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They start their engines, so I guess the time for talking is well and truly over.
“Some more of our guys are coming in this afternoon,” Karma says to me as she mounts her bike beside me. “Edge can come in with them.”
“So you know where we’re going?” I ask.
“The bunker, I assume,” she says. “We’ll find out when we get there. But don’t worry, it’s always worth it.”
If she saw I was worried, who else did?
No use adding that to the list of worries, though, so I just mount my bike and follow the rest out of the lot and to the right along an empty country road leading away from Pleasantville and into deep forest by the looks of things.
About ten minutes later, we merge onto yet another empty road, which finally leads us to our destination about twenty minutes later. A compound that looks newly built, surrounded by a tall wall, with metal gates and guards with rifles atop it. The only way in is a narrow, tree-lined forest road.
“Joker is not messing around,” I mutter to Bane as we dismount in front of a large rectangular building made of concrete. There are two more smaller, but nearly identical buildings next to it. More guards with rifles are stationed on the roof of the biggest one.
“Yeah, he runs a tight ship.”
How the fuck did these idiots not realize Joker was into more than just poaching and vulturing the business leavings of dead men?
“Joker’s waiting inside,” one of the Sons tells us with a tone that suggests he’d like to hear less talking and more moving.
Condescending shit like that always grated me the wrong way and the urge to put him in his place, which is not ordering me around, is strong. But I better keep my head down, since I don’t have Edge to watch my back and I don’t know how much I can still trust my other three brothers. Maybe they did know what they were doing, ratting us out to Joker. That would be the more logical assumption.
We file into the large building and are led down a poorly lit hallway to what I can only describe as Joker’s throne room. It’s filled with tables and chairs and he’s presiding over it all from a raised podium, sitting on a black leather lazy boy.
My phone pings with a text and I hang back while the others enter the room. It’d hoped it was from Ariel, but it’s from Edge.
Eden is missing. Where are you?
Joker’s place, I text back. What do you mean missing? Ariel was with her.
My heart’s racing so hard it’s hard to breathe as I wait for the three dots signaling that he’s typing to materialize into words.
She might be missing too.
I wish I had somewhere to direct the black rage that fills me.
“Come on, Ruin,” Joker’s voice says somewhere very close to me. All I’m seeing is black overlaid with the words Ariel and Missing in neon red. “Let’s have a little chat before the main meeting.”
He’s come down from his throne and is now standing next to me with his arm around my shoulders. I shrug it off.
“It seems I gotta be somewhere else,” I say, the words coming out like jagged rocks.
He takes my phone and glances at the screen, smirking.
“No, this is exactly where you’re supposed to be,” he says. “Trust me.”
I snatch the phone back from him. “I don’t think so.”
I turn to leave the way I came, but four Sons are blocking the exit that way, standing still like statues. Even their eyes look dead.
“Come,” Joker says and leads the way towards the other end of the hallway.
Then we’re outside again and I very nearly make a run for my bike to get the hell out of here. But something is telling I should follow Joker. That following him is where I need to be now. Just like he said.
He walks into one of the smaller buildings and into a security room with a wall covered by color screens showing what looks like all the rooms in this compound, including his throne room.
“Show him,” he tells the guy behind the computer that controls it all.
