“What the hell, man?” Bracken glared at Oscar, then gave me a little “can you believe this fucking guy” hand gesture.
“Sorry, sorry.” Oscar stabbed at the tablet mounted to his dashboard agitatedly. “Priority call.”
I was hit with the sick wave of certainty that calling on him rather than a regular cab had been a terrible mistake.
“Is there any way you can drop us off first?” I asked weakly.
“It’s E. Your boss.”
“Oh god.” I felt ill.
“Your boss?” Bracken’s brow furrowed in confusion.
“Company car,” Oscar explained, coming to my rescue. “She’s very important.” I mentally doubled his tip.
Oscar tapped the screen one more time and put the call on speaker, to my utter horror.
“Hi, Anna! How are you this evening.”
I am so sorry, I mouthed at Bracken, stricken.
He waved his hand, a little “don’t be” gesture, but he was clearly still agitated.
“I’m fine, E.”
“Listen, I know this isn’t in your job description, but I’m in a pickle. I need some Meat transported and your driver is the closest one who works with us. I was wondering if you wouldn’t mind sharing the cab and supervising the process.”
“I mean, I can . . .”
“Great! That’s just great. Should be quick. Have a lovely night!”
The call cut off.
“So what’s that about?” Bracken asked.
“We just might have to make a quick stop,” I said as vaguely as I could. I looked up, trying to meet Oscar’s eyes in the rearview again. “Do you know how out of the way we need to go?” I was not looking forward to having to share the cab for any length of time with a brooding, sweaty kneebreaker.
Before Oscar could answer, the right-hand rear door of the cab was wrenched open, before we were even completely stopped.
“Oh fuck,” I said, as a huge man heaved himself inside and across the back seat. His head hit the window next to me and his shoulder bashed into the center of my chest. One of his elbows dug painfully into my thigh, and his hips and legs slammed into Bracken, who had flung his own arms up in disgust.
“Drive!” The Meat’s voice was a bark.
“Get off me!” Bracken was trying to shove the man, whose combat boots were trickling slush all over Bracken’s expensive raw denim, off his lap and out of the cab.
“Shut the door!” I yelled. Bracken looked at me in disbelief. I elbowed him. “Do it!”
“Shit.” Bracken pulled the door shut, furious.
The cab lurched forward and Oscar picked up speed. The man in my lap was younger than I expected, with an immaculate fade. His eyes were glassy and panicked, and his complexion was going gray.
Bracken let out a disgusted yelp. “He fucking pissed on me!” He shoved the Meat and tried to recoil farther into his seat. Then he froze; his palms had come up bloody.
Right then, something shifted in my brain; instead of panicking, everything inside me got very calm and clear.
“Where is it?” I asked. The Meat pointed to his thigh and a rip in his black tactical pants. It was difficult to see the tear because of all the dark blood pooling underneath. “Goddamn it.”
“This is gonna be extra,” Oscar was grumbling. “Extra for bleeding in the car.”
“Bill E.” I started to hunt for something I could use as a tourniquet.
“You pay me and expense it,” he countered.
“You’ll have to take a card.” I pulled my scarf off and tied it around the Meat’s leg above the gash as tight as I could, then stuffed the rest of the fabric against the wound. The Meat mewled pitifully.
Oscar huffed. “Fine.”
“You need to keep the pressure on.” I took one of the Meat’s hands and pressed it against the bloody wad of fabric along his leg. He gasped but nodded.
A thin voice warbled, “Oh shit.” I glanced up at Bracken, whose face was suddenly wet and greenish. “Oh shit.”
“You are both going to be okay.” I hoped I didn’t sound too annoyed. The Meat’s eyelashes fluttered and I poked him. “You stay awake. What happened. Tell me.”
“Fucking . . . one of those throwing star things.”
My lip curled. “Bearded Dragon?” One of the brooding vigilante types, he had a proclivity for using bladed weapons that resembled the frills of a lizard. They cut deep.
“Yeah. It was him.”
“Did you pull it out?”
“Huh?”
He must have been new. “Never pull them out. You do more damage.”
“I didn’t know.”
“It’s fine. They’ll patch you up.” I looked at Oscar. “We almost there?”
“I’m sorry.” The Meat sounded lost.
I awkwardly patted him. “It’s your leg, not mine, you don’t have to be sorry.”
“I’m going to puke,” Bracken announced. He started to roll down the window but didn’t quite make it, and sprayed the glass inside and out with half-digested sushi.
Oscar was having a fit. “This is going to be a goddamn nightmare to clean!”
I was about to say something snarky, but he pulled over so quickly that the side of my head bounced off the window. We stopped in front of the mixed martial arts academy that served as a front for the Meat Market, where villains went when they needed some muscle, just like they went to the Temp Agency when they needed someone to answer the phone or be cuffed to a briefcase or reset the routers. The only difference between the two staffing agencies was violence. When you needed human cannon fodder to throw at a hero or someone to break a few bones on your behalf, you went to the Meat Market. The average life span for Meat was not particularly long, but the Market did maintain an infirmary, staffed mostly with cutmen, med school dropouts, and disillusioned “doctors” of questionable licensing status.
One of them, an enormous Samoan man wearing black scrubs and latex gloves, was waiting at the curb with a wheelchair. As the cab stopped, Bracken fumbled weakly to open the door, and as soon as the latch caught, the Meat kicked it open.
The man at the curb poked his head in, the freshly shaved, bald skin gleaming under the cab’s interior light. “Can you stand?”
“Dunno.” He swung his head back and forth in agony.
“Try.” The medic reached in and, gently as he could, started to wrestle the injured young man out of the cab. The Meat whined and hissed, sucking air between his teeth, as the medic eased him down on the seat of the wheelchair.
“Thanks, Oscar,” the medic said, patting the roof of the car and then shutting the door behind him. Oscar made a disgusted noise and pulled quickly away. I caught a last glimpse of the Samoan wheeling the injured young man toward the building, where two more staff were holding the doors open, ready to stitch the kid up and pump him full of painkillers.
There was an awful beat of silence in the demolished, reeking cab. “Where to,” Oscar said eventually.
I looked over at Bracken, whose striped dress shirt was visibly smeared with blood and vomit, and who was holding a filthy napkin up to his mouth. “Um. Can we drive you home?”
“Stop the car,” he said, very quietly.