Page 10 of Freaks
“Easy, tiger. I’ve been shot at enough recently. I don’t need another orifice,” he rumbled.
I jabbed the rifle toward him, baring my teeth. “Who the fuck are you? And where’s Fix?”
“My name’s Zeth. And Fix is right behind me.”
“Bullshit.” I scanned him from head to toe, wildly committing him to memory. He was a fucking mess. His t-shirt was drenched in blood, and his face, neck, and arms were covered in cuts, scrapes and darkening bruises. Fix hadn’t said anything about a Zeth. There was no way he’d allow someone up here without telling me first. I eyed the black bag at the guy’s feet—the one he’d been holding in his hand before he caught sight of the M4 aimed at his chest and he’d dropped it to the floor. “Kick it over to me. Now. And get on the ground.”
The guy looked like he’d been beaten half to death, but the smirk that lifted up his left cheek into half a cocky smile made him seem none the worse for it. He hooked his boot behind the duffel bag and shoved it across the floor toward me. When it had skidded to a stop next to the table, he said, “Search through it, by all means. But there’s only one way I’m gonna end up on the ground, woman, and that’s if you shoot me.”
I ground my teeth together so hard it felt like they would crack. “Do it! Now!”
He shrugged. “No.”
“I’m serious. I’ll fucking shoot you.”
His eyelids lowered as he scanned from the crown of my head down to the rifle I held tightly in my hands. “Hmm. I actually believe you. Still. A guy’s got to have rules. My number one rule is don’t lie down for someone unless you’re about to fuck ‘em or you’re dead.”
A cold anger took hold of me, creeping up my neck; I must have been turning redder by the second. This man, whoever he was, was a threat. Fix wasn’t here. I had no idea if he really was moments behind this stranger, as he’d claimed he was.
I did the math in my head. I could wait a few seconds and see if Fix did show up. I could hit pause on the situation and play it safe. But a lot could happen in a few seconds. Everything could turn on its head. I could find myself lying in a pool of my own blood, my life slipping away from me, regretting the moment that I hesitated.
I swore I’d never deal in regret again. I promised myself years ago that I’d never hesitate again.
There was only one thing I could do.
I aimed, took a sip of oxygen, steadily blew it out down my nose…
…and I fired.
******
FIX
Oscar Finch wasn’t going to fuck with me again. It would be a long time before he fucked withanyoneagain, and that was the god’s honest truth.
He hadn’t sent the elevator down for us. No surprises there; the guy wasn’t completely insane. He knew the moment we hit the roof, he’d find himself neck deep in some serious shit. While I’d climbed hand over hand up the service ladder bolted to the wall inside the elevator shaft, Zeth right behind me, the piece of shit had tried to flee down the fire escape. Only, when Zeth had come up it earlier in the evening, Oscar had ordered the metal staircase ripped clean from the wall, and so he’d found himself well and truly,ironicallytrapped.
He’d been spitting teeth and choking on his own blood by the time he reached into his suit pocket and handed over the thumb drive. Zeth had taken it from him, then handed it over to me—a show of good faith? We’d left together, riding the elevator down to the bottom floor, and no one had stopped us. Not even Falco or Foster, who were nowhere to be seen. A hail of gunfire chased after us as we climbed into Zeth’s ride—the same pristine, gleaming black Camaro that I’d noticed when I parked up outside The Barrows hours ago.
Zeth had snarled, cursing violently as Oscar’s braver men took potshots at the car. He’d seemed really fucking relieved when none of them actually hit the paintwork. Guy obviously liked his car. Understandably. It was a sweet fucking ride.
Besides the odd direction I supplied back to the Gas and Electrical Works—he was going to have to come back with me and wait while I copied the drive—we didn’t speak much as Zeth tore through the bleak, stormy dawn toward Brooklyn. Halfway home, the sky split open and a curtain of torrential rain descended, fat droplets of water slamming onto the windshield. By the time I gestured for Zeth to pull down the side alley and park up next to the chain link fence that split the alley, I could barely see three feet in front of my own face.
Zeth kept his thoughts to himself as he climbed out of the Camaro. In the darkened alleyway, I mentally surveyed my body, noting the points where I was stiffest or sorest, cataloguing them and plotting out a contingency plan. If this Zeth Mayfair guy was going to try something, he was gonna do it here, in the alleyway, away from the watchful eye of the public. In his head, he was probably thinking how easy it would be to jump me, take the thumb drive and burn off in his car. I readied myself, prepping to start throwing punches all over again, even though it felt like my arms were barely hanging in their sockets. Zeth simply peered up at the building, running his tongue over his teeth.
“Keyless entry. Smart. What about the windows? They reinforced?”
I didn’t miss a beat. He’d never know that I’d been planning on staving his face in with the butt of my gun only seconds ago. “Only three windows on the ground floor haven’t been bricked up. All the other windows are reinforced. No one gets in or out unless it’s through that door.”
He placed a hand against the building, leaning his weight against it, looking up at the brickwork. “Oscar knows you live here?”
“I don’t make a secret of it.”
“And if he shows up?”
“He dies. He, and anyone else he brings here. There are charges in the stairwells. The roof’s covered in trip-wires. And…” I waved my hand at the building. “There are no fire escapes for people to scale, either.”
He smirked. “You got all the angles covered. Place is a fortress.”
