Carolyn Crane [The Associates Into the Shadows (epub)

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.He had a job to do before he could kill him.Suddenly, Jerrod did something unexpected: he tipped up the revolver and pointed it at the ceiling.“Never mind,” he said.Norbert gasped, holding perfectly still, panting.Miguel looked to Jerrod for further instruction.“Let him go.” Jerrod set the revolver next to the bowl of Bugles.Damn.Thorne’s heart began to pound.Miguel let Norbert go and the kid stumbled back, looking around.Then he laughed uncertainly.“What a rush.” Trying to get back his cool and his cred, but Thorne knew that was the least of his problems.Damn.Damn.Damn.Thorne let the bottle swing loosely.This was bad.The only other time Jerrod had let a guy go, he’d shown the man the inside of the cylinder to reveal if he would’ve lived or died, like a sick game show.That’s how it would go now.He would show Norbert the inside of the cylinder.And everybody would see that there were no cartridges.Damn.Jerrod would know that Thorne had emptied it, of course.He would know that Thorne wanted to save the kid.Jerrod’s retaliation would be bloody.He’d kill Norbert in a brutal way, just to punish Thorne.And then, of course, that would be the excuse he needed to kill Thorne.“Okay,” Norbert whispered, thinking he was free, not realizing Thorne had just doomed him in trying to save him.Thorne closed his eyes, swinging the bottle.Perfect emptiness.Perfect alertness.Jerrod had wanted to kill Thorne for a month now, maybe two.Thorne could tell by the way he watched him and the kinds of questions he asked, fishing to find infractions.This would give him the perfect excuse.Hangman was all about chaos and senseless violence, but there were a few hard rules.For example, Jerrod couldn’t simply execute his number two without a reason.Thorne had gotten so far on his mission; he’d risen up the ranks the way he fought: in harmony with the darkness of the gang instead of in opposition to it.Maybe Jerrod had finally sensed Thorne’s absolute hatred of him.All information in the universe was available to all minds at all times, even Jerrod’s.Thorne put down his beer and grabbed a handful of Bugles, popping them into his mouth, one after another.Dammit.Norbert looked around, unsure what to do.Jerrod was addicted to pushing people like this.It gave him little pops of emotion.Thorne felt sick.A one-in-six chance would have been far better than the odds they were both looking at now.Two years, and he’d never emptied the gun.Usually, the person on the other end deserved it.He’d been on the other end once.Being on the other end of that barrel had been one of his greatest teachers.It’s just that Norbert had the same color hair as Sandi, and he’d helped Thorne mend his favorite sweater during kickoff.Thorne had been trying so hard to mend it—the sweater had sentimental value—but he couldn’t do fine work with his ruined hand.Norbert had noticed, and he’d taken the sweater and done the stitches himself.It had been completely ballsy to show he sewed in front of a crew like Hangman.Thorne had been so grateful to him, though he pretty much botched the thanks.It’s just that his guard went up whenever people were nice to him, because it usually meant they wanted something from him, or else they wanted to kill him.Nobody had ever been nice to him for no reason.Except his sister.And Nadia Volkov.Or so he’d thought at first.She’d made him feel like somebody special, somebody good, because she’d seen what he was and she seemed to want him all the more for it.He crunched the Bugles in time with his pounding pulse, remembering the way Nadia had let him into the tender, private parts of her life, the way they’d secretly knocked around in other towns together, and the wild fierceness of the love he felt for her.He hadn’t understood that he’d been nothing but a brutish fuck toy to her, interchangeable and shareable.Even after he realized that, he still couldn’t stop loving her, though his love had flipped over into what he could only term lovehate.But for while, she’d made him feel like somebody good.He crunched the Bugles so loud he couldn’t believe the whole room didn’t hear it.He didn’t have to check the clock to know they’d eaten up maybe three minutes of intermission.At the most.He wouldn’t look at the gun, either.Don’t look at the gun.Norbert picked up his beer, but Thorne was pretty sure he really just wanted to run out of there.Hell, maybe Jerrod would forget the game and kick Norbert out now.Anything was possible.The key was not to need it too much.Jerrod always sensed exactly what you didn’t want him to do and he did it.It was part of his power.Just like the universe would sense what you most desperately needed and keep it from you.The thing was, you could never fool the universe by pretending not to need something—you had to really not need it.It was the same with fighting—the key to winning a fight was to not care if a fist or a bullet hit you, or even if you lived or died.That was the secret of the Samurai warriors.Thorne could easily get into the space where he didn’t care if he lived or died—it’s what made him a lethal fighter—but caring what happened to Norbert fucked everything up, just as it had with Sandi.His attachment to his sister had gotten her killed.It’s why he operated alone, without allies.Without attachment.Norbert stood there uncertainly.Thorne could feel the intensity between Jerrod and Norbert waning.He breathed, opening himself to the universe, practicing perfect non-attachment.Perfect emptiness.He thought about the men in the room.He’d fought against groups before, but these were vicious Hangman soldiers.With the element of surprise he could take out maybe half of them before they killed him, though it was possible he could take the whole group, just as it was possible he could be killed at the start.Everything had to be allowed and welcomed.Everything permitted.They’d all been so relieved when he had joined up—not because they wanted him around, but because they didn’t want to end up facing him in battle.But even for Thorne, staying alive inside Hangman demanded total responsiveness to the moment.Hangman was by far one of the most dangerous gangs Thorne had ever experienced, and Thorne had been inside a lot of gangs.Thorne swung the bottle, releasing the need to stay undercover.Releasing the desire to live.He began to breathe in his Hangman brothers, staying relaxed, feeling their access to firearms as a play of shape and color in his mind’s eye [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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