Page 231 of American Hellhound
“We will.”
~*~
The black van traveled through the heart of town, and then beyond it, toward the warehouse where Ghost had once shot at the Ryders.This fucking place, he thought, as the van swung into the parking lot.
Walsh pulled their truck over several driveways down, hands tight on the wheel. “We already checked here. They weren’t using it for storage.”
“No, but this is where Reese was hiding out,” Ghost said, gut tightening with unease.
“Which means Roman squealed to them,” Michael said, grimly, leaning in from the back seat to peer through the windshield. “Called Badger and told him where to find the kid.”
“We’ve had Reese for months,” Ghost said, frowning to himself. It was true that there was no reason for Badger’s people to know or care about this warehouse; it had been empty for decades, and save for Reese, no one had used it for anything in months. That was the problem, wasn’t it? Had Roman tipped them off? Told them where to find the kid? If so, the intel was old.
Unless.
“This is where Reese was hiding out,” he repeated. “Maybe they tracked him here somehow, before they got put away.”
It was silent a beat, and then everyone said, “Shit.”
~*~
Reese slid the cellphone from his jacket pocket and opened the contacts list. He’d stolen it from Badger before they’d left: a sleek silver iPhone 6, loaded with apps, most of which he didn’t see the value of. He’d expected, in the months to follow, that Badger would realize it was missing – humans couldn’t live without their phones for more than an hour – and have the line cancelled. But he didn’t, and that was when Reese realized Badger must be using GPS to track him. A risk, yes. But also a chance to draw them away.
Reese bought a charge chord in Arkansas, on the trip to Knoxville, and had kept the thing fully-charged ever since, plugged into an outlet at the warehouse, waiting for it to become useful.
Now, pulled over in a gas station parking lot, behind the wheel of a nondescript sedan he’d borrowed from the Lean Dogs motor pool, he found the number for Badger’s VP, Harlan.
Around him, people pumped gas, threw fast food bags in the trash, talked on their phones. A family of tourists – minivan, pillows and luggage visible through the windows – argued about which kinds of chips and candy bars to buy inside the convenience store.
Reese recognized it – the whole scene – as evidence of life.Reallife. The kind of life he couldn’t remember having. But he was detached from it. Couldn’t reach it, imagine it, pretend to be part of it. His sister wanted it, she even understood it, but to him it was all window-dressing for a different kind of reality. The kind in which people breathed, and ate, and slept, and fucked, and killed one another, until their own hearts stopped. Life wasn’t an experience – it was an exercise, one that didn’t seem to have much point. There were tasks, and he completed them. At some point in the future, that would stop.
He pressed Harlan’s name and put the phone to his ear. It rang twice.
Badger’s voice answered. “There you are, shithead. Where are you?”
“I thought you knew,” Reese said. “You tracked the phone.”
“Yeah, and then you moved it.”
In retrospect, it was risky to have intentionally lured them here. At least, it put the Lean Dogs at risk. Reese didn’t want anything to happen to them, but drawing Badger to Knoxville had been personal. Maybe the first thing he’d ever done for himself. By using the warehouse, he’d lead them somewhere empty, somewhere they couldn’t hurt anyone. And now they were here, and he could put a bullet in each of them.
Badger made an impatient noise. “Cut the shit, kid. It’s time to come home.”
“I don’t have a home,” Reese said, and hung up. He tossed the phone into the garbage on top of old Burger King bags and started the car.
~*~
Roman offered, with obvious reluctance, to drive, but Maggie waved him off. The last thing she wanted right now, with her shaking hands and unsteady breath, was to surrender to someone else’s competence. She needed to keep it together, and that required she stay in control.
It was a tense, silent ride to the hospital.
In the parking lot, Harry hustled up to her door, hand resting on the butt of his gun, head on a swivel. “Stay close,” he told her, and it was a request rather than an order.
Maggie held her purse tight to her side, heavy with the weight of two guns and a knife.
Kristin kept close at her side as they walked, head down, face white, Roman right behind them.
“Thank you,” Maggie told the petrified girl. “You didn’t have to come.” And in truth, she had no idea why she had. It didn’t matter, though: she was grateful for the company.
