She shifts uncomfortably, caught out in a lie. Embarrassing, but we both know our priority is getting out of here. My moral outrage can come later.
“You’re talking to Clarissa Goodacre,” she says, stepping forward, hands on her hips.
He looks doubtful at first, but slowly the knowledge seems to dawn. “The red hair. Should have known. Can’t be too many reds like you left in the world. But I always thought Cletus was part-Navajo,” he says. “Used to joke about being the same clan.”
“You’re Navajo?” I ask, surprised.
“You actually knew him?” Rissa asks.
“ ’Course. We all knew him. Until . . .” He makes a gesture, something to ward off evil. Curious. I’ve never asked Grace what happened to Cletus. How he died. I just assumed it was in the Energy Wars or in some horrible accident like her husband.
“So, are you going to get us out of here?” I ask.
He looks back to me. Hesitates, glances down at the needle still in his hand. “You’ll get me into Dinétah. Set me up, a wealthy man.”
Rissa nods.
“Exactly how much wealth are we talking?”
“Enough to make it worth your while. You knew Cletus, so you know that I’m good to my word.”
He taps the needle against his cheek. “Tempting. But if I get caught, I’ll be the next one in that cage.”
“You won’t get caught because you’ll come with us,” Rissa practically croons. “We make it to that airplane, no one’s catching us.”
I can see the greed practically shining from his eyes, in the way he twirls the needle between his fingers, contemplating. He swallows hard as Rissa swaggers forward, hips swinging in her fitted brown leathers. She leans folded arms against the bars. She’s close enough to reach out and touch him if she wants.
“So, what do you say, Aaron?” she drawls. “Want to be rich?”
Chapter 23
Aaron decides he does indeed want to be rich. He pockets the needle and pulls a ring of keys from his belt, deftly finding the one that opens our cage. Turns the lock and I’m swinging the door open before he’s even finished. I’d never been in a cage before and I can’t say I cared for the experience. Don’t think I’ll do it again.
Aaron lets me pass and then turns back to Rissa. Gives her a little bow as he holds the door open for her. She returns the gesture with a predator’s grin. He reaches out and takes her hand. Kisses her knuckles. “An honor, Ms. Goodacre,” he murmurs.
I have to stop myself from gagging. “Really? Ms. Goodacre?”
“No reason we can’t be civil,” she says, giving me a fuck-off kind of smile.
I want to point out that ten minutes ago Aaron was willing to cut her into pieces and sell her liver to the highest bidder. But I don’t. Instead I say, “Be civil all you want. Let’s just get out of here.”
And that’s when we hear it. Voices coming from the stairwell. Two men at least, maybe more.
“Were you expecting backup?” I ask, tense.
Aaron goes rigid. “No. Everyone’s supposed to be at the auction. No one’s allowed in the Reaping Room when there’s prisoners.”
I scan the room, looking for weapons. Four metal tables, way too heavy to lift. Bare bulbs hanging in intervals from the ceiling. Meat hooks. And along the wall, medicine cabinets. I hadn’t really noticed them before, but now that I have, I’m guessing they are full of surgical equipment. The kind one might use to remove organs.
“Fuck!” Aaron hisses, striding for the door. There’s a small window at eye level. He hunches down to peek through, looking up the stairs. “You’ve got to be shitting me.” He runs a shaky hand across his head. “What are they doing here?” He claps his hands together sharply. “Think, Aaron, think.” He looks up, eyes bright. “Quick, back in the cage.”
“Like hell,” Rissa says for both of us.
“If you’re out, the jig is up.”
“There is no jig.” I walk to the closest cabinet. Slam my elbow against the flimsy lock and it comes open. Sure enough, sharp metal gleams back at me in deadly little rows. I grab what looks like a scalpel, careful not to cut myself. Slip two razors on long handles into the places where my throwing knives usually go.
“What are you doing?” Aaron whisper-shouts at me. “These are my buddies. You’re not going to chop them up.”
“Watch me,” I say, tucking a particularly ugly blade into my sleeve.
“No!” he says, grabbing at my arm. I shake him off, give him a look that’s frightened braver men than him, and he backs down.
“Okay, all right, all right.” He paces the floor. “Rissa!” He hurries to Rissa, who’s resting her butt against one of the steel tables, eyeing the meat hooks above her thoughtfully. “You’re the sane one in the girl group, am I right?”
“I heard that,” I say.
“Can you talk your friend there into getting in the cage? I won’t lock it, and we already have a deal, right? You know I wouldn’t go back on a deal. Not with Cletus’s sister. But let me see what my buddies want. Maybe it’s a mistake. Maybe they can walk away, eh? Before it gets violent.”
Rissa crosses her arms. The voices are getting louder, laughing and joking as heavy footsteps come down the stairs.
“What do you say, Maggie?” she asks me, leaning forward a bit. “Should we give them a chance?”
“Or,” I say, shutting the cabinet. “We could just kill them.”
Aaron groans.
“I thought you were turning over a new leaf,” Rissa says to me. “Trying not to kill people.”
“I was, but that was yesterday. Today, with the whole captured and drugged thing? I’m feeling pretty aggro.”
Rissa gestures to Aaron like there’s nothing she can do.
“Unless,” I say, cutting off whatever he was going to say next. “Unless you help us find Ben.”
“Sure, sure, whatever you want. Let me—let me open that door and I will help you with your Ben, no problem.”
“Okay.” I look to Rissa. “Okay?”
“You armed?” she asks.
I nod, a feral smile leaking from my lips. “I’ve even picked out a few for you. I know you prefer a gun, but it’s good for a woman to learn to use a blade.”
“That’s nice, Maggie. I appreciate you thinking of me.”
“No reason I can’t be civil, Ms. Goodacre.”
Aaron’s dancing from foot to foot, sweating. If I weren’t convinced we were going to have to fight our way out of this place in the next sixty seconds, I’d laugh. But instead I saunter over to the cage, and Rissa follows. Aaron starts to close the door, but I stop it with my foot. Hold out my hand. He slaps the key ring down in my palm, so I move my foot and let him close the door.
“Now lie down,” he says, eyes darting between us and the door. “So it looks like I drugged you.”
We can hear that Aaron’s friends have arrived, so we don’t argue. Rissa and I hit the concrete. I fling an arm out to cover my face, but I make sure I can see the door. Aaron practically sprints for the stairwell, slapping the bright lights off as he hits the wall. He catches the knob and pulls it open just as two men barrel through.
“My brothers!” he shouts, overly friendly. “What are you doing here?”
Aaron’s friends freeze. The one in front, a big guy with an unkempt beard and a broad sloping belly, stutters out, “A-Aaron. We thought you’d be up at the auction with everyone else.” His eyes dart around the room, clearly looking for something, someone. Us. But the dark has rendered Rissa and I into indistinct lumps. “Bishop sent me down to check on the prisoners.”
The other one laughs nervously. “Oh yeah, same. We were just checking.”
“Funny,” Aaron says in a voice as empty as the Malpais. “He didn’t mention he was sending you two down. In fact, I was supposed to dose them and lock them up for the night. You know the rules.”