The Neo-Spartans: Altered World (26 page)

              “What is it with you? Are you… leaving? Is this the last time I’m going to see you?” he suddenly said aloud.

              She leaned in and kissed him. It was a kiss he hadn’t experienced before. It wasn’t the manipulative, seductive kiss he knew so well thanks to Tyra, neither was it a kiss ignited by quick passion. This was a long, anguished kiss, full of feeling. Quinn reluctantly pulled away and looked out toward the canyon.

              “Nico, I’ve lied to you. I’m not who you think I am,” she waited for a reaction but his face was blank, frozen with suspense. “I’m a Neo-Spartan.”

              The wind grabbed her words and rattled them around the canyon. The echo startled her. Nico just stood there, unable to wrap his mind around what she had just said. His eyes became a kaleidoscope of shock and anger, of amazement and betrayal, but his face remained stone cold.

              “Say something, please.”

              He searched for words but it was dizzying. “Where do you suggest I begin?” he asked.

              “By calling me liar. Tell me you hate me. Something.”

              He remained silent.

              “I had to come to the Sanctuary. I had no choice,” she said quietly.

              “Why? Bangers never harmed you. Why are you coming after us?” Nico asked.

              “We’re not coming after Bangers. I came because you took my brother.”

              Her words cut Nico like a knife. Of all the worst case scenarios, this was one he hadn’t even imagined.

              “I took your brother…?”

              “I’m afraid so.”

              He lowered his head, unable to look at her. “So this is about revenge?” he asked.

              “Last night when I found out it was you who took my brother, I wanted to hate you enough to kill you, but revenge had to bow down to something more powerful. You did what you had to do. You didn’t ask questions because this is the way of the Sanctuary. You never could’ve lived with yourself if you knew what they were asking you to do. Unfortunately, that made you their tool,” said Quinn.

              “Why are you telling me this?”

              “Because I need the help of an insider. I need to figure out how to get into the Citadel.”

              “It’s impossible. It’s suicide,” Nico said.

              “We have to make it possible. The people you’re working for are going to pluck the organs out of the boys you’ve supplied as if they’re some kind of road kill and put them inside a dying Grant Hughes!”

              His brain was short-circuiting. She told him what she had gleaned from Grisner, the horrid plan to keep Hughes and the privileged elite alive by using organs harvested from the Neo-Spartans Nico had been kidnapping.

              Nico reeled. He thought that becoming a Banger had freed him from the plots and machinations of society; he thought he had opted out of everything that might be against his principles, and now he realized he had done nothing but close his eyes and walk straight into the traps he had tried to avoid. How could he ever change what he had done? He felt an urge to get out of his own skin. He started the engine and revved it to the max. Quinn leapt aboard as the tires kicked up clouds of dust and the motorcycle shot forward.

* * *

              They got back to the Sanctuary running on fumes. Nico maintained his grim silence and when the bike reached the flat surface of the street they got off. Quinn tried to shake him out of his lugubrious state.

              “You can change the things you’ve done, Nico, you can. You can say ‘no.’ Let me help you say ‘no’.”

              Nico shook his head and mumbled, “It’s too late.”

              “No, it’s not. They need one more kid to get the full set of organs. It’s all in your hands. You can stop the kidnapping and you can help me understand how to access the Citadel.”

              “Quinn, this is loco. I’m the king of loco and I’m telling you forget it. You can’t just stroll in there and escort these kids out.”

              “I’m not going to do this alone. I figure out safe entry and my people send in an extraction team,” said Quinn.

              “You people… you may be organic but you’re not invincible. Uh-uh, no way, I’m not going to be part of this.” He started away.

“Nico!” Quinn tried to chase him, but he raised a hand, indicating he didn’t want company. Nico moved through the roiling crowds of Bangers that ebbed and flowed on the streets of the Sanctuary. The mindless noise and commotion that before seemed so liberating to him were now silenced by the commotion and noise in his head. There was no escaping the truth of Quinn’s words, and there was no coming to terms with it.

* * *

              Nico found his way back to the stone steps of a disused fountain and replayed what he’d learned. He knew a raid on the Citadel offered redemption, but he also knew it was suicide. But since when was a Vaquero reluctant to face down death? He was wrestling the quandary when Magda and Marisol appeared.

              “Hola, Tio Nico.”

              “Hola back, kid,” he smiled at her. He looked from the kid to her mom to meet the identical face, with the same big green eyes and lashes that were fluttering in the same charm-the-shirt-off your-back way. Oh, she was good. Nico instantly knew that he was going to be worked over by his big sis and his guard immediately went up.

              “So now you’re putting Marisol to work to soften me up?” His words were a signal for Magda to drop the act.

              “Well, the kid’s gotta practice on somebody.”

              “What do you want?” Nico wanted to get it over with.

              “I want to see Julius.” The firm and clear announcement stunned them both. Nico saw this wasn’t just a whim and all kinds of alarms went off in his head.

              “Well, Julius doesn’t want to see you.”

              “Well, make him want to see me, you’re his best performing franchise right now. Lucrative entertainment and all, fancy fighter babe scoring points for you with the big guy. Come on, use your cards.”

              “If Julius wanted to have anything to do with you, I’m sure he would’ve knocked on your door already–”

He didn’t get a chance to finish because Magda’s heated up face was staring right up his. “You think I care about Julius wanting to see me?! He can go to hell as far as I’m concerned. But I want him to see her.” She gestured at Marisol.

              “You want both of you to be kicked out of the Sanctuary, is that it?” Nico had reached the limit for his daily dose of lunacy. “You knew what it meant getting involved with Julius, you knew when you realized that you were carrying his child that it was going to be a solo affair. You were okay with it then. What’s with the sudden change of mind? You gold-digging, or just crazy for attention?”

              “Go to hell, Nico. I can give Marisol everything she needs without Julius’s dirty money. I don’t want anything from him. I just want him to see her, to see this beautiful face. He is a nasty bastard but there’s gotta be a soft side in there that’ll take one look at her and bring her into his arms, even if it’s for a few seconds. She deserves it,” Magda insisted.

              Nico was up against something he didn’t know how to fight, Magda’s mother’s instinct. How do you fight instinct with logic and sense? How come he had to act older and wiser?

              “You’ll get us all killed. Yeah, he is gonna take one look at her and she’s gonna touch that soft spot, and you know what’s gonna happen? You know what he’ll see in that pretty face of hers?” his voice grew harder.

              “He’s gonna see himself.” The hope was palpable in Magda’s voice.

              “No. He’s going to see his life’s limitations.” Nico walked to Marisol and lifted up her chin so he could see her green velvet eyes and mocha skin. “He’ll see how gorgeous she is and he’ll do what anyone would do: he’ll imagine her at her prom and he’ll imagine her at twenty, twenty-five years old when she’s grown into a beautiful, strong woman ready to marry. Just. One. Problem. He isn’t going to be around. He’s got five years max. He is going to see his beautiful daughter and realize he won’t be there for her!” Nico became aware he was shouting and people were turning their heads, but he didn’t care. It was as if he was channeling Julius’ rage.

              “He is going to be upset, he is going to feel the pain, and you know what Julius does best when he feels pain? He makes other people suffer. So what you’re asking me is to go ahead and open up that massive bottle of frustration and anger. You’re asking me to make this little darling create ground zero for a nuclear blast that’s gonna scorch the earth for a hundred miles and quickly send us all into the past. Is that really what you want me to do?”

              Magda struggled hard with what he had just said. Of course he was right, deep down she knew that. But his sense couldn’t silence the mother in her. She loved Marisol and she tried to give her everything, but she knew that no matter how hard she tried, something would always be missing from her life. Her father. And that was not fair. Why did Nico care about Julius’s pain and feeling? Why didn’t he care about hers? The anger pulsed in her temples.

              “You are such a dog, little brother. Always licking the hand of the master that feeds you! Well, you know, you owe me one. I look out for your interests, finding the pearls and serving them on a platter, like that hot tamale I handpicked for you. She seems to be making you happy on soooo many levels. News flash, little brother, there ain’t a free lunch here in the Sanctuary. I watch out for you, now it’s time you watch out for me.”

              “You watch out for me?! Magda, you brought a freaking Neo-Spartan right smack in the middle of my camp.”

              “Sure, a Neo-Spartan in the Sanctuary,” Magda scoffed, trying to downplay her crime. “Who told you that?”

              “She did. And she is not just any Neo-Spartan. Somehow you managed to handpick one whose brother I grabbed. Congratulations, fanfreakintastic job you did. Let me see how I can repay the favor.”

              “You can say thank you.” The enigmatic smile returned to Magda’s face.

              Nico growled in frustration, “For what?! Are you even listening to me?”

              “Young, male and stupid. You kidnap her brother, she shares her deepest secret with you.” She smacked Nico on the head. “Wake up you idiot, what do you think this means? This is love. And not just any kind of love, it’s the kind that happens once in a blue moon.”

              “How is this helpful? Neo-Spartan. Eugenic fighter. I might drop dead tomorrow.”

              Magda looked at him for a very long time. She wished she could make him understand; she hoped that what she was about to say would sink in and teach his heart. “Nico, five years full of joy and pain are better than empty forever.”

              She took Marisol’s little hand in hers, looked at her daughter for a moment, and her eyes smiled and filled up with tears at the same time. She turned one more time to Nico and then the two of them disappeared in the crowd.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

              He was dead, no doubt about it. Nobody was really sure where he’d come from. Jared had kind of just appeared at the sports arena one day like most of them had, and now he was dead. For the fighting Vaqueros, death was a title challenger. It was something down the line, way too close for comfort, and ready to steal your glory at any moment. So they taunted it, defied it and tried to enjoy the champ status as long as possible. They’d witnessed other Bangers take an early stage exit, but it still seemed as if it didn’t concern them. But now Jared was dead and the need to do something immediately was sung by the chorus of flies that had gathered noisily over the corpse. It was just… nobody was sure what to do. Dead guys usually happened in the ring or during a stunt. They met death on their own terms; this one had done the trick of disaster in his sleep. He didn’t get a chance to defend his title, it was stolen from him, and that was a good enough reason to freak out.

              Nico stood a few feet away from the body, completely numb, wondering if he had reached his tolerance threshold for existential junk. Quinn, his sister, now Jared. What else was coming his way that he had to deal with?

              While he stood there, dazed and uninvolved, his guys broke apart like dark clouds, milling around the body not knowing what to do or how to deal with this reminder of their pending mortality. Thor lumbered his way to Jared’s body and stared at it for a long time, muttering to himself. There was something disquieting about this huge guy looking lost, mumbling and winding himself up.