Hunters - Matt Rogers (good novels to read TXT) 📗

realised she was sitting on the edge of the bed in the darkened room, hunched over him, watching his face like a hawk. That’s what her eyes reminded him of. The bird’s silent glare, wide and uncompromising. Had she always looked this way? He couldn’t remember her appearing so … harsh.

She said, ‘I screwed up the dosages. I gave you two sixty-milligram pills. I thought they were tens. You had a heroic dose, I won’t lie. But you’ll be fine. You just need to recover.’

He groaned out loud.

Then he remembered what Slater had been through in Wyoming. In contrast, this wasn’t as bad. Bodhi had entranced Slater in a hallucinated fever dream, and he’d fought to maintain his sanity. This was merely bliss. It dulled the world, took the edges off, killed King’s racing thoughts. Why did anyone do anything else? Why couldn’t life be this good all the time?

Antônia whispered, ‘You did so well today.’

‘Where are the others?’ he mumbled.

She was like an angel, floating over him, her face swimming. Those eyes.

Hawkish.

She said, ‘Recuperating. Licking their wounds. Discussing what will come next.’

‘And … what will come next?’

‘I’ll do my job.’

‘Protecting us?’

‘No, no,’ she said, caressing his cheek. ‘My real job.’

He couldn’t move.

But he could think.

And it came to him rather clearly. With the amount of oxycodone in his system, his thoughts became simple. There was no need to rationalise what was right in front of him. There were no blockades obstructing his path to the truth.

He knew what she was in an instant.

‘It was too dangerous before,’ she said. ‘If it’s any consolation, you and Will are two unsolvable puzzles. Enigmas in the flesh, really. You never drop your guard. Not for a second.’

‘So you let your colleagues … wear us down.’

A slight nod of her head.

King said, ‘You … you felt no loyalty?’

‘They’d do the same if the roles were reversed,’ she said. ‘And loyalty is overrated. I guess it’s good for the cowboy tales. That’s what you Americans love, right?’

‘You’re an American.’

‘I’m of no nationality,’ she said. ‘The only purpose of nationalism is to instil cultish devotion. So soldiers go overseas and die without thinking twice about it. No, I’m an individualist.’

Her words were dreamlike through the opioid haze.

King mustered his energy. ‘Who prostitutes herself ... to the Americans. To the dark side you pretended not to know about.’

She smiled. ‘For my own gain.’

‘What happens now?’

‘Now I get rid of your friends. They’re out there, expecting nothing. And then I go back to being “Sapphire.”’

‘Did Alonzo know?’

She continued stroking his cheek. ‘No. He really is a good man. I told him that, half a year ago, when we first met in the flesh. I meant it. That’s why I wished he never contacted me again. I said I would be with him … if I left with a soul. I didn’t mention I’d already lost it.’

‘He told us you worked for his division.’

‘I do. It’s a part-time gig. Someone needs to keep tabs on the beautiful innocent idiots who think they’re doing good work for a noble cause. That’s your side of the shadow world.’

‘Where is he now?’

‘My real employers have him. No one likes a traitor.’

King was halfway to an out-of-body experience, so he could almost see his stomach sinking from a third-person view.

She bent down and kissed his forehead. He tried to reach up and crush her throat with his hands, but he only managed a half-hearted gesture. She gripped his wrists with frightening strength and pinned them to the mattress. There was no pain in his torn forearm, only a distant throb. Coming from somewhere else, not his own body. The painkillers had worked their magic.

She looked into his eyes. ‘You’re a good man too. I wasn’t expecting it. I thought Alonzo was a naïve idiot.’

‘He’s not.’

She smirked. ‘No. He’s not. Shame it doesn’t change anything.’ She leant down closer to him. Her lips were inches from his. ‘I’m going to leave you here. You can’t move a muscle. I want you to hear everyone you care about die.’

‘Why?’

‘So you know what happens to good people in a bad world. So you never make that mistake again.’

‘You think … I’m going to side … with you?’

‘I’m not stupid. I know you probably won’t. But just as Alonzo came to me because he was thinking with his genitalia, sometimes I let myself do the same. I’m drawn to you. Maybe it’s false hope. I won’t kill you first because you mean something to me, whatever that may be. Your crew, though … they’re nothing.’

King’s head swam for a hundred different reasons.

He tried to think.

He croaked, ‘What happened at Joya de Cerén?’

Antônia smirked as she remembered.

71

Joya de Cerén Archaeological Site

Antônia was facedown in the muck of the jungle floor when Opal stepped on the back of her ribcage.

She knew it was him from the weight distribution. After spending most of her life in this world, she’d fine-tuned her perceptions to be intensely aware of the human body.

When she rolled over she let the knife go immediately, in case her fellow hunters hadn’t identified her yet and reacted impulsively to the sight of a threat.

Opal stared down at her.

She said, ‘Shit.’

He lowered his gun. ‘Shit?’

‘I was waiting for them. Not you.’

‘They’re further along.’

Coated head-to-toe in mud, only her eyes were visible, aflame with excitement. ‘They trust me.’

The brute regarded her for just a moment, then made his mind up. ‘Come here, then.’

She rose, nodding a brief greeting to Topaz, who nodded back, stereotypically quiet.

‘How deeply?’ Opal asked.

‘They won’t see it coming. This is a terrible location for a skirmish. If it doesn’t work here, I’ll get them when we make it to Santa Ana.’

‘It’ll work here. This is the end of the road. You may as well come on board. We’ll overwhelm them.’

She shook her head. ‘For how deeply we despise them, they’re fucking good. They didn’t lower their guard for a second on the drive. I don’t know whether they were conscious of it,