The Crow’s Murder (Kit Davenport #5)
Tate James
1
Our captors escorted Wesley and me down via the service elevators and through the curiously empty basement of the hotel before they shoved us up a narrow staircase and then out into the loading dock behind the tower.
Waiting was a white van with blacked out windows and a town car.
“Much as I’d love to rattle around in the back of this with you, Foxy,” Simon sneered at me, “I have a much more comfortable ride waiting for me.” The door of the town car opened then, seemingly of its own accord, but I didn’t miss the twitch in Simon’s dead lips. Someone was waiting for him in that car. Someone he feared.
I narrowed my eyes at my recently dead, former best friend, Simon. I’d never have guessed he’d be the one to betray me over and over. He’d been like a brother to me and my actual best friend, Lucy. We’d grown up together in the same abusive, illegal foster home. We’d suffered the same treatment and nursed each other back to health afterwards.
Now, though, Simon’s red hair seemed more brown as it lay limp and dirty. His skin, once fair and freckled, was an inhuman blueish-gray. His cheeks were sunken, and he smelled faintly of decay. The rank condition fit, I guessed. He had been killed in an avalanche... How he’d managed to come back to life was another puzzle on top of the Rubik’s cube that was my life.
I spared no words for my foster brother, and with Wesley still gagged, we were silent as Simon walked stiffly to the town car and got inside. As he slammed the door shut, the guards holding me began roughly manhandling me into the back of the panel van.
My magic was gone, thanks to the strange cuffs they’d forced on me. As was my strength, which I guessed made sense. It, too, was a form of magic, and the cuffs seemed to be blocking all of it from use. If we were getting out of this, it’d have to be with good old-fashioned skill.
Wesley met my gaze as one of his guards unlocked the doors and held them open. His eyes widened a fraction, then darted down to the waist of the guard with his back to us. Immediately, I followed his line of sight and saw what he was indicating to. A gun. More specifically, a gun that hadn’t been correctly secured in its holster. Meaning it could easily just slip out.
I gave Wes a small nod, indicating I’d seen what he had. It was just a matter of waiting for the right opportunity... but standing in a loading dock surrounded by six armed guards with Simon and his mystery friend in a car just a dozen feet away wasn’t the right moment.
They pushed Wes into the van first, and the stupid guard leaned over to secure his cuffs to the bench seat with a normal looking chain. As he leaned, his unsecured gun was right there, begging to be taken.
Not fighting my own guards as they hauled me up and into the van, I let them get me within range, then faked a stumble, fell against dumbass’s back, and slipped the gun free with my cuffed hands in a move I’d used a thousand times before. Admittedly, it had been wallets I’d taken before and I’d never done it with my hands cuffed before... but the principle was the same.
“Sorry,” I muttered, letting my guards roughly shove me down into my seat so that I was now sitting on my stolen weapon. It sounds implausible that I’d been able to take a gun and hide it under my black sweatpants, all while cuffed and guarded. But I was no amateur. Pick-pocketing had been the only thing that’d kept Lucy, Simon, and I fed for a number of years under Mother Suzette’s roof. I was as pro as they came with sleight of hand, so a trick like this was nothing.
Meekly I allowed the guards to secure my own cuffs to the standard-issue metal chain and then take their seats on either side of me, as Wesley’s had done. The remaining two took the front seats of the van after slamming the doors shut with a heavy thunk.
I had no real plan. It was just a wing-it sort of situation, and I’d make a move whenever it either seemed right... or necessary. Without windows, it was hard to tell where we were. Hard but not impossible, as I could lean around the goon beside me to see out the front windshield.
We were in the middle of downtown Los Angeles. So, did we want to make a break for it in the middle of the city? On the one hand, the location gave us the advantage of camouflage. With so many people, cars, and buildings, it’d be easy to disappear. But on the other hand, there was bound to be collateral damage.
The idea of innocent people being caught in the crossfire when we made our escape sent a sick feeling to my stomach, and I decided to wait until we were clear of the city. It was a guess, but I didn’t think Simon was transporting us to somewhere within LA, which meant we could wait until we were on less populated roads before using my stolen gun.
However we did it, this van was going to crash. So I’d try and wait until it was less likely to crash into people. Of course, with no magic I had no healing so if I could avoid killing myself in the process, that’d be a bonus.
“So,” I started, looking around at the black-clad guards. Not a single inch of flesh showed, from their blacked-out helmet visors to their leather-gloved fingers. “You guys do this kind of thing often? Kidnap people from their hotel rooms?”
No response came, but I hadn’t exactly expected one. I was just killing time, working through nerves, and deflecting attention. When I was talking, their concentration would split, hopefully away from the weapon half under my ass, and half under my leg.
“You know Simon is dead, right?” I continued. Maybe I could shock them? “Like, I mean he’s some sort of crazy zombie-type creature now. So what does that make all of you? Are you zombies too? Does whoever ordered this kidnapping have an army of zombies?” I leaned over and gave a dramatic sniff to the guard beside me. To my amusement, he shifted a little away from me on instinct. “Nope, you don’t smell dead.”
Wesley met my eyes and rolled his. He clearly didn’t understand what I was doing, other than being snarky. That was okay though; I knew he had the necessary skills to help without instruction when the time came.
“Is it a money thing? ’Cause if it is, I can totally pay you guys to let us go,” I offered, looking carefully from one guard to the next and then flicking my gaze out the front window. It was worth a try, right? Lord knows if Jonathan had cut off my bank accounts, Vali and River had enough cash to fund a small army or more.
Again, no response. Fuckers.
“You know we aren’t going to make this easy on you all, right?” I shrugged, sitting back and crossing my legs. “I’d just hate to see you all killed if it was only a money thing. I can happily double whatever Simon—or Simon’s boss—is paying you.”
Nothing. That was a shame. It was a little concerning how desensitized I was becoming to casual murder. Not that I considered any deaths that might occur here to be murder. This was them or me, and I was in no way soft-hearted enough to choose them over me.
But still. It wasn’t that long ago I’d killed my first person and gone into shock over it. That had been back at Blood Moon labs... the very first mission I’d done with my dianoch. Which reminded me, that was another loose thread that needed investigating. How had Blood Moon captured Bridget in the first place? It was a question for another day.