Marcus Pelegrimas: The Breaking

“Then we had that split after nearly getting pinched by those cops in Bismarck,” Rico chuckled fondly.

“We’ve been hiding in ditches and laying low in basements until we got into New York. Ever since then we’ve had that one tagging along.”

Responding to the scarred hand being waved back at him from the driver’s seat, Steve grunted. “You can trust me. I’m a damn Skinner too.”

“So you keep saying,” she told him. “You may have plenty of people vouching for you and a good record in MEG’s files, but you still need to earn your stripes with me, And it’s funny to hear you so concerned about Cole, Rico. Last time I checked, you hadn’t even gone to look in on him.”

“When did you check?”

“Does it matter?”

Suddenly, Rico became concerned with adjusting the vent so warm air from the heater was hitting his face at precisely the right angle. “All right, you got me. I ain’t exactly eager to walk into another prison. Odds are about fifty-fifty of me not walkin’ out again. Besides, after you left to back Gerald’s play when he moved to Chicago, you stopped bein’ me and Ned’s partner. You never checked in on us until you needed help in St. Louis.”

Paige shook her head while weaving between cars on the sloppy expressway. “Are you trying to come off like you stood by Ned no matter what? You expect me to forget about you going rogue in the Badlands or doing work for the mob?”

“Allegedly,” Rico corrected as he snapped an uneasy glare over his shoulder. He shifted in his seat and focused on the road in front of him. Despite being only a few hours away from New York, he could feel a difference in his surroundings. It wasn’t exactly foreign soil, but Canada had a calmness to it that struck a Skinner like the tranquil look in a deer’s eyes when it had no clue how many rifles were pointed at its head. “Maybe me and Ned weren’t exactly sentimental, but that still don’t mean you get a pass on what happened in Denver.”

The bulk of the city was behind them, leaving a wide open expanse of concrete to fill the windshield. The evening rush hour was over, but just barely. Rain that had fallen weeks ago remained pooled on the side of the road, illuminated by the dimming rays of the sun and streetlights that were too weak to cast more than a glow before night fully took hold. Paige scanned the signs marking the upcoming exits and allowed herself to settle into her seat. “What happened in Denver is what needed to happen. I’ll see to it that it gets explained to Cole, but I don’t need to explain it to anyone else.”

“The hell you don’t. I’m the only one of us that trusts you anymore. The only way for that to change is for you to come clean because you sure as hell can’t survive in this fight alone.”

“So when you talk about the other Skinners, are you referring to the ones like Abel and Selina who joined up with Hope and Tara to set us all up for this fall? Yeah, I really want to make sure they don’t think badly of me.”

She didn’t have to look over at Rico to know he was glaring at her. “Some of ’em double-crossed us,” he said sternly, “but there are plenty out there just trying to stay alive. We lost some good people when Liam and those Mongrels hit Lancroft’s place. Even if there are fewer of us now, the ones that are still on the right side of the fence can pull together like never before. We can finally open our eyes to all the shit we’ve been missing and start fighting to win for a change.”

“You’d better not tell me I wasn’t fighting to win.”

“I know you’ve still got your eyes on the prize, girl. That’s why I came all the way up north with you even after you refuse to tell me everything I need to know. We’re all in this together. Ain’t that right, Steve?”

The younger man nodded. “That’s right. We’re in this together.”

Paige took some comfort from that, even though she wasn’t exactly sure why. “That’s not the only reason you’re here right now,” she said to Rico. “You’re keeping tabs on me to make sure I don’t step any further out of line.”

“Could be.”

After rounding a bend on the expressway, Paige turned to look at the big man so she could study him when she asked, “And what happens if I do anything else you don’t agree with? Are you going to take me out?”

Rico’s hand lay casually on his hip. It was close to the Sig Sauer holstered under his arm, but he hadn’t made a move to pull the .45 from its resting place. “You’re worked up,” he sighed. “We been through too much for you to believe shit like that.”

“We have been through a lot. The Nymar have risen up from a pain in our asses, skipped over being a thorn in our sides, and become the stake in our collective chest. As ironic as that is, it means we’ve all got to be careful.” Now that she’d turned onto the Don Valley Parkway and was headed north, she paid closer attention to the street signs and cars around her. “I don’t know,” she grumbled. “Is that even irony?”

“I think so.” After scratching his roughly stubbled chin, Rico asked, “Is that irony, Steve?”

“Nope. That’s just a bad play on words.”

“Look, Bloodhound, I get that everything’s been flipped upside down. I was there when it happened. We been on the run for over a month, hiding, laying low, and living day to day. But that don’t cut it no more. It’s time to stop hiding from the shit storm and start dealing with it.”

“Amen to that.”

“And if we’re gonna deal with it, we need to deal the right way.”

Paige cut him short by holding up a hand to show him one of her scarred palms. “And that means me telling you everything I know, including who those guys were that brought me to Denver in that helicopter. Am I right?”

“That’d be a good start.”

“Too bad we’re almost at our exit,” she said with a crooked grin and half a sideways glance. “If you would’ve asked me about this earlier, I might have had some time to get into the whole story.”

“We got time,” Rico growled. “After you take the next exit, we need to get onto Queen Street and head into the Upper Beaches area.” Seeing the way she raised her eyebrows, he added, “I can do research too, you know. What makes you think this Cobb guy is even there?”

“Before he was taken away, Cole told Prophet how to intercept some of the e-mail the Nymar have been using to communicate with each other. Prophet got a few hits, he sent them to some techie guys, MEG helped out a little more, and finally we got our little fingers into the Nymar Web ring. Remember those bloodsuckers you flushed out of Cedar Rapids?”

“Oh yeah. They talked a big game but didn’t have anything to back it up. Ran like a bunch of bitches.”

“Damn right they did,” Paige said. “Ran straight to me. After some colorful questioning techniques, they told me some more about the guy running the Nymar communication network. He’s supposed to be based here in Canada, and even if he’s not in the house where we’re headed, there should be someone in the area to point us in the right direction. Hope wasn’t the only double-seeded Nymar working on that uprising. I’m thinking one of the others will be guarding this place.”

“Could be Cobb38 is double-seeded too,” Steve offered.

“You really think so?” Paige asked. “Leading a bunch of Nymar on the street is one thing. Those double-seeded bloodsuckers are usually too hungry to do anything on a scale like this.”

“We’ll find out soon enough,” Rico said. “There should be a computer setup or at least the remains of one in a Nymar safe house. Did you pay close enough attention to Cole when he was around to learn some of those geek skills of his?”