“But he isn’t dead.”
“No.”
“And you didn’t find it strange when his father didn’t kill you for killing his son?”
“A little, but I was the holy bitch. Killing me would’ve meant a death sentence for anyone brave or stupid enough to carry out the deed.” I paused, my mind drifting. “He still has the scar I left on his face. He’s dangerous, Calder. Extremely dangerous. He knew who the Horseman was, and he didn’t flinch. Not once. Now that he’s survived an encounter with the Horseman, it’ll only make him stronger. Bolder.”
“I’ll tell Seline.”
I leaned forward in my chair. “You can’t.”
“Why?”
“How do you think it’ll look if the Obsidian Order suddenly shows up in Devil Falls and starts trying to fight the Crimson Hunters out of the turf? Firstly, this isn’t our ground, so we won’t only be contending with the Hunters, but with everyone else who holds a claim to this domain. Secondly, we have to assume Sorzath knows I’m with the Order. If the Horseman finds out I have any ties to Seline…”
“He’ll kill you on the spot.”
Calder paused. “So, you rode out with the Horseman, fought the Crimson Hunters, and… then what?”
“The hunters killed four mages, but there were too many hunters for the Horseman to kill on his own, so he created an exit and brough me back here.”
“And you have no idea why he didn’t kill them all?”
I shrugged. “Beats me.”
“Did he go over what happened with you? Did you discuss any future plans of attack?”
No, instead he fucked up me against a wall, and I liked it so much I can’t stop thinking about it.
Damn.
I started counting down in my head from a hundred, my cheeks reddening. Calder’s eyes narrowed. “Are you hiding something from me?” he asked.
I took a deep breath. “First of all, don’t read my thoughts. You’re better than that. And secondly… do you trust me to carry out this mission?”
“I do.”
“Then you’re going to have to let me keep some things to myself. I’m trying to gain the Horseman’s trust. If I can do that, then I’ll have another opportunity to carry out my mission.”
“Another?”
I paused, heat flushing through me. “I misspoke.”
Calder’s lips pressed into a thin line. “A lot is riding on this…” he said. “I’m going to trust you. I’m choosing to trust you. But I need you to remember why you’re doing this.”
“Because the Horseman is bad news for our people. I know. I’ll get it done. I know the Horseman will come for me again. He wants me to help him find their lair.”
“And you’re going to?”
“I want them dead as much as he does, and I’ve seen what he can do. He thinks he can take them all on himself, and maybe he can. Why risk our own people and resources waging another war on the Crimson Hunters when the Horseman is so willing to throw himself at them?”
“I suppose you’re right. But please, Six… be careful. Seline would never forgive herself if anything happened to you during this mission. Neither would I.”
I nodded. “Just trust me. I know what I’m doing.”
Calder seemed unsure, but he agreed. A short while later, a guard showed up to escort me back to my cell. I hated keeping secrets from Calder, because that meant keeping secrets from Seline, but I couldn’t risk them taking me off this mission and pulling me out early. Not when I was getting close to finishing what I’d started.
Next time, I wouldn’t fail.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
I found Odessa in our cell, lounging on the top bunk, her hair flicked over the edge and dripping on the floor. She was staring up at the ceiling, with one foot draped across the other knee, picking dirt out from under her fingernails.
“That’s a lot of water,” I said.
Odessa jumped and stared at me. “Well, look what the cat dragged in,” she said, eyes narrowed, a playful little grin on her face. “This time I thought, for sure, you were done for.”
“Sorry to disappoint.”
“Don’t be sorry. I’m sure you’ve got an interesting story to tell.” She sat upright, but kept her hair hanging off the side of the bed to keep the lower bunk from turning into a pool. “You look like hell.”
“Thanks,” I said, walking into the cell.
“No, I mean, I guess it looks like you’ve spent a few days in the hole. That’s where you’ve been, right?”
“Yeah. I checked in not long after you did.” I slid into my bunk, avoiding the puddle on the floor. “How was your stay in the hole?”
“Dark. Quiet. But pleasantly wet, I guess. I don’t have to care so much about where I leak down there.”
“Does everyone find something good about being in the hole around here?”
Odessa poked her head out of the side of the bed to look at me, her hair drooping now. “When you spend most of your life wondering whose baleful gaze you’re going to catch at any given moment, time in the hole is, like, a reprieve. It gives your skin a chance to rest from being on edge all the time. Saying that, though… it’s dark, and lonely, and it stinks down there. I don’t know anyone in their right mind who’d enjoy it.”
“Heh.” I smiled to myself. “I know someone who does.”
“You mean the Spiderling? Yeah, I’d forgotten about that freak.”
My smile turned into a frown. “Freak?”
“She’s a weirdo, even for this place. Nobody trusts her.”
“Why not?”
“Because the Arachnon are notoriously untrustworthy… and because she’s a freak. She crawls along walls, she has big, wide, bug eyes, and she eats her own mucus. And if that’s not weird enough, she talks to herself, and sometimes about her herself, in the third person.” She shook her head. “It’s creepy. We’re all better off with her locked away in there.”
I shut the topic down with a shrug, deciding I didn’t want to go into a conversation about Azlu. It was clear I wasn’t going to change Odessa’s mind, and it didn’t seem fair to listen to Odessa talk about Azlu without her being here to defend herself.
Funny how that doesn’t apply to the Horseman.
I shook the thought away. The Horseman was a murderer. A butcher. There was nothing else to it, no more layers to peel away. He was one of the highest-ranking members of an organization who beat, captured, and murdered Outsiders for the crime of being Outsiders. I knew all I needed to know about him.
“Tell me about what’s been happening up here,” I said. “I’ve been away for a few days.”
“What’s there to say? This is Harrowgate. Not a lot happens here, except for when something does.” She stopped to think. “I guess the shifters have been a little angsty… must be a full moon coming.”
“How can you tell?”
“I can’t, but they can. Even without being able to see it, they know. It drives them stir crazy.”
“Has Knives been giving you any more grief?”
“Not since the other day. I think she learned her lesson after the beat down you gave her and the time she spent in the hole.”
I scoffed. “I hardly call what I gave her a beat down.”
“Really? Because it looked like one to me. More importantly, it did to everyone else, too. You’ve already got a reputation around here.”
“As what?”
“I guess, kind of a badass. Nobody knows who you are, where you came from, why you’re here. They only know you’re a fiend, and that on your first outing into the mess hall you got into a fight with one of the nastiest shifters in this place. Some people think you did it on purpose, prison rules style.”
I looked up at her, frowning, my jaw clenching. “Prison rules?”
“Oh, you know,” she said, waving her arms as she spoke. “Find the biggest, baddest asshole in the joint and take them down to show everyone else who really wears the pants in the place.”
“Th
at’s not what I did. You asked me to cover your ass, and I covered it.”
“Sure, but that’s not what it looked like to everyone else.” She paused. “What’s the matter? Don’t like having a reputation?”
“I don’t care for it.”
“Why wouldn’t you want to be known as someone not to be messed with?”
“Because then the day comes when someone decides to test that reputation. Probably while you’re asleep.”
“Oh, please. I think you just don’t like attention.”
“And what if I don’t?”
“Look, I’m not saying being known for being a badass around here is all good. You’re right. It’s not. But it’s better than being seen as weak—that’s worse. People are way more likely to come and pick on you when you’re low on that totem pole. I, for one, don’t plan on staying on my rung for long.”
“Good for you.”
Odessa paused and stared at me, the drip of her hair, and the occasional voice floating in from outside, the only sounds passing between us for a long moment. I watched her from where I lay, but I wasn’t thinking about her. I was only half interested in the conversation. First and foremost on my mind was the Horseman.
You would think three days in the hole would’ve been enough to cure me of whatever poison his intoxicating presence had fixed me with, but it wasn’t. I could still smell that strange, woodland scent of him. I could feel his breath against the back of my neck, the press of his body against mine, his strong hands on my bare, naked…
I shut my eyes hard, trying to flush the memories out of me, but they clung more tightly than before. I couldn’t make sense of my own emotions. It was as if rage and lust had held hands inside of me and—no, they hadn’t just held hands, they’d bound themselves together and now there was no separating them.
I opened my eyes again to find Odessa frowning at me from her bunk. “Finished daydreaming?” she asked.
I cocked an eyebrow. “I wasn’t daydreaming,” I said.
“Whatever it was, I’ve done a lot of talking so far… now it’s your turn.”
“I told you, I don’t like to talk.”
“Maybe not, but you still haven’t told me why you were picked up the other night and taken away.”
I swallowed hard, anxiety bursting inside of me like a firework. She was always going to ask. I’d known that from the beginning. The only problem was, I didn’t know what to tell her. I couldn’t tell her the truth. I also couldn’t think up a convincing lie. But I had to do something.
“It was nothing,” I said.
Is that seriously the best you can do?
“Nothing?” Odessa asked, staring at me quizzically.
“That’s right.”
“So, you mean to tell me that Brickmore, Sanchez, and two other guards pulled you out of our cell the other night for nothing? I don’t buy it.”
“And I don’t know what to tell you.”
Odessa paused. “I went to the hole trying to protect you.”
“So did I. That makes us even so far, right?”
“Maybe, but… c’mon. Who am I gonna tell?”
“I don’t know.”
“So? Tell me. They took you out of here. Dragged you, at gun point. Then you didn’t come back for a few days looking like a hungry cat that had been left out in the rain.”
“Thanks?”
“I’m not trying to be mean, I’m just trying to figure out what happened to you. These people take Outsiders away for no reason, and sometimes they never come back. I was worried about you.”
I sighed, deeply, already exhausted of the exchange. “Look, I appreciate the worry, but I can’t tell you what happened. All I can tell you is, I’m fine. You don’t have anything to worry about.”
She waited, watching me. “Was it something with the Horseman?”
My eyes flashed wide, if only for an instant. Maybe enough for her to notice, but probably not. Hopefully not. “No,” I said, my voice stern and emphasizing the point.
“No? Are you sure?”
I guess I’m lying to her, I thought. “I’m sure,” I said. “And I’m fine.”
I watched her face, studying it, catching the specks of silvery light in her deep, ocean blue eyes. Her pupils were dilated, her lips pinching shut just a little bit, and blood had flushed to her cheeks. She didn’t believe me, didn’t buy what I was saying, but what else could I have done?
“Right. So, here’s the thing. If you had been taken away the other night to talk to the Horseman, why keep it a secret?”
“That’s not what happened.”
“No, but if it was. I would want people to know that I had his ear. He’s like, a God around here.”
“More like the Devil.”
She shook her head. “No. Harrowgate already has a devil, and it’s not him. Anyway, what I’m saying is, if I had the Horseman’s ear, I’d want everyone to know. It would be the ultimate don’t fuck with me to the rest of the inmates.”
“I don’t have his ear, I don’t have his protection, and even if I had them, I wouldn’t want them.”
“Then you’re the only person who thinks that way. C’mon, please, just tell me the truth. It’s gone past a simple curiosity now; I have to know.”
“Shut up about the Horseman already,” I snapped. “I don’t want to talk about it, okay?”
“Okay,” she said, a little coldly, a little distantly.
She pulled herself up and disappeared into her bunk, leaving me alone with my thoughts. We didn’t talk again that night. When the call for dinner came, Odessa slipped out of her bunk and went ahead of me.
I ate alone, watching the other inmates around me and realizing with a growing sense of dread that they were all watching me, too. Knives, Garou, the mages, even the Outsiders. Nobody wanted to get anywhere near me.
On any normal day, that wouldn’t have bothered me. I liked being alone. I didn’t like talking or interacting with other people, especially since most of them didn’t have anything interesting or useful to say. But right now? I found myself wishing I had somebody else in my lonely corner of the mess hall.
After dinner I marched silently back to my cell and slipped into my lower bunk. Odessa followed, jumping into her upper bunk and settling in for sleep. I waited, wondering if she would initiate another conversation, but she didn’t.
Instead, the mattress above me slowly darkened. The doors buzzed shut. The lights in the cellblock turned off. I waited until the first droplet of seawater fell on my forehead before crawling to the other side of the bed and resigning to an uncomfortable, agitated sleep.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
The door buzzer blared, ripping through the stillness of the dark cell like a chainsaw through wood. The last time this had happened, I’d been sleeping. This time, though, the buzzing found me awake and waiting for it. So, when the guards piled in, I was already standing.
“Hands behind your head,” one of the guards yelled. He was holding a rifle aimed at my face. “Turn around and press your forehead against the wall, inmate.”
“What the hell do you want this time?” I asked, turning around and complying with the guard’s orders as the lights in the cell flicked to life.
“Just do what you’re told.”
One of the guards moved in on me, presumably while the other kept his rifle up. Out of the corner of my eye I noticed no movement from Odessa’s bunk. She either couldn’t hear what was going on, or wasn’t getting involved this time. Considering she’d been thrown in the hole for interfering the last time this happened, I couldn’t blame her.
The guard bound my hands and tugged on my shoulders to spin me around. Officers Brickmore and Howes were waiting for me by the door to the cell, but no Sanchez.
“I’m starting to get pretty tired of these midnight visits,” I said.
“I don’t like having to look at your face either,” Brickmore said. “Now, move.”
“I’m not going back to the hole,” I said, walking to
ward the door.
“You’ll go where you’re sent, fiend.”
I stopped in front of him and stared, my eyes sharp, my blood pumping hard. “Careful, or you’ll wear the word out. Then what will you hurt me with?”
“You’re as stupid as you look if you think I don’t have options,” he snarled, the threat hanging in the air like a dark cloud. “Get it out of here.”
Howes nodded, took hold of one of my shoulders, and pushed me away from the door. I caught a glimpse of Odessa sitting up just as I lost sight of the bunks, her eyes bleary with sleep. It looked like she was about to say something, but she held her tongue while I was dragged away.
As usual, I had no idea where I was being taken, but I knew that it had something to do with the Horseman. I didn’t think, if my cover was ever blown, I’d be calmly marched out of my cell. I would probably be shot dead on the spot, or at the very least stunned and dragged by my hair directly into the hole.
Harrowgate was already harsh enough for its inmates; how bad would it be for spies and assassins?
Brickmore didn’t follow Howes as he moved me through the prison. We walked silently, but quickly, through checkpoints—three of them—until we reached a room in a long corridor of doors. I recognized it immediately. I had been interrogated behind one of those doors. These were interview rooms.
Howes opened one of those doors and presented me to the Horseman, who had been waiting for me in a dark room with a giant, two-way mirror. I realized immediately that I was on the other side of the mirror. I wasn’t the one being interrogated; I was being invited to an interrogation in progress.
“I have the prisoner you requested, sir,” Howes said.
The Horseman waved a lazy hand of dismissal at Howes. “Leave us,” he said, not looking across at him.
Howes left the room and shut the door, taking the other guards with him. The Horseman beckoned, but I didn’t immediately walk over to him. This was the first time I’d laid eyes on him since the other night, and I wasn’t sure if I was ready to stand close to him.
I wanted to pretend like nothing had changed, but everything was different. When I looked at him now, I didn’t only see him as the Horseman; I saw him as the most impressive man I had ever seen. I couldn’t help but drink in the sight of him, the smell of him. He wore a black shirt, unbuttoned at the collar, black jeans that hugged his assets perfectly, and he was hot.
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