Three Alpha Romeo

“You know him?”

Marcus nodded. “We worked together,” he swore angrily. “Back when I was still with Indigo.”

The man on the floor grinned up at us through blood-soaked teeth. He turned his head and spat.

“She’s not here,” he grunted, chest heaving. “They already left.” With a pained grimace, he shifted a little and turned toward Marcus. “Good to see you too, Alvarez.”

I stepped in quickly and knelt down hard on his chest. As the man gasped in horrific pain, I rolled my hand into his hair and pulled.

“I swear to God,” I growled, “If one of you hurts her, even a little—”

“Tell us where she is!” Randall interjected. “Hurry, we don’t have much time before—”

“Forget it.”

The two words came from Marcus. He was standing over the man, shaking his head. From what I could see, his left arm had been shot through.

“I know this asshole,” he said grimly. “He’s not going to tell us anything.”

I screwed my knee even harder into the man’s shattered ribs. He screamed.

“Wanna bet?”

I went again, and he screamed some more. But when I finally let up… that grin was back, even wider than before. And not only that, the psycho was even laughing.

“See?” said Marcus. “Trust me. You could pull him into five fucking pieces. He’d never betray Kyrkos, even if—”

“The marina.”

We all whirled to look at him. The man Marcus had called Riker was nodding, laughing.

“He took her to the marina.”

I let up. He looked up at me gratefully, but still in tremendous amounts of pain.

“The bigger moorings are to the south, just a few miles outside of town.” He coughed into his hand, and his fingers came back with flecks of blood. “He took her to the yacht. Berth six.”

“Why are you telling us this?” Marcus demanded.

“Because fuck Kyrkos,” Riker swore emphatically. He did it with such anger, such vehemence, it launched him into another coughing fit. Eventually he stopped, and his eyes shifted to Marcus. “Believe me, I’m just as through with this shit as you are.”

We looked at each other, all of us thinking the same thing.

A few miles…

“Here.”

A set of keys suddenly flew through the air. Marcus reached out and caught them. The effort alone sent Riker’s face twisting in pain.

“You’ll find two Jeeps around back,” he coughed, nodding to Marcus’s outstretched hand. “That’s for the black one.”

Marcus knelt. He did it swiftly, placing a hand on the man’s shoulder. “Thanks.”

“Just go,” said Riker. “You don’t have a lot of time.”

We nodded, spinning away. Just before the Ranger stood up however, the man grabbed his arm.

“Oh, and Marcus?” He coughed again.