Page 66 of Harper's Song

“Now they’re gonna find us,” I told him and closed my eyes for a second.

I was more of less passed out by the time they came, masked and coldly efficient as ever in making Gene stop the truck by the side of a dark road and dragging us out of it. They took Gene’s phone and the knife he had on him, threw us in the back of a windowless van and drove off.

“What’s gonna happen now?” Gene kept asking me, but I had no real answer.

“We do what they tell us to do,” I told him. “Just make sure you give them all the info they want and hold nothing back.”

Then they put a black cloth bag over our heads and tied Gene’s hands—I heard him bitching about it—but they kept mine untied after seeing my injuries. No one spoke to me.

Not Creed who I pulled from under a burning bike about five years ago. Or Edge who I saved from a knife in a bar fight once. Or Ruin, or any of the others who had come to pick us up.

But they spoke among each other in hushed tones of awe at my injuries. Then they carried me into this room I’m in now. The floor is hard, there’s pebbles on it, and once I take the mask off my head, I still can’t see shit. I imagine I’m in a small, windowless room with a heavy door, but I’m too woozy and in too much pain to try and check if I’m right.

If they don’t come speak to me soon I will pass out. And that can’t happen either.

It takes me an unbelievably long time to persuade myself to try and stand—it’s like talking to a child really. But I have to get up, I have to bang on the door, I have to tell them where Harper is. I have to make them take me with them when they go.

I get as far as my knees and am struggling to grip the wall so I can stand all the way, but my arm still has no real strength in it and so it’s not much use. Then the door crashes open and someone rushes in.

“Where is she?” Scar growls.

His contorted, scarred face is right in mine, his eyes blazing with anger and hatred. I kinda wish I was still wearing the damn mask. But that’s a stupid thought to waste what little brain power I still have on.

“What did you do to her?” he demands, yanking me to my feet, which fails because I got nothing to help him with. I’m just dead weight. But I’m acutely aware of the fact that I could soon be dead for real if I don’t at least try to answer him. But it’s such a loaded question. He releases me when he realizes he can’t lift me.

“I escaped from prison when I found out what the Renegades were planning to do,”I slur more than say. “I wanted to protect her.”

“I don’t believe you,” he snaps. “Where is she? Where do they have her?”

“The Grove… Gene said,” I say. “I don’t know where—”

“No more lying, punk,” he says. “Tell me now or I’ll break every damn bone in your body.”

He grabs my arm like he’s about to get started on that right away. And I don’t doubt that he is.

More men come running into the room. Rook reaches us first.

“Stand down, Scar,” he says. “This isn’t the way.”

“He’s gonna tell me what he knows,” Scar says. “Right now.”

And then he does something to my arm that hurts like a motherfucker but doesn’t actually break it. I don’t know how I manage not to scream. But letting the pain take me does almost make me pass out. And that can’t fucking happen now.

“I can’t let you do this, Scar,” Rook says and pulls him back. “Not until we know what’s what.”

“We know… we know what’s what,” Scar is saying as he fights against the hold Rook has him in.

By this time Doc is kneeling beside me, shining a bright pin light into my eyes then tuts at my injuries. Which seems odd because I don’t even feel that much pain anymore. Even whatever Scar did to my arm is fast becoming just a dull throb.

“He’s gonna die if I don’t treat some of this,” he says. For what it’s worth, he’s probably right.

“Help me with him,” he calls over his shoulder at someone I can’t see.

“Not until he tells me where Harper is,” Scar complains.

“Don’t give me anything that’ll knock me out,” I tell Doc. “I have to go find her.”

He doesn’t look like he understood a word of that. He’s just looking at me with a funny expression on his face, something like pity, or disgust, probably. But he’s seen me in worse states than this. Like that time I walked across the entire state of Idaho. I was in a sorry state then.

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