BLOOD AND BONE | rewritten

31

"Start talking," Jake said to the Needle the second they were ensconced within an empty storeroom in the back of a packaging plant.

"Um, my name is Isira Oleson," she directed mostly to Delphinium, allowing a wide berth around them as she rested against a railing. "I've been a Needle for four years, long enough to gain a bit of Corinthian's very meager trust. I believe telling you all I know will prove useful, because his plan is to keep you two cut off-"

"Skip to the part where you're useful."

Isira took a breath, clearly rambling from adrenaline. "The rest of your crew is alive back in Droghal, kept sedated and useless. They're going to be transported out here in two separate groups, three days apart."

"Where?"

"A different location than where you two were brought from. An airport northeast. Corinthian learned from your escape; he won't let you two get to the others in time."

"The exact time and location," Jake demanded, noting their absence.

"The second group will arrive in three days. I know they're due to land in the early hours of the morning somewhere near Jinhua. I don't know exactly where. But I can find out."

"You will." Jake switched gears. "Who is Corinthian transporting us to?"

"I don't know that either," Isira answered quickly, aware of how bad this lack of knowledge came across. "Someone rich in the north. Or at least that's where the pickup is meant to be. The others have their guesses-international smugglers, leagues of elite hitmen, criminal families...but you know how tight-lipped Corinthian is about his schemes. Perhaps Orozco knows, but that's it. Not even Shaw did. That's how serious he is about it."

"Why are you telling us this?" Delphinium asked, dubious of how easily she offered help, since she proved she was well enough to walk away without them.

"Well." Isira searched for the right wording. "Not all of us are content under Corinthian's rule. I see right through his speeches, his claims that our blood will build the Needles higher. He used to be one of us, but now he uses those in the lower ranks to do his dirty work while he's unharmed every time. Things were much more preferable when you led us, Evans."

A jolt ran through Delphinium's system. Jake was the head of the Needles before Corinthian? He couldn't have been more than seventeen or eighteen at the time. In her many years of criminal life, she had never heard of someone taking gang power so young. For all her worried involving Jake, she still managed to underestimate the extent of what he could do if he put his mind to it.

He said nothing to Isira, but Delphinium knew she'd been truthful because Jake stared at her so intensely she'd begun to squirm.

"Why should we believe a word out of your mouth?" Delphinium demanded to know. "You remain one of his soldiers."