I don't know where they've been."
"Aren't I special?" He clapped a hand on her thigh, and Mia laughed.
The reiver stepped back, hands in the air. "You should play nicer."
"You should wash, and I might consider it."
"Oh, Cypher's going to like you." The reiver’s sly leer at Mia made Adam's hand itch.
He wanted to punch those dirty teeth out and see if the bastard would pick them up. "Like I said, she's with me," Adam reminded him.
"We'll see." The reiver shrugged.
Adam couldn't quite tell what the reiver meant by that—had he just brought Mia within the realm of a man who took all that he claimed? But at least the reiver nodded and waved at the guards to open the gates.
"First rule of Rust City: everything here belongs to Cypher," the reiver said, patting the hood of the jeep. "So you three need to pay your respects first. We don't take too kindly to strangers here. But if Cypher says you can stay, then you can stay." The reiver grinned. "But if Cypher says that the girl ain't yours, then that's the way it falls. As for your slave... well... Cypher insists on taking a cut of all profits."
"We're not interested in selling," Jake cut in. "Heard you could buy good product here. My man—and the lovely lady at his side—are looking for something similar to share."
The gates began to slide open with a grinding noise. The reiver walked backward through them, gesturing them in. “Market's open in the morning," he called. "You can look then. Tonight's the start of the War Games. Three nights of action. We’ve got reiver packs coming from everywhere to spend their coin. You don't want to miss it."
"War Games?" Mia whispered.
