A Broken Outlaw Page 14

  “Uh huh.”

  “And... did you?” Josiah's throat tightened as he asked the question. “Did you kiss him?”

  “Nope. I shoved his head away and told him to cool it.” Carol's reply filled Josiah with secret relief. “He's, uh... let's just say he's very determined.”

  “He's not being inappropriate, is he?”

  “Uhhh...” Carol cocked her head to one side. “Define inappropriate.”

  “I'm guessing that means he has been inappropriate.” Josiah's fist clenched at the thought of it. “Do you want me to have a word with him? I can tell him to back off.”

  “Nono, Jojo! It's sweet that you want to stand up for me like some kind of big brother, but I wouldn't want you to get involved.”

  Big brother. The words must have echoed in his head at least a dozen times. He hadn't intended for Carol to see him as a sort of older brother figure. In fact, hearing her refer to him as such was beyond disheartening. He was gutted.

  “Besides...” Carol went on, “Patrick's attention is kind of flattering, even if it is a little annoying sometimes.”

  “Enough about Patrick.” Josiah was genuinely tired of hearing about the romantic exploits of his childhood friend. As a smile took his lips, he redirected her attention to the bag he carried in his prosthetic hand. “I bought you a gift.”

  “Aww!” Carol clasped a hand to her heart. “Really? Really really? You didn't have to do that!”

  “I know. But I wanted to.”

  “No one ever buys me presents... unless it's my birthday or something like that. Even then, I get a bunch of dinky cards and that's about it.”

  “Well...” Josiah's smile trembled as he handed her the bag. Thinking about her reaction made him unusually nervous. “I should probably appreciate my sidesidekick, right? After everything you've done for me, it's the least I can do.” As she peered into the bag, he sheepishly mumbled an explanation for its contents. “I noticed something, Miss Cassady. Lately, your clothing choices have been painstakingly... normal. Since I always complained about your clothes, I wasn't sure if you were doing that for my benefit... so if... i-if you were, I wanted to give you something to show you I appreciate your unique sense of style.”

  Carol's smile consumed her face as she held up the clothes. The first article was an excessively fuzzy yellow sweater with black feathers on its shoulders. The trousers were plaid and gray, with red patches sewn into the fabric. “Omigosh, Jojo!” Carol exclaimed, “These are hands down the best clothes I've ever seen!”

  “I'm glad you like them.”

  “I don't like them.” Carol temporarily tossed the clothes aside and threw her arms around him. “I loooove them!”

  To Josiah's surprise, Carol stripped off her clothes and tried on the new outfit right in front of him. For a few seconds, she wore nothing but her undergarments.

  “Well, whaddaya think?” Carol spun in a circle, modeling her new clothes at every angle. “Don't they look super dee duper?”

  “I think so.” Josiah smiled shyly. “You look a lot more like the Carol I know and love.”

  One of Carol's blonde eyebrows shot up. “Love, huh?”

  “You know what I mean. It's just an expression. It's--”

  Josiah's explanation was interrupted by Patrick Amberley, who pounded on the door as loudly and obnoxiously as he could. “Carol!” he shouted her name. “Carol My-Future-Wife Cassady! Are you in there?”

  “Sure am!” Carol threw open the door with a grin. “Ahoy there, intruder. Did you need something?”

  “It's time to take the airship.” As he casually updated her on his plan, Patrick's eyes raked over her clothes. “What the hell are you wearing, by the way?”

  “My new clothes. Josiah got 'em for me. Do you like?” Carol spun around again, modeling for Patrick this time.

  “I don't know if I'd say like, but they're definitely different. Josiah's got some odd tastes.”

  “Josiah knows what I like. He gets me.”

  Patrick's eyes were already glassy with boredom. “Well, whatever. Are you ready to go, girl?”

  Carol saluted him. “Aye aye, Captain!”

  “How about you, One Arm Jo? Are you ready for this?”

  Before Josiah could reply, Carol punched Patrick's arm as hard as she could. Her smile faded from her face, replaced by something thunderous. “How dare you! How dare you! Don't call him that, you turd!”

  “He knows I'm just teasing him,” Patrick said, smirking remorselessly. “You've got a sense of humor, right?”

  “Of course I've got a sense of humor... but that was just plain rude!”

  “It's alright, Carol,” Josiah calmly reassured his defender. As he stepped into the hallway, he intentionally slammed a shoulder into Patrick. “He can call me whatever he wants.”

  She stamped her foot and squealed, “Not if he wants me to like him, he can't!”

  Carol's rage persisted as they left the inn, headed through town, and arrived at the skyport. When they reached Isabella's sparsely guarded airship, Patrick pointed at the lone watchman on the gangway and whispered, “See? I told you this would be easy!”

  “I only have one rule,” Josiah warned his friend. “Don't take any unnecessary lives. Unless someone's shooting to kill you, you don't shoot to kill them.”

  “Yeah, yeah. I've got it, mom. Thanks.” Patrick rolled his eyes. “Jo... I've known you my whole life. Why would you think I'd suddenly forget this rule?”

  Josiah handed a tranq gun to Patrick, who immediately aimed it at the gangway guard. “I didn't think you'd forgotten... it was just a friendly reminder.”

  “You can shove your friendly reminder up your ass.” Patrick fired on the guard, and within seconds, he was down. Then he stormed onto the airship, leaving his friends to catch up to him. On the airship's deck, Patrick shot a second guard, whose legs went akimbo as he slumped over. “Try to keep up with me,” Patrick hissed at his companions.

  “How about you don't rush ahead?” Josiah suggested as he raised his gun.

  “How 'bout you get the turtle out of your ass, slowpoke?” Patrick quietly fired back at him. “Look, we need to make our way to the helm. If we can get the ship in the air, she's as good as ours. After that, we can pick off any other guards who might be lurking around.”

  One of the aforementioned guards suddenly appeared. He was patrolling the deck, looking for suspicious characters. When his eyes met Josiah's, he reached for his gun, but the outlaw was too fast for him. Josiah fired a tranq dart, knocking him out in an instant.

  “Do you even know how to fly an airship, Pat?” Josiah whispered.

  “Nope. But how hard can it be, right?”

  “I can fly an airship,” Carol spoke up. “I can pilot just about anything.”

  “There. See? We're all set.” As he turned in the direction of the helm, Patrick said, “Now try to keep up.”

  Patrick tranquilized two more guards as he made his way forward. Pausing by the airship's mast, he took a moment to reload. He didn't see Carol or Josiah. Apparently, they were held up by something, but he didn't care to wait. He didn't need them.

  Patrick rushed to the helm, where he saw two women locking lips. With a grin on his lips, he stopped to watch the show. They were as different as they could possibly be. The woman on the left was pale-skinned and dark-haired, while the woman on the right had dusky skin and pink hair. They looked tough, which wasn't Patrick's preference. He liked delicate women. Nevertheless, he was distracted by a vision of himself in the middle of them.

  “Hey, asshole!” the pink-haired woman suddenly yelled at him. “What the hell are you doing here?”

  Patrick raised his tranq gun, but the dark-haired woman was faster than he was. She kicked the gun from his hand. As he staggered backwards, she kicked him again. It was a roundhouse kick to the head, and it brought him to his knees.

  As soon as he was down, the pink-haired woman pressed the barrel of her shotgun against his throat. “You just made the
biggest mistake of your life, boy,” she taunted him. “Big mistake. Huge mistake! You have no idea what you just walked into... do you?”

  A few seconds later, Josiah and Carol appeared. When Vee saw them, a smile leapt to her lips. “Drop your weapons!” she demanded. “Drop your weapons, or your friend's brains will paint the walls! You have three seconds! One... two...”

  Josiah briefly exchanged glances with Carol, who was already lowering her gun. Because he didn't want to risk Patrick's life any more than she did, Josiah let his tranq gun slip from his fingers.

  “Good,” Vee commended them. “You made the smart choice. And that was your first smart choice of the day, actually, because sneaking onto this airship was really stupid.”

  “It was,” Hu Lian agreed. “Very stupid.”

  A masculine voice suddenly spoke from behind, “Do you mind if I show them how stupid it was?”

  When Josiah turned around, he saw Princess Isabella's masked fiance sauntering toward them, and a pained groan erupted from the outlaw's lips.

  “I remember you,” the masked man spoke in the iciest of tones. “As I recall... we have a bit of a history. You robbed the princess. You made me look like a fool.”

  “Yeah.” A nervous chuckle crawled its way up Josiah's throat. “Sorry about that.”

  Unmoved by the outlaw's apology, Thomas Harriot grabbed a shock of Josiah's blonde hair and pulled back on his head. In a low, deep voice, he threatened, “Now that you're here, I'm going to have a bit of fun with you.” After a short pause, he coldly added, “I hope you have a high tolerance for pain.”

  Twenty

  “Ed!” Logan Hershall stopped the motocarriage and screamed for his brother. “Ed, stop shitting and get over here! I need to show you the new merchandise?”

  “How the hell am I supposed to stop shitting?” Ed hollered from behind the bushes. “You really want me to walk over there with a log danglin' between my cheeks?”

  “Uh... no. Probably not. Just finish your business as quick as you can. I'm excited to show you what I got.” Logan hopped down from the driver's seat and popped open the motocarriage's rusty door. From its interior, he dragged out three women, all of them bound. With a gun pointed at their heads, he ordered them to stand in a line. Only two of the three women were in tears. The third was surprisingly stoic.

  When Ed returned, he was hopping into his breeches and fumbling with his belt. “Well, Logan, what did you bring back for us?”

  “This one's Mary.” Logan pointed at the first woman: a buxom, middle-aged woman with dirty blonde hair. She had so much fear in her eyes, she looked dangerously close to swooning. Logan squeezed her cheeks and planted a kiss on her lips, smearing her ruby red lipstick. “She works at the Grand Saloon. I flirted with her a little bit, got her to come home with me, then I shoved her in the back of the motocarriage. It was real easy.”

  “I don't know, brother...” Ed's long nose puckered as he studied Logan's first catch. “You really think someone will want to buy her? She ain't that young.”

  “Of course she'll be bought! She ain't that old either, and men have all kinds of preferences. Besides, she's got a nice set of tits. That'll go a long way toward getting the price I want.” Logan stroked Mary's hair before he moved to the next woman. Petite, dark-skinned, and panic-stricken, her body instinctively cowered when Logan moved closer. “And this is Delilah. She's only sixteen, so I suspect she'll fetch a high price if we find the right buyer.”

  “Only sixteen?” Ed whistled through cracked lips. “You don't spare nobody, do you?”

  “Nope.” Logan turned his attention to the third and final woman, whose pretty face was eerily placid. She had dark, shrewd eyes, and even though they were as narrow as slits, Logan was far from intimidated. “Now... what'd you say your name was, girl? I forget.”

  “Letitia,” the woman replied. “I'm Letitia Jordan. My father is Admiral Jordan of the Baltmoor Aerial Militia and when he finds out you've--”

  “Quiet!” Logan interrupted with a snort. “That's too many words. I don't need to hear all that!”

  “But you should know who you're dealing with. When I get out, you're going to regret this. You're going to regret that you ever--”

  “QUIET!” Logan pressed his gun's barrel against Lettie's brow, which was covered in thin worry wrinkles. “I don't want to give you a black eye before the buyers get here, but if you get too lippy, I will.”

  “You can't sell people!” Lettie objected to their enterprise. “You can't! That's illegal.”

  “Sweetie...” Logan stood in front of her and sifted her chin-length brown hair through his filthy, soot-covered fingers. “As long as there's a demand, and as long as people are willing to look the other way, you can buy and sell anything in this world. That's the reality of it.”

  “That one's too noisy,” said Ed, who was busily picking a scab on his cheek.

  “She sure is. And believe me, she didn't come easy. I had to really struggle for this one.” Logan moved so close to Lettie, she not only felt his breath, she smelled it. He reeked of spirits, smoke, and something unidentifiable and sour. “Whoever buys this one is going to be the unluckiest man in the world... and the luckiest man in the world. She might be a beauty, but she's also a pain in the ass.”

  * * *

  “Jun, I want to give you something.”

  Flynn rarely started conversations, so Jun was surprised to hear the sound of his voice. They were baking under a scorching red sun on an especially hot desert day. Fortunately, the sun was in its final hours. Soon, it would sink below the horizon and give them the relief they desperately needed. “What is it?” she asked.

  When Flynn handed her a gun, Jun's eyes widened. She never held one before. For several seconds, she apprehensively cradled it in her open palm. Her fingers rejected the deadly metal.

  “If something ever happened to me, you'd need to defend yourself,” Flynn explained. “I don't know if Prince Feng is dead or if he'll keep coming for you... either way, you should be armed.”

  “How do you use it?” Jun asked as she studied the gun. The metal was incredibly shiny, which was to be expected, since Flynn spent a generous amount of time polishing his weapons.

  “It's not that hard, really. You just point and shoot.”

  Jun's brow puckered at his simplified lesson. “It can't be as easy as that.”

  “I think it is. You can practice and improve, but when it comes down to it, it really is as easy as that.”

  Jun's reluctant fingers finally curled around the gun. She raised it, closed one eye, and pretended to aim at a beetle. “I'm holding something that could kill a person. It... feels strange.”

  “You get used to it.”

  Jun shook her head. “I don't think I could.”

  “When you want to fire, pull back on the hammer and press the trigger.”

  “I don't think I want to fire.” Jun kept the beetle in her sights for several seconds before she finally lowered the revolver. “I'm not sure I'll ever want to fire. But... I guess, in some strange way, I'm glad you gave this to me.”

  “So, about those apples I bought today...” Flynn changed the subject. “Do you think I should cook them or would you rather eat them r--” A sudden scream pierced the sky, silencing his voice. He exchanged glances with Jun, who shook her head and shrugged.

  “What was that?” she whispered.

  “I don't know. Do you think I should investigate?”

  Her answer was the same as his. “I don't know.”

  As soon as he heard a second scream, Flynn was on his feet. “I think I'm going to check it out. Jun... maybe you should wait in the motocarriage? Keep your gun with you.”

  “W-wait!” Jun seized his sleeve before he could get away. “I'm worried. What if it's dangerous? What if something happens to you? You're pretty much the only friend I've got, so if something happened to you, I'd be all alone out here, and... and... I'd be devastated.”

  Flynn's chest was lightly
prickled by pride. She cared about him. “Nothing will happen to me. No one's going to take me down that easily, I promise.”

  “Flynn.” Jun whined his name. If someone was in danger, if someone needed help, she needed to let him go. Even so, she was selfish. She wanted him close.

  “I'll be back.” Flynn thought about hugging her, but it required too much courage—the type of courage he didn't possess. For him, taking on a dozen shooters was much easier than hugging one girl. “It'll be okay, Jun, I promise.”

  When Jun returned to the motocarriage, Flynn raced in the direction of the scream. As he dashed past junipers and cacti, he stayed vigilant, searching for any signs of life. Finally, after rounding a steep hill, he found something unexpected.

  The Hershall brothers.

  Logan and Ed were standing between three men and three women. The ladies were tied up, Logan paced back and forth, and Ed Hershall was counting money. One of the women, the oldest of the three, was face-down on the ground. A bearded man crouched behind her, snaking a hand under her dress. She was crying, so Flynn assumed she was the one who screamed.

  “I like to test the merchandise first,” the bearded man said as he stroked the woman's thigh. “It's real generous of you to oblige, Mr. Hershall.”

  “I don't mind if you test that one. I reckon she's been rode a few times.” When he finished speaking, Logan spat on the ground.

  “In other words... she's a mare, not a filly,” snickered Ed, who had coins trickling through his fingers.

  “I hope that means the mare is cheaper.” The bearded man swatted the woman's rear end, making her scream again. “You're charging too much for those pretty young things.”

  “I think it's a fair price,” Logan objected. “I reckon they're both virgins, and those are hard to come by out here.”

  “I'll pay,” another buyer spoke up. “For that one right there, I'd pay a fortune. She looks like trouble. I like trouble.” He winked at Lettie, whose spirits were gradually shattering. She kept hoping for a rescue, but hope was dwindling. She was going to be sold like a horse at auction. Worst of all, she'd probably never see Julian again.