Free Wolves by D. J. Molles Page B

honestly?”
    â€œNot a chance,” Huxley mumbles. He looks at Rigo.
    Rigo is frozen in place. His dark eyes have gone wide, showing the whites all around. A piece of half-chewed salt beef hangs in his mouth. He is staring at the three men as they enter Borderline. His hands are shaking. The salt beef falls out of his mouth and onto the dusty ground.
    â€œLos lobos,” he says.

Chapter 8
    Los lobos.
    The slavers.
    Huxley makes the connection quickly and rips his eyes away from the three men as they walk through the gate and into Borderline. He is staring at the counter, but their faces are burning in his eyes. He cannot believe what he has just seen. The way they smile. The way they joke. All the while holding their satchels, weighed down with the belongings of people they’ve robbed and murdered.
    Huxley forces himself to breathe.
    What do I feel?
    I feel like I want them to bleed.
    Huxley has the presence of mind to elbow Rigo in the ribs to get him to snap out of it. “Don’t stare,” he hisses. In his mind he is thinking, What do you do? What do you do right now? They’re right here. They’re right behind you.
    Huxley can hear the sound of their boots in the dirt behind him. It is like having his back to dangerous animals. But no, they aren’t the most dangerous animals. He is. Because those slavers, those sadistic killers … they took everything from him and left him with nothing. And a desperate man with nothing to lose is the most dangerous animal alive.
    Huxley is belly-up to the smokehouse counter, but he turns his head, discreetly, and looks at the three slavers. They are heading for the whorehouse. Still grinning. So pleased with themselves. So insolent. Huxley thinks of the jawbones clattering from the poles. The wagon is not here. Just these three. Here to sell and trade the loot. Borderline doesn’t like slavers, but the slavers can always act like traders, leave their wagon out in the desert somewhere.
    There is a sickness to it. To steal and kidnap from these people. And then turn around and trade and sell them back the things you took from them. All the while, their families and loved ones lie in chains somewhere out there, listening to the jawbones of dead relatives whispering to them from death.
    Huxley feels like he might grind his teeth to dust. Every nerve in his body seems to be buzzing. His skin prickles as he looks at them. He leans against the counter of the smokehouse. His fingers holding on to the edge of it, painful, the knuckles crying out with white, bloodless skin.
    He feels Jay stir beside him.
    â€œThose motherfuckers,” Jay whispers under his breath. “Here. Right in front of me.”
    The salty tang of the meat’s aftertaste is going sour in Huxley’s mouth. He can’t seem to produce the saliva to swallow. He watches as one of the slavers-disguised-as-traders takes hold of one of the young prostitutes by the whorehouse and pulls her in close. She giggles in poorly feigned pleasure, but Huxley can see that her eyes are devoid of feeling. But these men do not care. They want their pound of flesh, and they have the payment to please the whoremaster.
    Huxley looks sharply at Rigo. “You sure about this?”
    For all his dark complexion, Rigo has gone white. But his cheeks are burning red. “Los lobos,” he says again, but this time with less fear, and more rage. He wants it. He wants the blood. Just like Huxley. Just like Jay.
    Jay seems unsteady. Antsy. “They’re right there. Right there. And they don’t even know. They don’t know .”
    â€œThey don’t know what?” Huxley hisses at him.
    Jay fixes him with a wild-eyed look. “They don’t know that we want to kill them.”
    The keeper of the smokehouse has stayed quiet, acting like he isn’t registering anything that they’re saying. Until Jay says this last bit. Then old Barry straightens pretty quick.