“This is my room?” she asked in shock.
He nodded. “It’s what’s left for newcomers if that one’s taken. The more work you do and the more you contribute, the better your accommodations. There are some bigger apartments upstairs, and you’ll be given a real bedroom with a window soon, I bet, but you have to prove your worth first.”
She rolled her eyes. “You could have led with that when you talked about this place. You certainly made it seem a lot different than it truly is.”
He had the grace to look abashed, but didn’t offer her another option. “Sorry,” he said, “but we all start low here, and I wanted you to at least give this place a shot.”
“Whatever. I’m going to crash early, if you don’t mind.”
He cleared his throat and looked very uncomfortable. Suddenly, Regan knew her evening was about to get a lot worse. She was silently kicking herself for ever believing anything the kid had told her.
“Actually—” he started.
“Actually, what?” she shot back.
“I only brought you up to show you your room. Your first job is tonight.”
“My job?” she echoed, disbelief running down her spine. What had she gotten into?
“Well, not a job, but you’ll need to help out on one of the missions before all this can be yours,” he explained.
“You’re serious? So, these lovely accommodations aren’t even for me yet?” she growled. “What do I have to do? And, by the way, we really need to work on your communication skills. You have a real knack for leaving out the important details.”
He looked embarrassed. “Sorry.”
“Fine,” she hissed. “What do I have to do?”
“It’s nothing major. You’re going along with one of our more skilled members to meet with someone. The cooperative has made arrangements to obtain an ax.”
Her eyes opened wide. “An ax? You have to make arrangements to get an ax? You people really need to work on your skills.”
He chuckled. “That’s why you’re here. You’re the muscle.”
Regan burst into laughter. “I’m the muscle? Have you seen me?”
Cameron smiled. “Yes, and I know you can kick some ass when you need to. You’re going along to be the eyes and ears for a pickpocket. If he needs you to be a distraction, you do it.”
“A pickpocket? You’re sending a pickpocket to a meeting to get an ax?” She couldn’t believe this. What the hell were these people thinking?
Regan took a deep breath, glancing again at the meager room she’d been offered. Her pride wouldn’t let her head back to the hotel to find Wolf and the others, though she wished it would. She wasn’t prepared to beg them to take her back and she suspected that’s what she would need to do. She knew in her gut she wasn’t getting the full story from Cameron and suspected this was her initiation. Anyone could go out and get an ax. Why would they need her? The mission sounded simple enough, but seriously? At least she could do it by herself if need be, straightforward as it was.
“Are you ready?” Cameron asked.
Regan looked back at the tiny room. “Yeah, I can’t wait to get back to my luxury digs.”
Moving mostly by feel since the light had all but disappeared, Cameron navigated her downstairs to a larger apartment where there were several men and an older woman already engaged in a heated discussion by candlelight.
“We’re here,” Cameron announced needlessly.
The group turned to look at her. The woman stood from the table first, and walked toward Cameron and Regan.
She looked Regan up and down, and Regan defiantly glared at her.
“I’m Carla,” she said in a voice that was gruff with what Regan assumed was a pack-a-day smoking habit chased by a bottle of whiskey.
Regan nodded, but didn’t introduce herself. She hadn’t seen this woman at the cook-out, and assumed she was one of the ones she’d seen plates being carried inside for.
“You’ll be with him.” Carla said, pointing to a middle-aged man who Regan quickly identified as a slimeball.
He was thin, and looked like he had probably been an addict at some point in his life. She knew his type. He was the kind of man she avoided. There were plenty like him on the street. Thieves who were too damn lazy to work for their own food and money. They stole from anyone and everyone. They held no loyalty for their fellow street folk, or anyone else but themselves.
“Let’s do this,” Regan grumbled, anxious to get the job over with.
“Eager.” Carla smiled, revealing a set of yellow-stained teeth and confirming Regan’s earlier assumption. “I like that.”
Regan shrugged. She didn’t like this woman. There was something about her that instantly grated on her nerves. If this woman was the leader of the cooperative, Regan was going to have to strongly consider moving on. Sooner than later, too.
“I’m Steve,” the twitchy pickpocket said, extending his hand.
Regan looked down at the hand, but didn’t extend her own. She was not going to touch the man. Being in the same room with him was bad enough. The smell emanating from him was itself making her nauseated, and it wasn’t like she was exactly perfumed.
“Are we ready?” she asked.
“Yep, follow me,” he said, a little too giddily for Regan’s tastes.
They started from the room, but Regan stopped and looked back, waiting for the others to follow.
“You’re not coming?” Regan asked Cameron.
He shook his head, his cheeks turning red. “No. It’s the two of you.”
Regan’s guard went up further. She didn’t like what she felt. “Fine,” she said after another moment, knowing she could protect herself from the shaggy Steve character. Better only him than him and Carla without the others, at least. This would be one against one if it came to it.
As they walked through the streets, Steve gave her a brief rundown of the plan. “I’ll go in first,” he explained. “You come in after and distract the guy behind the counter.”
“Wait, what? I thought this was a deal you had already set up. What counter?”
“At the store,” he replied as if she were an idiot.
“We’re going into a store? There are actually stores still?” she asked, assuming Steve was confused.
Steve grinned. “This dude is a badass. He’s collected stuff and operates his own store. It’s nothing more than a corner grocery store he took over, but he’s got guys that go out and collect stuff for him to sell. And when I say sell, I mean you have to practically give him your first-born child to get what you need. Carla is pissed at him. He took some stuff from one of our people. We’re getting it back.”
“I thought this was an arranged deal to pick up an ax?” Regan questioned, getting a really bad feeling about the situation.
“We arranged it, yeah. He doesn’t know we’re coming. You distract him while I get the ax,” Steve said simply.
“Why don’t you let me try first?” she suggested. “If I can’t get the ax, we’ll do it your way.”
Steve looked unsure, but agreed after a moment’s thought. They walked several more blocks before Steve stopped and pointed out their destination. Regan could see a man outside the store who was supposed to look casual, but she knew he was guarding the place. Inside, there was a man at the counter. He looked like a typical grandpa. She could work with that.
“I’ll be back. If I need you, I’ll wave a hand in the air. Stay out unless I wave you in. Got it?” she asked.
Steve shrugged. “Sure, we’ll do it your way.”
The way he said it set off more alarm bells, but she couldn’t worry about it right now. Probably, anything this guy said would set off her alarms—he was that scummy. She wanted to get the stupid ax and get on their way. Something felt off, and she knew to trust her instincts. The sooner all this was done, the sooner she could retreat to her tiny room and crash for the night.
Regan walked across the street, flashed a smile at the secret guard, and walked on in. Sh
e went straight to the counter where the old guy was eyeing her up and down.
“Hi,” she said with her flirty smile. “I need an ax.”
The man smiled back at her. It was a lecherous smile that gave her the creeps, but she could handle him. She’d been dealing with men like this for as long as she could remember.
“And what’re you gonna give me in exchange for my ax?” he asked, staring at her breasts.
Regan made a slight move, tossing her short hair back and exposing a little more flesh by thrusting her chest out.
“I have a few things you may be interested in,” she cooed. “Let’s see what you have first.”
He nodded. “You show me yours and I’ll show you mine.”
“Something like that,” she said, holding her smile in place.
The man waddled off down one of the aisles. He picked up a large ax from a shelf and held it up for her to see. She walked toward him and ran two fingers down the handle before she carefully eyed the ax head. She didn’t know a lot about axes, but it seemed to be in decent shape.
“Now, I’ve showed you mine, so you show me yours,” he said in a tone that nearly made Regan vomit.
She smiled and reached into her pocket to pull out the magnesium fire-starter. It was a precious item, but she could always find matches or a lighter. If she had to, she’d pound two rocks together. Right now, her priority was getting the ax and proving her worth.
The man made a big show of looking at the tool in her hand.
“I think we have a deal,” he said. “Unless there’s something else you want in here. I’m willing to do a little more dealing. What else have you got in those pockets?”
“Nothing for you,” she told him, grabbing the ax.
“Now, wait a minute, I don’t know if I want that.”
“You do. Trust me,” she said, not letting go of the ax.
They had a brief stare-down before the man let go. “Fine.”
He took the tool and Regan held the ax at her side, ready to swing if the guy tried anything.
“It was nice doing business with you,” she said, and with that she walked out of the store. The man had been a creep, but she’d gotten what she needed, and she would get to sleep on a bed that night.
Steve was waiting for her in the shadows. “You got it,” he said, grinning lecherously.
“I told you I would.”
“Oh, Carla is going to love this when I tell her what you did,” he said gleefully, taking the ax out of Regan’s hands.
She couldn’t help thinking he was being a little weird, but he was weird in general, she reminded herself. They walked back to the cooperative, Steve giving off an anxious vibe the whole way. When they arrived at the building, instead of being allowed to go to her room, she was escorted to the same downstairs apartment she had been taken to earlier.
Carla and the other two men were waiting right where they’d been before. Steve quickly told them the story about how they’d gotten the ax. Regan was proud of having accomplished the mission without anyone getting hurt, and didn’t bother correcting Steve to say that she’d traded something of her own when he explained that she’d conned the store owner out of the ax.
Suddenly, the explanation over, Carla was looking at her with so much malevolence that Regan realized her life could actually be in jeopardy.
“What’s wrong?” Regan asked, her mouth going dry.
“You were given a job to do and you didn’t do it,” Carla said, walking closer to her.
Regan stood her ground. She would not show fear. “I did!” she insisted. “You have the ax. That was the mission.”
Carla shook her head before using a hand to motion the others in the room to step forward. Regan fought back rising panic as the group surrounded her.
“Empty your pockets. Let’s see what else you’re hiding in there.”
“What are you talking about?” Regan asked.
“You traded for the ax. You had to. We need to avoid that, and the only way to do that is to take what you have,” Carla said with a smile.
Regan shook her head. But when one of the men took a step forward, holding a very ugly, large knife out, she emptied her pockets. She hated losing her knife, but the other knife threatening her was motivation enough to get over the loss.
“I don’t understand what the problem is. Steve gave me the go-ahead to act without conning the guy, and you got the ax. Consider it my gift to you,” she grumbled.
“Your mission was to participate in the con, no matter what Steve said. That was a test, dear. Don’t you think we could have gotten the ax ourselves? We could have easily traded for it. You were supposed to follow my orders. You didn’t. Do you know what happens to those who don’t do what they’re told?” Carla hissed.
Regan held on to that defiance that gave her strength. “No, I don’t, but I have a feeling you’re going to tell me, aren’t you?”
Carla’s thin lips spread wide, showing off her stained teeth. “No, dear. I’m not going to tell you. We’re going to show you.”
There was no time to react. Carla’s fist slammed into Regan’s jaw, causing an explosion of pain to erupt in her head, seconds before another fist hit her in the stomach. She doubled over, blinking back tears of pain as she fought to drag in a breath.
Beaten with fists until she finally fell over, Regan collapsed and crumpled into a ball of mind-numbing pain. Once she dropped to the ground, they started kicking her in the back and sides, every blow landing somewhere new, bruising her flesh. She curled deeper into a ball, gasping for breath and using her hands to protect her head as best she could, hoping the kidney shots wouldn’t kill her. When a kick hit her directly in her shoulder, she heard herself whimpering and begging for release, but couldn’t recognize her own voice.
She barely managed to stay conscious through the beating, jerking with each violent kick to her body. After what felt like an eternity, she felt herself zoning into oblivion, and the blows stopped coming. She held her breath, waiting for a bullet to the head that would end her life. She’d seen enough movies to know how this kind of thing usually ended.
“That’s enough,” Carla’s voice cut into the now silent room.
Through swollen eyes, Regan could see Carla’s feet standing a foot away from her face. She braced herself for a blow that would likely knock her out or kill her. At this point, she prayed it would be quick.
“That’s what happens when you don’t obey orders. Take her to her room,” Carla ordered before stalking away.
Regan stayed where she was for a few moments, doing her best to take a mental inventory of her injuries. Nothing felt broken, but every inch of her body ached. It hurt to breathe, to even shift a muscle, and her ears were ringing. Her vision was blurred, too, and she wasn’t sure if it was a symptom of her swollen eye or head trauma.
“Here, let me help you up.”
Cameron’s quiet voice had startled her—she’d thought everyone had left, it had gone so quiet.
Regan rolled to her back and looked up at the kid who had brought her into this violent place. She hated him. He had done this to her, even if he hadn’t been the one to physically hurt her.
“Don’t bother,” she growled, and managed to get to her feet under her own steam, although it took every ounce of remaining strength she had. She swayed with pain, however, and he caught her elbow to keep her steady. She gulped down a protest. At least she’d gotten to her feet by herself. That meant she could walk, which meant she could walk out of here as soon as she got the chance. Stubbornly, she stood up straight beside him, and bit back a whimper of pain. She was stubborn, and she was a survivor. Those traits would keep her alive.
“I’m sorry. We all had to learn the hard way. Carla doesn’t like it when you don’t do what you’re told,” he said, his voice full of apology.
Regan sneered at him. “Carla can kiss my ass.”
“Don’t let her hear you talk like that,” he warned, gripping her elbow harder for emphasis.
Regan tried to roll her eyes, but realized one eye was nearly swollen shut and the movement hurt.
“Whatever,” she grunted out, yanking her elbow from his grip. “Don’t touch me again,” she warned.
He nodded, turned on a solar flashlight, and led the way up the stairs to her so-called bedroom. She walked inside and stood there, then turning to stare back at Cameron.
“What now?” she asked, seeing the look on his face that said there was more to say.
He looked down at his feet. “You’ll be locked in until morning. Don’t try to escape. They’ll kill you if you do.”
Regan’s mouth dropped open. “Don’t you think you should have included the part about being a prisoner when you invited me to join your little cooperative?”
He shrugged. “We needed you. I had to say whatever it took to get you here.”
“Go away,” she growled as she turned her back to him.
She heard the door shut and then a click, telling her she was officially locked in her cell. It was dark and hot, but she had it to herself. Because that’s what this space was, she realized—this had never been meant to serve as a bedroom; it was a cell. She laid down and closed her eyes, biting back a groan of pain as she reclined on the thin mattress. How had she let herself walk into such a bad situation? It had been a stupid move. She’d been so desperate to be on her own without the trappings of a group dynamic, and so she’d walked right into hell. Cooperative, her ass. This was a dictatorship with a sociopath at the helm.
If she managed to survive this, she vowed never to trust anyone again, especially a fresh-faced kid. Deep down, she knew that what he’d said was too good to be true but a part of her had wanted to believe him. The idea of being on her own and still having others around but without the added responsibility, had appealed to her. Wolf had given her a taste of what it’s like for someone to watch out for her but she still wanted to do her own thing. She’d wanted the best of both and now she had neither.
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