8. Jackal
EIGHT
JACKAL
“Come on, Coyote, we have to drag his ass to the car. Can’t you lift your side more?”
I had Dingo’s head, and Coyote his feet, and we were slowly, half-assedly making our way to the back exit, where we could reasonably slip out of the damn bar and go mostly unnoticed by anyone with too many questions on their tongue. There were just two more corners, and we were home free.
We turned the first one with no issue. But of course, I should have known there was no way we could escape without a single witness.
Coyote spotted her a second before I did. He froze in place, and it felt like we’d become a human rack, stretching Dingo out between us as he slumbered on, oblivious to the world around him. Bout the only time I think I wished I was the one who’d been drugged.
I wouldn’t wish it later on, when he woke up. That sort of hangover was way worse to come down from than a simple alcohol binge.
Coyote’s hands still clenched Dingo’s ankles, but his eyes were blown wide as he stared off into the hallway beyond. We were inches from the door. Fucking inches. And here this fuckstick was, staring at . . .
I turned my head, and my mouth started salivating.
Holy shit, what a stunner.
The girl at the end of the hallway looked at us as if she had no idea what to make of us, two men with a third between us, very obviously unconscious and incapacitated. We could be murderers for all she knew–
Well, I mean, yeah, duh, we kinda were.
Besides the point, I suppose.
She stared at Coyote first, then her eyes trailed to me, and it was like something changed in the air. Her look made my blood run cold, and at that moment, I knew there was something different about her.
She was no ordinary girl.
If looks could kill, I’d bottle hers and change weapons. Fuck, she looked at me like I was absolute scum, and she’d love nothing more than to wipe me off her boot into the grass outside.
Christ on a gawddamn cracker, why was that so hot?
I should not be thinking about how it would feel to be stepped on by those fucking black leather boots. Was I into that? I didn’t know I was into that.
Guess you learned something new every day.
I took in the fishnet stockings that wrapped her legs in a checkerboard pattern, practically salivating as my eyes traced the line where they were cut off by the bottom of her shorts. The game of peek-a-boo she played with that undone button at the top of that waistband was a dangerous one and had my cock twitching in my pants.
And then she raised an arm to run her fingers through her hair, and I caught a peek at the bottom of her breasts, and fuck all if I didn’t lose whatever thought was left in my fucking brain at the sight.
“Uh, sorry,” she muttered, laughing nervously as she smiled one of the fakest smiles I’d ever seen someone wear. “Did I interrupt something?”
The second her eyes left mine, I felt adrift, and fuck all if it wasn’t a new feeling for me. I wanted those eyes on me. Whatever attention she’d give, for some reason, something inside me yearned for it. I wasn’t some puppy eager for attention, dammit. I shouldn’t feel so strongly about some random stranger I ran into in the hallway of a fucking dive bar on the outskirts of the city.
But here we were.
I couldn’t speak, couldn’t think of a fucking word to say, not even some cheesy pickup line or random excuse or something to chase her away with.
Instead, Coyote opened his mouth, one of the rare times he did so, shocking me as he cleared his throat and released Dingo’s legs to fall to the floor.
“Forget you ever saw us.”
I blinked stupidly, still holding onto Dingo’s armpits like my life depended on it, like I was incapable of letting go. “Y-yeah,” I muttered, nodding emphatically. “We’re just here to make sure our buddy gets home safe. Parties too hard a lot.” I nodded toward the emergency exit and smiled, my tongue absently trailing across the sharpened teeth in my mouth. “Don’t suppose you wanna get the door for us?”
She frowned, twirling a stray strand of her hair between two fingers, reminding me of those teenage girls in 80s movies with bubble gum in their mouths that they’d stretch and twirl around their fingers while they watched boys in the distance. She had that obvious disdain in her eyes when she looked me up and down, taking my measure and finding me wanting.
Her lips curled in a slight smile that reminded me of the look I gave my victims before I took off on my bike with them attached.
“I suppose so.”
She strolled over and shot Coyote a wink, then put her hands on the push bar of the emergency exit and opened the door to our freedom.
Coyote didn’t hesitate, bending over to grab Dingo’s ankles once more with a curt nod in her direction. Her eyes burned a hole in his back as we walked out, and when we finally got outside and turned around?—
She was gone. Nobody stood at the door anymore. It just sat open, caught on a small rock at the edge of the base, preventing it from swinging back again.
The fuck?
It was as if she’d never been there in the first place. As if she were a ghost, nothing more than a figment of our imagination.
I’d almost believe it had it not been a mutual hallucination. There was no way I imagined a whole-ass girl if Coyote saw her, too, right?
When Dingo was safely tucked away in the car I’d hotwired to come pick him up, we piled in and started it up, quickly disappearing into the night, just like the strange girl had moments before.
I met his gaze across the center console as he glared in my direction, obviously displeased. “What the fuck are you looking at me like that for?”
He shook his head and turned those baleful eyes to the window, his face reflected in the smoky glass. “You froze.”
I what? “Bullshit. I didn’t freeze.”
“You did.”
Of all the times for Coyote to decide to speak up, this was not the best opportunity. I regretted bringing him with me, even though I knew damn well moving Dingo would have been impossible alone.
Still, he didn’t have to call me out like that. I mean, shit. We all had our fucking moments, right?
“Fuck off,” I snarled, getting defensive over the perceived slight. “You’re just mad that you had to do the talking for once in your short life.”
He huffed in annoyance and crossed his arms, effectively ending our conversation. I wasn’t done, but I also didn’t like the idea of arguing with a wall.
The rest of the ride back to the Guild was a silent one. No music, no talking, not even the sound of breathing broke it. By the time I pulled into the parking garage, I wanted nothing more than to get out of the car and get the fuck out of there.
Unfortunately, it would be a colossal dick move to leave him with our very obviously incapacitated friend, who would likely wake up and need more than some asshole growling in his face.
Sighing, I resigned myself to my fate for the night and opened the door, hesitating as I spotted Bonnie and fucking Clyde coming around the corner with some of the biggest shit-eating, malicious, up-to-no-good grins on their faces that it made my skin crawl.
We were far from good people here in the Guild, but those two, I was convinced were another breed altogether. Hell, I didn’t even know what kind of fucking contracts they liked to take out. All I did know was they liked to play with their food before they ate it. It was a joke the Surgeon had let slip once at a meeting. They looked so serious at the time, it made me wonder how much of the intended joke was actually that–a joke.
Maybe they were really out here eating people.
More power to them, but they could stay the fuck away from me.
“Oh look, it’s tweedle dumb and tweedle dumber, Clyde. Should we stop and offer them a hand?”
Bonnie waggled her fingers at us as she hung on Clyde’s arm, taunting her favorite targets–well, okay, so to her, everyone was an equal opportunity target. But she really had it out for me and that one fucker from the Skeleton Crew–Ghoul.
I rolled my eyes and flipped her the bird, already done with this interaction as a whole. I had too much shit to deal with to be doing this right now. “Get bent, Bonnie. We’ll leave the cannibalism to you two–you can keep whatever hand you’re gnawing on these days.”
Her screech was cut off as Clyde dragged her away, kicking and screaming. It was music to my ears when the sound finally stopped.
Coyote grunted as he pulled Dingo from the car feet-first, a little too enthusiastically. Poor bloke’s head hit the concrete floor with a dull thud, and I winced on his behalf, rubbing my own scalp in sympathy.
“Fuck, wait for me, you’re gonna give the poor guy brain damage.”
Coyote’s scowl deepened, but he stopped, waiting for me to catch up and grab our partner under the arms, shuffling casually to the elevator like we did this every fucking day, no sweat.
I mean, it wasn’t the first time, but the whole roofie thing definitely was. So there was that.
Once the fucker was securely sprawled in his bed, a bucket next to him just in case, a water on his end table, and an ice pack on his eyes, Coyote and I took up residence on the couch to discuss our next move.
Not that there was one to make, but there was work to be done, and we’d already let a target slip between our fingers once today.
There wouldn’t be a second time.
“So,” I started, my foot bouncing casually against the floor as I spoke. “We obviously have someone after us. Unless Dingo just got very unlucky and intercepted a drink meant for someone else.”
Coyote was silent but thoughtful, his brows drawn together as he threw that revelation around in his mind. I waited for a second to see if he had anything to add, but when he looked in my direction again, I realized he was waiting for me to continue.
So I did.
“I think we might have a stalker. A copycat. Maybe they wanna be one of us, maybe they wanna just be us, I dunno.”
Coyote’s scowl deepened. “No.”
Now it was my turn to wait for an explanation, but of course, in true Coyote fashion, he didn’t elaborate. He just sat there, staring at me like I was supposed to know what the hell he meant by that single word.
I wasn’t a miracle worker.
“No, what?” I said finally, the suspense killing me.
“They don’t want to be us.” His jaw ticked as he prepared his following words carefully. Either he couldn’t think of them, or he couldn’t vocalize what he was trying to say, because the hulking psycho stood up and flipped the coffee table in his aggravation, huffing like the wolf in the Three Little Pigs. It was quite comical, and I had to bite my tongue so hard I could taste blood just to keep from laughing.
“They want something, though,” I offered instead, eyeing the chair next, as if he might just flip anything not bolted down. “We just need to figure out what.”
I shuddered as I recalled that letter at the last mark’s house, clearly taunting us. Who the fuck had we offended, and what the fuck did they want from us?
“Preferably before we end up dead.”