Ciphers, Matt Rogers [a court of thorns and roses ebook free TXT] 📗

Rico smiled, too.

Maybe craziness was infectious after all.

They were still walking, powering down 59th Street in a blur. By now they were probably halfway across the Upper East Side. Somewhere in Lenox Hill, Rico figured. Now there were pedestrians all around them, congregating in groups for perceived safety, murmuring to one another. Neither Rico nor Samuel noticed them. They were a dark blur on a dark background.

Samuel suddenly seized Rico’s wrist — the one with the Glock. He’d been carrying it in plain sight the whole way from Central Park, and no one had noticed. There were bigger things on their mind than the blurry outline of a handgun. No one had even been looking for it.

Samuel held it up in front of his face. ‘Nothing stands out more than someone who doesn’t give a fuck.’

Rico listened.

Drank in the words.

Bathed in them.

That’s what he’d been missing the whole time. All the partying, all the drinking — it was the actions of a rebellious teenager. Sooner or later he had to do something to evolve. Something to set him apart from the young cartel playboys. Something he could take back to his father and boast about.

Samuel said, ‘How about you do some serious killin’?’

Slowly, Rico nodded.

Samuel said, ‘Who do you want to kill?’

Rico looked around up and down the street. They were at the corner of 59th and Third. The Ed Koch Queensboro Bridge was a few hundred feet to the east. The Upper East Side was north. South was Midtown and Lower Manhattan. All the possibilities in the world. A city of millions, their lives ripe for the taking. Who did he want to target first? Adrenaline rippled through him, stirring a vigour he hadn’t truly felt before.

Then he saw two men crossing the street.

He first noticed the big duffel bags they were carrying — it was the first thing that set them apart from the rest of the swarming civilians. Next was their physiques — they were both enormous men, with broad shoulders and purposeful strides. That made them stand out in its own right. But the third thing was the most important.

Rico recognised one of them.

It was the bald guy from Palantir, the man who had stripped him of his weapon and humiliated him in front of everyone he knew.

Determination flooded him in a wave.

He seized Samuel by the shoulder and pointed a shaking, accusatory finger across the street.

‘Look,’ he hissed.

‘I see them.’

‘I know one of them. I fucking hate him.’

‘What’d he do?’

‘Messed with me. Nobody does that. Not anymore.’

Samuel leered. ‘Good, kid. You’re learning.’

‘Let’s fucking get them.’

Together, they took off in pursuit.

37

They walked fast.

And they walked hard.

Just how they approached everything in life.

They swept through Midtown, then Koreatown, increasing their stride as they warmed up, keeping their eyes peeled for any sign of trouble. But in circumstances like this it was impossible to keep track of everything. There were hordes of people out on the streets now, and for most of them the initial excitement of the blackout had worn off. King saw faces barely concealing panic — some were more contained than others, but there was a definite undercurrent of stress now. It might have thrown him off if he didn’t have tunnel vision, focused entirely on the sidewalks ahead. He was scanning every face and discarding it — superficial emotions like fear and unease didn’t stand out. Everyone was feeling the same, as far as he could tell. And he knew it would only get worse.

When the lights stayed out for good, what was considered “civilised” would descend into something savage real fast.

King had spent enough time around the savages of the world.

Halfway through Koreatown, he noticed Slater staring into a dark hole-in-the-wall bar as they strode past it.

King said, ‘What is it?’

Slater shook his head in apparent disbelief. ‘That’s where I started my night.’

‘Bet it feels like a year ago.’

‘And at the same time, it feels like the night hasn’t even started yet.’

King said, ‘How do you want to play this?’

‘No point speculating until we see the building in the flesh.’

‘That’s exactly what I was going to say.’

Slater glanced over. ‘You know ... we work well together. Maybe we should have started this cooperation thing a lot sooner in our careers.’

‘Maybe,’ King said. ‘Or maybe we get killed tonight and that statement seems dumb in hindsight.’

‘Not if I can help it.’

They kept walking. A hundred feet, then another hundred, then another, and suddenly Koreatown morphed into the Flatiron District. The crowds fell away, and their absence created a grimy atmosphere. King looked around and realised it must have been a snowball effect. When the lights went out, people were unnerved, and their instincts must have kicked in. They’d congregated in the busiest sections of Manhattan, grateful for the supposed “safety in numbers,” and as soon as the quieter parts of the city emptied out, the stragglers scattered like ghosts in the wind.

He figured everything south of the Flatiron District would be even more desolate.

At least the emptier streets allowed for better observation. King could scan every passerby in an instant, and it allowed his mind to quieten too. He didn’t have to rapidly process a dozen people at once, looking for any sign of a threat. He spotted every silhouette well in advance and ticked them off the list.

It was halfway through the Flatiron District that he realised he hadn’t been keeping track of his six.

But Slater beat him to it.

The man had already thrown several glances over his shoulder, and now he looked back and his gaze lingered. King noticed. He turned, too, and saw nothing but shadow. You could have all the surveillance training in the world, and darkness was still darkness. He couldn’t see a thing.

But it seemed Slater could.

Still keeping stride, the man murmured, ‘Go left. Now.’

‘What?’

‘Left,’ Slater hissed.

He seized King by the crook of his elbow and veered him off Fifth Avenue. Out on the main avenues there was the faintest aura of light —