Chapter 19 #3
I stop and turn around. It’s dark, but I squint until I notice the silhouettes of three men riding on horses. I don’t wait to see their faces. In a heartbeat, I dash down the street, looking for alleys to hide in, but the houses are too spread out for that, and most have fences around them.
The horses are closing the distance, and I can’t run fast enough to lose them. When I notice a house with lights inside and an open gate, I take a sharp turn inside and bang on the door. “Help! Open up!”
“Who the fuck is it?” a woman asks from inside.
“I need help! Please, I can pay you.”
The horses slow down, but I don’t dare look.
“Please!”
The door swings open, and I’m facing the barrel of a shotgun. “What the fuck do you want at this hour?”
I raise my hands and swallow the lump in my throat. “There… there are men after me. I need… just let me inside, please. I need—”
“We can take it from here, ma’am.”
A strong arm slips around me, pulling me back against a broad chest. Before I can shout, a warm and rugged palm blocks my mouth.
“Don’t ma’am me. Is this one with you?”
“He sure is. Used to belong to my brother, but my brother’s dead and buried, and little Finn here might know a thing or two about that.”
“Fuck if I care. Get him off of my property.”
“Will do.”
I try to fight as Clint drags me away, but he’s as big as I remembered, and his two men are waiting to help if needed.
“Life’s funny,” Clint says as he ties my hands behind my back. “Fucking hilarious.”
“Let me go, Clint. I’ve done nothing to you.”
He holds my face, still an ugly sight with his crooked nose, missing front tooth, and two scars beneath his left eye from when a woman he tried to rape fought back.
“You and I have some catching up to do. Where are you staying?”
“Nowhere.”
He punches the side of my head. I fall to my knees, lights blinking wherever I look. He pulls me back up and shakes me. “Let’s try this again.”
With my head pulsing in pain, I tell him.
*
“He has a shitload of novas.”
“Search if he has more hidden around. Finn is the sneaky sort.” Clint smirks. “Aren’t you?”
I look up from the floor, my hands bound behind my back and my mouth gagged. Derek used to say that Clint had one hell of a temper, and it says a lot coming from someone like Derek.
Clint leans down from the couch and pulls the gag out of my mouth while Bobby continues to search around the house, grabbing anything worth taking. There’s another man I don’t know who’s leaning with his back against the front door to keep watch, though no one is going to come to help.
My shoulders ache from being tied for over an hour, and the punch to my face is turning into a painful bruise.
Clint scratches the gray stubble on his cheek. “What are you doing here, Finn?”
“I moved here. It’s not safe outside. Fucking Defenders everywhere.”
“You never wanted to be a Raider. How many times did Derek catch you trying to escape?”
“Turns out the grass isn’t greener on the other side.”
Clint smiles with that missing tooth of his. “Ain’t that the truth.” He crosses his legs. “When was the last time you saw Derek?”
It takes everything I have to keep my face blank. “A long time ago.”
“When?”
“When I escaped, after he tied me to a tree so he could ambush a convoy.”
“He tied you to a tree so you could stay away from combat—like you wanted.” His eyes slide down to my crotch. “And you were fine holding your end of the bargain from what I remember.”
I don’t bite, and I don’t try to deny it.
Clint says, “I know about your escape and how pissed off Derek was. I might’ve split up with my old gang before that, but my brother and I kept in touch whenever we could.
Imagine my surprise when I got a letter a little over a year ago saying that you suddenly returned to him.
” He leans forward with his elbows on his knees.
“He didn’t even need to capture you or nothing—you just showed up one day.
He wrote to me he was suspicious, so he was going to keep you in a cage for a while and get a better sense of the situation.
It just so happened that I wasn’t so far from Derek’s location at the time, so I took my men up north to find my brother.
You see, I was also suspicious about your return, little Finn, ’cause I could always tell you were a thinker.
” He shakes his head. “Always be careful of thinkers. That’s why I only work with dumbfucks. ”
The man guarding the door chuckles.
“It took me a while, but I managed to find my brother and his gang. They were too close to Unity’s territory, which didn’t surprise me with how careless Derek was.
All I found were corpses. Some were already half-eaten by animals, but I could still identify Derek and your parents.
Your pretty mom was shot right in her left tit.
The cage that Derek mentioned in his letter was there, but the one thing missing was you.
” He leans back, his fingers tapping on his knees. “Care to tell me how it all went down?”
I don’t, but I’m not getting out of this alive unless I make him believe me.
“We were attacked by Defenders. I was in the cage, and when the fighting stopped and I was the only survivor, they let me go.”
“Even though you were also a Raider?”
“I didn’t tell them that, obviously. My back was covered, and I was in a cage, so they thought I was a captive.”
“Then it was just a coincidence that you suddenly returned to Derek, and a couple of days later, he’s dead?”
“Yes. I could have died just as easily when the Defenders attacked.”
“I see. And why did you return to him?”
“I… I didn’t find anywhere to settle down. One place was fine, but someone noticed my tattoo, so I had to escape. I figured I’d better stick with what I know.”
He laughs and smacks his knee. “What you know? You mean spreading your legs? Nah, you’re lying to me.
” He grabs my shirt and pulls me close, his breath thick with the scent of liquor.
“There’s no chance in hell you decided to go back to Derek on your own, and the fact that you tried to lie about it speaks volumes.
It can only mean one thing… you set Derek up. ”
“I didn’t!”
He slaps my face. “I ain’t eating the shit you’re trying to sell me. You set my brother up, you and those fucking Defenders. And now you’re here with all these weapons and nova… what’s your plan?”
“Everybody here has weapons!”
He shakes me hard, and when my necklace rattles, he stops. “What’s that?”
“Nothing.”
He reaches inside my shirt and pulls out the pendant. “What’s this shit?”
“It’s nothing. A gift.”
He snorts. “Then why do you look like you’re about to pass out? Must be some hell of a gift.”
“It’s not! Just leave—”
He pulls at the necklace hard enough to snap it. I stare in shock as the yellow substance spills out onto the floor. It pulses with light.
Clint jumps to his feet. “What the hell is that thing?”
I can’t risk him taking it. “Run! Get out of here!”
The puddle slides quickly toward the door. The man by the entrance reaches down to grab it, and when he touches the liquid, he screams in pain.
My mouth drops at the sight of the flesh peeling from his hands, revealing bones that dissolve like burning paper. A nasty smell of burnt flesh fills the air. I breathe a sigh of relief as the substance slips beneath the door and into the night.
Clint grabs my hair while his man screams in agony, his hands completely gone. “You little devil. I knew you were planning something. I’ll make you sing the truth until you’re coughing blood.”