We killed the engines inside the fence and let the silence fold over us.
“Creepy,” Medusa muttered.
“Stay sharp,” I said. “We’re not alone.”
You could smell the place—oil and rust and oldrubber. Cars were stacked three, four high in teetering rows, frames stripped, windshields punched out. It was a graveyard of other people’s bad days.
“Liberty and Jersey with me,” I said. “Indigo, Medusa, take flanks. Diamondback, watch our backs and the high spots. If anybody twitches up top, I want to know about it before they sneeze.”
We moved toward the little office shack near the front. The door stood half-open. A cheap metal sign that once said “OPEN” lay face-down in the dirt.
My skin crawled.
Inside, the air was stale and hot. Papers littered the floor. A mug lay shattered near a rolling chair knocked on its side.
“Clear,” I said quietly as we swept the small front room.
“Back here,” Liberty’s voice called.
I followed her into the rear office.
The yard owner was slumped in the corner, behind his desk. Eyes bulged. Face mottled. The phone cord was looped twice around his neck, digging deep, plastic handset on the floor a foot away.
I felt my jaw tighten.
“Strangled with his own line,” Liberty said, voice flat. “Old-school.”
“He didn’t come out to greet us because he was already dead,” I muttered. “They didn’t want witnesses when they came asking about thebike.”
“Or they didn’t like his answers,” Jersey added. His hand flexed once at his side. He looked like he wanted to hit something.
Liberty stared at the dead man for a beat, then let out a long breath through her nose. “Take it in,” she said. “Then let it go. We can’t do anything for him now.”
Footsteps crunched on metal and gravel outside. More than one set.
Liberty’s head snapped toward the door. So did mine.
We slipped back out into the sunlight, guns already in our hands.
“Talk to me,” I called out to the others.
“Movement between the stacks,” Indigo answered from somewhere to the left. “Multiple. Hands, cuts, guns. They were already here.”
“Steel Serpents I presume,” Medusa growled from the right. “Nice of them to show up.”
We stepped into a narrow aisle between car rows.
That’s where we saw them.
Four—no, six—bodies moving in the shadow of stacked frames. Serpents on their shoulders. Guns loose at their sides, but not low enough to bring comfort.
One stepped out more than the others. Slightly nicer boots. Slightly cleaner cut. Mask up over his nose, eyes sharp and amused.
“Good afternoon, ladies,” he called. His gaze flickedto Jersey. “And whatever you are.”
“Fashion consultant,” Jersey answered automatically. “You’re failing.”
The Serpent chuckled behind his covering.
