Page 17 of Cruel Games

Cracks in the concrete trapped the heel of one of my shoes, and I damn near stumbled face-first into the man whose body Iwas dragging along the ground, catching myself at the last minute. Thankfully, there was nobody in the alley at this time of night. And I mean, really, but what were the cops gonna do if someonedidsee me and call them?

Show up too late to do anything? Hell, they’d probably assume that I was with the Guild. And honestly, it wouldn’t be hard to fake it. I had the contract details in a folder in the back of my car. I had the mask, the outfit, even the bat that were synonymous with the Neon Dogs. Hell, all Ididn’thave was one of the Guild pins I’d seen all their members wearing.

That was the one thing that told you who they were–that obnoxious skull and crossbones pin that told the public, the normies, that they were dangerous–not to be fucked with. The symbol of their killer status.

I wondered if Bonnie and Clyde could get their hands on one?

Unlikely. Those morons wouldn’t be likely to do more than pilfer physical files from an office without getting caught.And getting caught wasn’t in my plans. So that avenue was out.

I was doubly glad I’d swiped my roommate’s keys off the wall while she was out of town tonight, now that I was faced with dragging this man around all night. Throwing him in the trunk was more of a shit show than originally expected, but I got him in there.

So what if the bumper was bloodied up and smeared with brain matter? It’d wash off.

I just had to get his lifeless body to the beach house where he met up with his business partners and kept his mistress of the month, dump him in the sand, and let the crabs do their thing after I left. The contract was explicitly clear on that—his soon-to-be-widow wanted him left in the same place where he proposed to her after grooming her all those years ago. She wanted to make a good memory in the place where all her nightmares began.

I had to admire a woman like that. She and I both knew what it was to reclaim our freedom, our lives. Only tonight, she was the one being set free. And I still had a long way to go to gain mine.

What was it that old dude said in his poems about winter?

But I’ve got promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep.

Yeah. Same, dude. Same.

SIX

DINGO

“So letme see if I got this straight . . .” I glanced between Coyote and Jackal, taking in their soaked clothes, the overall effect giving them a look similar to that of a scraggly,wet dog duo whose humans had left out in the yard too long unsupervised. “You showed up at the target’s house, and he just, what, wasn’t there?”

Jackal snorted incredulously. “Nah, he was there, alright. Already dead, though. It was like someone got to him before we could. Dude was lying there face down in the sand, just like he was supposed to be—except we didn’t do it.” His sharp ass teeth glinted in the light, sending an involuntary shiver down my spine. You never quite could get over the whole sharpened shark teeth. Just when you’d forgotten, he’d spread that mouth wide open and remind you.

My attention swiveled to Coyote, who was conveniently silent as he stared a hole into the carpet, no doubt wishing it’d open up and swallow him whole.

No one of us ran this ragtag group, and as a result, our personalities constantly clashed in the worst of ways. Like tonight, when these two idiots had assumed they could handle a mark on their own while I was at home sick with a . . . hangover.

I wanted to laugh, but the pain was too intense. Hangovers were a bitch once you hit that special age between youth and middle age. Somewhere around the big three-zero mark, your knees started to hurt, you couldn’t drink like you used to, and everything ached when you slept on it wrong.

I scrubbed the creases out of my forehead and tried again. “What do you mean he was already dead? How do you know someone else got him?”

Jackal offered me his phone, and I stared in open-mouthed shock at the picture he’d grabbed before they bailed on the job.

The target was sprawled in a puddle of his own blood, his face beaten in, but not quite how we did it. Spray-painted on the back of the jacket thrown over his chest was asmiley face–one that oddly resembled the mask Jackal had worn since we started this crew, down to the fucking shade of neon red. Next to his body, lying in the sand, was a single piece of paper with a bloody print on the bottom corner. And, of course, Jackal had brought it back with him and presented it to me now, watching me for any sign of a reaction.

I read the words on the paper six times before I was able to actually respond.

Your move, dogs.

“This is some next-level crime drama shit,” I muttered under my breath, eyes wide. “A fucking copycat, in this day and age–”

“Whoever this is, they’re not randomly stumbling across our kills before us. They’re doing it intentionally. They have inside information–”

I waved a hand at Jackal dismissively. “You have an overactive imagination. Likely, this is a copycat who wants to get our attention. Maybe they wanna join our group.” I flicked the edgeof the paper and grabbed the lighter sitting on the end table, bringing it up to eye level as their eyes fell on the paper dangling from my fingers. “This is a cry for attention, and we’re going to ignore it.” The lighter made a satisfyingclickas the flint caught a spark and the flame licked up the side of the paper, devouring the tinder like air as I let it drop to the concrete floor. “They’ll probably move on to idolizing someone else soon enough.”

“But how did they have inside information, Dingo?” Jackal persisted, snapping his teeth dangerously in my direction. I could hear that tongue ring clicking away behind the row of pointed teeth, dragging from one side to the other in his annoyance. “How did they know when and who we were going to hit?”

“Lucky guess?” I offered, the room spinning still every time I tried to straighten and stand. “Look, it’s nothing to worry about. Once is a fluke.” I dusted my palms on my thighs and rose slowly from the couch, wincing at the throbbing in my skull. “If it happens again, thenmaybeit’ll be time to worry about it.”

“Stubborn,” Coyote offered up from his usually-silent position by the door. He rarely, if ever, opposed myself or Jackal openly, preferring not to take sides when he could avoid it. But the look he bestowed on Jackal spoke volumes. Somehow, he’d been convinced this was bigger than it was. He looked at me dead-on again, shaking his head as he repeated the single word he’d previously uttered. “Stubborn.”

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