Total pages in book: 92
Estimated words: 88673 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 443(@200wpm)___ 355(@250wpm)___ 296(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 88673 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 443(@200wpm)___ 355(@250wpm)___ 296(@300wpm)
“I know where that is!” My words are breathless.
“You’ll find your way then.”
“What about you?”
He shoots me a crooked smile. “I’m right behind you. But don’t wait for me. Just get up there and go! Otherwise, Riggs is dead. And Collin will be the one to do it.”
And just as he says this, the elevator doors open with a ding and Hattie Miller starts shooting.
Ike presses something into my hand, pushes me inside, pulls his gun, and starts shooting back.
Bullets come flying at me, pinging off the walls and shattering the mirror inside the elevator. I put my hands over my head, crouching down near the call buttons, then remember I need to push one to make the doors close.
I look up, press the top button, and then huddle in the corner as the bullets keep coming. They pelt against the closing door and the last thing I hear is Hattie Miller screaming, “I’ll see you up top, Clover Bradley! I’ll see you up top!”
CHAPTER 28 - RIGGS
The 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.”