“So who are you?” the AWOL asks his rescuer.
“Name’s Argent,” he says, “Like ‘sergeant’ without the S.” He holds out his hand for the AWOL to shake, then turns and leads the way down the steamy, narrow conduit. “This way, it’s not far.”
“Not far to where?”
“I got a pretty sweet setup. Hot food and a comfortable place to sleep.”
“Sounds too good to be true.”
“I know, doesn’t it?” Argent offers him a smile almost as greasy as his hair.
“So what’s your story? Why’d you risk your ass for me?”
Argent shrugs. “Isn’t much of a risk when you know you’ve got ’em outsmarted,” he says. “Anyway, I figure it’s my civic duty. I escaped from a parts pirate a while back, now I help others less fortunate than myself. And it wasn’t just any parts pirate I got away from—it was the ex-Juvey-cop who Connor Lassiter tranq’d with his own gun. He got drummed out of the force, and now he sells the kids he catches on the black market.”
The AWOL reaches through his memory for the name. “That Neilson guy?”
“Nelson,” Argent corrects, “Jasper T. Nelson. And I know Connor Lassiter too.”
“Really,” says the AWOL, dubiously.
“Oh, yeah—and he’s a real piece of work. A total loser. I showed him hospitality like I’m showing you, and he did this to my face.”
Only now does the AWOL see that the left half of Argent’s face is badly damaged from wounds that are still healing.
“I’m supposed to believe that the Akron AWOL did that?”
Argent nods. “Yeah, when he was a guest in my storm cellar.”
“Right.” Obviously the guy is making all of this up, but the AWOL doesn’t challenge him any further. Best not to bite the hand that’s about to feed him.
“Just a little farther,” says Argent. “You like steak?”
“Whenever I can get it.”
Argent gestures to a breach in the concrete wall through which cool air spills, smelling like fresh mold, instead of old rot. “After you.”
The AWOL climbs through to find himself in a cellar. There are other people here, but they’re not moving. It takes a moment for him to register what he’s seeing. Three teens lying on the ground, gagged and hog-tied.
“Hey, what the—”
But before he can finish the thought, Argent comes up behind him and puts him in a brutal choke hold that cuts off not just his windpipe, but all the blood to his brain. And the last thing that strikes the AWOL’s mind before losing consciousness is the bleak realization that he’s been swallowed by a snake after all.
2 • Argent
He’s on top of the world. He’s at the peak of his game. Things couldn’t be going better for Argent Skinner, apprentice parts pirate, who’s learning the trade from Jasper T. Nelson, the best there is.
Argent didn’t land in Nelson’s service under the best of circumstances, but he certainly has made the best of the circumstances he was given. He has proven himself so valuable that Nelson had no choice but to keep him on. The evidence of Argent’s value is tied up in the U-Haul behind him.
The small van, a one-way rental, had replaced a rented car that they had left abandoned in a suburban Walmart parking lot. Argent doesn’t worry that they’ll be tracked down for these little bits of petty larceny, because Nelson is a true master of evading so-called justice and keeping under the radar. Having been a Juvey-cop for so many years, Nelson knows all the angles, all the ropes. He knows how to skate smoothly across the slick surface of the law.
Nelson is Argent’s new hero. Connor Lassiter, the previous object of Argent’s hero worship, was a disappointment. Now both Argent and Nelson are united in hatred against the Akron AWOL—and such hatred can be as powerful a bo
nding force as love.
Argent turns around to take another look at the kids in the van behind him: four of them bound and gagged, practically gift wrapped for delivery. The AWOLs are all awake and squirming. Some cry, but silently and to themselves, because they don’t want to incur Argent’s wrath—which he has threatened to rain upon them several times. Of course, it’s all blustering on Argent’s part, because Nelson won’t let him physically hurt them.
“Bruises reduce their market value,” Nelson pointed out. “Divan does not like his fruit bruised. He’s already going to be aggravated that he’s getting a consolation offering from me, instead of the grand prize.”