Page 7 of King of Lies (Mayhem Manuscripts Season One: 1nf3ction #6)

Apparently, there was something funny about what I’d said, Keaton laughing as he walked toward the wooded area that bordered Birmingham. “What?” I demanded. “And where are you going?”

He gestured toward the trees. “My weapon.”

Keaton had a weapon besides the dagger he’d used last night.

Not the best news, but hardly surprising.

I trailed after him as he squinted at a tree, seemed to recognize it despite its unremarkable appearance, and used it to orient himself.

I cocked my head, listening for any telltale sounds of biters, because one thing they weren’t was quiet.

The virus stole any aptitude for stealth along with most other things that made a person human, leaving an empty shell interested in nothing but hunting down its next meal.

“You hooked that woman like she was a fish and you’d reeled her in,” Keaton said as he crouched and dug in the soil with his bare hands.

The accuracy of the reading momentarily took me aback. “How so?”

“The smile. The deliberate pause.” He paused his digging to do an almost perfect impression of my cap-doffing gesture. “That. You wanted her to fawn all over you.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

He unearthed something large, unwrapping the cloth that covered it to reveal a crossbow and a full quiver of bolts. I would have preferred something that required close proximity. Like a sword. Or like the axe I carried myself. “Do you know how to use that thing?”

He squinted up at me, the day brighter after the red rainstorm of the night before, as it always was. As if the sky had cleansed itself of its toxicity. “No. I just carry it around to make me look big and butch.”

No crossbow needed for that. “I’ll rephrase my question. How good are you? If I’m traveling with someone, I like to know what I’m dealing with in case we run into trouble.”

Keaton stood, using the side of his boot to fill in the hole. He folded the cloth and put it in his pocket, presumably for the next time he needed to hide his crossbow. “Don’t you mean when we run into trouble?”

I inclined my head in recognition of the indisputable fact. He wasn’t to know that I expected our acquaintance to last only a matter of hours before I ditched him. “Okay. How good are you with it when we run into trouble?”

“Pretty good.”

“Which means what?”

“I’m consistently accurate up to about seventy meters. Sometimes farther if I’m having a good day and there’s little wind.”

“Right.” I logged that for future reference, amending my plan for the coming night to make sure he didn’t have his crossbow anywhere near him. I didn’t fancy my chances of getting further than seventy meters away before he noticed I had no intention of keeping my side of the bargain.

He slung the crossbow over his shoulder so that it dangled at his side within easy reach, and he attached the quiver to his belt.

Once everything was in place, he stared at me expectantly.

I retraced our steps, my hiding place a small cave that could only be seen once you were on top of it. “Who taught you to shoot a crossbow?”

“The army.”

“You’re a soldier?”

“I was. Until I got bitten. They prefer their soldiers not to have to stay out of the rain.”

“Seems picky. With an attitude like that, they’ll run out of people they can use.”

“Right,” Keaton said, bitterness seeping into his voice. “Try telling them that.” I brushed a thick overhang of ferns out of the way to reveal the cave entrance. “This is where you keep the suppressants?” he asked.

“No.” Disappointment flickered across his face before he masked it. “This is where I keep my bike.”

“You have a bike?”

I didn’t need to answer that question, seeing as I was already wheeling it out.

“You thought I walked everywhere?” I rested it on its stand and then went back for my axe and leather jacket.

I put on the jacket, tucking the axe into it once I’d zipped it up.

When I returned, Keaton was circling the bike, his expression one that said he could barely believe what he was seeing.

“How old is it?” he asked.

“Old.”

“And it still runs?”

I decided it was time to repay the sarcasm when I’d asked about the crossbow. “No. I just like to wheel it around with me. It saves carrying a bag.”

Keaton’s lips twitched. He fought it for a few seconds before giving in, the twitch becoming a smile.

It was a nice smile. If circumstances were different, Keaton and I could have had ourselves some fun of the horizontal kind.

I could have seen if he could put all that muscle to good use.

A shame, really, but those were the breaks.

He eyed the bike suspiciously as I straddled it.

It felt as good between my thighs as it had on the first day I’d ridden it, giving me a sense of power nothing else could.

Not even standing in the middle of a rain-soaked courtyard with a crowd of people hanging on my every word could compare.

The bike represented speed, freedom, escape, and fond memories.

There was only one thing I loved more than this bike, and when that wasn’t around anymore, it would be all I had.

I turned my head when Keaton simply stood there. “Are you getting on?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know how to ride one.”

I laughed at his ignorance. “You’re not the one riding it.

You don’t have to do anything except hold on and leave everything else to me.

” I inserted the key and pressed the switch, kicking the stand up at the same time so the decades-old engine rumbled to life.

“Make your decision, because I’m leaving. With or without you.”

Keaton gingerly straddled the bike, as if he thought it might explode into motion at any moment, which tempted me to do exactly that.

I tamped down the urge. I wanted to fleece him of what he had.

Not kill him. Ellsworth had been right. What about when someone uses the suppressant and goes out in the rain thinking they’re safe and they turn?

Are you going to claim you’re not culpable?

I ignored the voice in the back of my head that had been asking that question ever since I’d begun running this con and concentrated on Keaton, who sat primly, as far back from me as he could.

“Sit like that, and you’re going to fall off. ”

“How am I supposed to sit?”

Christ. It was like having a baby on the back of my bike.

A big, muscley baby, but a baby nonetheless.

“Shuffle forward. Close as you can. Wrap your arms around me and hold on.” The long pause said Keaton was contemplating whether that was something he really wanted to do.

“Or you can get off and run behind the bike,” I suggested.

“You were in the army. You must be physically fit. We could find out just how fit you are.”

He shuffled forward. His wrapping his arms around me took longer. “For fuck’s sake,” I said. “I’m not made of glass. You’re not going to break me.”

“This is fine.”

Keaton changed his mind as soon as I opened up the throttle, clinging on for dear life.

A change happened within a few miles as the bike ate up the miles: a relaxation in his body that said Keaton got it.

When he let out a whoop of pure pleasure, I found myself smiling, forgetting for a moment that he was a mark, and just glad to share my enjoyment of being on the road with someone else.

Every now and again, the sound of the bike would attract biters, and they’d come stumbling out of the undergrowth. They were no match for our speed and soon gave up on chasing us, even their virus-enhanced limbs incapable of going at over ninety miles an hour.