“Let me get this straight: you ditch diamonds and gold bands for insulting names and dangerous rides.”
Bram laughs so loud that everyone in the café turns to stare at us.
I guess so. How did Dylan settle for a biker? She seems…like she enjoys having fun. Bram is nothing if not fun.
Don’t Die
Havoc
Vandal, Torque, and Ryot sit across from my desk. It’s hard to believe they’re much older than Creed with their haircuts and clean-shaven faces. Vandal could be some preppy kid from a private school in his fancy clothes and loafers. They each created a persona…but it makes me wonder how much Vandal’s persona resembles what his life looked like before he joined the Children of Chaos.
Ryot took the persona that scares me the most. He went for a poor college student living out of his car. Which doesn’t sound safe in the middle of the winter. They were all supposed to have apartments, either shared or independent, but he thought a poor student might be of more interest to the drug dealers…and that’s the problem. It probably is.
Am I sending these men to an early grave? Or sending them out to be heroes?
Both.
Fly barges in. “Sorry I’m late. We were just at the Ivy and had to stay awhile. You wouldn’t believe what happened.”
Do I want to know? Probably not, but I have a feeling that Fly is going to tell me, anyway.
“Bram is on a date. Bram!”
WHAT? Bram is worse than me when it comes to women. His divorce was messy to say the least.
“And his date knows The Cake Lady!!! I think we found our in. Well, if she ends up being his old lady. There’s no way he’s letting that one get away. She’s a smoke show but in a classy way.”
It can’t be. Bram wouldn’t be stupid enough to date my hot neighbor. He’d see through her in two seconds flat.
“Anyway, that’s why I was late. But let’s get started with your final test.” Fly sets a baggie in front of each man with three brightly colored pills in each. “Take the pills. One of them will give you the runs. The other two are sugar.”
What?
Each man takes a pill out of the bag and pops it into his mouth, swallowing without hesitation.
Then reaches for another and another.
“Thank you. I’ll take the pills back.” Fly holds out a hand.
Vandal, Torque, and Ryot each set three pills in his hand.
Wow. “That was flawless.”
“Thanks. We practiced dozens of ways to palm a pill depending on the circumstances. Dealing with injections was trickier, but they’ll have their own syringes. They’re as ready to go in as we can make them without a few more years of training.”
Fly is right. We’re tossing these men in without much training. “I acquired some toys from a friend.” Maddox has some interesting contacts. I reach into my desk and pull out three boxes. They each contain multiple trackers. “You’ll wear at least one of these at any given time.”
Vandal pulls out a designer watch, ring, cuff links, and a simple chain. “There’s a tracker in the chain.” He lifts it up and looks at it on all sides. The links are chunkier, which happens to be in style now. “Where did they hide it? It doesn’t seem possible.”
That’s what I said. “It’s some new technology that isn’t even on the market for the military yet.”
“Does it really work?” Ryot opens his box, which contains a gauge for his ear, a bracelet that appears to be homemade out of paracord, an old Velcro watch, and metal and leather bracelets that I’ve seen in dozens of heavy metal music videos.
“Yeah. At any time, I can track all of them or just pick and choose.” I flip the tablet around that was provided to me to use solely for tracking. “We did our best to ensure that you have all the protection we can provide. We want you to remember that this isn’t a one-person job. Your only assignments are to get information and come out alive. This isn’t about you taking down the leader. Or getting justice for one of the fallen. When you get into the thick of it, you need to remember your brothers. If something happens to you out there, it happens to all of us. Don’t leave a hole in our family because you decided to be a hero and instead ended up dead.” I look each man in the eyes. “Come back safely.”
They nod.
“I’ll take each of your cuts. They’ll be waiting here for you.” This is solely a symbolic gesture, but each man understands the weight of it.
