“Well, well, well,” comes the Queen’s voice, and I tear my eyes off a disturbing half-naked portrait of her to face the real thing. She’s seated on her throne at the head of the room. There’s a huge painting behind her, showing a younger version of her swathed in a fancy dress and sitting on a golden throne much larger than life. The real Queen seated on her real throne, a rickety old wooden chair, looks sad in comparison, like a balloon with all of the air squeezed out.
Next to her, suspended upside down, is Wolf. He’s all tied up, ropes holding his wrists and ankles together, and another keeping him swinging a couple of feet off the ground. The rope is attached to a hook on the wall that must have been made for this very purpose. There’s a huge bruise across his cheekbone and dried blood around his nose, but he doesn’t seem seriously injured. He groans when he sees us.
“You idiots would barge right in here,” he says. “And what the hell is the plan now, dumbasses?”
As if on cue, a ring of guards surrounds us. They emerge from behind plants and statues, from the corners of the room where the dim lighting made them hard to notice, from everywhere. I turn back to where we came from, but within seconds the room behind us is full of more guards. They step through the hole we made and force us into the empty space in the middle of the room, right in front of the Queen and her throne. There are dozens of them, all with guns trained on us, and most of them have weapons bigger than ours. Pretty Boy immediately raises his hands in surrender. The rest of us hesitate, turning around and trying to figure out where to point our weapons. There are too many targets to choose from. I finally settle on one man directly ahead of me and aim at the center of his forehead. My hands don’t shake, though my heart is pounding.
This time, I won’t hesitate.
“Give it up,” the Queen says. Her lips are curled to the side in a smirk, her long fingernails tapping against the armrest of her throne. “You know you don’t have a chance.” She folds her hands on her lap and smiles an irritatingly self-satisfied smile.
“You betrayed us,” Dolly says. I glance at her; her fingers are clutching her gun so tightly that her knuckles are turning white. The Queen turns to her, still smiling.
“Of course I did,” she says. “Saint’s new world is coming whether you like it or not, and I intend to survive in it. A partnership with him is exactly what I need to start my new life.”
Wolf starts to laugh.
“Start your new life,” he says mockingly between laughs. “I think you mean desperately attempt to stay relevant.” He grins at her. “And if you think you can take us in alive,” he says, “you seriously fucking underestimate us, bitch.” One of the Queen’s men hits him across the face with his gun. It looks and sounds like it hurts, but Wolf only continues to laugh.
“He’s right,” Tank says. “You can let us go, or you can kill us. We ain’t gonna let anything else happen.”
“Wait a second,” Pretty Boy says. “I didn’t agree to—”
Tank elbows him to shut him up. The Queen locks her eyes on Pretty Boy and smiles.
“Oh, darling,” she says in a voice that makes my skin crawl. “I don’t intend to lump you in with the rest of them, you poor thing. Come here, I’ll keep you safe.” She spreads her arms wide and beckons to him.
Cold dread grows in my belly. I can’t bring myself to look at Pretty Boy. He’ll take the deal, I know he will. Anything to save his own skin, as he’s demonstrated time and time again. Everything is falling apart. The Queen has Wolf, and soon she’ll have Pretty Boy, and then what do we have left?
Not a chance.
“Don’t do it, man,” Tank says quietly. I finally dare a glance at Pretty Boy. He looks like someone who was staring down a shotgun barrel and just realized it’s out of bullets.
“Well,” he says, “your highness, I’ve always …” He takes a step forward. Tank reaches out to grab his arm. Pretty Boy pauses for a second, the two of them exchange a look, and Tank lets him go. He takes another step toward the Queen.
An explosion shakes the building. Silence falls, and everyone freezes in place. This room is still intact, but it sounded close.
“What the actual fuck was that?” the Queen asks in a low growl, dropping both her dramatic flair and her accent. She gestures impatiently to her closest guards, who rush out through the double doors we destroyed. The rest of her men stir uneasily. The Queen only sits up straighter and glares at us, her composure returning. “Whatever you sharks are trying to pull, it’s not going to work.”
“What are we trying to pull?” I whisper to Tank. He shrugs. I look at Dolly, who also shrugs. “Did we do that?” More shrugs.
Wolf is laughing again.
“I tried to tell you, your highness,” he says mockingly, “that this would backfire on you. Everyone knows you’ve been losing it, and the second you turned on us, broke your own rules, you were bound to—”
“Shut up,” she snaps. “And secure the rest of them. What are you idiots doing?”
The Queen’s men close in around us. We pull into a tighter knot, all back-to-back. Dolly yanks Ruby closer to her and jams her gun into the side of her head. Ruby closes her eyes, trembling.
“Don’t move any closer,” Dolly says.
“Oh, Dolly, sweetie,” the Queen says with a grating, half-coughing laugh. She lazily waves a hand at her men. Two of them immediately open fire. Before anyone can react, Ruby’s body is littered with bullet holes. Her body goes limp in Dolly’s grip. When she lets go, Ruby falls to the floor. Dolly stares down at her, shock evident on her normally blank face. I realize she must have never actually intended to kill Ruby, let alone get her killed by the Queen. It’s enough to crack her usual cool composure.
Dolly’s expression turns to sheer, naked rage and she lunges forward. She fires three bullets with deadly precision, taking down the guards in front of her so she can burst out of the circle. She dodges another man who tries to grab her, slips between two coming at her from opposite directions, shoots another guard in the hand so he drops his gun. The barrel of her gun points directly at the Queen’s shocked face. But before she can fire, two guards take her down. One wrestles the gun out of her hand and the other keeps her pinned to the floor.
Dolly screams. It’s a wordless sound of pure hate and rage. The room magnifies it so the sound hurts my ears and echoes disturbingly in the quiet that follows.
The Queen’s eyes are wide, her mouth slightly open—but she recomposes herself.
“Hold her,” she says to the guards, flapping a hand at them. “And get the others.”
Tank rushes forward at the line of the Queen’s men, trying to shove past them and get to Dolly. They latch on to him on every side and take him down. I try to cling to Pretty Boy’s arm, knowing the Queen’s men won’t hurt him, but they yank me away. A man takes my gun and holds my arms behind my back. All I can do is wriggle helplessly.
“M-My Queen!” I turn my head to see that one of the men who left to investigate the explosion has returned. He’s clutching his side. A trail of blood snakes out the door behind him. “They’re rioting! T-They’re killing us, taking the girls, looting the place … You need to send more men! A lot more!”
“Who?” the Queen asks, her eyes blazing and her fists clenched. “Who dares—”
“Everyone!”
XVII
The Escape
Noise floods the room. The Queen shouts orders and her men rush to obey, some running out to rein in the chaos outside and others fortifying the doors we busted down. The Queen’s orders are followed without question, but her men look nervous. There’s a hesitancy to their movements, an uncertainty in their expressions. It’s obvious they haven’t dealt with anything like this before.
The guard holding me is distracted by the mass confusion. His grip on my arms slackens, and as he turns to look at the door I wriggle out of his grip and dart away. He shouts, but no one pays attention. They have much bigger problems; namely, the rioting is already overflowing int
o this room. I hear shouting at the entrance, and gunfire, but catch only glimpses of the action. Mercenaries, raiders, townies, traders, wastelanders of all sorts are fighting, taking down the Queen’s men. It’s no organized attack. I see raiders attacking other raiders, and the Queen’s men fleeing or ripping off their incriminating emblems. Soon everyone is fighting everyone. I see the pierced-up man from last night deep in the fray, along with plenty I don’t recognize. The guard really meant it when he said everyone. Rioting must have swept through the building like a wave as soon as people heard and saw us fighting the Queen’s men.
It’s the nature of the wastelands: If you smell blood, it’s time to fight.
Gunfire and shouting and dying surround me. A bullet narrowly misses my head and pings into the wall. I duck behind a fake potted plant for shelter. Within seconds, a burly man picks it up and walks away with it, leaving me without cover again. I crouch down and scoot along the wall. Luckily, most people are too busy shooting someone or getting shot to notice me. I don’t even have a gun, but I do have my trusty knife, which I take out for comfort’s sake if nothing else.
Unable to spot the others, I move toward where Wolf was hanging. I find the Queen standing beside him. She looks remarkably out of place in her flowing dress and excessive makeup, and she doesn’t have the usual gaggle of guards around her. Most of her men are already immersed in the fight. I creep closer, scuttling between potted plants and statues.
The Queen is still yelling orders like “Contain this mess” and “Kill them already” and “Do something, you idiot,” but nobody seems to be listening anymore. Wolf, meanwhile, is swinging from side to side and wiggling like a very determined worm. It doesn’t seem to be accomplishing much. Neither of them notices me.
The Queen starts to pace, wringing her hands.
“Idiots, idiots, all of them,” she says. There’s a crazy gleam in her eyes, breaking through her grandiose attitude. “I merely ask them to secure a few sharks, and then this mess …”
“Instant karma!” Wolf says cheerfully, still swinging.
“Shut up. Just ’cause I can’t kill you doesn’t mean I won’t maim you.”
“Likely get a price reduction for missing parts, though, eh?”
“I can think of a few that shouldn’t be necessary.”
I attempt a somersault to a nearby potted plant, and accidentally smack my face into the clay pot instead. I freeze there, feeling like an idiot and sure someone must’ve heard the noise, but nobody reacts. I duck behind the pot with a hand over my smarting nose. Once I determine I’m not bleeding, I peer through the rubbery leaves of the fake plant. The Queen’s back is turned to me. None of her men are looking toward me, either. Everyone is too focused on the brawl.
I crawl out from behind the plant and toward Wolf. He finally notices me as I draw closer. He stops swinging, glances at the Queen’s back and then at me again.
I check to make sure I still haven’t captured the attention of the Queen’s men and find them distracted by a new problem: Dolly, who somehow broke free and gained a gun again. As the nearby guards rush to stop her, I stand and use my knife to saw at Wolf’s bindings. I manage to free his hands and am trying to figure out the best way to cut him down when the Queen notices me. Her eyes go wide, her thin upper lip curling back into a snarl.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” she shrieks. I frantically saw at the ropes holding Wolf, but before I can finish, the Queen shoves me. I stumble away from Wolf and fall to the floor. “You little bitch. Don’t interfere—”
I lunge forward and stab my knife into the trailing fabric of her dress. I expect to just tear through it and hit the floor, but instead my blade sinks into flesh.
The Queen screams. I scream, too, in surprise, and yank my knife back to find it covered in blood. Oh God, I just stabbed her in the foot.
“Guards!” she screeches.
Two men disentangle themselves from the rioting and turn to come after me. I scoot away as fast as I can on all fours and duck behind my trusty plant again, only to turn around and realize both guards are already dead.
Dolly makes her determined way toward the Queen, gun raised. The Queen, swearing and hobbling, melts back into a crowd of guards.
Dolly takes a step forward, ready to plunge in after her.
“Wait!” I yell, stepping out from behind the plant. “Wolf needs help!” She stops, still staring after the Queen. Finally Dolly turns to face me. Her face is once again a blank slate. She looks up at Wolf and raises her gun, aiming at the rope holding him.
“Hold up,” Wolf says. “Hold on one goddamned—”
She shoots through it, and he falls to the floor with a heavy thud. He groans and sits up, rubbing his head.
“God damn it, I hate you guys sometimes.”
I help untie his wrists. He does his ankles himself, stands up, cracks his neck, and stretches his arms. Dolly hands him a gun as he checks out the chaos around us.
“This all makes a lot more sense when I’m not looking at it upside down,” he says. “Now, where are the others?”
Dolly raises an arm and points. Tank is clearly visible in the middle of the chaos, towering above everyone. He has a metal pipe in hand and is swinging it wildly, taking people out left and right, guards and rioters alike.
“And Pretty Boy?” I ask. I don’t see him anywhere.
“Screw Pretty Boy, let’s leave ’im. He was about to finally stab us in the back anyway,” Wolf says.
“But—”
“We need him,” Dolly says. Both Wolf and I stare at her in surprise. A lightbulb seems to go off for Wolf.
“Ahh,” he says. “I see.”
“See what?” My lightbulb remains dim. They ignore me and move in Tank’s direction. Dolly pauses to shoot a few guards who take notice of us, and soon enough we’re safely immersed in the insanity. I stick close behind Wolf while Dolly covers us. We don’t attract too much attention. Everyone is too focused on their own goals. I see a pair of raiders playing tug-of-war with a blood-splattered painting, and a mob surrounding a screaming man who is probably one of the Queen’s men, and plenty of other nasty things. There seems to be an attitude of general revelry among the rioters, while the guards are all terrified.
We hack our way through the crowd to Tank, who looks a bit too happy to be smashing some poor raider woman’s head in. When Wolf grabs his arm, Tank whips around and raises his crowbar. He narrowly stops himself from hitting Wolf.
“Oh, hey there, guys,” he says, his scary war face relaxing into a smile. “Come to join the fun?”
“Not this time. We’re getting out of here.”
“Aww …”
“I know, I’m disappointed, too,” Wolf says. “This is a hell of a brawl. But we gotta do the smart thing for once.”
“All right,” Tank says with a sigh. “But … where’s Pretty Boy?”
We all pause to look around. Unsurprisingly, there’s no sign of him amid all the action. He could’ve run to the Queen for safety, but seeing as we just came from that direction, it doesn’t seem likely. Finally Dolly raises a hand and points. He’s in a corner of the room outside the thick of the brawl, cowering and half-hidden behind a broken statue. When he sees us approaching, he shrinks back.
“Get the fuck away from me!”
“No can do,” Wolf says. He grabs him by the arm and drags him out. Pretty Boy fights as much as he can, trying to dig his heels into the tile and yank his arm free, but it barely slows Wolf. We head for the entrance room and have nearly made it out when a small group of guards intercepts us. There are five of them, their uniforms torn and bloodied.
“Don’t move!” one says. He keeps his gun trained on Wolf. “Didn’t think we’d lose track of you, did you?”
“Nah,” Wolf says. Looking completely composed, he holds his gun to Pretty Boy’s head. He stops struggling and sucks in a startled breath. “But you’re gonna let us past, or I’ll blow his brains out.”
My l
ightbulb finally crackles to life. Of course we need Pretty Boy; the Queen wants him. The guards must be well aware of that, because they look worried.
“Not even a shark would kill his own,” one says, but his voice wavers uncertainly.
“Oh yes he would,” Pretty Boy says quickly, his voice high-pitched with nervousness. “He definitely would, he’d love to, please don’t give him an excuse!”
Seeing the guards’ hesitance, Wolf takes the opportunity to move past them. Tank shoulders a few guards out of the way as he moves by, and I stick close behind him. The Queen’s men look at each other uncertainly, clearly at a loss about what to do without orders. Before they can decide, we rush by and into the entrance room. Wolf lowers his gun but keeps a tight grip on Pretty Boy’s shirt.
Dolly opens the front doors to find a line of guards standing right outside. They open fire without bothering to check who’s coming out, and she slams the door shut. Bullets thunk against the other side.
“Goddamn,” Wolf says. “Guess we’ll have to use the back way.”
“And then what? We don’t have the truck anymore!” Pretty Boy says.
“Yeah, well, we’ll have to figure something out.”
“But,” Dolly says, “the only thing out the back way is—”
“Shh!” Wolf holds up a hand and everyone shuts up. From the throne room I hear the Queen’s voice yelling orders to come after us. Either she’s starting to gain control of the situation again, or she’s decided to drop all else and follow us.
“Run,” Wolf says. He shoves Pretty Boy at Tank, throws open the door to one of the hallways, and starts sprinting. Dolly takes off after him, and Tank is soon next with Pretty Boy in tow. I follow along doggedly.
The Wastelanders Page 14