Page 36 of Prodigal Son

Mention of Devin made Fox sigh. “We’re running behind.”

“Yeah. Wrap this up, then find someplace to stick this asshole. Eden’s cop friends are ready for us.”

“Right.” Fox turned back into the room: it was the huge walk-in pantry off the kitchen. Walls laden with shelves of canned goods, bulbs dim overhead, no windows, no way out.

The sniper had refused to give his name. He was a young guy – younger than Fox had expected, which probably accounted for his inaccurate shooting. Sniping was a patient man’s game. Gangly, all long arms and legs, lean as his rifle, an unanticipated earnestness in his long face. He looked scared – he should be, but Fox hadn’t thought he’d show it.

And he was American, going by his accent.

They had him tied at wrists and ankles to a chair, and Fox approached him, eased Nicky aside with a gentle flick of his fingers.

The larger, more physically imposing Dog gave way immediately, because Fox had a reputation at home, too.

“Okay, kid,” Fox said. “I don’t have time to do this the hard way. Let me tell you how it’s gonna work: you’re gonna spill your guts, and we’re gonna get Pseudonym off your back, because, hard truth here, they’re planning on killing you. You can either cooperate, or Nicky can get his knuckles dirty.”

Nicky cracked the knuckles in question, the brass over them flashing.

The kid swallowed, throat jumping. “You’re full of shit,” he said without any real heat.

“Am I?” Fox lifted a single brow. “Or did those guys get your Spidey senses tingling the second you met them – assuming you have any kind of sense, which, honestly, at this point, I kinda doubt.”

That earned him a frown.

“You’ve heard of us, right? The Dogs? If you have, then you know we play pretty fair.” That was…mostly true. “I don’t think you’ve got a beef with us; I think you were hired, and this is strictly about money. Your life’s gonna be a lot smoother – and a lot longer – if you cooperate with us now. Because, judging by the fact that a buncha idiots caught you” –

“Hey,” Nicky protested.

– “you’re not exactly a secret agent. You need all the help you can get.”

The kid took a deep breath and sighed it out through his nostrils. “What happens if I don’t cooperate?”

Fox shrugged. “We retain you.”

“And if I do cooperate?”

“Same thing, ‘cept we’ll let you have the good liquor.”

The sniper huffed an unhappy breath. Shook his head. Stared at the floor a moment. Then he picked his head up, narrow jaw set. He was just a baby, really, just some kid who shouldn’t have been living this life. Fox thought suddenly, briefly, of the kid Ghost had acquired in Knoxville – Reese, who had the gaze and presence of an attack dog. This boy wasn’t anything like that; this kid was still painfully human, and he was crumbling.

With his last vestiges of defiance, he said, “I’m not a rat.”

Fox nodded.

“When I take on a job, I take it seriously.”

Fox softened his voice. “Yeah, kid. But you don’t owe these guys your honor. Or your life.”

He dropped his head again, exposing the vulnerable knobs of vertebrae in the back of his sun-browned neck. His hair needed cutting, curling at his nape.

There was a story there, down the ridge of his bowed back, one that Ghost Teague would have no doubt been tempted to draw out and examine. Maybe offer up an alternate ending, a new story, one that involved blood, yes, but also patches, and brotherhood, and a life on a bike that felt like flying.

But Fox wasn’t Ghost. “What’s it gonna be?” he asked.

The kid shrugged, and Fox read it as a gesture of defeated acquiescence. There was only so long a person could resist while tied to a chair.

Fox said, “What’s your name?”

Another sigh. “Evan.”

---