The mind narrows down to a pinpoint. There is only the cool trigger under the finger, only the door.
When the door explodes open, the trigger moves under the finger, the pistol roars and flashes. A hundred danger signals scream in alarm, warning the mind to move the body, but the signals are overridden through sheer force of will. The finger squeezes. And again.
Bullets rip through flesh and organs, shattering bone, snapping sinew. The pistol is empty. The body falls to the ground, broken.
Damage control. The mind kicks into overdrive, but now it has too much to do. It can't respond to all the pain stimuli so it floods the bloodstream with more adrenaline and then it tries to stop the blood loss but it's all happening too quickly. The parasite growing in the brain tries to help and sends its spores to the damaged sites but there are too many to repair; this host will die before the parasite gains a foothold here.
Synapses fire in increasingly random order, the entire neural network is breaking down. The temporal cortex gives up all its stored memories in a bright burst of information that touches the last vestiges of the conscious mind.
Then the brain, deprived of oxygen, shuts down in a cascade failure like an overworked power grid.
July 27, 2033, 4:52 am
"Alright, watch your head." Joel used a rusty metal pipe as a lever, his muscles bunching under the green flannel shirt as he raised the heavy beams blocking the doorway. "Alright, go, go, go!" His voice was strained.
The splintered timber scraped her back as Tess followed Ellie's wriggling hips through the hole Joel was making in the debris, and she felt the weight of untold tons of collapsed wood and plaster pressing down on her as he grunted with the effort of levering the opening wide enough for them to crawl through.
How the fuck am I going to hold this open from the other side? she thought as she joined the girl, who was shaking plaster dust out of her tangled hair.
"Son of a b—" There was a crack, louder than a shotgun blast, and then a splintering shriek as the beams crashed back down.
"Joel?" She could see the light from his flashlight, but he didn't answer. "Joel!" Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck…
"I'm alive." He sounded as shaken as she was. Relief flooded her body at the sound of his voice. That was too close. "I'll…I'll make my around to—"
The eerie shriek of a clicker split the air and she spun around.
"Look, they're here!" Ellie's voice was high with fear at the sight of the two monsters staggering through the doorway.
"Tess?" Joel called.
She turned to Ellie. "Run. Run!"
January, 2027
"It's dislocated," Mike said, confirming what Tess already knew. Shoulders shouldn't stick out from the joint that way.
Tess swore. "God damn it, Richie!" He was supposed to come with her on a pickup outside tomorrow, and he would be no fucking use to her with his arm in a sling. She didn't have anyone else free tomorrow, either. Mike and Carlos were moving product from the hole to the warehouse district, Paulie was still off drumming up new contacts at the FEDRA admin building, and Callie was out of town meeting a dealer.
This...this was going to fuck up her plans significantly, the well-oiled machine of her organization once again grinding to a halt because of Richie's arrogance and stupidity.
"I can come with you tomorrow," Mike offered quietly. He'd known her since she was a teenager, had taught both her and her father the business. He knew what was going through her mind.
Tess flashed him a quick look of gratitude, both for his offer and for not mentioning what a monumental fuckup Richie was. Mike wasn't the kind of guy to say "I told you so." She shook her head. "No. Carlos's plan needs two people to get past the checkpoint, and those crates need to be in the North End by the end of the day tomorrow."
"That asshole never woulda got the jump on me if I hadn't been distracted! I swear, baby, I woulda had him!" Richie said.
"Don't call me baby." Tess hissed it through her teeth. She couldn't believe she'd once found Richie's little displays charming. She looked up at Mike, whose slate blue eyes were unreadable. But he was pressing his hands together in front of his barrel chest, flexing his shoulders like he did when he was upset about something. "Can you set it? Or am I going to have to pay a medic?" Christ, the number of ration cards she'd spent fixing his fool ass back up. She didn't even want to think about it.
Mike ran one large hand over his rough cheek, stubbled with red-gold hair that was fading to silver, like the hair on his head. Finally he nodded. "I've done it before. It's been a while, but I think we can take care of this in house."
"Fuck, no!" Richie whined and turned to appeal to Tess. "Baby, you can't...you gotta get a professional to look at me!"
Tess stared at him. Richard J. Spinelli had showed up in the Boston QZ six months ago from New York. Having heard for years how dangerous the smoking ruins of Manhattan had become, Tess had been sufficiently dazzled by Richie's good looks and thrilling survival stories of dodging infected in the remains of the Upper East Side that she'd hired him for a job. Six months later, she was sure most of those stories had been lies, or at the very least hugely embellished, and the good looks were starting to bore her, coupled as they were with Richie's undeniable cowardice and inability to keep his dick in his pants.
"Do it," she said to Mike. She left the room over Richie's protests, which turned into howls of pain as Mike presumably worked his magic.
She wanted to punch a wall. Damn it, she was pissed! She should have kicked Richie's ass out months ago, but the man was a savant in the bedroom and every time he'd fucked something up she'd been able to explain it away to herself. Even on that very first job he'd screwed up, throwing bottles to draw some infected away from where he and Tess were hunkering down behind a burnt-out Ford 150 and driving their attention toward the approaching FEDRA agents. It was the first time Tess had seen anyone use infected as a weapon against a human enemy, and it would have been highly effective if Mike and Carlos hadn't been directly in between the infected and the FEDRA troops. They'd barely all gotten out of that one with their skins intact.
The fact that she'd defended him back then, and kept defending him through all his fuckups, both small and big, burned in her throat like bile.
Mike had cornered her once and said, with trademark bluntness delivered in his hoarse tenor, "You're thinking with your dick, Tess. Cal never would've…"
She'd already been feeling defensive, and she'd blown up at him. "Dad's not here to run this organization, I fucking am! And I'll use who I fucking well want to use, old man! If you don't like it then you can get the fuck out."
Mike hadn't talked to her for a week, and Tess hadn't apologized, but she bitterly regretted losing her temper with him. He had been her right hand man for a long time, and her father's before that, she should have fucking listened to him. Mike hadn't mentioned Richie again, but things had been strained between them ever since.
She couldn't be angry with Mike. He'd just been trying to warn her. And what she was feeling towards Richie right now was more like disgust than anger. She was incredibly fucking pissed off at herself, but that was not a constructive kind of anger, unsatisfying unless one was prone to self-flagellation or self-destruction, which she was not. She needed to find some outside outlet for her rage.
Mike came out of Richie's bedroom, mopping his forehead with a dirty rag. "He passed out." He couldn't quite keep the curl out of his lip.
Tess nodded. "Fine." An unconscious Richie was one that wasn't fucking whining at her, and that suited her right now. "You know the guy who fucked him up?"
Mike shrugged, his watery blue eyes blinking. "Not personally, but by reputation. Sandoval's used him for muscle and escort service. He's a bit of a loner...doesn't mix well with a crew. Least that's what I heard." He frowned at her. "What are you thinking?"
"Can't let one of my people get his ass handed to him in public like that." She folded her arms over her chest. "It's the principle of the thing."
Mike sighed. "Tess…"
"No, Mike. I know what you're gonna say. But you were the one who taught me that reputation is important in this business. You know I can't let this go. If our clients think I can't even protect my own people…" She shook her head. "And what do you think our competition will do with this? They're probably circling like sharks who smell blood in the water right now. This is damage control." Fucking Richie. He would get himself beaten up public, not private. "Tonight. We'll go down to the Winchester and we'll put some hurt on this guy. It'll be like old times."
Mike looked down, then nodded. "Alright, you're the boss." He hesitated.
"What is it?" Tess tried to keep her voice neutral, but there was a warning there. She was done talking about Richie. To her surprise, Mike wanted to talk about something else.
"The inventory is short again. I checked the book twice."
Tess swore. "What the fuck is going on, Mike? Yesterday our drop was gone before we ever got there, now shit's going missing from our own warehouse? How much is gone? And what?"
"Just small stuff. Some pills, some ammo, a few medical supplies. But you know what this means, don't you?
She pinched the bridge of her nose. "It means we have a rotten apple in the barrel." Richie, so help me, if you're responsible for this, you won't live to see tomorrow.
Mike's silence was eloquent.
"I'll deal with it. I just have to be sure first." God, could this day get any fucking worse?
"Tess…"
"I said I'd deal with it, Mike," she said, her voice sharper than she intended.
He nodded. "Okay. What about tomorrow?"
She rubbed her eyes with the heel of her hand, suddenly exhausted. "I'll think of something. Just meet me downstairs at nine. I'm gonna get some sleep."
November 7, 2013
Tess clutches the handle of the aluminum briefcase. It feels too light to hold a million dollars, but her dad had showed it to her, all the little bundles of crisp hundred-dollar bills stacked and banded together, just like in a movie. He's sitting at the kitchen counter, loading a pistol magazine with 9mm bullets, and when he's done he slides it into the pistol and racks the slide. That means it's loaded, she thinks. She can't take her eyes off it. It's also like a movie, but horribly real. She didn't even know her dad owned a gun. Why would he? He's an investment banker.
"Do you have to go? The news lady said to stay inside," she says.
"This might be our only chance, sweetheart." He stands and tucks the pistol into the waistband of his jeans, then gestures to her cousin, Jake. "You know the drill. While I'm gone…"
"…Don't leave the apartment for any reason. Don't open the door for anyone." Jake recites. They've both heard this speech before.
Her dad nods. "Good. I'll see about getting a gun for you while I'm out. In the meantime, keep that baseball bat handy."
"I will, Uncle Liam." Jake's voice is solemn. They all remember what happened to the Talbot family a couple weeks ago. The crime scene tape still covers their front door, even though all the bodies had been removed. The police haven't been back since.
"Now, Tessa, I've got something for you before I go." He fishes in his pocket. "It's a little early for Christmas, and I didn't wrap it, so close your eyes and hold out your hands."
Tess does as she's told and feels the weight of the cool, hard shape against her fingers before she opens her eyes again. It's a knife handle. She look up at her dad uncertainly.
"Whoa!" Jake says, coming closer for a better look. "Is that—?"
Her dad smiles grimly. "It's a switchblade." He takes the knife from her hands and turns it around to show it to her. "This is the safety lock. You just flip it back and press this button." The knife makes a quiet click, and then there are four inches of gleaming sharp steel in his hand. Another click on the switch and the blade retracts again. "This is for emergencies only," he warns her before he presses it back into her hand. "Understand?"
Tess nods and tries the switch, nearly dropping the knife when it springs out. It almost feels alive in her hand.
"Hey, uh, aren't those things illegal as hell?" Jake asks.
"Yeah." Her dad doesn't say anything else, but his face is troubled like it always is these days. He smiles when he sees her trying to get used to the knife. "That's a good weapon for you, fast and small, but still able to get the job done. It suits you."
Tess smiles uncertainly. "Thanks, Dad."
"I'd better get going. Jake, I'll leave my cell in case your parents try to call."
"Okay, Uncle Liam. Thanks." Jake is eighteen and tries to act cool, but his parents are in Hawaii and it's been days since anyone's heard from them. Tess carefully doesn't say that it's been over twenty-four hours since she was able to even get a signal on her own phone.
Tess and Jake look at each other after the door closes and they lock it. He doesn't say anything, but by unspoken agreement they're both drawn to the condo's balcony, twelve stories up and overlooking the city, whose familiar contours have become strange and frightening since the news of the first reported case of cordyceps brain infection in New England, nearly a month earlier.
"There's another big fire," Jake says pointing. "Over towards the harbor, looks like."
She nods. "Look, they built more of the wall. It looks really high." The new quarantine zone walls are going up over a mile from where they now stand. It looks so close, but the man from the military who visited them said that space inside was extremely limited and they'd be put into a lottery for it just like everyone else whose homes were outside the perimeter. Her dad had spoken a few choice words about that after the man left.
"Do you think that man can really get us onto the list for the zone?" she asks Jake.
"I sure as fuck hope so. He'd better, for a million bucks." Jake sighs and looks out over the city. She wonders if he's thinking about his parents, but she doesn't want to ask. Even if they could get back to Boston from Hawaii at this point, they'd still be left out of the quarantine zone. It's not even big enough for the entire population of Boston, and Aunt Mary and Uncle Jin live in Cambridge, not Boston proper.
Jake shakes a cigarette out of a crumpled package and grimaces. "Last one." He lights it and takes a long drag, then hands it to her. Tess breathes the hot smoke deep into her lungs without coughing, the hit of nicotine makes her head light for a moment. The first time Jake offered her a smoke, the day the outbreak reached their part of the country, it had been something of a joke. She'd inhaled it badly and spent the next twenty minutes coughing, to Jake's amusement. But the shared cigarette has become a ritual with them over the past few weeks. He doesn't have to tell her that, like all the trappings of life before, this too will be falling away. She's only twelve, but she's smart enough to know that the ongoing riots in the streets mean life won't be returning to normal anytime soon. She can see the smoking ruin of the bodega where Jake bought that last pack of cigarettes just across the street from them, and she wonders what will happen to all the people who don't have a million dollars to buy themselves into the quarantine zone.
She blows the smoke out from her nose, which makes Jake cackle. "Always knew you weren't as much of a good girl as you pretended to be, Tess."
She rolls her eyes. "Oh, shut up." She hands him the cigarette back, but the comment thrills her in a way she can't explain. She's sorry for him that Jake isn't with his parents, but she's selfishly glad that he's here with her, that she's not alone.
They pass the dwindling cigarette back and forth and watch the city of Boston burning.
January, 2027
Tess tried not to grind her teeth at the way Richie was lagging behind her brisk walking pace. He was cradling his arm to his chest and visibly wincing at every tiny jostle. In the past this would have elicited some sympathy from her, but she was still too pissed off at him. She hadn't been able to sleep, she'd just tossed and turned on her mattress until she finally gave it up as a bad job.
Mike wasn't saying much of anything, but his silence told her more than words ever would. He didn't agree with her decision, but he would support her when it came down to teaching Richie's attacker a lesson.
And then, she'd have to get rid of Richie.
She knew she had to do it. Even if he wasn't stealing from her, he was too unreliable, and he had gotten much, much too complacent about the security of his place in her organization…and her bed. Tomorrow, she thought. I'll have Mike take him over to the West End and turn him loose, tell him he's not welcome here anymore.
"Tess, baby, slow down," Richie said.
She wheeled on him. "Do not fucking call me baby. Ever." Did he not know how close to the edge she was? He was going to have to talk fast to get back in her good graces this time, that's for damn sure, but talking fast was what Richie was best at.
"C'mon, Tess," Richie said. "Don't be like that. I said I was sorry." His voice was petulant, like a sulky child's. He reached out with his good arm and trailed a finger from her jaw to her collarbone, and his voice deepened into that cadence she could never resist. "C'mon, beautiful."
"Cut it out," she said, keeping her voice low. "We're almost there." She grabbed his hand in hers but she held it too long, and she could see his eyes widen in knowing triumph before she dropped it and turned on her heel to stalk toward the bar. She still liked the way his hand on her skin made her feel. She didn't miss the way Mike's lips pressed together in disapproval.
I know, I know, Mike, she thought. It was like Richie had cast a spell on her.
"Tess, what makes you think this guy'll still be here?" Mike's high voice interrupted her thoughts.
She stopped in front of the door, on which someone had, many years ago, spray-painted the words "Winchester Arms." Mike had told her it was the name of a bar in a pre-outbreak zombie movie, and though Tess had never seen the movie in question, she appreciated the black humor that had driven the original tagger. "I don't. But if he's not, we can find out where he is."
She gave a complicated series of knocks on the peeling wooden door and it swung open. "Hey, Jimmy." She greeted the old-timer at the door, a powerful-bodied man whose right leg ended in a wooden peg. He was a grizzled veteran in his fifties, a former marine who'd survived two tours in Afghanistan perfectly intact before the outbreak. He'd been with the military when they'd carved the Boston quarantine zone out of the chaos of rioting citizens against the encroaching infection that wouldn't stop spreading, no matter what they tried, but he'd lost the leg fifteen years ago on a routine patrol in the bombed-out financial district, when a simple misstep pitched him downhill onto a piece of dirty rebar that pierced his calf. He might have kept it, except that the accident happened during a time when access to antibiotics was difficult at best, and what was available was only being given to the top brass and VIPs, not ordinary grunts like Jimmy. When the wound had turned gangrenous, they'd taken his leg and turfed him out of the military into the civilian population, where he'd only been eligible for half rations due to his disability. The bitterness of being abandoned by the organization he'd served faithfully for half his life plus a natural enterprising streak had kept him alive and led him to open this place.
The man gave her a nod. "Tess." His eyes narrowed when he saw Richie. "Don't want no trouble tonight."
She smiled grimly. "This is a business trip, Jimmy." She palmed two ration cards and pressed them into his hand. "You know I'm good for damages."
He paused, then shrugged and moved out of her way. "Check your weapons with the kid."
The Winchester Arms wasn't really a bar, although it was possible to buy various types of alcohol, from a bitter, house-brewed ale to sketchy distilled liquors made by enterprising moonshiners from whatever scraps they could gather—potato peels, corn, fruit—and which a person drank at their own peril. The official FEDRA permit, displayed prominently next to the front door, said this place was an eating establishment, and Jimmy was careful to keep a menu that consisted of mystery cans (usually dog food, ten ration cards), MREs (twelve ration cards), and suspicious sausages (one ration card). Jimmy's prices were so outrageous that no one bought the food here except the sausages, but considering the sources of cheap, available meat around here, Tess wouldn't touch one of those with a ten-foot pole. At best it would be rat, or dog. At worst…well. She knew that overzealous FEDRA inspectors poking around the Winchester Arms and its business tended to disappear.
Jimmy still had friends inside the FEDRA hierarchy, and that in addition to his willingness to bribe the right people meant that the Winchester Arms had become a black market clearinghouse of sorts. Scavenging outside the walls of the QZ was strictly forbidden, as was smuggling goods into the city or moving contraband within the zone, but the reality was that the QZ needed those things and as long as you weren't causing too much trouble and didn't get caught outside the walls, FEDRA tended to turn a blind eye.
The Winchester Arms, and other places like it, was where people like Tess made most of their living.
At the end of the hallway she handed her switchblade over to a dirty-faced ten-year-old girl who handed her a chit for it. Civilians weren't allowed to carry firearms in the zone—Tess kept her guns stashed in the underground smuggling tunnels that they used to move around the zone and into the world beyond the walls—but her knife was like one of her own appendages. Being without it, even for a few minutes, made her palms itch. Mike grudgingly held out his cosh, a worn pocket of black leather with lead weights sewn into it, and the girl stowed it in another cubby behind her.
"That too," she said to Richie, wiping her runny nose on the back of her hand and pointing to the length of chain he had wrapped around his waist.
"Ah, come on…" he protested.
Tess cut him off. "Give it to her." Her tone brooked no argument. Richie's mouth snapped shut and he awkwardly unhooked the chain with his good arm and slammed it down onto the table in front of the girl. Tess didn't miss Mike's eye roll.
She stepped into the main room and automatically picked out Jimmy's guards from the assembled crowd. There were five today, three stationed around the perimeter of the room and two roaming, big men who carried automatic rifles and weren't shy about using them. Their presence tended to keep petty squabbles to a minimum within the confines of the bar. The Winchester Arms was neutral territory, and it wasn't unusual to share a drink with a rival who'd try to kill you tomorrow out on the streets. It took big balls to make a scene in front of Jimmy's enforcers, but Richie had said the man who'd broken his arm had done it here in front of everyone.
Richie was scanning the crowded tables, some where people were just sharing a friendly drink, others where serious business was being conducted. Their entrance didn't elicit much notice. Tess saw Richie's eyes light up with petty spite. "There he is! That's the guy who broke my fuckin' arm!" Heads turned as he pointed to a bearded man drinking alone, and then he smiled smugly and put his hand around her waist, pulling her toward him in front of the whole goddamned bar.
No. That possessive hand was the last straw, and in an instant whatever hold Richie had on her evaporated. She spun around and punched him right in the nose; there was a satisfying crunch as it broke under her fist.
Richie dropped like a stone to the floor, howling, and as he fell, an orange plastic prescription bottle fell out of his pocket and rolled to a stop against her booted foot. Tess felt the world contract into the space between her fingers and the bottle as she knelt and picked it up to read the label.
It was a bottle of Vicodin, prescribed to one Hazel Butts. She recognized it from a pickup they'd made three days ago; that scavenger, Bill, had made a stupid joke about the name. The bottle had contained nearly fifty of the little white tablets, each worth a hundred times their weight in bullets. More, maybe. Opiates were becoming exceedingly rare, and she hadn't seen any Vicodin in years. She'd gotten a hell of a deal from Bill when she'd traded the pills for a Mossberg 500 pump-action shotgun and fifty shotgun shells. She'd sell each pill for ten ration cards apiece and make a fortune. The bottle was light, and by the rattle when she shook it, only a few pills remained.
In a single moment of clarity, every delay Richie had caused, seemingly through incompetence, flashed through her mind. All the plans that had gone wrong lately, meetings he'd been there for, replayed from a new perspective. She'd wanted proof of his betrayal, well, here it was. She felt like her mind was clear for the first time in months. Son of a bitch! How had she overlooked it for so long? White rage surged through her.
She shifted to one knee beside him and shook the pill bottle in front of his face while she twisted his ear cruelly enough to make him cry out. "I know you've been stealing from me. I should kill you for this, but considering our past…" She cuffed him hard on the side of his face. "I ever see you in this part of town again, you're dead." She straightened up again. "We're done with him. Take care of it," she murmured to Mike, who nodded. She turned toward the rifle-toting guard who was hurrying over to her and said, holding her hands in the air, "No more problems here. Just letting one of my employees go."
"Tess!" Richie's voice was thick, his throat clotted with blood. "I don't know where those came from! I swear!"
"Shut up." She kicked Richie hard with the toe of one boot as Jimmy's guard stopped and threw an uncertain look toward the doorway behind her.
Jimmy's voice boomed in the now-silent room. "Nobody saw anything." Tess didn't turn around, but she breathed a silent sigh of relief when she heard his wooden leg stumping back along the hallway to the front door. Just because she was a regular didn't mean he wouldn't take her ass out if she was causing too much drama; she'd seen him kill other people for less.
"You gotta believe me!" Richie was trying to get up, slipping on his own blood.
"Get this trash out of here, Mike." She stepped past Richie toward the man he'd pointed out, the one who'd broken his arm earlier. His dark, amused eyes followed her, had been following her since she walked through the door. He was big, that was good. The way he was leaning back in his chair didn't hide his powerful shoulders, or the muscular forearms revealed by the rolled-up sleeves of his shirt. He sat with one ankle propped across his knee, and she could see that the knees of his jeans were ripped but carefully mended. He was old, though. Not quite as old as Mike, but maybe as old as her dad would have been. Still, she had respect for the old timers, the ones who'd had established lives before the outbreak. The ones who'd made it this long had been the hardiest and most ruthless survivors, and the steel in this man's eyes told her that he was no different.
"I need a new man on my crew. Interested?" she said, without preamble.
The corners of his eyes crinkled as his mouth quirked in an almost-smile. "Might be." He gestured to the seat beside him. "I happen to be between employers at the moment."
Tess nodded as she sat down and tried to ignore the way his deep drawl made her think of warm places. Behind her, Richie howled in protest as Mike none-too-gently escorted him from the establishment.
The man at the table leaned back with an easy stretch and hooked a cracked ceramic mug from the shelf behind him, never taking his eyes off her. "Bourbon," he said, by way of clarification, as he poured a generous finger of alcohol into the mug for her.
Tess inclined her head and took a deep swallow, closing her eyes as the harsh liquor burned a path down her throat. When she opened them he was still watching her, a hint of a smile playing around the corners of his mouth.
"You know who I am?"
He shrugged. "Tess Callaghan. Word gets around. You and your crew pretty much run things on this side of town."
"You think you'll have any problems taking orders from me?" She said it casually, but a lot hinged on his reply.
His hazel eyes narrowed, then he shrugged again. "Long as you're not givin' bad orders."
She raised one eyebrow. It was a unique answer. "Alright." So. He wasn't the type who'd do anything for a payday. That could be a good or a bad thing. She'd have to keep a close eye on him until she figured out what made him tick. She looked him over again, more carefully. Up close, he wasn't quite as old as she'd thought and he wore a cracked wristwatch, which in itself was odd. Tess couldn't remember the last time she'd seen someone wearing a watch. In the zone, the PA announcements kept time for you and outside you judged by the sun. The watch was an anachronism, a relic of the time before, something that would be of little use even if it worked, and by the badly cracked watch face she doubted his this one did. She took another drink then said, "You new to Boston? My people tell me you've been working as a hired gun, but I don't think I've seen you before."
He shrugged laconically. "I been here long enough to know my way around."
She waited for him to add more, then finally said, "You got a name?"
He tipped his glass toward her. "Joel."
"Okay, Joel." She held her hand out to him. "You'll be on a trial basis with reduced shares until I say otherwise. If I decide to make you permanent, you'll get equal shares of every job you're on."
"Sounds fair." He shook her hand. "Boss." He cocked his head, his lips lifting behind the dark beard into a half-smile. "You offer a dental plan?"
She kept her involuntary smile to only a twitch at the corner of her mouth. "Cute." She drained her bourbon without a shudder.
"You ain't the first who's said so." Joel's smile had turned into a smirk.
Tess stood up abruptly, her good mood vanished. After Richie, the last thing she needed on her team was another cocky asshole trying to get into her pants. "We're done here. I can tell you're not going to be worth the trouble." It was almost curfew, but she could still get to the North End tonight, maybe she could hook up with Ed or hire a mercenary from one of the fight rings. She turned away.
"Hey, wait!" The intensity in Joel's voice stopped her. She turned back toward him, and his face was grave, the smirk a distant memory. His right hand was at his left wrist, his thumb rubbing over the cracked face of that watch he wore like it was a talisman. "I want in. You won't have any trouble from me."
Tess stared at him for a long moment, then said "Tomorrow morning, six a.m. You know the apartments across from checkpoint five? Near the south side of Charlestown?"
He nodded. "I know 'em."
"Meet me in the lobby. Bring whatever weapons you've got." She turned on her heel and walked to the edge of the room where Mike waited for her.
"He's coming on the outside pickup with me tomorrow," she said to Mike, jerking her head back in Joel's direction.
Mike frowned. "You think that's a good idea? You'll be alone with him."
Tess handed her chit to the weapons check girl and waited for her knife. "I can handle myself." She felt better with the weight of her knife in her palm, and she flipped the switch and examined the blade out of habit.
Mike pressed his lips together and nodded. "Yeah. I know you can." He took his cosh from the girl.
"Nice knife." Joel had followed them to the weapons check desk, and was looking at her knife with appreciation. "I ain't seen a double action switchblade like that in years."
Tess held up the blade. It was a sturdy knife, lean, hard, and wickedly sharp, so familiar it was an extension of her own arm. "I keep it sharp." The warning in her voice was barely concealed. I'm the boss. Hands off.
He shrugged. "It suits you."
The words were like a punch in the gut. There was no way the man could have known that her father said the same thing when he gave her that knife, fourteen years ago, but the words still stung her with the bitterness of her loss as if it had just happened yesterday. "Don't be late tomorrow," she said, almost snarling it at him. His eyes widened in surprise, but he said nothing else. She pressed the switch to retract the blade and slipped the knife back into her pocket, then stalked down the long hallway to the outer door without looking back.
As she and Mike walked briskly down the nearly deserted streets, the frigid evening air seeped into her bones and her lungs ached with each breath. She was grateful for Mike's circumspect silence as she struggled to seal the wound that Joel's innocent words had ripped open in her.
Notes
Many thanks to the beta readers for this chapter (RW, Michelle, and Mr. Mac) and to Ajax, the best damn research assistant in the business. I really should pay him more.
Just in case you're not familiar, the Winchester Arms comes from the movie Shaun of the Dead, which I highly recommend if you haven't seen it yet.
A point of interest: The shotgun that Tess trades to Bill for the bottle of Vicodin is the same one that Bill eventually gives to Joel during the game.