Disreputable Allies (Fates of the Bound Book 1)

by Wren Weston

Another shot. An abbreviated scream.

  Frank and Dice abandoned their charges in a clearing behind the factories, near some tranqed members of the Wilson family, stumbling over limbs.

  There were a few sharp cracks as Dice stepped on a man’s fingers.

  “You got the weasel?” Tristan called out.

  “Yeah, boss,” Fry replied. “Weasels aren’t heavy, didn’t you know?”

  “Let’s get back over the wall.”

  The Wilson family must have also known the easiest place to cross, for the thickest part of the crowd had gathered there. Half of them had given up on the idea of burning down the estate. Instead, they fought in a grand arena against Bullstow, swinging their makeshift weapons at the blackcoats, heedless of the darts that flew through the air. Guns had been abandoned all over the field of battle, tossed away when they had run out of darts.

  Many still clung to their revolvers.

  Some still had bullets.

  Tristan and his men faced the crowd, bracing themselves, ready to charge through.

  Another shot rang out.

  Someone screamed as though they’d been hit and not silenced. A woman back-pedaled into the wall, grabbing her shoulder. Blood pumped out, and she cried out once more, red lips opened in fear.

  A blackcoat, the likely target, had been standing nearby.

  He turned and slipped deeper into the crowd.

  “Not that way,” Lila said. “If Bullstow is here, they’ll have called in the family militias for support. The entire compound will be surrounded, and they’ll be rounding up everyone who climbs over the walls.”

  Tristan hefted Dixon higher on his shoulder. “Where, then?”

  “The tunnels under the estate. I know an entrance.” Lila led the group away from the chaos of the main battle, back through the lanes between the buildings, with Frank beside her and Dice bringing up the rear.

  Half the mob still fought in between the factories. Fires raged around them. Rocks and wood sailed through the air. Alarms and sirens cut through the night sky.

  Frank pulled her back from an angry man’s fist as they skirted too near a fight, and he kicked the man back into the crowd.

  Seconds later, Frank stumbled, struck by a dart.

  Dice scooped him up almost before he hit the ground, grunting under his weight.

  The group pressed on, dodging the purview of the cameras. They advanced though the smoke, finally reaching fresh air and quiet a block away from the fires.

  The men clumped closer together, wary of the empty buildings.

  Lila led them to the center of the compound, to a rectangular brick building designed with little imagination and even a smaller amount of money. A golden sign had been posted above the door, marking it as the Wilson-Kruger mail facility.

  “Frank’s going to be so pissed when he wakes up,” Dice said as the group stopped at the door. “He said if he ever got hit by another dart, he’d track down the asshole who did it and beat the shit out of them.”

  “Good luck with that.” Lila kicked the touchpad, then cracked it open, pulling down her sleeves to cover her bloody fingers. She only hoped she wouldn’t leave any DNA behind. Sore fingers typed in a code.

  There was a click as the door unlocked.

  Fry yanked open the door, and they followed Lila inside the darkened building. She led them past a long counter with a half-dozen computer stations, screensavers twisting the Wilson family coat of arms around the screen. They dodged several islands, laden with packing boxes, weigh tables, and labels.

  Lila brushed past it all, kicking over a stanchion and velvet rope that blocked access to a hallway. Mailboxes lined each side, boxes only large enough to hold a pair of slippers.

  The group hurried to the end of the hall. Lila led them down a set of stairs and into the basement filled with boxes and signs and clutter.

  “How do you know where to go?”

  Lila ignored Tristan’s question and turned the last corner. They’d reached an iron door, which led into the tunnel system underneath the Wilson compound.

  She wrapped her hands in her sleeves again and began working on the keypad.

  Tristan heaved Dixon farther up his shoulder. Reaper’s gun peeked out from his front pocket within easy reach. “How long will it take you to—”

  The door popped open.

  “I thought you said Toxic was faster than you.”

  “She would be if I had to brute-force it. Luckily, I know the back doors to most systems. Come on.”

  Lila led them into tunnels, tunnels that Alex’s grandmother had dug eighty years before. It was shoddy work all around. The cement spanned only a meter in width, and the lights had been placed too far apart to be of much use. Cracks had been patched over many times. The whole system always made her nervous. It was like something out of a disaster flick. It wouldn’t take much for the tunnels to collapse.

  “Rest a second,” she said once they were all inside. “I need to get my bearings.”

  “Your bearings?” Tristan let Dixon slide to the damp stone floor of the tunnels. At some point during their exodus, he had passed out. A thin string of vomit ran down Tristan’s pants.

  While Dice settled his charge on the ground next to Dixon, Fry merely leaned over and deposited Reaper onto his feet.

  “Stay there,” Fry grumbled, hand on the hacker’s shoulder.

  “Please tell me you’ve been in here before,” Tristan said, mopping up his brother’s pale face with his shirt.

  “Of course I’ve been here before. I wouldn’t have led you here if I hadn’t. It’s just been a long time. I need to—”

  Reaper jerked his arm back suddenly, popping Fry in the nose.

  While Fry stumbled back, nose gushing, Reaper lunged toward Lila, yanking her wrist and spinning her before him.

  Her Colt clattered to the ground.

  Reaper’s arm crossed her shoulders, pinning her, the useless scarf trailing from his wrist. A blade scrapped against her throat under the mesh hood.

  Tristan and Dice drew their guns.

  “I wouldn’t do that if I were you. I’ll slit her throat before your sedative does its work. This is where Prolix and I get off this bloody merry-go-round.”

  Reaper squeezed Lila closer and laughed. “You know, I didn’t realize who you really were until I watched you break into these tunnels. I didn’t realize that Prolix and Hood were one and the same. You went along with Tristan to the bombing, didn’t you? You snuck right into Bullstow and put your sticky little fingers to work in the BIRD. My, my, my, isn’t Daddy going to be angry when he finds out? Not only are you hacking into confidential databases, but you’re a terrorist as well.”

  Lila sucked in her breath. Reaper knew, and he didn’t just have her body trapped, he also held her future, her reputation, her father’s esteem, and now her life, for she’d never beat a terrorism charge. He had everything important, everything she’d built over the years, everything she treasured, and he thought it funny.

  Reaper pulled her farther down the tunnel, causing her to stumble, nearly causing her to fall. “Thanks for carrying me all that way, Fry. I know you must be tired, so I’m going to make this easy for all of you. I’m taking Hood with me, nice and slow, through the tunnels. As long as I get out of here without—”

  “Shhh!” Lila turned her head away from the knife and stared down the opposite end of the tunnel. Even Tristan and Dice divided their attention, eyes straying for a few quick peeks.

  “Don’t you—”

  “Shhh,” Lila hissed again. Reaper shifted his body, slowly walking her back so that he could face the end of the tunnel.

  But Lila didn’t cooperate.

  And she damn sure didn’t wait for him to settle.

  “Chief Shaw!” Lila shouted, imbuing the name with all the truth she could muster, the peac
e of sliding onto her Firefly after a tough day, the happiness of seeing her younger brothers’ faces, the relief when she spied Tristan in the water under the bridge.

  Reaper loosened his grip slightly, turning his body so that Lila shielded him.

  In that moment, half a dozen scenarios should have come to her mind from hand-to-hand training. Complicated releases, ways she could shift her weight, ways she could squeeze her arms into Reaper’s body and put him in some sort of hold. But nothing came to her, and Lila had never been good at any of them anyway.

  Instead, in that moment of imbalance, Lila did the first thing that popped into her head. She yanked Reaper’s arm, turned her chin slightly, and bit the fuck out of his forearm.

  Reaper screamed and nearly dropped the knife. His wrist twisted and turned by her cheek as he tried to stab her, but he could not work the blade into position.

  Warm blood filled her mouth, but she held on like a pit bull, too scared to let go until she came up with another move. Seconds later, she drove her elbow into his wounded shoulder and collapsed onto the floor like a limp doll.

  “You crazy bitch!” Reaper towered over her and raised his knife.

  A shot rang out, echoing against the concrete walls.

  Reaper jumped as though a hiccup had startled his body.

  Blood spurted from a wound on his neck, gushing as his heart pumped more and more of the crimson fluid down his shirt. His eyes unfocused, and his mouth moved.

  No air carried his words.

  The gun in Tristan’s hands smoked.

  Reaper’s gun.

  Tristan turned toward Lila, his eyes wide with shock. He’d hit the man in the neck, the perfect placement for a dart, but Reaper hadn’t filled his gun with darts.

  Tristan dropped the gun and backed away before his eyes lit on his brother. He sank to his knees and bent over Dixon’s still form.

  Fry held his bloody nose, guilt spreading into his eyes.

  Dice merely watched as Reaper’s mouth muttered the breathless words of the dying.

  Lila ignored them all. She dug through Reaper’s pockets, the shards of glass stabbing deeper into her hand as she searched. “Dixon’s going to be fine. Reaper got the poison into Dixon somehow. Whatever he used, it’s here. We just have to find it.”

  Tristan did not look up from Dixon’s body. He refused to sit up, refused to move, refused to speak.

  Fry and Dice exchanged glances, but they said nothing while she ripped at Reaper’s clothes and pockets, tearing the cloth. But no matter where Lila looked, she couldn’t find any needles. “He’s got it. I know he’s got it somewhere.”

  “His rings. Check his rings,” Fry suggested, his voice stuffy from his broken nose.

  Lila grabbed Reaper’s wrist and twirled off his rings. Both were flat on the top as though a thick coin had been welded onto a band. The reservoirs were deep enough to hold a small amount of liquid.

  Lila thumbed a latch on the side of one ring.

  Something bit into her skin. She yelped and dropped the ring. A small spike had shot out the top like a tack.

  “Are you okay?” Fry said.

  Lila nodded. A million thoughts flitted through her mind as she snuck a peek at Dixon, but when she retrieved the ring and squinted into the reservoir, she saw nothing inside.

  The second ring looked full.

  “I think this one was empty, or nearly so. The other…”

  Tristan finally looked up, his eyes red and raw. “Do you think it’s the antidote?”

  Lila shook her head. “The man’s a coward. If he had carried the antidote, he would have traded it to you. I suspect this is his backup. We have to get to Randolph General. Now.”

  “If we take Dixon to the hospital they’ll DNA-test him.”

  “Not him. Me. Drop me off, and I’ll get the lab to analyze the poison in the ring.”

  “How are you going to do that?” Fry asked.

  Lila ignored him.

  So did Tristan.

  “I’ll bring the antidote to the shop as soon as I can,” she said.

  “That could take hours—”

  “It’s his only chance.”

  Tristan studied her, then squeezed his red eyes shut, keeping them from spilling over. “I told him he’d be okay.”

  “So did I.”

  Tristan breathed out heavily and opened his eyes once more. “Okay, let’s move.”

  Fry knelt down and retrieved his knife. “What about the weasel?”

  “Leave him. He’s dead weight.” Tristan wound Lila’s scarf around her hands, trying to stop the blood.

  After he tied off the ends, Lila retrieved her Colt and slid it back into her holster, eyes unable to avoid Reaper’s twisted face and the pool of blood around his body.

  Tristan picked up Dixon. “Please, Lila. Get us out of here. Fast.”

  If her fingers hadn’t hurt so much, Lila would have crossed them for luck. She started down the tunnel, hoping she would remember the way.

  The path began to look more and more familiar the deeper she walked into the tunnels. She turned off a path and led them up a flight of stairs, holding on to dim memories of late nights out with Alex a dozen years before.

  Covering her fingers with a clean piece of scarf, she punched in the code beside an iron door. The lock snicked with a booming echo off the concrete walls. Fry swung it open.

  The group emerged in the basement of an abandoned restaurant, clutter and dust spilling into the tunnels.

  “We should be near the truck,” she said.

  Fry cracked a glow stick and lead them through the boxes and linens. They crept up the stairs. The restaurant was not unlike Chaucer’s Ghost, except that the tables still waited for patrons.

  No pigeons had found their way inside, either.

  Fry burst through a sheet of plywood nailed over a window. It clattered as it hit the sidewalk outside.

  Lila stuck her head through the space, squinting back toward the estate. They were only a block away from the Wilsons’ front gate. Militia reinforcements paced around the stone wall, staring at the top, tranq guns drawn and ready. None of them seemed to care about what might be going on behind them.

  She even couldn’t tell which family the blackcoats belonged to from so far away.

  “The militia is busy guarding the wall,” she told the others. “It’s clear, but we should tread carefully.”

  Fry lifted Frank from Dice’s arms and ducked through the window, helping Tristan pass Dixon through immediately after.

  Lila winced as Dixon’s face passed under the light.

  His skin had paled, and his lips had turned blue.

  Chapter 28

  Lila paced in the lab’s staff lounge, hood in the front pocket of her coat, her boots clomping on the white tile, passing back and forth in front of the red curtains and chairs. One of the phlebotomists sat at a table, wide eyes following her movements, vainly trying to focus on her hamburger and fries despite Lila’s presence. The smell of fast food clawed at Lila’s nose. Rather than making her hungry, it made her nauseated.

  She’d also begun to yawn every time the woman took a bite. The pacing was as much for her nerves as it was to stay awake.

  The ring that had injected her hadn’t been empty, after all.

  Chef’s daughter, Rosemary Tirel, leaned through the doorway. Her red scrubs matched the curtains, and her dark hair contrasted against her pale skin. She crooked a finger, and Lila followed her into the lab, walls white with pops of red cabinetry throughout. Several machines hummed on the tables as they passed.

  “That was fast,” Lila said, checking the display on her palm. She’d been in the lab less than fifteen minutes.

  “Well, you told me to rush, and your information let me narrow down the search considerably.”

  Rosemary pull
ed out two stools from under her workstation, but Lila refused to sit. She didn’t want to fall asleep.

  “It’s not poison,” Rosemary assured her. “It’s Midazolam, a general anesthetic. If someone injected this into your friend, then they should be brought to the emergency room immediately. The drug can cause respiratory arrest if you’re given too much.”

  “Could the amount in that ring been too much?”

  “Not if he’s healthy. It would be just enough to give him a hard time. He’ll need a doctor watching over him for the next few days, but I suspect he’ll be fine.”

  Lila breathed out in relief.

  “You should be fine too. I’m guessing you’ll sleep very well tonight. Go to bed as soon as you get home so that you don’t fall. My mother would kill me if anything happened to you.”

  Lila nodded. With her sore fingers, she tapped out a message to Tristan, hoping he had already made it back to East New Bristol and the shop.

  Doc’s here, he wrote back immediately. I’ll let him know.

  Rosemary took the palm away and stuck it in Lila’s coat pocket. “We had an agreement. I’d do a rush analysis on the ring, and you’d go to the emergency room. My payment’s past due, chief.”

  Lila glanced at her hands. The bleeding had slowed considerably, but her fingers and palms had begun to hurt more and more. Dozens of glass shards still peeked out of her skin, a few of them larger than the reservoir on Reaper’s ring. But now that she knew Dixon would be okay and that she didn’t have poison creeping throughout her body, Lila’s mind had filled with Reaper’s article. It still lingered online, waiting to expose her.

  She didn’t have time to fuss about with a doctor.

  She had to get home and find the article, and she had to do it drugged.

  “I don’t think it’s serious. I’ll fish out the glass when I get home.”

  “If you yank those out the wrong way, you could lose the use of your fingers.” Rosemary popped up the sides of Lila’s collar and snatched up a scarf on her lab table. She wound it around the bottom half of Lila’s face, hiding her identity and the shallow cut in her neck from Reaper’s blade.

  Lila followed Rosemary down three flights of stairs and through a locked staff door. It was as though they were sneaking around the Randolph estate as children again, hiding from Rosemary’s brother and Jewel in a game of hide-n-seek.