King of Lies, page 7
He gave a humorless laugh. “I think we’re at something of an impasse.”
“Let me go and we can talk,” I urged. “You can’t keep me like this all night. No matter how much of a kinky fuck you might be.” It was the wrong thing to say, the jibe earning me another few seconds of agonizing pain. “I get it,” I panted. “You’re in charge. Message received and understood.”
Keaton shifted slightly, giving the impression he was looking around the room, presumably to scope out where I’d left the axe. It left me with nothing to do but lie there like an obedient doll. If we were keeping score, Keaton and I were now even, both of us having fallen foul of underestimating the other.
And then the pressure on my arm was gone. I’d like to say I jumped up right away, but the truth was that after being forced into an awkward position for so long, with nausea still lingering, it took time to straighten myself. By the time I did, a crossbow bolt was aimed squarely between my eyes.
Keaton also had my axe tucked in his belt. I couldn’t see my knife, but I assumed that was somewhere on his person as well. “Is that really necessary?” I asked, massaging my sore shoulder to force some feeling back into it.
“You tell me. Have you got any more tricks up your sleeve?”
“Thanks to you, I can barely use my arm.” Keaton’s expression said he didn’t give a rat’s ass about that. “No,” I finally said when the silence had stretched on for too long. “No more tricks. I wanted the ring. You didn’t want me to have the ring. It’s all good.”
“Here’s what’s going to happen,” Keaton said, his voice low. “We’re going to get some sleep. Actual sleep rather than pretend sleep. In the morning, you’re going to take me to where you’ve hidden the suppressants, and you’re going to hand them over for free with a smile on your face. We’ll call it an apology gesture for trying to rob me.”
It took work to keep my expression neutral. I’d assumed Keaton seeing through the rest of my lies meant he’d see through that one as well. But, apparently not. It showed how desperate he was to believe it. Which left me with something of a quandary. Come clean, or continue the ruse? Admitting it while I had a crossbow pointed at my head wasn’t an option. That would be suicidal. “Right,” I said. “Tomorrow.”
Keaton backed off a step toward the door. He pointed a finger at me. “Don’t move. If I come back and find you’re not in the same place I’ve left you, I will shoot you.” I opened my mouth to point out that if he shot me, he’d never know the location of the suppressants, but Keaton beat me to it. “In the leg,” he said. “A limping man can still travel. It just fucking hurts.”
With his threat still ringing in my ears, I stayed on the bed when he disappeared through the door. He had the knife, the axe, and the crossbow, so leveling the odds wasn’t happening. He’d also taken the candle with him, plunging the room into darkness while I waited, with only the sound of my breathing to keep me company.
He was gone for only a few minutes. When he returned, it was with a length of rope in his hands that we’d found in the fire engine earlier. I eyed him curiously as he came my way. “Turn over,” he said. “Face down.”
“Oh, hell no.”
“Turn. The fuck. Over. I need to make sure you don’t go anywhere. And it’s this, or a crossbow bolt in the thigh. Make your choice.” I turned over. “Hands behind your back.” That was the last thing I wanted to do with my shoulder still smarting, but I did it, the don’t fuck with me vibes coming off Keaton too strong to disregard. It also left me vulnerable to biters if any shit went down.
He made quick work of tying my wrists together, the army presumably having taught him a thing or two about knots. It was tight, but not so tight it cut into my skin. Apparently not satisfied it would restrict my movements enough, he also tied my ankles. “Why not just hogtie me and be done with it?”
“Don’t tempt me.”
I turned my head—the only movement left available to me—to see Keaton settle himself on the bed I’d previously made mine, the two of us having done an inadvertent swap. I envied Keaton the ability to lie on his back as he stretched out, crossbow resting on his chest. “Sleep well, August.”
My real name on his lips had me struggling for an appropriate response for far too long. “Fuck you.”
Keaton said nothing, his eyes closing. I wriggled, testing the limits of the bindings. Only after I’d come to terms with not getting free until Keaton released me, did I close my eyes. Sleeping trussed up like a turkey would not be easy.
Chapter Six
Keaton
I slept surprisingly well given the drama of the night before. The dark shadows under August’s eyes when I found him already awake and glaring at me said he hadn’t fared as well. I refused to feel guilty when he’d brought it upon himself. His glare intensified when I offered him a smile. “Morning!”
“Untie me.”
I carried out an exaggerated and lengthy stretch. “Nothing like a good stretch in the morning to get the blood pumping through your veins again, is there?”
“Untie me, and I’ll let you know.” I’d encountered icicles with more warmth than August’s tone.
“All in good time.”
“I swear to God if you don’t…”
I didn’t hang around to listen to the rest, whistling a deliberately jaunty—and loud—tune as I swung my feet off the bed and left the room. Back in the room with the fire engine, I rifled through August’s bag. My primary purpose was in searching for something to eat for breakfast, but I hadn’t discounted the possibility of him having suppressants in there. Unfortunately, there were none. No sign of all the items he’d taken as payment in Birmingham either. He must have left them on the bike.
Would I have stolen anything if they had been here? He would have deserved it after the stunt he’d pulled the previous night, but I doubted it. Call me stupid, but it wasn’t my style. Although I appreciated the hypocrisy of that after breaking into his room. It seemed I was just picky about what I stole. Money and valuables, no. Suppressants, yes.
I resumed the whistling as I re-entered the bedroom, pausing by the bed August lay face down on to drop a piece of dried meat next to his head. “Breakfast.”
“You’re not funny.” Ice had become whatever was colder than ice. Something chemical that I wasn’t intelligent enough to know about. “I’m not trying to be. I’m trying to be safe.”
“You have all the weapons. What do you think I’m going to do?”
I didn’t know; that was the problem. But I’d have to untie him, eventually. He couldn’t ride a motorbike with his hands tied behind his back, and I couldn’t ride one at all. For a moment we stared at each other, August raising an eyebrow in question when I said nothing.
Sighing, I climbed onto the bed and straddled him. There’d been too much going on last night to register what he felt like beneath me, but today, there were no such distractions, my body deciding to take notice of the lean, muscled length sandwiched between my thighs. “Remember what I said about shooting you in the leg,” I cautioned him as I untied his ankles before starting on his wrists. “Don’t think I won’t do it. I will if you give me any trouble.”
August stayed sullenly silent. I doubted he was used to being threatened. Well, tough. As soon as I’d loosened the bindings, I leaped off the bed. Two reasons. One, if he was going to try something, it would be now, and two, my cock needed away from him before it got any crazy notions about what you could do to a man while he was tied up.
I needn’t have worried, the process of August bringing his arms back to the front proving a slow and painful one. Perhaps I could have found a better way of ensuring he didn’t cut and run. Like barricading him in the locker room. Too late now. What’s done is done.
Once he’d flipped himself over, he leaned back against the wall, picked up the dried meat, and chewed on it. I took a seat on the other bed and watched him, pondering what the faraway expression was about. Plotting revenge? Or something else? “Is your name really August?”
He speared me with his gaze. “Does it matter?”
“Yes!” I surprised myself with the vehemence of my reply. “I’ve spent twenty-four hours calling you by a name that doesn’t belong to you. I’d like to get it right this time.”
August shrugged. “It’s just a name.”
“Says the man who I’m guessing has several.”
“A few,” he admitted. “But if it really matters to you that much, August is my name.”
I nodded, pleased with the information. “Well, August, I won’t say it’s a pleasure to meet you, but it’s certainly been interesting.” I got an eye roll for that. At least now that he was untied, some of the animosity seemed to have seeped out of him. Once he’d finished the first piece of meat, I threw him another.
“Thanks for giving me my food,” he drawled. “Your generosity knows no bounds.”
I didn’t rise to the bait, choosing not to offer a response at all. I fidgeted while he ate, eager to get going. Finally, after what felt a lifetime, August stood and held out his hand. I craned my head back to look up at him. “What?”
“My axe? My knife?”
The bubble of laughter that burst out of me needed no exaggeration. “Right. Keep dreaming.”
“They’re my weapons.”
“And you’ll get them back on delivery of the suppressants.” The thin line of August’s mouth said all that needed to be said about his feelings on the subject. I stood and made my way over to the door, leaning against the jamb. “You only have yourself to blame. I was willing to trade with you.”
August shouldered his way past me. “No, you weren’t.”
I caught up with him by the fire engine, where he was busy collecting up all the possessions I’d left strewn all over the floor and stuffing them back into the bag. “What do you mean?”
“That ring means something to you. If it didn’t, you would have used it for payment on the first night instead of following me and breaking into my hotel room. You always intended to find a way of getting what you wanted without having to let go of it.”
I could deny it, but I suspected my expression would give me away. “If you knew that, then why agree to let me come along?”
Possessions now back in the bag, August straightened and heaved it over his shoulder. “Because I didn’t know it then. I worked it out last night from how angry you got.”
“I wasn’t angry.”
“Bullshit, you weren’t.”
Picking up my bag—heavier now with the axe inside—and my crossbow, I followed as he bent to squeeze through the gap. “I was pissed. I wasn’t angry. There’s a difference.” After crawling under the barrier myself, I waited while August retrieved his bike from its hiding place. “Don’t even think about it,” I warned as he threw his leg across the seat.
“Get on then, before I remember how easy it is to source another axe and knife, and the temptation becomes too much.”
I got on, not needing to be asked this time to wrap my arms around August’s middle. He was far stiffer and unyielding than the day before, but I supposed that was to be expected, given everything that had passed between us. The question I kept returning to was whether he was more annoyed that I’d tied him up or that I’d forced him to reveal his real name. I had a feeling it was the latter that stung more—he was too tough to let a little physical discomfort bother him, but mental fortitude was a completely different matter. I knew that better than anyone.
In the army, there’d been nothing but physical discomfort. Hard days spent yomping across great distances. Never enough to eat. Weather that veered from one extreme to the other, often within the same day. And that was before you considered the physical toll that taking on hordes of biters day after day took on you.
We’d taken all of that in our stride as part of the job that fed and clothed us and sometimes put a roof over our heads. Losing a comrade, though. That was what hit you for six. That was what had you tossing and turning in your bunk no matter how exhausted you were. Yeah, a mental struggle was always more difficult.
“August?” I had to shout to be heard over the wind. I’d gotten used to the bike now. Maybe I could find one somewhere. It couldn’t be that difficult to learn to ride one.
“What?”
“I’m sorry I tied you up. It was the wrong thing to do. You should take it as a compliment, though.”
“How do you work that one out?”
“If you weren’t so capable, I wouldn’t have worried about you turning the tables on me.” Silence. “That’s not bullshit. I’m not saying it to stroke your ego. I’m saying it because it’s true. You got the jump on me once. I didn’t want to risk it happening again.”
August turned his head slightly. “How hard was that to admit?”
“Hard.”
There’d been thick foliage on either side of us for the last few miles, too thick for the sunlight to have much of an effect. Every now and again, movement caught my eye, but we were traveling too fast to tell whether it was human—or once human now controlled by a virus—animal, or just my imagination. “I don’t see why we have to be enemies. We’ve both made mistakes. Both acted dishonorably.”
“’Dishonorably.’” August’s laugh said he found my word choice amusing. “You were in the army too long. The rest of us don’t give a fuck about honor.”
“That’s not true. There are still decent people left in the world. You might choose not to be one of them, but it is a choice.”
“Yeah… right.”
“There are.”
August lapsed into silence. More movement in the trees, my head swiveling that way. A flash of something pale and then it was gone. Were we being followed?”
“You really want those suppressants, don’t you?” August asked. “Why? What’s so important about them?”
“I already told you. I have a long journey ahead of me. One that’ll be far easier if I don’t have to worry about the effects of getting caught in the rain.”
“Yeah, but why? Where are you trying to go? And for what purpose?”
“That’s my business.”
“Suit yourself.” August took a right-hand turn, his body leaning into it and mine going with it.
“Listen,” August said after a pause. “About the suppressants.”
“What about them?”
“I…” He took another turn, the change in wind direction stealing his next words. Something on the road a few feet ahead caught my eye. Something slick and iridescent. Pretty like a rainbow. I stopped thinking it was pretty when the bike hit it and lost grip. “August?”
“Hang on. It’s…”
But the bike was already in a sideways slide. We went with it for a few feet, August still gripping onto the handlebars and me to him. That was never going to last before momentum had the bike going one way and us the other. Which was preferable to it landing on top of us.
My skin didn’t exactly agree about this being the best outcome as I was dragged across the tarmac, August ripped from my grasp. I was suddenly glad for the thick fireman’s jacket, my upper body faring far better than my lower half because of it.
I tumbled over and over before eventually reaching an inevitable stop. I gave myself thirty seconds to feel winded before lifting my head to seek out August. He lay completely still a few feet away. “August?” Nothing.
I scrambled over to him, my thigh stinging where friction had burned a hole through my jeans. Another hole, great. Abraded skin beaded with blood showed through the gap. My left palm had suffered the same fate. August’s eyes were closed when I reached him, blood streaming from a cut on his forehead and quite the goose egg already forming. I shook him and repeated his name, louder this time.
When his eyes opened, relief loosened the tight band around my chest. Not dead. “Oil on the road,” August said, his voice hoarse. “There was nothing I could do to avoid it.”
“Yeah…” I stood, looking round for the bike. It had come to a stop just short of the trees on the left side of the road. “Can you stand?” August lifted his hand to his head, wincing when his fingers came away covered in blood. “It’s just a scratch,” I said. “You don’t need to be a baby about it.”
“A baby!”
The jibe had done what I’d intended, bringing some life back into August’s dull eyes. “Yeah, a baby. Two of us came off that bike and only one of us is standing. The other is lying there like he thinks he’s due an afternoon nap.” I held out the hand that hadn’t tangled with the tarmac and come off worst. After a pause that said he really would prefer to lie there, August took it. I didn’t give him any time to change his mind as I yanked him to his feet. As soon as I let go, he stumbled. Feeling guilty, I went to grab him again, but he shook me off. “I’m fine.”
The limp over to the bike started slow and gradually built up momentum once he trusted his legs to hold him up. While August picked the bike up and checked it over, I did a quick inventory of myself and everything I carried. My crossbow had come loose, but was easily retrieved. It didn’t seem to have fared too badly in terms of anything being obviously bent or broken, but I wouldn’t know for sure until I fired it.
My backpack had stayed on my back, and I hadn’t been skewered by August’s axe, which would have been the ultimate irony to have had my spinal column severed by a weapon I’d confiscated so it couldn’t be used to hurt me.
My palm felt better once I’d picked all the visible bits of gravel out of it and used water to wash away as much of the dirt as I could. There wasn’t much I could do about my thigh. Or my jeans. But if I couldn’t put up with a bit of stinging, I’d be the baby I’d accused August of being.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!”
August’s string of curses had me swinging round to face him. “Problem?”
“You could say that.” He gave the bike a kick. Not hard enough to knock it over, but enough to signal his displeasure. “It won’t start.”
