20. Talon
TALON
The truck's engine rumbles beneath me, my foot mashing the accelerator flush against the floor as I take the on-ramp at twice the speed limit. Slade whoops with excitement from the passenger seat, one hand clutching onto the grab handle to brace himself as the Raptor leans into the curve.
At least someone’s having fun.
I could’ve done this alone. Probably should’ve, honestly. But the dickhead refused to provide technical support unless I let him join in on ruining Harris’ weekly poker night, so here we are. Brotherly bonding or some shit.
It’s not that I don’t trust Slade– he’s more than capable when shit gets real. And there aren’t many people I’d rather have at my back. But that’s the problem, I trust him too much.
He’s only four months older than me, so we've literally grown up having each other's backs, and he knows me better than anyone. He knows my tells, and that cyber creep probably knows more than he’d admit about me and what I do.
But if things go sideways tonight, I don’t want him pulling me back before I’m finished.
I’m so fucking over The Registry bullshit and the free range elitists it protects, just shitting wherever they wander without consequence.
I need an outlet. The urge to dispense violence is clawing at my insides, my pulse ticking in my throat.
“So,” Slade starts. “You gonna tell me what’s so special about this girl?”
My knuckles whiten around the steering wheel as I merge onto the highway, and once I settle into a decent cruising speed, I turn up the radio.
Some annoyingly upbeat pop song pulses through the cab, drowning out whatever else he planned to say. He shakes his head and shifts in his seat, pulling his phone out, thumbs tapping on the screen.
Good, bother someone else.
I keep my eyes on the road, the LEDs from the passing light poles casting shadows around the cab. My phone vibrates against the center console and I glance down to see a notification from Exchange.
Specialist: Slade Pierce, Repo Technician
Services Provided: File Access, Management and Recovery
Amount Owed: $10,000
“Did you fucking invoice me?” I huff, tossing my phone back down.
“Yup,” he says, popping the P like a goddamn child.
I turn the music down, cutting him a sideways glance. “For ten grand?”
“Don’t wanna act like a friend or family, then you don’t get the discount. And I’ll send another one after tonight's field activities.”
“Tonight? You invited yourself.” I flick him a sideways glance.
“And now you're paying for the privilege of my company.”
I shake my head. “I’m not paying it.”
“Fine,” he says, throwing his hands up in mock surrender. “Don’t pay me, don’t answer my question, be a fucking tool.”
He slumps back in his seat, a silence settling between us as his attention returns to his phone.
The reprieve lasts all of thirty seconds.
“C’mon, bro,” he groans, the corner of his mouth curling into a smirk. “First, you have me get you access to her Registry file, then the Enforcer in charge of her unit gets killed under mysterious circumstances. And you’ve been binge watching the live feed of her cell.”
I cut him a glare, flexing my grip on the steering wheel as my eyes return to the road.
“Yeah,” he snorts. “I built the ghost door, of course I monitor the traffic. Besides, I wanted to make sure you didn’t get yourself into any shit, which clearly, you have.”
I don’t reply. There’s no point in arguing when he already knows.
I didn’t watch that often, did I?
Most of the time, I only checked in for a few minutes, made sure she was still there, then went back to doing whatever I was before my attention wandered.
Somehow, it always wandered back.
“So c’mon,” Slade presses, reclining back in his seat and kicking a boot up onto the dash. “Let’s hear it.”
“Get your fucking foot down.”
With an exaggerated sigh, he drops it back to the floor. “Better?”
My gaze stays fixed on the road, jaw working as I consider how much to share. Slade already knows something’s off. Not telling him will just give him motivation to keep digging… or tagging along and annoying the piss out of me.
“You remember the night I got this scar?” I ask, my fingers lifting from the wheel to trace the raised skin over my left eye.
He huffs a laugh. “Thought you didn’t remember Austin Miller?”
I exhale a slow breath. “Not him,” I grumble. “Her.”
Slade’s brow furrows. “Who?”
“The Asset he shot. The reason Miller tried to fucking blind me to cover his own ass.” I shift my grip on the steering wheel. “When you gave me access to that file last week, I started digging through it. And what I found…” I trail off, shaking my head.
There are coincidences, and then there’s the fucking cruel twist of fate that put Jersey in my path.
Again.
“I found a report from the night she was brought in by The Registry,” I murmur. “She arrived with a gunshot wound to her lower abdomen, on the same fucking night that shit went down with Miller.”
Slade goes rigid beside me, sucking in a breath through his teeth. “Wait, are you saying…?”
I jerk a nod.
“Shit.” He slumps back against the passenger seat again. “Well, at least this is finally starting to make sense.”
“What do you mean?” I ask.
“You feel guilty.”
“No,” I growl.
“No?” He barks a disbelieving laugh. “So what is it, then? You like her or something?”
My jaw tightens, finger tapping against the steering wheel. I don’t even know what the fuck this is. There’s this constant grating in the back of my skull, demanding my attention no matter how many times I try to bury it.
Hell, I barely fucking know her.
She’s just a mouthy brat with no sense of self-preservation. An anomaly in my daily patterns. Keeping up with her was for the assignment– assurance of completion. Not to ease the incessant tightness behind my ribs.
Whatever the fuck it is, I don’t have name for it, and I sure as hell don’t like Slade trying to give it one.
Jersey Ellis is just an irritating little stray, her hazel eyes filled with a fire that refuses to extinguish. And I can’t decide whether I want to preserve it, or provoke it until it consumes us both.
My silence stretches a second too long.
“Holy shit,” Slade gasps dramatically. “Seriously?”
“No,” I snap, cutting him another glare. “She’s just…” Mine. “...we have unfinished business.”
“I see,” he murmurs, nodding slowly. Then he leans forward and reaches into his backpack at the footwell, tugging his laptop from inside and settling it across his thighs. “So what’s the play here, then?” he asks as he flips it open, the screen illuminating his face. “Repo mission?”
“Something like that.”
The keys click as his fingers move rapidly across them. Windows start popping open on his screen, one after another– property deeds, blueprints, security systems.
“Then we’ll need a plan,” he muses as he works. “We can’t just go strolling in there and yank her out. Harris holds her deed, the Syndicate doesn’t have clearance from The Registry to take her in. It’d be a breach of protocol.”
“Fuck protocol,” I grumble.
“This is why I insisted on coming.” Slade heaves a long-suffering sigh, rolling his eyes as he continues typing, more windows popping up on his laptop screen. “Because as fun as that sounds, I’ve got a better idea...”
“Done?” I grumble into my comms unit over the closed circuit Slade set up for us.
“Almost,” his voice replies in my ear. “You can’t rush perfection, asshole.”
The cherry on the end of my cigarette glows orange as I inhale, the sweet burn of nicotine filling my lungs. “Two minutes before I move in.”
“What, you gonna shoot your way in?” Slade snorts. “Yeah, sounds fan-fucking-tastic. Let’s just add a mountain of dead elites to clean up.”
“Wade would take them all off our hands,” I remind him, smoke lingering in the dark beside me.
“Getting rid of the bodies doesn't get rid of the problem.”
“Kinda does,” I reply flatly.
The lights in the warehouse suddenly cut out as Slade breaches the firewall, faint screams of confusion echoing from inside.
“You’re welcome,” he sing-songs.
“Finally,” I growl, taking one last inhale before dropping my cigarette. “You sure the security system’s on a separate server?”
“I wasn’t before, but I am now. It’s still online. Give me a few to get through.”
I heave an annoyed sigh, grinding the toe of my boot against the cigarette in the dirt.
The last thing I want to do is wait. Anticipation hammers in my chest, each beat feeding the violence that’s already festering beneath my skin.
She’s in there. Right beyond the walls of that fucking building, I just know it.
My pulse stutters as a door swings open, banging against the corrugated steel wall of the building.
A man steps out, then another, both of them looking around in confusion and gesturing vaguely.
Then a third joins them, loudly complaining about the shitty infrastructure and power grids this far from the city.
Entitled pricks.
“Slade?” I drawl lowly into my comms unit, keeping my eyes on the circle jerk of suits near the door.
“Almost there,” he replies. “I told you, perfection takes…”
His voice dissolves into static in my brain as my attention locks onto movement at the rear of the building. Another door flies open, a small figure leaping out and stumbling a step before taking off at a dead sprint, something dangling from her neck.
Is that a fucking leash?
Given the dark and the distance, I can’t make out her features, but I’d recognize my little stray anywhere. She tears through a thicket of brush, her naked form bolting into a field, dark hair whipping in the wind behind her.
“Change of plans,” I murmur into the comms. “Cover me.”
A slow grin spreads across my face, fingers twitching as the thrill of the hunt takes hold.
“Damn it, Talon–,” Slade starts.
I cut the power to my comms before he can finish.
Guess Slade doesn’t need to take down Harris’ security after all. My little stray’s already in my sights, fear evident in every frantic stride as she runs. The sight of it cracks open something savage inside me, every instinct aching to hunt her down.
And she knows how much I love the chase.