They removed his prosthetic leg although he didn’t know why, it’s not like he could outrun them if he were even given the chance. July found that his stump ached when he was anxious and now the pain crawled up his thigh, as bad as the burning in his lungs with every struggling breath through the thick material of the bag. He had been in the car all day. No one spoke to him, he didn’t know if it was night yet, there was no music playing on the radio. When the initial panic of being kidnapped first began to die down – and July convinced himself that he wasn’t going to die – he tried to find the logic in his enemy’s actions, and he tried to think of how he’d get himself out of this. But thinking was impossible in this condition, the pain and discomfort, the fear lurking in the back of his skull, any idea that began to form one moment would slip away a second later.
The torment eventually neared its end. July was hauled from the car, marched around this way and that, and all the while he wanted to scream for them to remove the suffocating bag, but he refused to show his weakness. A heavy hand on his shoulder forced him to his knees; the image manifested in his mind of a man holding a pistol against his head and blowing his brains out on the floor, but that didn’t happen.
The bag was yanked from his head. He gulped in the fresh air, sweat sticking his hair to his forehead, light stinging his eyes. Before him was a woman, full bodied but heavily scarred, sitting at a wooden table and eating a bowl of stew. She wore jean shorts and a rugged crop-top to expose much of her tanned skin and tattoos. July scanned her body and then the surrounding area; the knife on her belt, the fullness of her legs crossed one over another, the way her eyes remained fixed on her meal, the gun resting on the table, the man standing guard to his left. There was no mistaking that this woman was Leah Mackenzie.
The silence became blatantly apparent amidst the heavy breathing of the guard and the sloshing of strew, the sound of Leah blowing steam from a spoonful of broth and meat. When it then became apparent that July had no intention of breaking the silence Leah took the liberty of having the first word.
“Mitch wants you dead,” she pointed out, her voice slurred as she ate while she talked. “I’ve heard a lot about you, July, ‘the one-legged man who wants to liberate the north’.” She slurped down the remaining broth and put the bowl aside, then stood up. “Somehow you intimidated Cutlass into giving Red-Rock to you – I at least thought you’d be taller.”
“I’ve heard a lot about you too, Leah Mackenzie.” July maintained eye-contact as she walked towards him, her right hand automatically resting on the hilt of her knife.
“Apparently not,” Leah replied. “Otherwise you’d be afraid.”
“Why am I here?” July pressed. He was glad that Leah hadn’t called his bluff – he was scared, but also curious.
“Like I said, Mitch wants you dead.”
“And yet here I am. Why?”
Leah crouched in front of July and stroked his cheek. “Because you’re cute.” She cupped her hand over the stump of his leg and examined it. “How’d you survive so long without a leg?”
“I compensate,” July shrugged. “I’ve heard I’m quite charming. We both know that surviving is just a question of how far we’re willing to go.”
A smile curled on her lips and she touched July’s shoulder. “And how far are you willing to go?”
Still July held her eyes as he answered, “All the way.”
Leah was satisfied. She stood up and returned to her table, and signalled for her guard to untie July’s hands and then leave the room. When they were alone she said, “It’s strange that the other factions grouped the Raiders up as a single organisation, we’re no more an organisation than the Anarchists. All the same we live by an unspoken set of rules that many of us – including myself – take very seriously.” She sighed. “It’s no secret that I intend to kill Mitch Buster and become… let’s just say… the chief of the Raider clans. In smaller Raider packs leadership is determined by strength, tested by single combat, but I know that if I challenge Mitch right now he won’t fight fair, and yet if he tries anything against me now it would mean war.” She chuckled, an ugly sound. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you? As soon as we fight each other your people would swoop in and take us all out.”
“You need someone to ensure it’s a fair fight, don’t you?”
“Don’t get ahead of yourself,” Leah snapped. “I don’t want your help. Spectators like it when important people die, that’s why you’re going to the capital.”
July’s chest tightened. “Christ, you’re putting me in the arena, aren’t you?”
“If it makes you feel any better, I’ll be betting in your favour.” She went to the door and signalled for the guard to escort July out. “I might be a fool for it… But I have a good feeling.”
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