Locksleigh

Chapter Eight

I cursed at the pain burning through me as I lead Ash and his men through the tunnels to the sewer entrance I was looking for. Things had gone wrong from the get-go. Although they were all skilled, travelling through the forest with nearly thirty men and keeping quiet took longer than either me or Ash and anticipated and we arrived later than I liked, but otherwise everything was still going as planned. Ash still lead his men through the tunnels up to a certain point where I would take over the lead once I made sure the entrance was properly closed and all the security check the patrol would be looking for were back in place. Everything would have still gone perfectly if Argus and his men hadn’t been straggling so much at the back of the group. Because of them, there was no time to fix the entrance before the two Helmets heading the patrol came into view. I was still trying to think which of our contingency plans would be the best choice when Argus shoved me out into the open and said something about me being the little w***e I was and using it to distract the guards. His timing was so perfect that by the guards spotted me before I could get safely back into the tunnel and I had guns trained on me in seconds. The first of the Helmets looked me up and down and leered at the scant clothing I had been allowed to wear for this mission. He hadn’t bothered to hesitate before he undid his zipper, pushed me to my knees and forced his c**k into my mouth. I had done the only thing that came to mind and began to bite down hard. I was stopped when a shot rang out right beside me and pain tore through the right side of my head. The bastard had shot a hole right through the shell of my ear.

“Any more of that and I’ll shoot where it hurts a lot more,” he’d sniggered, and I didn’t dare fight back despite the fear and revulsion that spread through my body as the second Helmet slipped both his hands down my pants and began playing with mu cunt and ass. I’d almost wretched at his touch. The first Helmet had pulled himself out of my mouth and was beginning to align himself with my core while the second pulled my pants down and kept my legs apart, and I had begun to scream when both of them suddenly became still and toppled to the ground, a pair of sleek hunting knives buried in their necks and Ash standing a few feet away with a look of pure rage on his face. He’d rushed over and began to fuss over me when one of his men came over to report what they had found out about what had happened between me and Argus.

Now Argus was rotting somewhere in the tunnel behind us, and as much as that thought made me smile, I was cursing his name with every breath I took. My ear was still ringing and blood was dripping down my neck. Not a good state in which to spend hours leading a group of reformed bandits through tunnels, trying to avoid the swarms of Helmets who had swarmed the tunnels the second the alarm went off after the patrol failed to report back. It was only years of navigating these tunnels since childhood that brought us to the sewers without any losses.

I lead them all to a spot where I knew they were safe, but Ash and I agreed that it would be better if only the two of us approached Glitch. A hacker would be of no use to anyone if he was terrified out of his wits or died of a heart attack. Knowing what that man ate all the time, his heart was probably weak enough that a good scare would probably be enough to do that.

Standing in front of his door felt impossibly strange, despite how familiar it was, and I only then realised how quickly I’d settled into my new life among the bandits. I opened the door and felt a rush of nostalgia blast through me at the familiar sight of the room, and the neon sign that had always annoyed me suddenly felt like an old friend. It must have been somewhere between noon and evening, because Glitch was in his bed rather than behind the keyboard and I cursed again at how much time we’d wasted. Now we’d have to spend the night waiting for Glitch to do his thing. I watched the sleeping hacker, and the god of mischief I must have been in a past life smiled. Unable to resist, I picked up one of the old, broken computer mice and tossed it at the leopard print sheets, making gun shot sounds and trying to mimic his perimeter alarms, which I always managed to circumvent without effort. My little missile hit Glitch in the back of the head and I couldn’t keep in my laughter as he sat up, still half asleep but panicked, and looked around for the threat. He had his bottle of lotion in his hand, wielding it like a tiny, useless club and was halfway across the room to defend hid computer before he realised the place had gone mostly quiet again. I glanced over at Ash and saw that even he was trying not to smile.

“Unless you plan on using the moisture to fry the circuitry in your computer, I don’t think that can do much harm,” I laughed.

“Dammit, Leigh. How many times do have to tell you not to interrupt my beauty sleep.” He was quiet for a few seconds, probably registering what he’d said. Then his arms were around me and he was sobbing.

“Leigh! Is it really you? Please tell me it is you and this isn’t another dream.” Up until this moment I had practiced again and again how I would berate him for that job, but seeing him like this, weeping and miserable, I couldn’t stay angry at him.

“It’s really me, Glitch,” I said gently as I removed his arms and pushed them back to his sides. “It’s not a dream.” His entire body seemed to sag a little at that and he began rummaging around in the piles of boxes all over the place, offering me whatever food he could find.

“I’m actually here on business, Glitch,” I said. “No time for food.” He looked at me for a second, and then noticed Ash next to me for the first time. He staggered a few steps back and I saw him try to say something, only to close his mouth again.

“We’re here to talk about some ID cards,” Ash said, trying to sound calm and soothing. Glitch began to cry again.

“Please,” he begged. “I honestly didn’t mean to! I thought ID cards were useless to the bandits and you wouldn’t care and…” he broke down into incoherent sobs and I put my hand on his shoulder comfortingly.

“Don’t worry, Glitch. We’re not here for that. We just need you to recode some ID cards for some of his friends.” He looked at me.

“That’s all we want,” I kept my voice calm and soothing, “We want to pay your priority fee, so you can get on this as soon as possible.” He pulled himself together and headed over to his desk where he began to rummage around in a drawer.

“I only have the six you brought me last time. Will that be enough?” I was a little surprised he still had those. Normally he’d have sold them within two days.

“We need twenty-seven,” I said calmly, and his face paled. I knew that getting your hands on so many ID cards would be difficult, and that was the one part of the plan we weren’t sure about until recently.

“It’s all right,” I smiled. “We have the cards we need. We just need someone to code them.”

“You do?” He seemed a little incredulous, which he had every right to be, but I didn’t want to tell him that we’d taken them off the two Helmets from the patrol and the few smaller groups who had managed to find us. None of them were ever going to need their cards again, so we’d figured we could use them.

“How much will the coding cost us?” I asked. Glitch looked me over, eyes lingering on my bleeding ear. Then his eyes darted to Ash and back to me again.

“Considering the trouble I’ve definitely caused you the last time you were here, I won’t charge anything. It’s the least I can do.” I didn’t know what to say. He must have really felt guilty about the convoy if he was willing to one of the biggest coding jobs of his life for free. I couldn’t tell if Ash was surprised too, because all he did was hold out the bag with the only slightly bloody ID cards and needed info on everyone who needed one.

“We better get started then,” Ash said. “We have a lot to do.”