Chapter 28 - Riggs

CHAPTER 28 - RIGGS

T he fog is now my friend . That's how it feels. The spinning head, the shooting pain, the sense of dread. We're all best friends here now. And the darkness. Don't even get me started. The darkness is my brother, that's how close the two of us are. Blood relations.

There is a cracking noise coming from above me. Something familiar, but also out of place. I want to open my eyes and look up, but they are so heavy.

"I think he's waking up."

"Mmmm."

Before I can think about it, a grunt escapes past my thick, numb lips. Because I know these voices. They were brothers once too. We go way back.

Someone kicks the chair I'm sitting in. "Can you hear me?"

Amon. Oh, I hear him. He's off to my right, but when I try to turn my head and look at him, it lolls, my muscles too loose to hold it up. I let out a long breath, already tired.

Amon kicks my chair again. "Wake up, dead man."

To my surprise, I actually manage to say, "I'mmmm aaawaaaake," in someone else's voice. Well, no. It's my voice. I just don't recognize myself.

They've pumped the cocktail into me. I'm being interrogated.

Then a sharp realization kicks me in the gut. Clover . "Whaaaat happp—" But that's as far as I get. I'm suddenly too exhausted to keep going.

"Shoot 'im the next one," Collin says. "Let's get on with this."

With great effort, I manage to crack one eye open. Everything is blurry and bright. I look up, squinting. The crackling noise is coming from a single light bulb swinging above my head. It's attached to a concrete ceiling and instantly, I know I'm still underground.

I didn't even make it up top. I'm gonna die down here.

When I look down, I realize I'm in a wheelchair. Strapped to a wheelchair. "I'm gettin' the full treatment today," I mumble.

Collin is right in front of me now, crouching down and staring into my eyes. "You fucked with me, Raleigh. What'd ya have to go and do that for?"

His eyes are not right. They are wrong in every way. The blue in there isn't the blue of skies or the blue of birds. It's something else. Something not blue. Something not green, either. It's the color of a blue pit viper. And the brown in his eyes isn't brown. It's not orange, it's not yellow. It's gold. Like amber. Something born thousands of years ago and trapped in sticky sap.

All you have to do is look at this man. Look him straight in the eyes and you know what he is.

A pretty poison frog.

Pretty enough that he doesn't even need the frosted glass bottle and shiny satin ribbon. When people look at Collin Creed, it's like looking at the Devil himself.

God knows what Collin is. He told me that once. It was my first mission with the crew. We were in the middle of the fuckin' desert on our way to some middle-of-nowhere oasis on the Arabian Peninsula and we were chewing khat leaves. It was my first time and after a few hours, I was tripping. Collin said, "God knows what I am, Raleigh." That was my name back then. To these guys, anyway. "God knows what I am. He sees right through me. So you know how I deal with that?"

I wasn't too interested in this conversation because, aside from the fact that we don't have a god underground, I was drinking arak. I was thinking about God, and how if we had one it might be the boring machine that drills our tunnels. That's about as close as we come to God. I was high on those leaves and buzzed on the drink, and could care less what God thought about Collin Creed, or his reaction to such thoughts.

But he told me anyway. Collin said, "I just don't believe in him." And then he laughed and shrugged. "I just don't believe."

I think I laughed too. In fact, I'm laughing right now.

Hysterically.

Because it was a good time in my life. I hadn't seen them kill yet. I didn't know what was gonna happen next, but I was in a desert oasis, getting buzzed, having fun. I had friends, and the place was beautiful. There were half-naked women dressed up in bells or something, shaking their hips at me. And the whole thing felt like a dream.

But then Collin leaned in, just like he's leaning in now. And his eyes are tiny little slits. Like he really is a blue pit viper. And he says, in a weird, echo-y voice, "I don't like liars." And then something about burning bridges. "Bring him all the way up, Amon."

Amon is suddenly right up next to me. This is when I realize there's a IV stand next to my shoulder. Amon bends down and I see a flash of a syringe. A moment later, my arm is burning.

And a moment after that, the fog is gone. It's like a light switch. One moment I'm all hazy, the next everything is crystal clear. But with the new cognitive function comes the pain.

Everything hurts. I feel like someone ran me over with a truck.

I stare at the face of Collin Creed. He's like three feet away, kicking back against the concrete wall and frowning at me with his arms crossed.

Amon stands behind me and I feel something cold against the back of my head and I can see him in my mind's eye. All dressed in black. The mask over his face. The only thing visible are his ice-blue eyes.

How many men has Amon had in wheelchairs just like this?

Twenty?

Fifty?

More?

I'd say more. It has been over six years since I've seen them and just that one year alone, where I was on the crew, I'd have to guess I'd seen Amon do this very thing to at least a dozen men.

"Good," Collin says. "You're back. We're gonna take a moment here to have a little chat, Raleigh . And then"—Collin grins at me, and this is when all those good times fade and I go from being crew member to enemy number one—"then, Riggs , we're gonna take you to the boneyard so you can rest in peace."