by Kelley York
I choke in a deep breath. Someone plants a shoe against my side to roll me onto my back and I am now staring up at three faces. Judging by the pleased leer on the blond man’s face, it’s safe to say he’s the beast that knocked me off my feet.
“Get ‘im up,” the woman snaps, pointing to a nearby alley. Both the blond and the man I hit—dark-haired, with a sparse moustache—each grab one of my arms and half-drag me out of the street before we can draw too much attention. I swear under my breath, praying that Benji stays put and does not try to play hero. I like to think he’s smarter than that, but it’s not as though we’ve been in a situation like this before.
The blond shoves me against the side of a brick building and holds me there by the front of my shirt.
“Americans are so brutish,” I rasp. “Not even a hello, how do you do?”
His free fist connects with my jaw.
“That’s enough.” The woman nudges him aside and he releases me. I sag against the wall, peering down at her. I cannot see the ghost attached to her, but I can feel it. The way the hair on my arms stands on-end, the prickling of my skin, the sudden coldness. She peers up into my face, unblinking and unsmiling. “Where is the box?”
I drag my tongue across my teeth, tasting a smidge of blood. “What box?”
The corner of her mouth twitches. “Look, I don’t really care to watch Hugo here beat you bloody, but I ain’t above letting him do it, neither. I don’t give a whit about you or your buddy; we just want the damned box.”
“You’re certainly welcome to search, but I promise I do not have it.”
“Nah, but your friend does. Where’d he go?”
I shrug. “We tossed the box into the bay. Really not worth our time and effort; we’ve already got paid for half the job anyway.”
“I’m telling you, Sid,” Hugo growls. “Let’s just snap his neck and find the other one—”
The woman named Sid silences him with a stormy look before returning her attention to me. Then, she turns away and heads for the street. “I’ll have Louisa bring the carriage around. Then we’ll see ‘bout rounding up the other one.”
A few moments after she departs, everyone is silent, and I dare not risk an escape attempt while both my captors are watching me so intently. But the moment I hear commotion out on the street, and the woman’s voice shouting—“I’ve got him!”—panic overtakes me.
Benji. They’ve got Benji.
Hugo makes a grab for me and it spurs me into action. Like hell they’re going to take me quietly, especially if they’ve got Benji too.
But for as much as I’ve prided myself on my size and strength, I am, apparently, no match for a man much larger than myself accompanied by another man of moderate size. I plant my feet firmly into the stone ground, pitching my weight back. The moustached man loses his grip, but Hugo’s remains iron-clad and determined.
I twist left, right, and my jacket comes loose, sliding off my shoulders and rendering me able to break free.
I make it four feet down the alley before I hear a resounding crack. Pain blossoms across the back of my skull, and…
◆◆◆
I wake convinced I’ve been tied to the back of the carriage and dragged through the streets. Without the use of my hands, I can’t touch the back of my head, but it throbs something fierce. My eyes are heavy and refuse to open at first, even to the sound of voices. I force myself to look, to take stock of the room around me.
It appears to be some sort of small shipping warehouse, as it smells strongly of fish and salt. Close to the bay then, I suspect. Before my vision has even fully cleared, I know that I am surrounded by Hugo, the other man, a woman I do not recognise, the girl from the alley…
And Benjamin.
That certainly brings some clarity back to my foggy-headed mind.
Like me, Benji is bound with rope to a support column, arms pinned to his sides. If that wasn’t enough to infuriate me, Hugo stands before him, bowed down, their faces inches apart. Hugo’s is several furious shades of red.
“Listen, you little shit, I know you can understand me.”
And that look, that chilly, detached expression upon Benji’s face takes me back to the day I met him at Whisperwood. The look he gave to the boys tormenting him. A look that said he would not cower beneath the cruelty of others. He stares back at Hugo, unflinching, opens his mouth and replies.
In Mandarin.
I pick up only a few of the words and I would daresay he’s reciting a biscuit recipe. I bite my tongue to keep from laughing aloud.
The moustachioed man and the other woman—I presume this to be the aforementioned Louisa—linger nearby, observing the interrogation and how poorly it’s going. As for the dark-skinned girl, Sid, I spy her seated atop a stack of crates, her hat resting on one drawn-up knee, and looking almost as amused as I feel. When Hugo whirls around to look to her for guidance, she shrugs.
“Told ya, wait for Crane. He’ll get him to talk.”
Crane. Another person in this group of bandits? Their leader, perhaps? Good. I know who to beat to a pulp for doing this to us.
“Hey,” Louisa says, tipping her chin in my direction. “The other one’s awake.”
Sid rolls her gaze to me. “What about you, boy?”
“Oh, don’t look at me. I barely know my alphabet.”
Hugo looks half a second away from hitting me again. He very well might have too, if the door did not then swing open from somewhere behind me. Everyone is silent and I hear footsteps but cannot turn enough to see who it is.
“Well?” comes a voice.
Moustachioed-man and Louisa scuff their feet a bit. Before Sid can speak, Hugo, terribly full of agitation and bluster, points at Benji and me both like a child tattling on its sibling.
“They won’t fuckin’ talk, Crane!”
Finally, this Mr. Crane strolls into view. And he is…nothing at all remarkable, really. Younger than I anticipated for some reason. I’d not place him any older than his late twenties. He’s tall, lanky, with a head of dark curly hair. Even his clothing is that of a working man: his boots are travel-worn and the sleeves of his dusty shirt are rolled to his elbows. No waistcoat. A shotgun hangs from a strap on his back and another, smaller gun is holstered at his hip.
Still, as unremarkable as he is, something about him feels oddly familiar, and I cannot place where or why or how.
No. Wait. Yes I do.
The Parker House Hotel. The staffer who came to our door in the early morning hours...
Crane stops in front of Benjamin, studying him. Benji stares back, defiant, but something in his gaze wavers now, something akin to fear. I see his throat move as he swallows hard.
Crane says in a voice that is most certainly English and not American, “Take this one back to the train station. Have him retrace his steps and locate the chest.”
Hugo gives an indignant snort. “That one insists he don’t speak a lick of English, but I heard ‘im at the station.”
With a roll of his eyes, Crane looks over to Sid and nods in my direction. She hops down from the crates and crosses over to me, sliding a revolver from her hip. My throat goes dry. If they had wanted to kill me, surely they would have already. But there’s what my brain says is logical and what my racing heart says when I’m staring down the barrel of a loaded weapon.
“We only need one of them, yeah?” Sid says.
Benji falters, his eyes wide. They’re bluffing, I want to tell him, except even I’m not so sure.
Sid presses the gun to my temple. Benji chokes out a horrified sound. “No, no, I’ll take you to it!”
I draw in a breath and hold it, halfway expecting her to still squeeze the trigger. But Sid holsters the gun and turns to Crane. He gives a wave of his hand.
“Go on, then. You heard me.”
“All of us?” Hugo asks, scowling at me. “You wanna be alone with that one?”
“I’m sure he’ll be a terrible threat, tied up like he is. I said get going
.”
The four of them untie Benji. Hugo gives him a rough shove toward the door when he stops to steal a frantic look at me while I’m glaring daggers at Hugo for laying his hands on Benjamin.
Somewhere behind me, the voices fade and the warehouse door slams shut, leaving Crane and me alone in the dusty lantern light. The only windows are high above us and through the dirt-encrusted glass I can tell it’s still dark outside. I was not unconscious long enough for it to become morning.
Crane sighs, pushing a hand back through his messy hair, and strolls over to crouch in front of me. Not close enough that I could slam a foot between his legs, damn him. Up closer in the poor light, with him staring straight at me, I realise this completely unremarkable man has the most remarkable eyes. And not in any sort of good sense, either.
They’re dark. Not in the way that Benji’s are dark, the colour of gunmetal. Crane’s are the sort of dark you see when staring into a lake in the dead of night. They swallow up everything, even my own reflection. They look wrong in ways I don’t have words to explain.
He tips his head, studying me in the same way I’m studying him. Finally, “So, what’s your name?”
I have half a mind to spit at him. “Edward the Seventh.”
“Would you like to try that again?”
“Alice.” I flutter my lashes for added effect.
Crane heaves another sigh, rolling his reflectionless eyes toward the ceiling. He stands again, turns away with his hands upon his hips.
Then he slides the revolver free, turns, and fires.
The sound ricochets off every metallic surface in the room, making my ears ring. A sting of pain blossoms on my left bicep.
He shot me. He bloody shot me.
“The next time,” Crane says slowly, “I’ll do that to your friend, and it won’t be just a flesh wound.”
I swallow the lump in my throat. The shot had skimmed off the side of my arm, a minor flesh wound, but it still burns like hell. I manage a startlingly calm response.
“You touch him and then my name isn’t going to matter because you’ll be fucking dead.”
“Not in much of a position to be making threats, are you?” Crane taps the gun against his thigh. “Perhaps we got off on the wrong foot. I know you aren’t James Spencer or William Esher because I’ve met them. Frankly, I don’t give two shites who you are. What I do care about is that chest. It’s urgent that I get a hold of it, return it to its proper owner, and then you two can go traipsing back to England.”
I grit my teeth. He’s met James and Esher? When, where? Not that that information is going to do me much good right now, though it does clear up a few things. He came to our hotel room to claim the box and was thrown off when it wasn’t James or Esher who answered.
“Rightful owner,” I hiss through gritted teeth. “What makes you think you’ve got the rightful owner? According to our client, that box was stolen and we’re returning it home.”
“Well, we’ve got ourselves a case of one man’s word against another, don’t we? But your client is dead now, so I’m not so sure he’ll be speaking up about much of anything.”
I still, eyes widening. “What?”
Crane gestures at me with the revolver before holstering it. “Don’t give me that look; wasn’t me. But Wilkerson was responsible for the theft of that chest, so really, he deserved what he got.”
If they’ve been to Wilkerson’s, if they hurt him, that could explain how they got hold of all our information. Our hotel name, the boat… But still, it doesn’t make sense that they also obtained our train information, does it? They would have needed to get that from someone at the Parker House Hotel, and…
Nothing is quite lining up and I doubt Mr. Crane is going to be kind enough to fill in the blanks for me.
“If he stole it, it was only to get it back to its rightful owner!” I insist.
Crane scoffs. “Whatever helps you sleep better at night, mate. Just thieves stealing from thieves. I think the pair of you haven’t got a clue what you’re carting around in that box.”
We should have broken the damned thing open back in Nebraska. “Can’t say that it matters. And to be quite honest, Mr. Crane, regardless of whether what you say is true, you’ve taken my friend and me hostage so right now I’m having difficulty thinking of much to say beyond ‘go fuck yourself.’”
“Fair enough. Can’t fault you there.” He shrugs, folds his arms across his chest. “Perhaps you’ll feel differently after a few days with no food and no sleep, though. As I said, all I’m interested in is the box. Not your lives, not your backstories, or why you’re here instead of them… Just what belongs to my employer.”
He walks past me, and I hear the door open and shut.
I swear into the darkness and pray that Benji is having better luck than I am.
CHAPTER 10 – BENJAMIN
Rather than load me into the same carriage we arrived in, we walk the distance to the train station. My legs ache in protest and the only small blessing is that Sid has had no choice but to untie my wrists. Parading me through the city bound would no doubt attract attention. Oh, but they’re certain to flank me on all sides, though. Sid to my right, Hugo behind me, Louisa ahead, and the moustachioed man, whose name I’ve gathered is Philip, to my left. Even if I could break free, I’m not so certain I could outrun them.
But that doesn’t mean I’m not looking for my opportunity to try.
At the station, Sid turns to me. “All right. You had the box when you left here. Where’d you go?”
“It was all such a blur,” I insist. “We were being chased, you see. Made it quite difficult to know where we were going.”
I do remember, but I’m not about to lead them straight to the chest. Hugo growls in warning, and I thank God there are people around even this late at night because it may be the only thing that keeps him from striking me.
Sid breathes in slowly, mustering her patience. “Yuh-huh. Take a guess, then.”
I run through the options in my head. They know which direction we started out running in, and if I lead them the wrong way, they’ll know it. I need to take them back to where we lost them, and from there…
Then what? I can only keep them traipsing about the city on a wild goose chase for so long. What I need is a distraction, if I can get even two of them to be otherwise preoccupied…
“This way,” I relent, nodding down the street Preston and I fled to hours ago. I begin to lead them, retracing our path, eyes darting about. We’re nearing the apartment buildings now, too close for comfort. If they’re smart, they’ll know we were halted near here and that this is likely where the chest was stashed.
I stop near a fenced-in building, hesitating. “This might be it.”
“Might?” Hugo asks.
“Might… It was in a bush behind a fence. But it was dark. I don’t know that I remember which one.”
Sid rolls her eyes, then looks to Philip and nods. He hauls himself over the fence and begins to pick through the brush on the other side.
“I don’t see nothin’, Sid!”
“Well, of course not, it’s dark,” I say. When Sid shoots me a needle-eyed glare, I do my best to look chastised. “I told you, it might not be the right one. We’ll have to keep looking.”
And look we do. Five blocks and nine different fences and bushes later, I can tell even Sid is beginning to lose her patience. Excellent. They’re getting tired and irritable, and it also means they’re getting careless.
Fence number ten involves Hugo hoisting Louisa up to the top to drop down on the other side. There’s a resounding crunch of a body landing in a particularly prickly bush, followed by a pained yelp that makes Hugo snicker.
A second later, it’s followed by the barking of a very large, very angry guard dog.
Sid darts forward, Hugo all but tossing her to the top of the wall so she can reach down for Louisa on the other side. “Girl, hurry it up! Come on!”
All of this is good and fascinati
ng and working out nicely, except Philip still has hold of my bicep. Loosely, though, as he watches the scene before us and seems to have forgotten that I’m there for the time being. I study his profile, the bruising about his nose…
I almost feel bad for what I’m about to do.
Almost.
The heel of my hand connects with his already delicate and injured face. He chokes on a yowl, releasing me, and I’m free to make a run for it even as Philip is swearing and alerting his distracted companions.
I do not stick to the streets. I dart down the nearest alley, scrabbling up a fence at the end of it. As many twists and turns as I can take to make them lose my trail in the dark. Finally, I heave myself up a fire escape and huddle outside someone’s window, panting and willing the flare of pain and exhaustion to ebb.
It seems to have worked. Ten, fifteen minutes pass by. No sound, no pursuers chasing me through the night. I’ve lost them. I’m a bit lost myself, too, but I remember where the box is, and how to get to the warehouse from there. And that was the entire reason I let them take me in the first place.
Which means all I need now is the nearest police station.
CHAPTER 11 – PRESTON
I could almost sleep like this if left alone long enough. If it weren’t for the ache developing in my arms from being bound and the vast amount of worry coursing through my veins…sleeping just to pass the time might not be so bad. Crane returns at some point, though he does not speak a word to me, and I suspect he settles somewhere near the door. Perhaps he’s doing some sleeping of his own. I ponder singing, loudly and off-key, just to annoy him. If I’ve got to be uncomfortable then he should, too.
Locked in here, I also have little concept of time. I don’t know how many hours pass, but it’s got to be two, perhaps even three. Is that good? Bad? I can imagine Benji not making this easy for them and while that thought has me proud, it simultaneously makes my pulse quicken in fear of what that lot would do to him to force him into cooperating.
When the door finally swings open again, the warehouse comes alive with several voices talking at once. I wince at the assault on my senses, trying to twist around to see them.