Page 75 of Enemy

“Road! Come on over here!” Yeti yells from afar, and it’s followed by the sounds of a scuffle.

I have to slide through a narrow tunnel, but then I emerge in the large cave where some of our production takes place. The workers are picking up broken glass and clearing equipment, while Yeti is holding a guy whose name I don’t remember. I recognize his face though, as he’s caused trouble before.

Yeti, like his nickname suggests, is a massive, hairy guy with a bushy unibrow. “About time!” he yells at me as the man in his hold struggles to pull away.

“I didn’t do anything!”

But Creep is here to corroborate what Yeti has already told me on the phone. “I saw him stealing,” he says plainly. He’s sitting on one of the tables, eyes glued to the man who dared break our rules. His legs are crossed, wiry body leaning forward like a gargoyle on the facade of one of those medieval cathedrals.

“He said he just wanted to take a photo of it,” one of the workers says, stretching in her gray overalls. Olivia might be better at reading than I am, but she overslept when nature was handing out brain cells.

“Really? He wanted totake a photo of it? Are you fucking kidding me, woman?” Yeti asks, picking up a large bag of fresh leaves, which can send a person’s mind to the other end of the universe when consumed.

“She’s his girlfriend,” Creep fills in.

Her cheeks flush. “I’m not—”

Creep’s dark eyes turn to her menacingly. “I saw you with him yesterday, beyond the hot springs. And it wasn’t the first time.”

I have to admit I’m impressed by how he seems to know everything about everyone. I just hope he never followed me to any of my meetups with Clyde. The thought is… uncomfortable at best, and my death sentence at worst. He mustn’t know, or Prophet would have confronted me, since everyone knows Creep spies either for the club or for Brigid.

“I literally took it out of his pocket, Road,” Yeti shouts, agitating my pulsing head further.

“It was a mistake,” the guy—Rog,thatwas his name—whimpers, staring at me from behind a curtain of sweaty bangs.

“Definitely. I saw him take it,” Creep tells me, which is the fucker’s sentence. The people working here are paid handsomely, as well as allowed to live on our land, under our protection. If they choose to betray the trust put in them for a quick buck, I have no sympathy.

The gun cools my sweaty palm as I grab it, but not enough to calm the buzz of annoyance.

The edges of my vision tremble as I pull the trigger.

Chapter 29

Road

Thebanghurtsmyears, and my wrist aches from the recoil, but what counts is that the damn thief’s bleeding, his foot a mess of flesh and bone inside the moccasin he’s wearing.

The workers shriek, pulling back, as if they fear I’ll target them next, but even Creep frowns, lowering his feet to the floor. I know what he’s thinking. This isn’t a place for bullets. I could have beaten the bastard to show the others what happens to traitors, then maybe shot him somewhere more convenient, away from equipment, but this really isn’t my day.

Yeti lets go of Rog who drops to his knees sobbing and swearing at me. If he thinks that’s gonna fly, he has another thing coming.

I’m not sure what’s happening when Creep charges at me, straight from the table, like a mountain lion pouncing its prey. Fuck it. I’m ready for a fight. I had every right to shoot Rog. In fact, I even had the right to kill him for what he did.

Creep crashes into me, and we both fall, then roll over the ground. Just as that happens, a massive stalactite drops from the roof of the cave right where I was standing. It shatters into several large rocks.

“I said, no shooting in the caves!” Creep hisses in my face as we both catch our breaths. My back stiffened as we fell, and I only now let my neck relax, so my head rests on the rocky floor. The sudden change of position awakens the earlier nausea, and I cough, shutting my eyes to stop the world from spinning.

Creep shifts on top of me and grabs my T-shirt. “No. Shooting. In. The. Caves.”

“Yeah, yeah, you’re the master of spelunking, I get it,” I say, shoving him off so I can roll to my hands and knees and pull myself up. It’s embarrassing to have people see me like this, and I could have died, but the one thing I can do is smile and move on.

Olivia’s standing over Rog, gloved hands clasped over her mouth. “You’re such a fucking idiot,” she says, as if seeing him get shot gave her the ick.

He’s too terrified to argue with her, and I come over, shoving him to his front so I can get handcuffs on his wrists.

“We were just hooking up.”

“What?” I look up at Olivia, who clears her throat.