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“Murph said something about electromagnetic interference. That’s gonna generate strong EMFs that cause static.”
“Fucking great.” Lex pocketed his comms unit, checked both ways then turned right. “Let’s head that way. See if we can get to a less congested area.”
“This whole place is congested. Good thing I’m not claustrophobic,” Xander added.
Normally Lex wasn’t either, but with every step they took deeper into the metal maze, he felt the walls beginning to close in, and a small part of him began feeling trapped. Like they would never escape this steampunk hell, and they’d be caught there forever. And, worst of all, he couldn’t shake the fear that he was too late and his Summer was already dead.
“Just let us go,” Scott pleaded as Dougherty’s men pulled him and Summer out the back door and into the junkyard.
Summer’s head tilted back, looking up at the staggering piles of scrap as Ace shoved her past metal cranes, shredders and crushing machines.
Dougherty laughed. “Let you go?” he echoed. “You’re a loose thread, Holt. And a loose cannon, which is even worse. The last thing I can afford to do is allow you to run to The Broker and rat my ass out. Because you’re good at ratting people out, aren’t you? Just ask your ex-wife. It didn’t take much to convince you to tell us she was at the Avernus.”
Summer glared at Scott who visibly cringed. “I apologized for that. But they would’ve killed me.”
Dougherty glanced over at her. “I see why you divorced him,” he said flatly.
Yeah, she thought it was pretty apparent to everyone who’d come into contact with Scott over the last twenty-four hours. The man was only worried about his own hide, perfectly willing to throw anyone under the bus if it meant saving himself.
She instantly thought of Lex and how he couldn’t be more different from Scott. Lex was a protector, a fighter, a good man who’d stepped in when she’d most needed a hero.
If she didn’t want to die—and she really didn’t—then she was going to have to save herself. There was certainly no relying on Scott, and Lex had no idea where she was.
Please be okay. The idea that he’d been hurt chilled her. If he’d truly only been stunned like Scott claimed, then he should be absolutely fine by now. At least, physically. But if she knew Lex, he was most certainly worried out of his mind and trying to find her. How would he ever trace her to the junkyard?
And where the hell are we going now?
The scrapyard was a chaotic mess filled with huge machines, and they kept trudging deeper and deeper into the belly of the beast. Finally, they stopped walking, and she zeroed in on the huge metal contraption in front of her. It resembled a colossal silo, reminding her of a thermos bottle. Surrounded by pipelines and a steel staircase that led up to a skeleton of scaffolding, the structure served some purpose, but she had no idea what. And it instantly put her on edge.
“What is that?” she asked, dreading the answer.
“That is an ASR,” Dougherty revealed, a smirk curving his mouth.
“A what?” Scott asked.
“An Automotive Shredder Residue Incinerator.”
Out of all that, the only word she heard was incinerator. Jesus. And, okay, maybe shredder. Neither sounded good, and she tensed, trying hard not to panic. She hoped with every fiber of her being Dougherty would tell them to keep moving. Inform them that they were going somewhere else.
Instead, he remained rooted to his spot and looked up at the machine. “Only about seventy-five to eighty percent of a car can be recovered as recyclable metal. The remaining twenty to twenty-five percent is known as auto fluff, a toxic mix of plastics, rubber, glass and textiles. This is the mighty machine that deals with that. And with loose ends.”
Oh, God. It felt like the ground just opened up, and it was about to swallow her down into its sandy depths. Which might be more preferable than the monstrous incinerator looming before her.
“Plastics and rubber are a bitch to deal with and highly toxic when burned, releasing all sorts of noxious chemicals,” Dougherty continued. “And that’s all sorts of illegal.”
Oh, but murder isn’t? she wanted to throw back at him. Instead, she chewed her lower lip, wondering just how the hell they were going to escape.
“So instead of flames, it utilizes fluidized bed systems.” Maybe she should feel relieved to hear him say flames wouldn’t be a part of her imminent death, but she suddenly feared it was somehow going to be worse. Way, way worse. “It uses a hot bed of boiling sand instead.”
Yeah, that was fucking worse. Death by boiling sand was not on her to-do list…ever.
“I won’t bore you with the details, but when the heated air is forced upward, it causes the sand to boil and behave like a liquid, instantly volatilizing whatever gets tossed inside.”
“Volatilizing?” Scott repeated warily.
“Vaporizing,” Dougherty clarified. Then he turned to his thugs. “Take them up.”
No, no, no. Summer twisted, trying to break free, but Ace was too strong. As he dragged her toward the metal staircase, she slid her hand into her pocket and wrapped her fingers around the box cutter.
