I grabbed the edge of the mattress, forced myself upright. The pain made my vision kaleido—fuck, swirl—but I locked my jaw and rode it out. “Where is she?”
He held up a hand. “Sit the fuck down, unless you want to open those stitches and bleed out for real.”
I ignored him, swung my legs over the side. The world dipped and swayed. I braced on the bed, steadied my hands against the tremor. “Talk.”
He let out a long breath, then relented. “Our eyes spotted her at a dump in Dulce. Motel off 64, north side. Leatherbacks got her locked down tight. At least two patched, maybe more. They’re moving her to Durango after nightfall. Then—” He didn’t finish. He didn’t need to.
I gritted my teeth. “Give me a ride.”
He laughed, short and hard. “You can’t walk, Augustine.”
I got to my feet anyway, nearly eating shit as my knee buckled. Damron caught me, his grip a vice. “You gonna walk in there like this? You think they’ll be scared of a dead man?”
“Not scared,” I said. “Surprised.”
He looked me up and down, then let go. “You’re lucky I don’t hogtie you to the bed.”
“Never worked before,” I said, and started shuffling for the door. Every step was a jail sentence. My vision kept tunneling, and I could feel my heart whamming around like it wanted out. But I kept going, because that’s what you do when every other option is a worse flavor of failure.
We hit the hallway, the noise level rising as we neared the main room. It was chaos in slow motion—guys loading magazines, cleaning knives, the smell of gun oil and bad coffee. Everyone looked at me as I walked through, some with respect, most with a silent “You’re fucking nuts.” I wore it like a badge.
Seneca was at the table, field-stripping a shotgun. He gave me a nod, then handed me a bottle of pills. “For the pain. Take two, not the whole bottle.”
I dry-swallowed four. He grinned.
We made it to Damron’s office, a bunker of bourbon and smoke and maps pinned to the wall. He closed the door behind us, and for a second, it was just the two of us and the weight of all our bad decisions.
“You know what happens if you go after her,” Damron said. “Cutler’s not going to let it slide.”
I leveled my gaze at him. “He was never going to let it slide. You know that.”
He nodded, poured two fingers of whiskey into a plastic cup, and handed it to me. “Then what’s your plan?”
I stared at the map on the wall—Dulce circled in red, routes marked in green and black. “Go in, get her out, burn the rest if I have to.”
He smiled, but there was no warmth in it. “I always did like your optimism.”
I finished the whiskey. It didn’t even burn.
Damron leaned in, voice low. “If you die, I have to take over this shitshow. You want that on your conscience?”
“If I don’t try, she dies for sure.”
He looked away, then back. “She means that much to you?”
I took a long second to answer. “She’s worth it.”
He laughed, but it sounded like a eulogy. “Fine. But we do it smart, not like a suicide run. Seneca’s setting up a perimeter. We’ll hit them at the handoff, not the motel.”
I nodded. “Good.”
He put a hand on my shoulder, squeezed hard. “Don’t get soft on me.”
“I’m already soft,” I said, deadpan. “Check my skull.”
He actually smiled. “Fuck you, August.”
“Love you too, boss.”
