Chapter 22

If you can ever look into another man"s soul, Noah and I were looking into each other"s souls then. Our emotions were raw, real, and relieved.

You all right?

I"m fine. You?

Fine.

I didn"t know yet how we"d get through this. But, quite suddenly, I was certain we would.

We"d got this far, hadn"t we?

"Don"t try anything." The man holding the rifle seemed to sense the change in our mood. Our refusal to surrender to despair. "If I have to trank you and hump all y"all out of here, I"m going to be extremely irritated. And you won"t like me if I"m irritated."

"Yeah, yeah," I said. "Don"t make me sorry I climbed down that tree."

The creep switched on the halogen in his headband. Pointed the beam in the direction we should go—toward one of the damp white sheets flapping loose where it was coming undone in the breeze. It didn"t seem as far away as it did when we were up high in the sky.

Well, we hadn"t needed it to distract them from our tree forever. Just long enough to do some damage. The two dark masses on the dark ground below the sheet assured me that my good throwing arm had definitely done some damage.

As we drew closer, the dark masses resolved into slumped bodies that seemed to be utterly still. As in, I never saw a twitch.

Dead?

How could they be?

Death by canned fruit is not a thing.

No quarterback"s arm is that good.

Even over the course of the short walk over, the rain kept changing from mist to drizzle to hard rain and then back to mist again. We were closer to mist than drizzle when we arrived at the first heap. Maybe it was harsh light from the halogen, but the deflated man on the ground looked shocky—face gray, lips blue, skin damp.

I kicked a bare toe at the broken headlamp near his face. I"d hit a hard one direct to the center of his forehead.

Could I have literally, actually killed this guy?

A sick feeling twisted in my gut. Squatting carefully, I studied the substantial lump forming on his right temple. Didn"t that mean he was still alive? Or could bruises still develop after you"d croaked?

I reached out a hand to hold it an inch or two away from his chilled face.

Something warm tickled my palm.

His breath. He was breathing. Definitely alive, if likely to wake up with one bear of a headache.

"Sorry, dude," I said. "But, you know, the whole kidnapping people thing... maybe that"s not the line of work for you."

"Your unquenchable sense of humor is wasted on him," said the henchman. "Lucky man. He can"t hear a word you say."

"Don"t be too sure. Head injuries can hear more than we think sometimes. That"s what the doctor said when our lineback-"

Hench interrupted by kicking pointedly at something else on the ground—something I hadn"t noticed before.

A hypodermic needle.

Oh.

Noah and I exchanged some side-eye.

"That answer your question?" asked the henchman. "He"s down deep."

The other member of the crew lay on his side a few steps away. He was curled like he was cuddling his lower arm. The lump said that"s where I nailed him with the can of peaches, but a broken wrist shouldn"t have put him out cold.

"Fucker tripped and snapped his ankle too," Hench said.

"So, let me guess." I seized Noah"s elbow to jerk him away from a second discarded needle. This place was a real minefield for barefoot men. "You let him join his friend in cold storage. You"re a real prince among men, you know that?"

Hench joggled the rifle restlessly. "I don"t have to justify myself to you. He fucked up so bad he couldn"t even walk out of here under his own steam. All he could do was make noise at the wrong time and draw down more fire on himself."

"Uh-huh," I said. "Also, since these two poor fucks screwed up and got tranked, they"re not going to remember anything that happened. You get to control the narrative. Every fuckup, one of those two fools did it."

Even as I spoke, a disquieting thought occurred to me. Our narrative needed to be controlled too.

How long after we deliver these dudes to where you need them before we get tranked too?

Couldn"t let it happen. Couldn"t lose those memories with Noah.

"They"re the ones who fucked up. Not me. I"m just the poor fuck along for the ride." Hench was only talking this much for his own entertainment. And because he figured me and Noah were going to forget.

Everybody was going to forget.

Everybody except him.

All I could do about it was keep him talking. Buy some time to figure something out.

What came out of my mouth was pretty close to what was hovering at the forefront of my brain. "Know something? Bet I already figured out the story you"re going to sell the boss." I nudged a toe against the nearest unconscious shoulder. "You"re the hero, and they"re the zero."

"I know something else too. Your attitude problem is going to get you hurt one day. Bad hurt. You"re lucky I"m a patient man."

I was lucky he was a lazy man. Neither of his buddies could walk. Noah and I could avoid being tranked for exactly as long we were cooperative enough to carry them out.

The deal was as clear as it was crass.