“Standard practice. First, they ask, then they pry, and then they hurt. Sometimes they hurt first—depends on their mood.”
“One of them was a lot stronger than the other two. I think he tried to tell if I was lying, but I guess he must’ve thought I was telling the truth.”
Calder frowned, then picked one of the files on his desk up and examined it. “There were three guards in the room? There are only two listed on your report…”
“Does it say I broke their mouths, too?”
“No, it says here you were unsuccessfully questioned, showered, and thrown into the hole for…” he sighed and shook his head. “Being a mouthy little bitch. Brickmore, God-dammit.” He looked up at me. “Did you really break his mouth?”
A grin curled my lip. “He called me a fiend. I didn’t like that.”
“Not even memory suppression could bottle that instinct down, I guess.” He paused. “Do you remember the unlisted guard?”
“He was big… and strong. Stronger than the other two. I think he was in charge because they looked pretty scared of him.”
“Scared… this guy didn’t happen to have long, black hair and muscles you could break a two-by-four on, did he?”
“I think so.”
Calder paused, then shook his head. “What was he doing in that room with you?”
I shrugged. “Beats me. He didn’t do anything besides stop me from killing the other two guards, but I don’t like the way he looked at me.”
“The question was rhetorical, trust me. Intake interrogations are usually beneath him. I’ve never heard of him actually showing up to one.”
“Who is he?”
A soft sigh escaped his lips. “They call him the Horseman of Devil Falls. He’s the highest ranked guard in the prison, he holds the track record for most captured Outsiders, most skulls smashed, most asses kicked, and he’s a Vivimancer so he’s about as tough to put down as a Tyrannosaurus Rex made of solid titanium.”
The Horseman.
My skin tingled.
I caught myself thinking about him, catching flashes of him in my mind. The shape of his chest, his half-smile, the way his eyes had lingered on me… the smell of him. My body flushed with heat. I’d met many men before, but none quite like him. Then again, he wasn’t really a man, was he? He was much, much more than that.
“Let me guess, he’s my target?”
“I’m afraid so.”
I rolled my eyes. “That’s just perfect. What do I need to know about him?”
“Well, he used to be a Magistrate mage, one of us, but a few years ago he went missing. Nobody knows why, what happened to him, where he went. We only know when he surfaced again, he was working for the Coalition, here, at Harrowgate.”
“I mean…” I paused, “I’m sure we’ve already talked about this, but if we want to stop what’s happening here, shouldn’t we go after the Warden? Or whoever runs the Coalition?”
“Harrowgate itself, even the Coalition, aren’t as much of a threat to the people who get thrown in here as your target is. The prison can’t move, so it sends its agents out to do its bidding. Without them, it’s only a prison. The Horseman isn’t only the Coalition’s strongest asset in their crusade against… everyone else. He’s ruthless, a monster, but he’s also like a hero to these people. If we can take him down, we deal a solid blow to the entire organization.”
“If not, I just die.”
“It’s not going to come to that. I’m going to help you. Now that you’re inside, getting to him will be a lot easier than if we were to try and attack him directly. People have tried… good people.” Calder’s eyes lowered, words left unsaid hanging in the air like a specter. “He won’t expect an attack from an inmate, but you’re going to have to play along for a little while.”
“Play along?”
“No one just gets close to him. Definitely not new inmates.”
“That’s not exactly true, is it? I already got close to him once.”
“Sure, but… well, none of us expected that, and even though that’s already thrown our plan way off, we should still follow it as much as we can. I don’t want you getting hurt.”
“So, what’s the plan?”
“Well, that’s where this part gets a little tricky. I hadn’t expected him to have revealed himself to you already, so that changes things.”
“Changes things how?”
“You need to get close to him, but in order to do that, he needs to feel like you aren’t a threat to him, or to this prison’s integrity. If you stand out in any way, it could compromise the entire mission.”
“Fat chance of that. I broke two of his guards in front of him.”
He pinched the bridge of his nose. “That’s why laying low is way more important now. At least until you run into him again.”
“And when will that happen?”
“The Horseman is the heard guard, but he likes to make the rounds at least once a week. That means, once a week, he’ll be in your cellblock, and you’ll have a chance to interact with him.”
“Interact…”
“Right, find a way to get close enough to him in a private enough setting that you can… you know.”
“Assassinate him.”
I could tell Calder, like Seline, was also uncomfortable with the topic of murder. The Obsidian Order wasn’t a guild of assassins, we were peacekeepers. The fact that I wasn’t uncomfortable with killing, though, didn’t surprise me anymore. Not now that I could remember where I’d come from, how I’d been treated. I’d killed before, several times. It was that, or die on the hard streets of an uncaring New York City.
“Yes,” Calder said. “Exactly that.”
“So, you want me to sit in here and stay out of his way, and everyone else’s way for… an unknown amount of time. That sounds fun.”
“I know you don’t remember—”
“—yes, I remember agreeing. I’m also pretty sure I disliked the part of the plan where I sat on my hands and waited.”
“We’re asking a lot. We are. But you’re the only person who could do this. No one else can.”
I frowned. “Alright. I still don’t like it, but I’ll manage.”
“Good. Thank you. I’m going to do everything I can from my position to keep your cover and your profile down. We’ll meet once a week to brief each other with any updates. But you have to understand, I can’t meddle too much or my own cover will be blown. You also can’t tell anyone about this mission—not even other Outsiders.”
“I think I got that.”
“Then we’re ready to get going with the operation.” Calder stood, extended his hand.
I extended my hands, forgetting they were cuffed together. Still, I shook. “So, what happens now?”
“Now I hand in these notes I’ve written up about what I found in your brain to my superiors, and your mission officially begins.” He glanced at his notepad and read. “Progress is slow, but she’s regained some of her memories. I can’t confirm she killed Randall Jensen yet. I do know her name, at least. Six.”