AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I furrowed my brow. What the hell was he talking about?
Wylder advanced on the woman, looming over her with a menacing glower. He pointed at the chunk of sign. “Why do you want this? What the heck do you think you’re going to do with it?”
The woman just sputtered furiously at him and ran off in the opposite direction.
“I’m not sure intimidation is going to work all that well on people this strung out,” Rowan put in. “Let me give it a shot?”
Wylder motioned to the vandals still merrily wreaking havoc farther down the street. “Have at it, smooth-talker.”
Rowan walked over to a young woman who was yanking at a plaque fixed to the side of a bank. He held up the piece of sign, and her head whipped toward him, her eyes widening as if he was showing her a lump of pure gold.
“You want this, don’t you?” he said, keeping his tone patient and gentle in a way I could never have managed. “What’s so special about it?”
The guy I’d grabbed scrambled up, looking like he was going to charge at Rowan, but I stepped between them with a glower. He backed down fast enough then and staggered off across the street.
The woman Rowan was talking to extended her hand toward the chunk of plastic. Her fingers opened and closed as if she thought she could snatch it up without even being close enough to touch it. “I don’t—I don’t know if I’m supposed to talk about it,” she said weakly.
Rowan’s voice softened even more. “We’re not here to hurt you. We’re not the cops, so you don’t have to hide anything from us. We just want to know what’s going on around here. If you can explain, I’d be happy to give you this. You can do whatever you want with it.”
Her face brightened so suddenly it was almost funny. I swallowed down a laugh. And then any humor in me died as she rasped out her answer.
“The people who sell the Glory… they told us anyone who brings back a piece we can show we grabbed off some store or whatever in Paradise City, they’ll give us a whole pound of Glory for it.”
Wylder frowned, stepping up beside Rowan. “They asked you to bring a piece of a sign?”
The woman shrugged. “Anything, really. As long as they can tell we pulled it off a building here in the city. They said… They said the city people are too uppity and they want to see us bring them down a peg.”
She was from the Bend, obviously. Even as my hands clenched, I could see how easily the Storm’s men could have persuaded a bunch of their customers to take them up on their offer. A lot of them resented everyone who got to live on cleaner streets. I should know—I’d been one of them once.
“And you went along with it,” I couldn’t help grumbling anyway. “Very smart.”
She winced, and Wylder held up his hand to quiet me. I reined in my anger.
That fucking Xavier. Using the people’s emotions and their weaknesses against them to tear apart our home even more. My gaze swung around wildly, and I had to tense all my muscles to stop myself from pummeling the nearest utility pole to let out my frustration on something.
Rowan’s expression had turned thoughtful. The wheels must have been turning in his head, because he tipped his head toward the woman. “What if I told you that you get to have a pound of Glory for doing absolutely nothing.”
My jaw dropped. What washeon? We weren’t going to go around handing out drugs… were we?
“What do you mean?” the woman asked, her interest obviously piqued.
“I mean you get to walk away from this and in return we give you what you want,” Rowan said. He turned to Wylder. “We still have that stolen truck that we got from Colt, right?”
“Yes,” Wylder said slowly. “I think I see where you’re going with this.”
“I don’t,” I snapped. “Are you insane? It’s bad enough Xavier giving them—”
“Kaige,” Wylder said sharply, and I managed to shut my mouth, my face burning almost as hot as the rage inside me.
Myweaknesses were getting the better of me now. I forced myself to breathe deeply, hating every second of it.
“It’s just lying around anyway,” Rowan said. “Better that they get it from us in return fornotdestroying the city or listening to the Storm’s people rather than letting the Storm keep the upper hand.”
Wylder nodded and turned to me. “It’ll only be temporary. We’ve got less than a week before either none of this matters or we’ve run the Storm out of town anyway.”
I growled under my breath, but I couldn’t come up with a coherent argument. Every bone in my body resisted the idea.
The problem was, I didn’t have any better ones.
