Page 82 of Lone Star

The man screamed and fell back. Blood sprayed down his chin, and onto his shirtfront as he gasped through the pain.

“Is he dead?” Reese asked.

“Yeah – shit – fuck – I dunno,” the man stammered. “Just – please…”

“Who do you work for?”

The man grimaced up at him, lifting the bloodied hand he’d used to clutch his face – to ward him off, or to block out the too-bright sun, Reese didn’t know or care.

He lifted his foot, ready for another strike.

“Las Chupacabras!” the man said – shouted, really, a desperate, pain-laced gasp.

Reese put his foot back down.

Only to be shoved, hard, in the shoulder: Tenny trying to push past him, gun trained on the cowering man.

“Wait,” Reese hissed – actually hissed. He couldn’t remember ever speaking like that, emotion doing strange things to his voice. He grappled with the other assassin, feet braced, refusing to be shoved off. “We should interrogate him.”

When Ten finally lifted his head and looked him in the eye, his gaze was furious. Electric and smoldering, the blue cold and hateful.

Yes,hateful. He hated, just as Reese did. Reese took solace in the idea that such emotion was probably just as new and uncomfortable for the other boy.

“Because you’ve got so much experienceinterrogating?” Ten hissed back, mocking, enraged. Reese felt flecks of spit spray across his cheeks.

“Our job,” Reese said, and a wave of calm washed over him. A slow, soothing lap that pulled him down, grounded him, blessedly. “Is to do what they tell us. To follow orders.”

Something in his tone sent Ten reeling back from him, brows lifting, face going blank. Reese thought he looked scared, the way his skin paled, and his nostrils flared.

“Fox told us to follow them – not to kill them.”

“He should have sent someone else, then,” Ten said, voice toneless, now. He gestured toward the still-cowering, sniveling man with his gun, a half-hearted flick of one wrist.

“There wasn’t anyone else,” Reese said. He could hear his own voice, low and flat – his usual voice. He had control again; felt right, now, reasonable, able to think through the situation. “We’re weapons,” he said, remembering being told that, years ago. “We’re tools. We’re for getting jobs done. Candy needs to know who’s killing civilians. No one’s told us to kill yet.”

Ten breathed harshly through his nose, the sound of each breath an audible rush. His gaze flicked to his would-be victim, and back to Reese.

He’s scared, Reese thought. “Do the job,” he said, and felt almost sorry, almost gentle.

Ten stared at him a long, tense moment, just breathing. Then he holstered his gun and turned. Went over to the woman, and crouched down beside her. “She’s alive,” he said, after he’d felt for a pulse, voice back to crisp efficiency. “We can’t transport either of them on the bikes.”

Reese nodded, something like approval easing the last of the tension in his chest. “I’ll call Fox.”

Twenty-Nine

Cars rolled up. Two black Mercedes sedans, followed by a boxy black van, all with tinted windows, all jumping the drain at the curb and entering the lot behind the garage with sinister purpose.

The mechanics smoking out back all lifted their heads, posture stiffening. Their huddle dispersed; they stepped back at least five paces, giving the cars and van a wide berth. Dropped their cigarettes to the pavement.

“Shit,” Michelle said, pulse leaping. She knew fear and deference when she saw it.

Axelle leaned in front of her to pop the glove box, and came out with a set of binoculars that she pressed to her face just as the car doors opened. “Latin guys,” she said, “wearing all black.” She passed the binoculars over and Michelle checked for herself.

She counted seven men total – the van hadn’t opened yet – all of them between twenty and forty, she guessed, mid-sized guys in black jeans, black shirts, a few sporting chains she thought were real gold, heavy cross pendants winking in the sunlight.

She spotted two white guys, big, muscled-up thugs, their arms bared to show off biceps like hams. She felt her brows go up in surprise.

One of them opened a rear door on the lead Mercedes, and the man who climbed out, adjusting the buttons on his shirt cuff, was the sort who reeked of money.

---