Page 12 of Wanted
And no, the irony of it was not lost on Liv.
Knox met his gaze and, after exhaling once, offered him a nod. They should wait until the coast was clear.
“Shane, bring over the first one, will you?” Dex asked, and his voice sounded somewhat muffled, as if he were speaking through a face mask. “I’ll get the acid.”
“On it,” the hooded man responded.
While both Liv and Knox had agreed to lay low and minimize the risk of being discovered, when Shane cursed, Liv’s head popped up just enough for him to see the hooded man dragging something. At first, in the deep shadows created by the bright lights, it looked like a massive sack. But when he changed course, and a limp arm came into view, Liv went rigid as if his muscles turned to wood.
They were not making drugs.
Those people were out here to dissolve bodies. Like in a fucking movie.
Talk about out of the frying pan and into the fire… They should have stayed on the train a while longer. He was getting sick at the memory of the body they themselves had dealt with days ago and couldn’t take his panicked eyes off the dead man Shane was dragging toward the hole in the ground. Those two guys actedas if this were nothing, when his restless sleep was filled with nightmares about Vlad’s final moments, about the stench of his pierced gut, about all the blood.
The memories of that bastard’s death nauseated him even now.
Knox’s head inched up right next to his, and Liv instantly felt the need to make sure things did not escalate this time. He’d been the one to deliver Vlad to Hell, and then talked Knox into getting on the train. For all he remembered, even crossing into the junkyard might have been his idea.
If anything happened to Knox now, it would be on him.
“Do you think Frank would have let them live if they were gay too?” Dex asked, stepping closer to the pit in a complete biohazard getup. He even had a mask and goggles when he turned to reveal a large canister in his hands.
Shane groaned, shaking his head as he jumped into the pit, no doubt to stuff the body into one of the barrels. “What is this about now? Why do you have to always come up with those random questions? What next? Some fucked up game of ‘would you rather’? I just wanna get this done and go home. There’s still a long night ahead of us. But, for the record, he does have a track record of picking up gay strays so… maybe?”
“I mean, itwasstupid of those dudes to steal from the mob, but still… I’d have fucked the blond one in my single days,” Dex said, lining up more canisters of corrosive liquid before grabbing the dead body and helping Shane maneuver it into the first barrel. “Is it cheating if it’s necrophilia?”
Liv was not particularly religious, but when he sensed Knox shivering next to him, he started a silent prayer. They could not afford to get discovered. The scent of mold, dirt, and rust overpowered Liv’s senses, but they’d turn into rocks and stay still until the fucking psychos were gone. Even if it took themthe whole night. He didn’t need to sleep. Not anymore. Not after what he’d witnessed here.
With a soft, shushing sound on his lips, he rubbed Knox’s arm, and then placed his palm on Knox's chest, to make sure he didn’t need his meds. While the heartbeat he faintly sensed was fast, it didn’t race at the dangerous speed he was unfortunately familiar with.
Knox pushed deeper under Liv’s arm, and they stilled together, wet, frightened, and lost so far away from home they couldn’t guess their approximate location. Out here, they were each other’s only lifeline, only family, and Liv would get Knox out of this fucking mess if it killed him.
Outside, Shane groaned, frustrated by his talkative… co-worker. “Oh, my God! Not the fucking hypotheticals again! We don’t have all night. Okay, Dex. Let’s do this and move on. If these guys were in a polyamorous gay quadruple, Frank would have probably had a soft spot for them. And no, it’s not cheating if it’s a dead body, unless they only become dead during the fucking. Does that answer your questions?”
The loud laughter outside chilled Liv to the bone. If these two didn’t care to be quiet, then this place had to be miles away from the nearest human settlement. What if they did end up bringing a dog over and discovered that two intruders had seen and heard their every move?
Liv and Knox couldn’t stay here and wait it out. But since those guys were so busy with their conversation, this could be their chance to slip away without being noticed.
Knox’s hair smelled of their journey—sweat, rain, the cheap soap he’d used to wash his hair in the sink of a public restroom during their brief train change. When Liv breathed it all in, gathering the courage to move, he remembered the dreariness of the past few days, but also the games they played to kill time,all the conversations, and even the easy silence that came with knowing someone as well as he knew Knox.
They would be all right.
They had to be.
He put his finger across his mouth, capturing Knox’s gaze, and pointed at the open doors at the back of the bus. He focused on the buzz of the voices, to make sure he and Knox only moved while the two maniacs were distracted. Knox didn’t question him, just gave a short, determined nod.
Their survival depended on moving with the grace of two ballerinas and the silence of a spider. Inch after painful inch, they approached their door to freedom, but while the bus’s length provided a decent buffer between them and the two cold-blooded killers who made Peppa Pig jokes over dead bodies, they’d only be out of the woods once they left this godforsaken place.
But did either of them know where the fucking fence was after navigating the endless heaps of scrap, which all looked the same? That was a question for the near future. For all Liv cared, they could stay hidden in some narrow passage until morning.
He swallowed the bitter taste of fear as he stepped off the bus before offering Knox his arm for support, just to make it easier on him.
Knox clutched his sweaty hand with his own and their eyes met in a silent exchange filled with despair. But then Liv spotted movement to the side.
Above Knox’s head.
His gaze settled on the roof of an elongated shed revealed by the glow coming from the death pit at the front of the bus.
