Chapter 269: Back to the Boardwalk [1]

The barricade looked taller than I remembered.

They’d added to it since my last visit, another layer of material across the top sections, reinforced at the joints, the whole thing sitting about half a meter higher than it had when Clara and I had first approached it. Marlon’s people had been busy. Given everything happening with Callaghan, that wasn’t surprising.

I stopped in front of it and listened.

Nothing obvious from the other side—no voices, no movement I could pick out over the ambient sound of the wind coming off the water.

"Anyone there?" I called up.

Silence for a moment.

Then a head appeared over the top—a man, leaning forward to peer down at us with a cautious look.

I recognized him. Theo if I remember. He was also there when I came with a wounded Clara.

He looked at me for a second, working something out behind his eyes.

"You’re that guy," he said slowly. Less a greeting than a confirmation he was making to himself.

"Yeah," I said.

Another head appeared beside him almost immediately—and this one I recognized differently. One of the two men who’d decided back in the hotel that I looked like a reasonable target for a confrontation. Flinn, if I was remember good. He and his friend Mike had tried to pick a fight but Molly thankfully intervened back then.

He looked at me with exactly the expression I expected.

Then his gaze moved past me to Cindy and Daisy, and the expression changed with a speed that was almost impressive. The hostility didn’t disappear entirely but it rearranged itself into something more manageable.

"He’s from that other group," Theo said to him, not quite turning his head. "Came through before with the injured woman—the one Shawn treated."

"Right." Flinn leaned on the top of the barricade, his eyes drifting back to me with considerably less warmth than he’d been directing at the two women behind me. "Weren’t you lot supposed to have cleared out of Atlantic City already though? I’m pretty sure that was the understanding."

"Do you own the city?" Cindy asked from behind me, her arms already crossed. "Is there paperwork I should know about? Because I’d love to see the documentation on that."

Flinn’s expression sharpened. "What?"

"I’m just asking a straightforward question," Cindy said pleasantly, in the tone that meant she was not being pleasant at all.

"Why are you here?" Theo cut across before whatever Flinn was about to say could make things worse. He rested his forearms on top of the barricade and looked down at us. "Genuinely. What do you want?"

"I want to speak with Marlon," I said.

Theo blinked. Then he laughed—a short, genuine sound, not cruel exactly, just surprised. "You want to speak with Marlon," he repeated. "Just like that. Walk up, knock on the barricade, request an audience with our leader."

"Why not?" I asked.

"Why not?" Flinn snorted, shaking his head. "Because you’re strangers. Because we don’t just open the gate for people we don’t know and walk them straight to whoever’s in charge. That’s why not."

"I’ve already met Marlon," I said, keeping my voice even. "We’ve spoken. I’ve been through your entire territory. I slept in the hotel where most of your community lives." I looked up at him steadily. "I’m genuinely not sure what part of that makes me really a stranger."

"And he saved Shannon," Cindy added, her voice sharpening on it. "A girl from your community who would have had a very different outcome if he’d decided it wasn’t his problem. Or did that not make the rounds?"

I hadn’t wanted to use that—I’d helped Shannon because it was the right thing to do, not as leverage to call in later. But Cindy wasn’t wrong that it was relevant, and she delivered it with enough edge that it landed properly.

Theo’s expression shifted slightly at Shannon’s name. Something registered there.

"And these two are both from your group?" he asked after a moment, his tone losing some of its gatekeeping quality, a thread of amusement replacing it as he looked between Cindy and Daisy.

"You are quite observing," I said. Possibly with slightly less patience than I’d intended.

Theo’s mouth pulled into a faint, slightly displeased line.

"Fine," I said, adjusting. "Then bring Molly out. I’ll talk to her."

Molly was one of the community’s clearly significant names—someone whose word carried weight in there. She’d understand immediately that we weren’t a threat and she’d move things along faster than this circular conversation at the barricade was managing to.

"Who are you people talking to, you idiots?"

The voice came from somewhere behind the barricade—not on the wall, lower, further back. But I recognized it instantly. A particular quality to it. The slight warmth underneath the impatience.

"Strangers," Theo said over his shoulder, not turning.

Flinn, by contrast, turned around with a smile that suggested he knew exactly who was coming and was already enjoying the development.

Footsteps. Someone climbing up the interior side of the barricade with practiced ease.

A face appeared.

Tan skin, beautiful brownish hazel eyes, yeah, there was not mistake her.

Maribel.

She looked at me and for just a moment something genuinely surprised moved across her face—unguarded, there and gone before she could fully manage it.

"You," she said.

"Can you tell your two friends to let us through?" I asked. "We just need to speak with Marlon. That’s all."

"I don’t know, Maribel," Flinn said, turning back with his arms crossed and his earlier confidence entirely restored now that he had someone to perform it for. "They’re the same group that was supposed to have left already. What are they still doing here?"

"I mean—" Theo glanced between us and then up at the sky, as if the sun might offer an opinion. "It is pretty hot to be standing on this side of the wall."

"Exactly!" Cindy’s voice came in immediately. "Thanks. At least one of you has some basic decency. Two women standing out in August heat while you have a perfectly good argument with yourselves up there." She raised a hand to shield her eyes and directed her best expression of pointed suffering upward. "So gentlemanly. Truly."

"You’ve got quite the temper for someone asking a favor," Theo said, but he was almost smiling now.

"I have a temper proportional to the situation," Cindy replied.

"Um," said Daisy, from slightly behind Cindy’s shoulder, where she had been standing for most of this exchange. She glanced between the people on the wall and back down at her shoes and decided that was enough of a contribution.

Maribel looked at me for a moment longer—something working behind her eyes—and then looked at Cindy, and then at Daisy, and then back at me with an expression I couldn’t quite read.

"Open it," she said.

"What?" Flinn nearly choked on it, staring at Maribel like she’d just suggested something genuinely offensive. "Maribel, come on—"

"You want to turn them away," Maribel said flatly, "and give them a reason to hate us? Maybe go looking for common ground with Callighan instead?" She raised an eyebrow at him. "Think that through."

"They wouldn’t dare," Flinn shot back, his glare sliding back toward me like I was somehow responsible for his argument going badly. "We treated one of their women. They owe us."

"And I saved Shannon," I said, my patience running its last few meters. "So can someone open the damn gate already?"

"The hell did you just—" Flinn’s face went red.

"He looks like Brad," Cindy said from beside me, almost to herself.

"More like Billy," I said. "Same energy—follower who puffs up when he’s got an audience."

"Yeah exactly!" Cindy grinned, genuinely delighted, turning to look at me. "Ryan, I didn’t know you had that in you."

Flinn was almost vibrating above us, jaw locked, hands gripping the top of the barricade hard enough that his knuckles had shifted color.

"Open it, Theo," Maribel said, not looking at Flinn. "Come on, move."

There was a sound that might have been Maribel’s boot making contact with something, followed by Theo making a pained noise, and then the sound of him descending the interior of the barricade with the energy of someone who had decided cooperation was less painful than the alternative.

Scraping. Metal on concrete. The heavy improvised gate—thick scrap panels bolted together with whatever hardware they’d found—ground slowly open on its frame, wide enough to walk through.

"Hold it."

We’d already taken a step forward.

Theo was standing in the gap with his hand up, expression apologetic but firm.

"What now?" I asked.

"Weapons," he said. "Hand them over. You’re not here for a fight—you don’t need them."

"He’s right," Maribel said from above, looking down. "Leave them."

I looked at her for a second. Then at Theo.

"Fine," I said.

"Whatever," Cindy said breezily, already swinging her bag off her shoulder and unzipping it. She produced a compact handgun and the spike-handled knife she kept strapped inside the front pocket and held them out toward Theo with a pleasant smile. "Happy?"

"Very," Theo said, taking them with considerably more warmth than he’d shown me. "Thank you."

"Ryan barehanded could take every single one of you anyway," Cindy added, still smiling. "Just so you know. That’s what I meant by whatever."

The warmth in Theo’s expression became strained around the edges.

Daisy, standing slightly behind Cindy, patted herself down briefly and looked up with an expression of mild helplessness. She hadn’t brought anything. I wasn’t surprised—it wasn’t really Daisy’s instinct to arm herself for a conversation.

Flinn came down from the barricade with a short, dismissive laugh. "This kid barely out of high school taking on our guys? Let him try Jake first. Then we’ll talk."

I decided the most productive thing I could do with that was nothing, and I did it thoroughly.

I looked up for Maribel.

She wasn’t at the top of the barricade anymore—she’d already swung over and was dropping down the interior side, moving with the clean confidence of someone who’d done it a hundred times. It was actually a good jump. Controlled, well-timed—

Her foot came down directly onto a crushed juice carton someone had left on the ground.

The cardboard skidded.

"Ha—no—!"

She pitched forward with a sound of genuine surprise, her arms shooting out, and her hands found the front of my shirt before either of us had processed what was happening—fingers closing around the fabric, one button popping free with a small sharp sound as she lurched into me.

I got my hands around her arms before she fully went down and took out all my shirts’s buttons, steadying her, and she grabbed my shoulder with a grip that was considerably stronger than someone who’d just been embarrassed had any right to have.

For a second we were very close. Her face was about eight inches from mine, flushed deeply out of embarrassment.

"Was that jump necessary?" I asked her with a drying look.

She nearly ripped my shirt open.

Maribel straightened up fast, released my shoulder, stepped back two full paces, and directed her attention elsewhere unable to meet my face.

"She just wanted to show off the landing," Cindy said beside me, teasingly.

Maribel turned the full weight of her glare on Cindy.

Cindy met it with complete serenity.

Maribel cleared her throat, squared her shoulders, and turned toward Flinn.

"Go tell Marlon they’re here," she said. "Now."

"I’m not leaving you alone with—"

"Flinn." Her voice dropped half a register. "I can handle myself. You know that better than anyone. Go."

Flinn held the stare for another second. Then he made a sound of deep personal objection and walked off.

Maribel turned to Theo, who had been watching all of this with the expression of a man enjoying himself quietly.

"And you..." she said, and before Theo could even register what was happening she pulled her foot back and kicked the juice carton hard across the ground directly at him.

Theo yelped and stumbled sideways, barely dodging it as it skidded past his leg and bounced off the base of the barricade. "Hey—!"

"I have said three times that people need to stop leaving garbage at the base of the gate!" Maribel said, pointing at him. "Three times, Theo."

"I didn’t put it there — and you almost hit my ankle—!"

"Stop leaving trash around or next time I won’t miss," she said, completely unbothered.

"Yes ma’am," Theo said quickly, scrambling to pick up the carton.

Maribel scoffed, turned her back on both of them, and started walking without checking whether we were following.

"Come on," she said simply.

We followed.