26
Rowan
Once Wylder sethis mind to something, there really was no stopping him. That was part of the reason I admired the guy.
Just a few hours after he’d pulled us together to say we were going rogue with a plan of our own to take down the Steel Knights, we were cruising through the streets where Paradise City started to bleed into the Bend, checking out possible locations for our scheme.
“How exactly is this supposed to work again?” Mercy asked from where she was sitting in the back of my Toyota. This time she’d made Gideon take the middle, perched between her and Kaige. “How can we make sure the crime actually gets pinned on Colt and the others?”
“If the cops find them in the building with that amount of product, it shouldn’t be hard to get the charges to stick,” Wylder said. “With a new drug on the streets, they’ll have been itching for someone to blame. And the Nobles have a few cops in their pocket to ensure everything gets filed and processed as it should.”
“The trick is going to be making sure we can keep them in the building until we bring the police down on them, right?” Kaige said. “We need a place without too many potential exits.”
Gideon nodded. “Anthea suggested some impressive techniques for subtly rigging the doors so we can make it very difficult for them to force their way out once we blockade them in. And I’ll have the cameras set up as well so that there’s footage of the Steel Knights with the truck.”
Mercy’s brow knit. “But how can we be sure Colt will show up?”
Wylder smiled grimly. “He came when we started kicking butt in the Bend before. I think he’ll want direct payback for the theft and what we did to his warehouse.”
“He’ll have lost a lot of face and want to prove he can stand up for the people supporting him,” I agreed. “We just have to be careful not to do anything that might raise his suspicions that it’s a trap. I’ve already started spreading the word about the Nobles gearing up to sell this Glory stuff through a few channels. It’s probably already gotten back to him.”
“He just doesn’t know where.” Kaige glanced out the window. “Of course, neither do we.”
“We’re getting there.” Wylder tilted his head toward the window. “What’re we looking at, Gideon?”
Gideon swiped through his tablet and pointed out a few buildings we passed on the winding route he’d given me before we’d left. We all just looked and considered until we came up on a red brick building with a large, steel garage-style door that filled about half of the front of the place.
“I like that one,” Kaige announced. “We could drive the truck right in there no problem.”
“Assuming there isn’t much garbage or equipment inside,” Gideon said. “It’s an abandoned auto-repair shop, went bankrupt about a decade ago, no one’s ever bothered to take it over. But it does seem like a good bet on paper. Two entrances at the front and one at the back, all of them sturdy doors. The windows are barred so no one’s breaking out that way. And, like you said, it should be easy to drive the truck in.”
Wylder drummed his hands on the dashboard. “What are we waiting for, then? Let’s take a closer look.”
The lock on the back door turned out to be broken. We walked inside to a musty smell that made me wrinkle my nose. Wylder and Kaige turned on the flashlights on their phones and held them up.
Teenagers had clearly been partying in here—there were beer bottles gathering dust in the corners, chip bags and fast-food wrappers scattered around, and random, artless graffiti tags on the walls. I studied the spray-painted lines automatically, my fingers itching for a chance to put something more skilled up over them.
But I didn’t draw pretty pictures, not anymore.
The main work bay in front of the garage door was otherwise empty. The shop equipment must have been sold off to cover the debts. I dragged in a breath, my sensitivity to the mustiness fading, and had to conclude: “This is the place.”
“I agree,” Wylder said. “Let’s figure out where we’ll set everything up.”
“How soon do we want to bring the truck in?” Kaige asked.
“I’ll have to spread a few more rumors, make sure we’ll have some eyes in the wider area when we bring it in so word about the general location can get passed on,” I said. “And we want to keep the timeline tight so they don’t crash the party before we’re ready.”
“Makes sense.”
Gideon pointed to a couple of concrete beams down the middle of the wide room. “I can mount cameras up there and there. With the angles of the shadows, I don’t think anyone will notice, and it’ll capture most of the activity down here.”
Wylder clapped him on the back. “There we go. It’s all coming together just like that.”
Wewere all coming together. A sense of purpose—no, not just purpose, of community—gripped me like I didn’t think it had since Mercy had walked into the mansion. When we all put our strengths to a task, we could be nearly unstoppable. I’d seen it in the past, and I could feel the same energy coming together now as we studied the room around us.
Only Mercy herself still looked doubtful. Kaige shouldered her playfully. “What’s the matter, Kitty Cat? You don’t like the plan?”
She swatted at him, but his teasing provoked a smile with undeniable affection. “I didn’t say that. I just—” She looked around again and sighed. “Getting arrested, even getting sent off to jail for however many years, doesn’t feel like enough punishment for what Colt did.”