Page 58 of The Last True Hero
Jake's eyes flashed to his in wary understanding, but Mia merely nodded.
"I was speaking to Zarina after the games," he continued. "She mentioned that the slave markets reopen tomorrow. Rykker's got a fresh haul he wants to sell, which no doubt includes your other friends. Jake, you get some sleep tonight. You and Ellie are on the markets tomorrow. Buy the others back if you can." He dragged out the money pouch he carried and counted out just enough coins to keep them here for a few days, if everything didn't go to plan. He tossed the rest to Jake. "If we can't buy them, then track who does. We'll reassess after breakfast. Any questions?"
Mia chewed on her lip. "We need to work out how we're going to get out of here once we free our people. We need transport."
"And probably a distraction," Jake added.
Adam merely smiled. This fucking place made the skin on the back of his neck rise. "When the time comes, I can provide the distraction."
Plan B it was.
It would make him feel a hell of a lot better to know Rust City was in ashes.
* * *
The night echoedwith howling as drunken reivers chased each other through the streets and fought in bloody brawls that seemed to be for pure enjoyment.
Mia shivered as she watched a pack of them cheering two bloody comrades on as they grappled each other in the center of their circle. McClain halted at a corner, drawing her against his side. So far they hadn't been challenged as they slipped quietly through the streets, ignoring the mayhem. Just two more reivers in the crowd. Mia had braided her black hair back fiercely, and dirtied her face a little to look like some of the other female reivers she'd seen. She had both knives at her hips, plus her pistol, and she kept reminding herself to strut as if she owned the place.
"There it is," McClain murmured, his hand on the small of her back as he guided her into the shadows of a doorway.
She peered around the corner. Vex's stronghold loomed in the night, its stark white walls bleached in the moonlight like a skull. The wire fence around it wasn't patrolled. Mia pointed to where the fence met the wall of the building. "We can't come at it from the front without being seen from a mile away. But maybe there's somewhere to climb that wall around the back?"
"Mmm." McClain's breath warmed her ear. "I'd be happier if it wasn't so frigging bright. We'd stand out against those walls like—"
A shot suddenly echoed, and they both jumped.
A gun? No, a flare gun.
The flare sailed into the sky with a hiss and the world erupted in violent light. Cheers went up, and a couple across the street stopped kissing long enough to look at the flare.
Rust City lit up like frigging Christmas, painting the pair of them vividly in the doorway.
McClain swore, and Mia tugged him around the corner into a run. They darted past tin shanties and dirt alleyways as she listened for an outcry. None came. Mia slowed to a trot at McClain's side. Running here would only look suspicious, especially considering they were right outside Vex's stronghold.
Still, it took everything she had not to leap out of her skin when a cat suddenly hissed and darted between their feet.
"Hell," she whispered. She wasn't made for subterfuge like this. It was rapidly becoming clear that she wasn't cut out for any of this; shooting people, fighting hand-to-hand, and trying not to show how much she bled inside when she saw what these reivers did to innocent people. But she would just keep doing what needed to be done. Find a way to survive this hellish experience.
It helped having McClain there, a steady, calm influence at her side.
"This way," McClain said. He eyed the stronghold across the street. "Focus on what we're here for."
Sage.Her heart rabbited in her ears, but she nodded.Right.
Somewhere in that building her sister lay awake, no doubt listening to the same rabid howls.
They took refuge tucked against another tin shanty. McClain knelt in the shadows, examining the place. Bars lined the windows, but the wire fence was lower here, and outbuildings inside the yard provided some cover.
"That's Vex's chambers right there," McClain pointed to the top of the building. "And those five rooms there at the back have bars on the windows. It stands to reason that she'd want to keep the slaves she's shipping to the Confederacy close. She wants them untouched, and despite her hold on them, I wouldn't trust the reivers either.
"I can climb that wall," McClain said. "I'll see if I can find your sister, to let her know what we're up to. She's just as dangerous to us right now as Jake is, but if I can talk to her...."
"What about me?"
He began unbuckling his hip holster. "You're watching my back. You see something unusual, then give a yell, so I can get the hell out of there."
She ached to see her sister. But he spoke sense. The adobe walls were sheer, and she was tired. Her body still ached from the blow she'd taken to the shoulder in Vegas. There was no way she could climb that wall.Patience.Just a little patience. Then she could get her sister out of here.
