21. King Cobra
21
KING CObrA
RIOT
When Krypt went to infiltrate Axel’s lab, he got to say goodbye to me. It was awkward and unfocused because we’re both terrible at anything deep, but at least it happened. It was a moment that ensured neither of us would regret anything if the worst happened.
I didn’t get the same chance. Director put us on a plane immediately after getting us in shit, and I’m pretty sure he did it just to motivate us to come back. I didn’t get to talk to my brother, and Ghost didn’t get to talk to his. It means we have unfinished business, and I don’t like how it feels.
The small plane from Moros was quick as it took us to the city. Waiting around in the city’s airport was bullshit. I haven’t left Moros in years, let alone gone to a goddamn airport with business fuckups and excited travellers. All those people frayed my already tattered nerves, but now? Holy fucking hell. This is the closest I’ve come to the underworld. Sitting in economy class with hundreds of normies going about their filthy lives is the worst kind of punishment.
Babies are babbling, parents are coddling, kids are not complying, and couples are all… romantic and lovey as they set their screens to play the same movie at the exact same time. Fucking gag. It’s all so light and monotonous and I don’t understand how people enjoy this kind of life. I forgot how prevalent cell phones are. Pictures are being snapped every time I look up, and I can’t fathom the reason to document so many boring moments. Why not live it? Why see it through a screen? Why not make it memorable by actions rather than captions? I don’t understand it, and to be honest, I forget I have a phone most of the time.
My captions are written on calling cards, and my memories are documented in history through the tales Moros locals will eternally tell about me. Not social media and ten-second snaps.
I sigh, leaning back in my seat, thinking about why Axel would want us to find a research file while we’re in Reaper City. I’ve got a file name written on a slip of paper in my pocket, and he told me not to mention it to Director. The fuck is that crazy doc up to? My head is too busy to think about it, and Ghost doesn’t want to acknowledge it because he’s nervous, despite how hard he’s trying not to let it show.
Ghost didn’t want to sit with me, so I’m stuck next to some kid in a frilly tutu, wearing a literal tiara. I suck at kids, but she’s probably six or so, and I wanna ask her what kind of happy life she’s living to make her confident enough to dress like a sparkly little shit and be so excited about it. But her mom is across the aisle and keeps side-eyeing me like I’m gonna snatch her daughter or something. Slipping into a mask I’ve perfected well, I offer the mother a charming smile to put her at ease, tell her she has a cute kid, and keep my elbows inside my armrests just in case.
Unfortunately, my charm doesn’t just put her at ease, it offers her a window to chat. I’m just sitting here listening to how she’s travelling alone with her two kids for the first time because her husband is meeting them at their vacation destination in a few days, and I have to pretend like I give a shit. Vacation? The fuck you wanna go to some stuffy hotel on a crowded beach for when you could go to Moros and get a real thrill? Maybe the girl’s sparkly dress would liven up Death Row a bit.
“Where are you going?” the six-year-old asks me. “To see your family? To visit your friend? To the zoo?”
“The zoo,” I agree. Probably going to be a zoo in Reaper City, and I need to be the lion instead of the monkey.
“What’s your favourite animal? Mine’s a king cobra.”
There she is. Little Miss Sparkly Tutu hasn’t been tainted enough by bullshit fears to be afraid of snakes yet, and it earns her a tidbit of my respect. “Why a king cobra?” I ask her, a little peeved at myself for indulging her.
“Because they can kill you with their spit,” she deadpans, kicking her ballet-flippered feet. “And when they get all angry, they look like they’re wearing cool hair.”
Fair enough.
I don’t know how to act around kids who aren’t born and bred in Moros, so I try to come up with a cute answer, like an otter or something, but instead, her purple-painted fingernails drag over my bare forearm, tracing the lines of my tattoos. I stiffen.
“Mom won’t let me get one,” she tells me. “I want a tattoo of a parrot so I can say something and then hold up my arm and my arm can say something.” She laughs super hard, but that sounds dumb to me. Why not just say it twice if that’s her thing? “Do they hurt?”
‘I like pain’ might not be a suitable response to a child, so I shrug. “Yeah.”
Never, not even once in my whole life, have I been touched like this. Like she doesn’t give a shit about who I am or what boundaries are or what touch means. She’s just… petting my arm like it’s precious to her, looking at my art like it’s a pretty picture, not expecting or insinuating anything or trying to taunt or hurt or manipulate me.
“Maybe when you’re older, Leigh,” Mom says, smiling at me. Guess she’s not afraid of me near her kid anymore.
“Girls look stupid with tattoos,” her asshole older brother says from the other side of their mom. “You have to be goth to get tattoos.”
As their mom gives him a talking-to about something, Leigh looks up at me and says, “I’m goth.”
Yeah, about as goth as she can get in that getup. “Damn right,” I tell her with a grin. “Get a king cobra someday. Cool hair and killer spit and all.”
Her smile is more devious than her outfit suggests, but just like that, I like her even more. Not all kids are so bad, I guess. When I glance back to check on Ghost, I find him watching me, a strange look in his usually closed-off eyes. He meets my gaze, blinks, and then looks away.
When we land, the girl holds my hand as we leave the plane, and I catch Ghost looking again. I’m trying not to be weird, but I’ve never held hands with a person before, let alone a kid, so when her mom whisks her away through the line, I breathe out in relief and wave back at her as she does a snake-fangs sign to me with her fingers.
We make it through security with fabricated IDs, find the rental car, and don’t talk as I drive us towards Reaper City. There are five days until the music festival, and if I’m not back by then, I won’t be coming back at all. That’s my goal.
About an hour in, I say, “You’re nervous.”
“I’m not fucking—yeah, I am nervous. We’re about to break into a lab in the middle of a walled-off city, owned and operated by the most powerful, dangerous organization in this part of the world, maybe even the whole world. You’d be stupid not to be nervous.”
I look at my eyes in the rearview mirror, needing that visual reminder of who I am. Riot, not Killian, and today, I’m not going to buckle under pressure like I did when I was a kid. I’m gonna be fierce like that girl on the plane, confident like her, too. I’ll be the goddamn king cobra instead of the lion, because if anyone from Reaper Corp comes for us—comes for Soren—I won’t hesitate to bite. His death is mine to grant, and until I do, he’s mine to have. No one else gets him unless they take me down first.
“Drop the fucking masks, Riot.”
“I am,” I admit. “Scared. So, let’s make a bulletproof plan.” Director was right. If we don’t work together on this one, we aren’t getting out alive.
* * *
In a hotel room several kilometers outside of Reaper City, we took down the decorative art on the wall to project our screen. Director, Glitch, Facts, and Ransom are all on the line, and Axel is available for questions if we need him. We’ve spent the last twelve hours plotting out the lay of the city, monitoring the security and guard routes, planning our paths and anything that might hold us up along the way, and arguing about variables. We have plans and backup plans, and we have instructions for what to do if we’re captured, caught, or can’t get out of the city undetected. Most importantly, we know what we’re looking for and where to find it.
“Time to get some sleep, boys,” Director says through the tablet’s speaker. “Less than six hours until you move. Ransom is on standby, and Glitch is here with him. Rest up, and good luck.”
“Tell Krypt?—”
Ghost glares at me, hanging up before I get the rest of the sentence out. “No,” he tosses the tablet onto the bed. “None of that. No lame goodbyes or take care of my goldfish bullshit. Six hours from now, we’re going in, we’re getting that key, and we’re getting out.”
For someone so skilled at silence and the art of moving without detection, he’s shaking an awful lot. His fingers are trembling, and his eyes are twitchy, but I can’t tell if it’s from exhaustion, fear, or worry. Maybe all three. Maybe more than that. He never got to say goodbye to Remi either.
Ghost is still looking at me, and I’m not even sure if I want to call him Ghost or if he’s Soren right now, so I turn away to look in the mirror, grounding myself in my own eyes.
“Riot.”
“I need the ninety seconds.” It kills me to say it, but he doesn’t do anything other than nod in the mirror. He gives me a minute, sitting on the edge of the bed to gather our supplies and weapons for tonight.
This is different for me. I am scared. I’ve hardly been outside of Moros, and now I’m expected to survive this? The real world is hard for me, but the fact that I’m just a fuckup with antisocial personality disorder who belongs to a society doesn’t buy me as much clout outside of Moros’ limits. Reaper Corp is a powerhouse, and we’re just two guys who can barely trust each other. I’m unfamiliar with feeling inferior to anyone or anything, and I’m definitely not used to feeling intimidated. I got comfortable being a king in Moros and forgot I’m only a spider outside—I can be squished and stepped on, but I’m still feared, so that’s what I need to focus on.
I don’t have much empathy or remorse for the things I do, and I see myself as the highest form of authority, so it’s really fucking me up something fierce to doubt all that. I’m cowardly enough to admit that if I had the choice, I wouldn’t take this mission. Not because I’m terrified of it, but because it will fucking kill me worse if I get captured and have to live in the proof that I failed. I don’t fucking fail, and I don’t let anyone beat me. Not unless I allow them to because it suits my needs. This whole mission is rocking me to my core because it goes against everything I’ve ever thought of myself.
There’s one small part that can’t wait to succeed so I have a new bragging right, but for once, it’s hard to focus on that when the chill of doom is so real and different from what I’m used to. I’m too agitated to even fuck with him when he goes to shower, choosing to shower after him instead.
We’re both on our backs, the curtains drawn to block the sun, in separate beds, unable to sleep. He doesn’t make a sound, but I must sigh because he scolds me a few times before he climbs out of bed and rips the blanket back on mine. I look at him, baffled and confused.
He curses as he slips in beside me. “I don’t trust that window or the door. There’s nowhere safe to put my back, so for one time only…”
He’ll give me his back, and I can give him mine. For protection and safety. Wow… never thought… just never thought.
It’s unsettling to feel so comfortable next to him. Nearly naked without the thought of sex entering my mind, tired and unguarded without worry about what he’ll try to pull, unmasked and unsure of what part of me is showing through. It’s a breath in time, that silent second between heartbeats. Nothing really exists here because we never spend time here, but we’re here now, breathing and existing in that pause between lightning and thunder.
“Why’d you do it?” Ghost—Soren?—asks the silent room, his voice breathy like he had to push it out.
“Do what?”
“Hold that girl’s hand.”
I feel myself go tense but I don’t know what it means. I don’t dare look at him, not because I’m intimidated by the question, but because I’m unsure what the question insinuates. “She held mine.”
“But you held it back.”
Where’s he going with this? Is he pissed that I held her hand, or is he merely baffled by the fact that I’m capable of doing something pure? I don’t want a kid, but I don’t despise them and see them as vulnerable weak points like Monster does, so I am competent enough at communicating with them, even if my way was different from her mom’s. Sometimes I feel like I relate better to kids because we all see life through a lens that society hasn’t tainted. Their looking glass is pure magic and mine is dark magic, but it’s all still magic.
“I’ve just never seen you touch someone like that,” he whispers.
Meaning I’ve never touched him like that? Does Soren Sauder have a soft side that comes out to play when he isn’t taunting death and his family curse? Does he crave sentiment as much as he craves danger? I’m not about to try it now because it might spook me as much as it spooks him, and neither of us can afford to have our minds out of focus right now.
“Anyway,” he says, clearing his throat and rolling onto his side, facing away from me. “You got the door and I got the window?”
It’s an odd thing for me to give my back to someone, but I turn over and face the door. “Yeah.” I don’t know if he does it or I do it, or maybe we both do, but sometime later, my ass hits his and our backs flatten together.
And we sleep.
I dream of King Cobras.