Page 66 of Gorgeous Misery

We wind up on the floor between the bed and the little table.

Harrison kicks us apart. “OK, OK! That’s enough. Get up. This isn’t getting anything accomplished.” He’s wearing pointy-toe cowboy boots, so it’s effective. Besides, the pressure between Merc and me has been released. Not eradicated, but we needed this little tussle in order to get past the anger and feelings of betrayal.

I get to my feet wiping blood away from my lip. “You think I’m not pissed?” I snarl at him. “You think I wanted any of this? Is that what you think, Merc?”

He’s back on his feet too. There’s a cut along his left brow where my ring caught him just the right way, so he’s busy wiping blood out of his eye. “You wanted it enough to keep it going, right? Because it is still going, right?”

“Do you really think the Company is ever going away? No. Dude. It’s a thousand years old. It’s not going anywhere. Do you have any idea how many people are involved? Easily two hundred thousand. And I’m not talking before we killed most of them off a few years back. I’m talking right fucking now, Merc. They are cockroaches. They breed. There are whole towns, villages, hell, even cities that are nothing but Company. They don’t even know they’re Company. That’s how fucked up it all is.”

“How do they not know? That’s fucking stupid. They know. They get money—”

“They get money from jobs, Merc. Think about it. Put yourself in their place for a moment. You are born into a small town. You grow up there. Maybe you leave for college, but more than likely you don’t. You were not bred with that kind of desire. So you stay where you are. You marry your high school girlfriend. You get a job at the bank, or the real estate office, or maybe you even own a dealership. And let’s get this straight, that’s best-case scenario, most of them end up on drugs because their minds can’t comprehend what’s happening around them.”

“What do you mean what’s happening around them?” Harrison says. “Because what you’re describing sounds an awful lot like the place I grew up.”

“Harrison,” I sneer. “You’re a fucking pilot. People in these towns, they work dead-end jobs. They get drunk at night. They wake up, they do it again. They don’t learn to fly planes. Towns like this have three classes of Company people. The ones who own Company businesses and know they own Company businesses. Dealerships. Banks. Real estate offices. Places where large sums of money get exchanged on the daily. Then you have the middle class. Business owners who think they’re in charge, but aren’t. Restaurant and bar owners. Corner stores. Garages. They exist to keep the third class happy. And the third class is everyone else. And I do mean that literally. People who know they have no power at all, they just follow orders. Cops. Mayors. City Council members. Teachers. Secretaries. Mechanics. Plumbers. Retail. Working class, get it?”

Merc doesn’t look impressed with my revelations. “What’s your fucking point?”

“I’m trying to explain how big this shit is. How pervasive they really are. An entire town can be owned, Merc. And ninety percent of them never even know about it. Because the Company is careful. They only take what they need. They breed those kids—”

“What the fuck are you talking about? I own a fleet of planes in a town just like the one you’re describing. And I’m not on any Company payroll.” Harrison is getting pissed. And I don’t blame him. It’s a lot for this guy. He’s not Company. He’s not Merc, either. Sure, he’s seen some shit, but that was a long time ago.

“Congratulations. You don’t live in a Company town. But just because you’re not part of it doesn’t mean it’s fake.”

Merc snaps his fingers to get my attention. “Get to the fucking point. I don’t need a history lesson.”

“History lesson? Is that what you think this is? You think, what, Adam is some… stupid leftover? He’s not. He’s not doing any of the shit I’m talking about here because he’s not evil. Not like that, anyway. But he knows about it. They breed them, Merc. There is no way to stop it. They need them. All of them. All ages, all races, both sexes.”

“Need them for what?” Harrison says.

I actually laugh. “Organs.”

“Oh, fuck you,” Harrison says. “That’s all bullshit. There is no underground organ trade. There are no Russians drugging people in Vegas and removing their kidneys while they sleep.”

“You’re right,” I say. “That’s not how it’s done. I just told you how it’s done. Small towns in the USA and Europe for the premium stock. But there are thousands of villages all over the world where the same thing is happening, minus the secrecy.”

Harrison huffs and looks over at Merc. “Are you falling for this shit? I mean, I don’t know where he’s going with it, but—”

Merc’s low, solemn voice cuts him off. “It’s not bullshit.”

“What?” Harrison is in complete denial. “Come on—”

“I’ve seen it.”

“Where?”

Merc looks at me and something inside him deflates. “Do you know what I was doing? Before the girls, I mean. Before Sydney?”

“PSYOPS,” I say.

“Sure. Yeah. But it was more than that.” He looks over at Harrison. “I was on a team. We hunted…” His eyes dart over and meet mine. “The runaways. They weren’t… for harvest.”

“Harvest?” Harrison is gonna lose his shit. We might need to knock him out if he wigs.

“Harrison,” I say. “Shut up. Listen to what we’re telling you.” I look over at Merc. “You shouldn’t have brought him here.”

Harrison takes a step towards me and then with two flat hands to my chest he pushes me back. “Don’t talk like I’m not here. Just because I need a minute to grasp the idea that an entire population of people exist for something called a harvest doesn’t mean I’m a dumbass.”