CHAPTER 4 – Ink
The man was either pure crazy or had been dropped on his head at birth a few too many times. His concentration seemed to jump from one thing to the next, his movements fluctuating from frantic to cavalier and back again. I couldn’t get a read on him because he was just plain odd.
“NIM, NIM, NIM,” Jebediah repeated, and I felt Gracie tense beside me.
“What?” she asked.
“NIMMM,” Jebediah replied, rolling his eyes and dragging the word out as if we were deaf and dumb.
We were neither, and we both knew exactly what NIM was. Kingsley Duke’s drug of choice, a cocktail of chemicals that drove the user to hallucinate, their inhibitions lowered, and sexual awareness heightened. There had been stories of the drug seeping out of the Underworld and into the cities, but I’d never seen it for myself.
“What about it?” Gracie murmured stiffly.
Gracie had told me many stories about her time in the Underworld, and an inmate had once offered her an inhaler containing the potent substance. She’d, of course, denied the offer, but the man had been so lost on his high he’d tried to rape her. When an older boy came along and interrupted her attack, he’d in turn been beaten bloody before being held down and raped himself. The brutal assault was one of many nightmares Gracie had to deal with.
“Your new job,” Jebediah said with a sinister smile directed at me.
“You want me to make NIM?” I asked, which was ridiculous because I had no fucking idea how to create the product.
Jebediah brushed off my question with an errant wave of his hand. “Of course not, I have people for that, who are setting up a lab as we speak. No, I need someone to guard my distribution and delivery.”
“There’s no one out here to distribute to,” I reasoned, my voice rising with frustration. This man had attacked my compound because of drugs? The idea was ludicrous. “You should be somewhere closer to the city if you want to become a drug lord, in the middle of the wilderness is a bad business decision.”
Jebediah grinned at my little outburst. “I have my reasons for what I’m doing, and I have no intention of becoming a drug lord. Though, I am going to be a man of power. I’m in the middle of the wilderness because nobody knows of this place. It’s as off the grid as it gets. You’re hiding from the government, and I don’t want to be found doing what I’m doing by the government. So, as you can see, this compound is a perfect business decision. As for distribution, I have buyers willing to travel, and I’ve organized a pick up from someplace eight hours south of here, once a month. You will meet them with the NIM, and in exchange, they’ll give you money and goods.”
Money, it had been a long time since I’d seen money. There was no need for it out here, and I couldn’t fathom a reason Jebediah would need it.
“If my NIM doesn’t make it safely to the rendezvous… Grace is mine. If you don’t return from the rendezvous… Grace is mine. If you take a cent of my money or supplies… Grace is mine. If you attempt to harm me or mine… Grace is mine. Are you seeing the pattern here, Ink?”
Hearing the man talk so casually about taking Gracie against her will made my anger churn like a volcano looking for an outlet. I wanted to pick her up and get her away from this insane fucker. Get her out of Liberty. Get her to safety. It probably should have bothered me that I wasn’t as concerned with the lives of everyone else caught up in this madness, but Gracie had always been my priority. Even so, I needed to assure our people went unharmed.
“And no harm will come to the people of Liberty?”
“You mean The Arena,” Jebediah corrected me. “For the most part.”
Obviously from his elusive answer he had some fucked-up plan building in his fucked-up brain, but I figured he wasn’t about to tell me. That meant I needed to fix this shit before it got out of hand. Our soldiers had been thinned out to just seventeen, while Jebediah had a militia somewhere of around sixty men, who were all well-armed. I didn’t know for sure if they were all trained and devoted to Jebediah, which was something my men and I would have to figure out as we went. If there were any cracks in their defense, we needed to exploit it.
Watching as they moved around the fire now, most of them seemed efficient and strong, their hard eyes carefully watching everyone and everything. I was positive most of these men had military backgrounds. Some of them, though, seemed a little rough around the edges. Their clothing tattered, their hygiene questionable at best. They were hissing crude comments about the dead and laughing loudly. But the giveaway was their guns hooked over their shoulders rather than poised in their hands ready for use. They weren’t true soldiers, which meant, they were a weakness.
Jebediah suddenly stuck his tongue out of his mouth and hissed in my direction. His tongue was forked like a snake, with two metal balls on top of each point. I’d seen some body modification in my time, but nothing like this. It explained the weird lisp he spoke with. He flicked his snake-like tongue at us a few times before beginning to laugh in that hysterical, crazy manner I was quickly becoming familiar with. Then as quickly as his outburst began, it stopped, and his composure became eerily calm.
“I see you,” Jebediah sung, pointing my way and leaning forward, his eyes wide and grin once again manic. “I see you,” he repeated. “Clever, clever, clever. I see you watching my men.” He leaned back and kicked one boot up on a tree stump. “Watch away, Ink, you won’t find fault with my soldiers. Some of them may not be the sharpest tools in the shed, but they are loyal.”
“Where will you be manufacturing the product?” I asked through gritted teeth.
Jebediah smiled, leaning back and linking his hands behind his head. “I was thinking of using the infirmary. They will have all the supplies I’ll need.”
“You’re going to make NIM in our hospital? Are you crazy?” Gracie practically shouted in an incredulous tone.
Squeezing her hand in censure, I didn’t take my eyes off Jebediah and Jeze, just in case they decided to punish her for her little outburst. The corner of Jebediah’s eye twitched, but neither of them made a move toward Gracie.
“You know, I’m not fond of having my sanity questioned, and that’s the second time since we’ve sat down that you’ve suggested I’m not of sound mind,” Jebediah murmured. “Perhaps you should keep those thoughts to yourself, else… I might have to do something a little… crazy.” He pulled his jacket aside and brushed a finger over the gun holstered there. Gracie’s face paled, and she kept quiet, though I could practically see her temper brimming with barely leashed anger. Jebediah broke the silence with a chuckle and glanced away from Gracie as if she weren’t worthy of his time. Jeze’s gaze, however, never left her like a snake waiting to strike.
“I was joking, don’t you have a sense of humor?” Jebediah shook his head in disappointment. “The hospital isn’t secure enough, we will manufacture in the basement below my men’s barracks. That way it will have constant protection.”
“How often will you have a delivery?”
“Once a month,” Jebediah replied, his amused pale eyes darting around the men surrounding us.
“I get to pick the team for delivery.”
I knew I wasn’t in any position to make demands, but I’d be fucked if I wasn’t going to have my own men at my back.
Jebediah offered me a lazy nod. “You may choose two men, and you’ll take two of mine.”
“When is the first delivery?”
“Three weeks.”
I didn’t want to be a part of this, I wanted nothing to do with Jebediah or his NIM production. But choices were limited right now. In fact, there really wasn’t a fucking choice at all.
“And the people of Liberty?”
“The Arena,” Jebediah shouted, spittle flying from his lips as he leaped to his feet in an unexpected fit of rage. My fists clenched, ready to protect myself and Gracie, but Jebediah simply stood above us, grabbing at his white hair, pulling and twisting in frustration. “Why is it so goddamned hard to get that through your thick skull? I was told you were smart, Ink, but now I have my doubts.” Neither Gracie nor I said anything as we watched the man take a long deep breath before settling back into his seated position, leaning back as if nothing had happened.
“The people of The Arena go about their life with minimal changes,” Jebediah said, his hand waving away my question.
I raised a skeptical brow. Jebediah didn’t seem the type to let things move forward with the simplicity Liberty had been run under Viv’s leadership. He was a complicated man, and I had no doubt it would make life complicated for everyone trapped in his radar.
Jebediah giggled like a child. “Itty, bitty, teeny, weeny changes,” he said, squeezing his fingers together in front of us to show me just how small the changes would be.
I didn’t believe him for one moment. We’d have to take each day as it came and tackle these so-called minimal changes as they reared their ugly head.
Jebediah grew quiet, almost pensive and the few of his men who were drinking grew rowdier. I’d had enough of this night. In fact, I’d had enough of this entire day. I was done sitting with this fucker like some sort of willing business associate. Standing, I drew Gracie to her feet, her hand still firmly wrapped in mine. That connection felt like a lifeline. If she was living and breathing, then so was I. We could survive this, we had to.
“Meet me outside the storage facility tomorrow at seven a.m. We have more things to discuss,” Jebediah quickly said, apparently not bothered by the fact we were leaving without his permission.
With a short, sharp nod, I began to guide Gracie away from the fire, my men falling away from the crowd when they noticed our departure. Max, Ace, and Charlie followed behind us while the other men would spread out around Liberty and continue their nightly patrols. Only now, they were watching everything happening inside our walls. Gracie’s gaze lingered upon the flames for a short time, her eyes glassy with unshed tears. She’s stayed so strong today, not a single tear slipping off her lashes, and she still held them at bay as we retreated to her cabin.
My life had taken plenty of sharp, unexpected turns over the years, but this was unlike anything I’d ever experienced. I’d been an only child born to a military family that was torn apart when I was just seven years old with the death of my father. My mother had been present in body only after that, her mind and heart were broken. She passed away from an overdose of sleeping pills when I was fifteen, and I was sent to live with grandparents I’d never known. My grandma was a bitter old woman, with never a nice thing to say about anyone. Especially, a belligerent teenage boy who had just lost his mother. My grandpa was a former soldier. A hard, strict man who would often get lost in memories that left him with a haunted look in his cloudy eyes.
As soon as I turned eighteen I enlisted, meeting Trigger, otherwise known as Sean Clarke, in my first week. Trigger and I hit it off, even though we were complete opposites. I was dark and brooding, where he was light and easy going. He came from an affluent all-American family with three sisters and a younger brother, I was an only child of a broken blue-collar family. Our friendship was groomed over the hell that was being a soldier and was solidified through our mutual discord with the government’s policy on a zero tolerance on crime, and the military’s blinding willingness to enforce such a law.
Crime wasn’t as black and white as our leaders tried to pass it off as. Gracie was a perfect example of that, and the innocents born in the underground prisons were proof that the system wasn’t working. Restless and opposed to the direction our country appeared to be headed, Trigger and I finished our second year under U.S. command and joined the rebel forces.
So yeah, life had thrown me plenty of curve balls, and I rolled with each one. This latest turn of events had me twisted in ways I’d never been twisted before, though. No longer was it just my future on the line, it was Gracie’s future too, and everyone else trapped within Liberty. I felt the weight of that responsibility resting heavy on my shoulders. The sharp fear that Gracie could be taken from me at any moment left me feeling restless and desperate, two feelings I was unaccustomed to.
When Gracie squeezed my hand, I glanced her way. She looked so beautiful as the retreating flames behind us lit up her pale face, a hesitant smile which didn’t quite reach her eyes made me feel about ten fucking feet tall. It was a smile for me because she knew I was struggling, and her smiles always felt like my salvation. I’d never told her that, but somehow, she knew. She was offering me that salvation right now, even though she didn’t feel it in her heart.
“No fear,” she whispered.
“Yeah, buttercup. No fear.”