The far end of the beach was almost completely obscured by smoke now, but the sirens had gotten louder and she made out flashing red and blue lights that indicated the police had arrived. The pursuing XBestia must have seen the lights, too, because they scattered, running for the safety of the buildings along the boardwalk that had yet to catch fire. Dillo waved the surviving Mad Eyes over to the outboard. It wasn’t big enough to hold them all, but three climbed aboard and the other three held onto the side as they strained the little motor and headed for the yacht.
The arrival of the police was apparently Dillo and Jason’s signal to attack the ice cream truck full force. They fired on it, but the bullets ricocheted off - the strange vehicle was obviously reinforced, and since the occupants didn’t drive away, it was clear they felt safe inside.
But Dillo wasn’t going to give up that easily. He approached the fallen man, who was still alive and moving. Bryn saw him step on the man’s arm and take his gun, tucking it into his waistband. Then he grabbed him by the hair, lifted his head and placed the barrel of his own gun against his skull.
“Fair trade!” he shouted. “The wolf for this one, or I blow his brains out!”
Chapter Thirty-four
The bullet that hit Scott’s optic lens had glanced off the shatter-resistant plastic, but still slammed the goggle frame into his eye socket hard enough to knock him briefly unconscious. He’d woken to a massive headache, unable to see out of his left eye. Lo had been shaking him, urging him to get up. His vision in the uninjured eye was blurry - he wasn’t sure if the lens was clouded or what - but he’d seen her take a shot to the chest that sent her flying.
He was glad when she dragged herself inside the truck and shut the door. He certainly didn’t blame her for leaving him. She’d taken a huge risk coming back for him in the first place. Her body armor would have absorbed the brunt of that shot, but she’d be bruised at best and incapacitated at worst depending on where the bullet hit her. He’d been flat-out lucky that his optics had deflected the kill shot, but Lo had nothing protecting her head from a similar shot.
Not that he felt lucky when the man with the huge shoulders took his weapon and lifted his aching head by his hair. The barrel of the gun resting against his temple was warm. He tried to think of a way out of the situation, but gun-to-the-head scenarios didn’t offer many options.
After the man made his demands, another voice came from behind - one that he instantly recognized. Alton.
“No time to negotiate,” Alton said. “Cops are coming. Don’t kill that one, he’s not a fed - look at his hands.”
The man tilted Scott’s head back and pushed the broken optics up onto his forehead. “What’s your name?”
Scott still couldn’t see out of the injured eye, but was relieved to find his other eye worked just fine. The dark-skinned man looking down at him had a deceptively kind face.
“Cougar,” he said.
“I’ve heard of him,” Alton said quickly. “He works for Lupus.”
If Alton was attempting to save him, Scott thought pointing out he was an XBestia was probably not the best way to go about it - although the alternative was to admit that Scott was a fed. Either way, he was expendable. But the man grunted and said, “Well, then I guess he’ll have to do.”
He let go of Scott’s hair while Alton patted him down, took his extra ammo clips and then bound his hands behind his back with his own zip tie. The gun against his temple never wavered, and when he was forced to his feet, he saw why. Lo had cracked the side window of the UAAV and she and Boardman were pointing their weapons at them. Neither of the agents would have recognized Alton since they hadn’t been with the XIA for long and he’d been on assignment for the last six months. Scott tried to give her a reassuring look, but the man grabbed his arm and pushed him toward the ocean.
He fully expected his usefulness to expire as soon as they got out of range of Lo’s gun, but for some reason, they seemed to want him as a hostage. One of the Mad Eye soldiers had arrived back at the beach in the outboard, and they forced Scott aboard.
The trip to the yacht in the little boat was unpleasant. His head injury had brought on dizziness and nausea that the motion of the waves only exacerbated. He kept the coffee he’d drunk down for as long as he could, but ended up vomiting over the side. After dry heaving until he thought he was going to turn inside out, he heard Shasta in his ear, saying softly, “Clear your throat if you can hear me.”
Scott was relieved to hear her voice. His throat was raw from vomiting, but he cleared it.
“The drone will not be able to keep up with the yacht,” she said, “We will lose com with you very soon. Alton’s assignment is crucial. You will follow his lead. Clear your throat if you understand.”
Scott didn’t understand, not really. Last he heard, Alton’s assignment had been to protect Bryn, but Shasta’s words confirmed what he’d begun to suspect anyway - that Alton’s orders had reverted back to his original assignment the moment he’d gone back to Edgemere.
“Agent Harding?” Shasta prompted.
For the first time in his career with the XIA, he felt the urge to argue with his superior. But even if he could, he didn’t have any idea what Alton’s assignment was. He had no choice but to trust that it was crucial.
He cleared his throat.
“Maddy Singh has cameras everywhere,” Shasta continued. “Watch what you say. If there’s any way for you to dump this earbug, do it before she has you searched.”
Scott’s hands were bound and the earbug’s design prevented it from being knocked loose even if his aching head could withstand the good shaking that would require. He tried to get a nonverbal message across to Alton, but the other agent was avoiding making eye contact. For the time being, there was nothing Scott could do about the earbug.
He was grateful when the outboard arrived at the yacht, if only because the larger boat was more stable in the water. Alton kept hold of his arm, as if he was claiming him. Once on board, Scott looked past the Mad Eye soldiers crowding the bridge and saw Bryn, staring at him with her mouth slightly open. Moments later, he braced his legs as the powerful vessel turned and retreated from the area, which would sever contact with the com team.
They were on their own.
On the bridge of the yacht, a masculine-looking blond in a white suit seemed to be in charge. In an accented and effeminate-sounding male voice, she said, “Who have we here? Anyone useful?”
“He’s Lupus’ right-hand man,” Alton said. It was a blatant exaggeration, but Scott wasn’t about to dispute it. He realized now why the Mad Eyes attacked the UAAV - to get to Lupus. Alton must be trying to convince them that Scott was second best.
The blond let out a loud, dissatisfied sigh, followed by, “Take him below.”
Alton pushed him forward and down some steps. Bryn appeared by his side, saying quietly, “Let me help.”
“It’d be better if you didn’t,” Alton replied. God, Scott was beginning to hate that guy.
“Just try and stop me.”
There was no one else below deck in the salon. It was a compact, opulent space, like a mini apartment with cherry wood cabinets, marble countertops and a thick carpet. Alton pushed him toward a settee and said, “Sit. Don’t talk.”
Scott sat, but immediately began testing his bonds to see if he could free his wrists. Alton hadn’t tightened the zip tie excessively, but he hadn’t left enough room for Scott to break loose.
Bryn went over to a mini refrigerator and came back with a frozen pack of peas. She gently placed it against his eye. He’d never seen her with such heavy black eyeliner on, but it didn’t hide the worried look in her eyes. Her expression told him all he needed to know about his injury: it didn’t look good.
He couldn’t resist saying, “You’re a sight for sore eye.”
She laughed a little, even though she looked like she was going to cry.
“I said shut up,” Alton snapped.
“I heard you.” He
turned his head away and tilted it at an angle, hoping Alton would see the earbug. He didn’t.
The sound of footsteps on the stairs alerted them that someone was coming. It was the blond. She sauntered slowly over, turning her head this way and that as she appraised him. Behind her hulked the man with the huge shoulders. He held Scott’s gun casually in one hand.
“Cougar, is it?” the blond asked.
Scott knew Maddy Singh was a transgender woman; there was no question in his mind that this was she. “Yes, ma’am,” he said.
Her chin came up. “Polite. I like that. What I don’t like is mysteries. How did you know we were coming?”
By ‘you’ Scott knew she meant the XBestia. He couldn’t very well tell her the truth, that Lupus hadn’t known until Shasta had given Scott the intel. He had no idea how Shasta had known - unless her informant had told her and she’d withheld the information from him so he’d be focused on the op instead of worrying about Bryn. But Maddy was waiting for a response and he’d better give her a plausible one.
He decided to go with the simplest, hardest to disprove answer. “Someone on shore saw the boats coming and raised the alarm.”
“Okay. I’ll accept that - for the time being. What were the feds doing there?”
“I don’t know.”
Maddy pursed her lips and made a tsk sound. “Lie. I don’t like lies and I don’t like liars. Do you know what I do to liars?”
It was a rhetorical question, but Scott felt she wanted an answer anyway. “No.”
“Sadly, you’re going to find out unless you stop. But I will give you a chance to redeem yourself. Where’s Fournier?”
Scott had known he was in pretty deep as soon as he’d been taken prisoner, but he’d hoped with Alton in the picture he’d somehow get out of it. Maddy might as well have asked him to instruct her how to flap her arms and fly to the moon. He gave her the only answer he could: “I don’t know.”
To his surprise, she said, “Well, that I actually believe. We’ll talk more about it later.” She said it pleasantly enough, but Scott knew it was a threat.
“I do have one more question, though.” She turned to Bryn. “Is this your ex-boyfriend?”
Chapter Thirty-five
Bryn didn’t even get a chance to deny it before Maddy exclaimed, “My God, your face isn’t just an open book, it’s an instruction manual. I have really enjoyed having you around these last few days. Seriously, Bryn, you and Dragila have been terribly entertaining all by yourselves, but with the ex-boyfriend added to the mix, I can’t wait to see what will happen. And you know what’s the most interesting thing of all? The incredible series of coincidences that brought us all together, just like Munnu said.”
She stopped talking to look from Bryn’s face to Jason and then to Scott. “I don’t know what you people are playing at, but I will find out.”
Dillo stepped forward, and with a casually limp wrist, waved the gun in his hand at Jason. “You fired a lot of bullets out there today, Dragila. Didn’t hit a damned thing, though. Someone as familiar with guns as you.”
Almost as if by accident, he squeezed the trigger and shot Jason in the chest. Bryn screamed as he slammed up against the wall, grabbed the front of his jacket and slid to the floor.
Maddy winced and put her hands to her ears. “Oh, stop with the screaming already! It’s your boyfriend’s gun and it’s loaded with plastic bullets. He’ll be fine. For now.”
Jason was breathing heavily and in obvious pain, but the hand he took away wasn’t covered in blood. Dillo made sure they all saw him switch to a different gun.
Bryn stood frozen to the spot, watching and waiting for Maddy’s next move.
“So,” the Mad Eye queen said to Scott. “Why would an XBestia bring plastic bullets to a gun fight?”
Scott didn’t respond.
Maddy’s lips curled in a feral smile. “Brilliant. You’ve learned to stop lying. That’s step one.” She moved into the tiny kitchenette and opened a drawer, sliding a long knife out of its block. “Step two is a whole lot more fun. For me, of course.”
When Maddy turned, brandishing the blade, Bryn wasn’t surprised to see her gaze turn towards her. It was logical that she would threaten Bryn to get Scott or Jason to tell her what she wanted to know. Bryn felt her quills respond to the danger by puffing up around her head. Maddy must have noticed, because her eyes narrowed in interest.
“Fournier is a sick, sick man, but I have to admire his inventiveness,” she said. “He had to have known he was giving you a way to protect yourself when he grafted those quills onto your head. Don’t you think?”
Bryn lifted her shoulders in a tentative shrug, never taking her eyes from the knife that Maddy was now twirling around in her fingers, the metal flashing as it reflected the salon’s track lighting. She was relieved when the motion of the yacht slowed and she heard the captain’s voice over the intercom, “We’ve arrived at the dock.”
Maddy rolled her eyes and adopted a resigned expression. “Probably for the best. The salon isn’t really equipped for this, and I would hate to get blood on the carpet. Dillo, would you do the honors?”
She put the knife back in the drawer and left, leaving Dillo to herd the three of them on deck. He recruited two of Maddy’s soldiers to strip Jason’s jacket off, frisk him thoroughly, and tie his hands behind him. Bryn, who was clearly not considered a threat, was left unbound.
In their new status as prisoners, they were no longer welcome in Maddy’s car. They traveled in the open back of a pickup truck with the soldiers. Dillo sat across from them with Jason’s bag on his lap, nonchalantly going through it.
By the time they got back to Edgemere, the sun had risen on another cold, clear day. They were taken directly to the ‘dungeon,’ the same place Junk had been taken the day before. It turned out to be just another sealed off and converted biopolycrete pipe, except it was some distance away from the stacked pipes that made up Maddy’s lair. Several cinder blocks had been laid along both edges of the pipe to keep it from rolling. A low, rickety platform with stairs was pushed up against the only entrance. Inside, to Bryn’s surprise, Junk was still there and still alive - barely.
He was handcuffed to a metal railing that was bolted to the curved wall and extended horizontally the entire length of the pipe. Shirtless, bloody, and from the smell of it, left in the dungeon so long he’d been forced to soil himself, he barely lifted his head when Dillo gestured them in. Bryn expected Dillo to handcuff them to the railing, too, but he just shook his head at Jason in disappointment and slammed the door.
Unlike the rest of the pipes in Maddy’s hive-like lair, this one didn’t have a light source. Once the door closed, darkness surrounded them except for a sliver of barely detectable green light all around the door. Bryn reached out to Scott, touching his jacket, feeling around to his hands, to the soft fur of his xenograft. Her fingers encountered the plastic tie that bound his wrists together and she tugged on it. She wished she had a knife or a pair of scissors, or even the tweezers Carla had packed for her. Dillo hadn’t bothered to check her, but even if he had, she had nothing more useful in her pocket than her tube of lip gloss and maybe some lint.
She took a shuddering breath and slipped her arms around Scott from behind, resting her chin on his shoulder blade. She felt him grasp the hem of her jacket and lean slightly back against her.
“Don’t talk,” Jason said.
She clenched her teeth against a rush of resentment. “About what? The weather? Because it looked like a really freaking nice day out there.”
Jason didn’t reply, which made her even angrier. They wouldn’t be in this mess if it weren’t for him. If he hadn’t brought her here despite the danger. “Is this what they had in mind when they told you to ‘stay the course?’”
“You have no idea what you’re talking about,” he snapped. “And if you don’t shut up, I’ll have to shut you up.”
Scott pulled away, but she kept her hands on him and felt him
turn around to face towards Jason’s voice. “Don’t make me say the obvious, Alton.” Bryn hoped by that he meant that Jason would have to go through him to get to her.
“This is what she wants,” Jason said, enunciating each word. “For us to fight amongst ourselves.”
Bryn laughed. “Well, we might as well get it all out in the open now, since she’s only going to torture it out of us later. And frankly, I’m not up for that.”
“No one’s going to torture anyone.” Scott sounded more confident than the situation warranted, but then again, he always knew more than he let on - maybe rescue was imminent and all they had to do was stay calm and wait. She tried to take comfort from that, but from the darkness, a third voice chimed in. It was Junk, who slurred, “Yesh she will...she will...”
Scott said quietly, “Don’t listen. It’ll be all right.”
“Water,” Junk whispered.
Chapter Thirty-six
When Alton had patted Scott down back on the beach, it had been a deliberately cursory search that was just for show. For Dillo’s benefit, Alton had made a point of removing Scott’s extra bullet clips from his pockets, but Scott knew he’d felt and overlooked the diver’s knife in its ankle sheath and a narrow object in a concealed pocket on Scott’s right thigh. That object happened to be Shasta’s birthday present to him - the auto injector filled with a powerful tranquillizer.
On the deck of the yacht, Dillo had taken pains to strip Alton of his weapons, but fortunately hadn’t done a second search of Scott, who was already bound and had been doing his best to seem cooperative.
Shasta had warned him that Maddy Singh had cameras everywhere, and he doubted the ‘dungeon’ was any exception. Alton had ordered them not to talk because someone was always watching, picking up on every nuance of their conversation to report back to Maddy. An escape attempt would be foolhardy, but Scott had another plan, one that he had to instigate and carry out quickly, before the watchers figured out what he was up to and responded.
Xenofreak Nation, Book Two: Mad Eye Page 16