Chapter 30 - Riggs

CHAPTER 30 - RIGGS

T he fog fades like it was never there and I realize that Amon gave me something to counteract whatever drugs were in my system. Suddenly, I am acutely aware of everything.

Collin lets out a breath and squats down a little so we're eye level. Those eyes. So much poison inside them. They narrow down into slits, like the serpent he is, as I stare back at him. "They told me you were dead, Raleigh ."

"They lied."

"They told me you died from a vaccine."

"They lied ."

"They told me that if we didn't do what they said and drink their stupid fruit cocktails every week, the rest of us were all gonna die too."

I lean forward, closing some of the space between us. "They fuckin' lied, OK? How many times do I gotta say it? They lied ."

"So you say, Riggs ." Collin sneers my name. "But what I'm not gettin' is why . Why the fuck would they tell me you were dead? That's what I wanna know."

"Why?" I laugh. It's normal now that the drugs have been flushed from my system. "Fuck you and your why. You're the liar here, Collin, not me. Because I was on the run and you sold me out for a bonus. That's what really happened. Tell him." I nod my head to Amon. "Tell Amon what you did."

Amon walks around to my left. "What the fuck is he talking about?"

"Just more lies," Collin says. He never breaks eye contact with me.

"Lies?" I ask. "No. I spent six years in darkness over what you did to me."

Collin stands up. "I didn't do shit to you. You, on the other hand, were part of some big ol' conspiracy, right? Some underground military city thing? You infiltrated my team, pretended to be our friend, and then sold us out. What were you lookin' for, huh? Why did you join up with us? And who sent you?"

I scoff. "Why did I join?" Then I laugh. "Let's start with the who. My defection coordinator's name was Clayton Boseman. At least, that's what he was calling himself when we met. He's the one who turned me into Raleigh Winston. It wasn't my idea. He recruited me, I escaped from Hattie, and then he sent me in for an interview with you."

Amon looks confused. "Who the hell is Clayton? Who the hell is Hattie?"

Collin shrugs. "Lies."

"You wish." I sneer back at Collin Creed. "You wish I was lying." Then I turn my attention to Amon. I wasn't close with him the way Collin is, but we had our moments that year I was on the crew. "He sold me out to Hattie Miller, who took me prisoner, dragged me back to the general, and I was became a traitor and spent the last six years digging tunnels in the pitch fucking dark. All because of him ."

Amon looks at Collin. "I'mma ask one more time, Col. What. The fuck. Is happening here?"

Collin leans back against the wall again, staring me straight in the eyes. "Whatever's happening, it's just a ploy. He's buying time." Now he looks at Amon. "What you need to focus on now is Clover . Now put him back down."

"Clover!" I say her name, because somehow, she had slipped my mind. I look at Amon, ready to tell him about Clover because at least he's halfway listening to me. But as I do this, Amon's fist connects with my face.

My head jerks to the side, blood flies out of my mouth, and then everything starts to go blurry again.

"Yeah." Amon's behind me now. "Clover. Consider that a deposit on the payback for what you did to sweet little Clover."

The last thing I hear is Collin saying, "Let's go. We got a boneyard to see."

There's a yank on my IV and a burn running up my arm.

Then my brother is there.

The darkness takes my hand and leads me back into my own personal hell.

The next time I wake up , I'm rolling around in the back of something. A truck, probably. But I can't be sure because my eyes are still too heavy to open. All I know is that we're on the road.

We got a boneyard to see .

That's the last thing Collin said. He's really gonna do it. He's really gonna kill me for kidnapping Clover.

Where is she?

Is she still down there? Did Hattie take her somewhere?

The truck makes a hard left and I roll, bumping into something. Then we come to an abrupt stop. I can hear Collin and Amon talking, but it's outside the truck and muffled, so I can't make out any actual words. But then the doors open.

"He's awake," Collin says.

"Good," Amon answers. "Because I'm not carrying his ass up that fucking mountain."

They pull me out by my feet. I brace myself for the fall the best I can, but my hands are tied behind my back so when I hit the ground, a sharp pain shoots through my shoulder.

"Get up," Collin says. "We're goin' for a little walk now."

I force my eyes open and glare up at him. "I should be killing you, Collin Creed. You're the traitor, not me."

He kicks me in the ribs. Not a warning kick, either. It's hard. Not hard enough to break one, but close. "Shut your mouth and stand up."

There's no easy way to follow his command with my hands tied, but I don't even bother asking them to release the zip ties. Collin and Amon watch me struggle, but after several attempts and a lot of wriggling, I manage to get to my feet.

Amon grabs my shoulder and spins me around. "Walk."

I'm in a driveway, facing the woods. This is Collin's childhood home. Lowyn owns it now. I've got cameras hidden in the trees here. That was part of the job I was doing. Or, more accurately, the job I thought I was doing.

So I look up, searching for them. I find one and stare into it, wondering who's watching me. My father? Someone in Blackberry Hill security?

No one, is the more likely answer.

This is it for me. When Collin Creed decides you're gonna die, well. That's just all there is to it. You might as well consider yourself dead.

Collin pushes me, making me stumble. "Walk faster and quit lookin' around."

Amon leads the way and we enter the woods out behind Collin's house. It's a steep climb at first, so I struggle because my hands are tied, but Collin keeps pushing me so I do my best.

We walk in silence until we reach the top of the hill and I can catch my breath. Amon and Collin don't say anything. Amon just heads into the moonlit meadow and Collin pushes me again to keep up with him.

There's another set of woods on the other side, and when I look up, there's nothing but hills.

We enter the woods again and I'm not sure how much further we'll be going. This could be the woods with the boneyard for all I know. So I have to speak up. "You know I didn't betray you, Collin."

He snickers. "Doesn't matter now, Riggs . All I need to know is that infiltrated my team, spent an entire year with us gathering information, and you're a liar."

"I'm not the one who told you I was dead! I was captured."

"So you say."

"Yeah." I whirl around. "So I say. You're the traitor."

"You said that too."

I narrow my eyes at him. "You didn't even come look for me."

Amon spits on the ground, an indirect insult to me. "Why the hell would we look for you?"

"Why? Because I was on the team, Amon! I went missing !"

"You didn't go missing," Collin growls. "You went dead."

I sneer at him. "Everyone thinks you're so fucking smart. But you're nothing but a dog on a leash. I told you my defection coordinator's name was Clayton Boseman. But that was a lie. His name wasn't Clayton, it was Charlie. Charlie Beaufort. He was kissing your ass all those years. Building you up so you'd kill for him." I look at Amon now. "And you too. Though Charlie liked you about as much as he liked me." I don't wait for Amon's response. Just direct my attention back to Collin. "Lift up my shirt sleeve." I nod to my right shoulder.

Collin makes a face. "What?"

"Lift it up, motherfucker! Lift it up !"

He won't though. Because he knows what he's gonna find.

I lean my head down, grab my shirt sleeve with my teeth, and pull it up. "Look," I growl. "Look at it!"

Amon lets out a sigh.

Collin just glares at me. He doesn't look at my shoulder. He doesn't need to. We've all got the same tattoo.

"Silence," I spit. "Silence, remember that? The oath? I took it. I got the tattoo. I was on the team, you piece-of-shit, megalomaniac fucking killer! Look at it !"

Finally, his eyes fall down to my shoulder to the tattoo.

It's a bald eagle with wings stretched out and a shield covering its chest. Inside the shield is the word ‘silence.'

"That was us," I say. "We were the silence. I was one of you. I didn't do shit but follow your goddamned orders! I saved your ass twice. Twice ! And I lived to tell about it. Which is more than I can say for Rick and Naveed!"

I'm looking at Amon when these two names come out. I know for a fact they're just the beginning of those who died for Collin. Because the only ones left from our team are Nash and Ryan. So Amon lets out a breath here that is part heartbreak and part regret.

"We existed," I say, growling my words out in Collin's face, "to get you out alive. And we did. I did. Twice. I got inked up just like everyone else. I paid my dues. And some motherfucker —some fat, fucking D.C. bureaucrat motherfucker—comes along and just… tells you I'm dead and you… what? You believe him ?"

"All right," Amon says. "All right. Just… shut up for a minute while I think."

"Amon," Collin cautions him. "Where did we find him? Huh? Where? Down there." He points to the ground. "You saw the footage. You know what he did to Clover!" Collin pulls out a gun, then looks me straight in the eyes. "Fuck that boneyard. I'll end you right here."

Amon puts a hand between us. "Collin?—"

And that one word is my one way out. I bend over and ram Collin right in the chest with my head. The gun goes off. The boom from the discharge echoes into the night. And even though it's not even dawn yet, birds take flight and fill the inky sky in a thunder of wingbeats.