Page 11 of Wanted
Liv tried to bow, but his heel hit something, and he would have fallen over if Knox hadn’t dashed forward to grab his hand. “Thanks. Er… yeah, I’m not lying. I’m good at making them relax. That’s the key to all good sex.”
Knox frowned, as if he were thinking that over. “You’re always so chill. But for me it can be… I don’t know, stressful. A bit. Like, it’s hot and everything, but there’s all those expectations of what I should do, and how to act, and how much she’s liking it, and if she came yet. I’m probably overthinking it.”
Liv hummed, tempted to pinch Knox’s scruffy cheek. Was that why he was avoiding sex? “You have to talk to them and look for cues. It’s not rocket science once you get on with the program.”
Knox nodded, a bit absentmindedly, but then grabbed Liv’s shoulder. Only then Liv understood he almost walked into a fence. It was just dark wire stretched between posts, but its height dwarfed them both. With the sun almost completely down, Liv’s eyes were straining to see anything, but he was still surprised that he’d missed something so big and wide.
“Fuck. It couldn’t be that easy, could it? I’ll get the flashlight. Let’s see if it’s even worth trying to get in.”
Liv licked rainwater off his lip and stood with his back to the fence post, using it for leverage while he offered him a lift of entwined hands. “Go on.”
“Yeah? You don’t even wanna check?”
Liv clucked. “Chicken?”
Knox rolled his eyes, already climbing on the cradle of Liv's fingers. “I ate your burnt zucchini pie on a dare. Climbing over this fence is nothing.”
“See if it’s safe, but this place is our best bet,” Liv yelled over the intensifying rain. He so fucking needed a roof over his head. A bit of warmth. A chance to lie down and doze off for a bit.
Knox climbed to the other side with his usual agility, and brought over several crates. From there, it took just a few moments for him to climb on top and help Liv join him. As they both turned their backs on the fence, the heaps of scrap mounting everywhere the eye could see told them what this place was.
“Let’s check if it’s safe, and then we can find some shed, an abandoned car, or even create some shelter if need be. We didn’t survive the last two days to die of hypothermia,” Knox said once they faced wet mountains of fridges and rusty cars.
How big was this place? Even with the rain and darkness hiding everything behind a dusky veil, the fence seemed to stretch endlessly in both directions, and the massive junkyard located in the woods of bumfuck nowhere had the energy of apost-nuclear wasteland. It might only appear abandoned, but as long as they could shelter here until tomorrow, Liv was sold.
At least until a beam of light flashed somewhere ahead, and they both ducked. This place wasn’t so forgotten after all.
Knox lowered their flashlight to the muddy ground and looked Liv’s way as he switched it off. “Let’s check it out, just in case. It’s probably just workers doing overtime, or something, and if we know where they are, we can make sure to stay away. This place looks vast enough to find a spot away from people.”
Liv nodded, and they moved along a narrow path between hills of scrap metal, rubber, and electronics. The rain eased to a sprinkle, and then stopped altogether while they followed the moving light. Once they got close enough, it became clear the soft hum they’d been hearing in the background wasn’t produced by rain but some kind of vehicle.
The day was not over, and despite the bit of illumination coming from the night sky, it was getting more and more difficult to find paths through the dead city of scrap. A stray piece of metal rattled somewhere to the side, but Liv dismissed it as being the result of a bird or rat looking for food. He strained his eyes as he leaned back to squeeze through a narrow path between two towers made of rusty cars. Damp metal felt like ice through his wet clothes, but with Knox following close behind and moving with more ease due to his size, Liv did not want to hold him back.
He ducked as soon as he made it to the other side, because the light they’d been following was right ahead, and no longer moving. Liv's heart sped up, but his gaze wandered to the open back of a school bus standing between them and the workers. The glow he and Knox had been chasing invited them from the open space beyond the vehicle’s dashboard. He gestured at Knox to follow him inside the damaged bus.
Watching their every move, they climbed in and near-crawled over the grimy floor. Just as they were about to see what the workers were up to so late, someone spoke, making Liv’s balls pull up to his body. Dude was standing way too close for comfort, and Liv grabbed Knox, putting a hand over his mouth in panic.
“You didn’t bring your dog? I actually think Hades might enjoy this.” A young guy’s voice was followed by a cackle.
Dog. Of course those people had dogs here, because life always fucking sucked! Thank fuck whoever the guy was talking todidn’tbring his mutt along, because if they did, Liv and Knox would have been fucked. Knox’s eyes went wide, and his mouth opened against Liv’s hand as he shook his head.
They both peeked through the empty windscreen at the same time. The bus faced a cleared area the size of a high school classroom, with a pickup truck parked in front of a deep hole in the ground. Two men with massive flashlights stood in front of the pit, one of them lowering a barrel inside to join three others.
The guy who’d just spoken wore a black leather vest with patches over a denim jacket. The other man, taller and with a hood covering his face, threw a cigarette butt to the ground. “I wouldn’t trust him around acid. You have to be careful with these things, Dex, it’s not a joke.”
“Acid?” Knox mouthed to Liv, wide-eyed.
Dex shrugged and faced the light as he turned to a duffel bag resting on the ground. He had a bleached blond mohawk and youthful features that betrayed he was about Liv’s age. Smiling, he pulled out a pair of long yellow gloves. “But if you trained all your dogs to eat meat on command—”
The other guy spread his arms wide. “What next? Maybe you and Hammer should start a pig farm and call it Peppa’s Sausage Disposal?”
Dex started laughing as, to Liv’s growing confusion and dread, he stepped into white overalls that zipped up from crotch to neck.
“Fuck,” Knox whispered in the tiniest voice. “This looks like some kind ofBreaking Badshit. I think they’re making drugs here. We need to go.”
Liv’s skull echoed with the drumming of his heartbeat, but he squeezed Knox’s shoulder, wordlessly telling him to keep still, because if those really were gang members, they would shoot intruders like rabid dogs and bury them in the fucking ground.
Or toss them into a reservoir.
