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Home / Mystery/Thriller / Sarah Killian: The Marching Tides / Chapter 11 - Chapter 20

All Chapters of Sarah Killian: The Marching Tides: Chapter 11 - Chapter 20

25 Chapters

11

11“What the fuck, Chuck?” Jason snaps.“I seriously cannot believe you literally just said those words,” I groan—though I must admit they were, more or less, the exact sentiment I’d been thinking.“I thought you said the Marching Tides were bad news for the murder-for-hire scene,” Jason snaps, ignoring my quip.“Nah, man. I said lots of other cats aren’t happy about it. Me, I’ve been doin’ the biz long enough, I figure it’s time to start thinking ’bout retirement plans. If the ship’s sinking anyway, might as well jump over while you can and swim for shore. The Marching Tides are agreeing not to turncoat on anyone who gives them evidence to expose T.H.E.M., so I figure this will make as good an opportunity to get out of the biz, take my savings, and head south to find me a sweet-ass Latina dudette to settle down with, ya know?”I really wish I had followed my first instinct to castrate this motherfucker.“I don’t suppose that since you’ve stabbed us in the back, you’d b

Last Updated : 2022-07-20

12

12We check Chuck’s recent call history, but the most recent on the log is Jason’s from our motel room. “Not surprised,” Jason confesses. “Chuck may have been an IT idiot, but I doubt the Marching Tides would be stupid enough to be contacting each other over normal channels.”A quick scan of the apps on the phone and we find a suspicious-looking unnamed app nestled away with just a plain black square for an icon. It requires a username and password to login. Luckily, Chuck being the brain-waffle that he was had his login stats saved in his keychain. Idiot.Sure enough, the app appears to be a Dark Web access point for killers-for-hire. There does appear to be a voice chat feature, which we guess is how Chuck called his contact from the diner, but there isn’t a record of calls made through it, so that doesn’t help us too much.The private messages tab, however, proves much more fruitful. We find a series of correspondences between Chuck and a contact named ‘Gale’.“There was

Last Updated : 2022-07-20

13

13Jason and I briefly debate whether it’s better to take Chuck’s car for speed or go back to the motel on foot. We opt to split the difference and drive his car back to the diner and then walk back to the motel. That way we can get back relatively fast but still have some more time if the Marching Tides track down his car before they find our motel. Fortunately, Jason knows his way around Vegas far better than I do because I probably would not have been able to find my way back to the diner from the warehouse.Fifteen minutes later, we are back at our motel. As we pass the registration desk on our way to the room, I notice a pimply, twenty-something doofus wearing what looks to be at least $200 sunglasses, even though the sun has long past set by this point, trying to haggle with the desk clerk.“Look man, I know you’ve gotta have some rooms available,” the doofus snaps. “Hotels always have extra rooms on hold in case of emergency.”The clerk responds with a resigned s

Last Updated : 2022-07-20

14

14Don’t give me that judgmental look. Yes, I am fully aware that sex with my ex will undoubtedly complicate things in an already fucking complicated situation. But—actually, you know what, no. I don’t have to justify my sex life to you or anyone. Fuck that patriarchal bullshit. If I want to hump my ex’s brains out over the corpse of the doofus I just killed—I’m speaking figuratively here . . . even I’m not that morbid—I will fucking do just that and I don’t give a flying rat’s ass what you or anyone else thinks about it. Take that, Patriarchy. Anyway, once the frenzy of the moment has subsided and we both come to a bit of our senses, we realize we’ve probably taken up too much valuable time. I wouldn’t say it was time wasted, though. We decide we had better skip the pillow talk and get a move on before the Marching Tides track us down.We quickly wash off Doofus’s blood in the motel room shower—our urgency to get out squanders any thought in either of our

Last Updated : 2022-07-20

15

15I wake up the next morning to find Jason’s arm around my waist. Fuck. And there’s that complication thing. Oh, shut up with the gloating. I manage to slide out from under his arm without waking him and slip into the bathroom for a shower. I try to clear my mind and not think about the ramifications of everything but, of course, the brain doesn’t quite work that way. The more I tell myself not to think about it, the more I think about it.First and foremost, I hope Jason knows this does not mean we are getting back together. That is the very last thing I want or need right now. Not just because we are running for our very lives and romantic entanglement is likely only to distract us, possibly fatally, but just in general. Jason and I tried the relationship thing before, and it imploded miserably—regardless of whether you believe his version of events or mine. And let’s be honest, if I couldn’t make that relationship work, I doubt I’d ever be able to make any&n

Last Updated : 2022-07-20

16

16Not that Zeke has ever particularly looked good by my standards, but he is looking particularly miserable now. Aside from several bruises and scrapes on his face, he’s even paler than normal and is particularly bedraggled. If I didn’t know for sure it was him, I’d have thought he was a homeless bum off the streets. “How did you find us?” I ask.“How did you escape H.Q.?” Jason asks, simultaneously.“What in the titty-fucking hell?” we ask, together.“I’ll answer what I can, but not here,” Zeke says, looking over his shoulder with paranoid conspiracy. “There’s a diner around the corner.”I honestly don’t know why diners are considered the American hotspot to have secret conversations in public, but there you have it. It must be something about the mediocre food.Zeke looks as if he’s about to fall over, so we drive to the diner.Once the waitress has taken our orders, I turn to Zeke and say, “All right. Spill. What the fuck are you doing here in Colorado?”Ze

Last Updated : 2022-07-20

17

17“Well . . . that was unexpected,” Jason says, once we are alone in the car and driving through the night of Grand Junction. “To say the least,” I agree.“What do you make of it?”“I’ve seen the original Mission: Impossible and just about every spy movie ever made . . . So, usually when the former mentor, the only person you think you can trust, suddenly shows up from being presumed dead, that’s rarely a good sign.”“You don’t possibly think he’s tied up with the Marching Tides, do you? Why would Zeke be working to destroy his own empire?”“No . . . I don’t know . . . ” I say, thinking of the twitching fingers. Zeke was definitely hiding something. “I just have a bad feeling . . . ”I refrain from revealing that Zeke expressed concern Jason might be tied up with the Marching Tides, or might even be the mysterious ‘Rick’, himself. Or, for that matter, that I’m not entirely convinced that Zeke is wrong

Last Updated : 2022-07-20

18

18The next morning we agree that since we’ve decided to cut ourselves off from Zeke we should probably get the hell out of Colorado before he catches on and tracks us down himself. Unfortunately, we realize that if Zeke is somehow tied up with the Marching Tides, we’ve compromised our current mode of transportation by giving him a ride from the dispensary to the diner. But unless we’re going to steal a car or backtrack to L.A. or Vegas, none of which seem like particularly good ways of staying under the radar, we’ll just have to take that risk. Agreeing we should get out of Grand Junction sooner rather than later, we grab a couple of bagels from the motel’s continental breakfast station and hit the road. We figure as we’ve been more or less going northeast thus far we should probably switch it up a tad and instead head south toward Albuquerque, New Mexico.Between stopping for food, gas, and pit stops, the drive takes most of the day so we pass the time discussing our ne

Last Updated : 2022-07-20

19

19As promised, we drive into Phoenix around mid-afternoon. Jason navigates us into an impressively affluent neighborhood; the kind that I’m pretty sure would cause most people to start having convulsions if they were to simply look at the price of a house here. At the end of the street is an estate that makes all the other houses on the block look like slums. Gated entrance, video security cameras, twenty-foot brick wall with ornate barbed metal spikes bordering the entire property. The house itself is hidden behind the wall and a small grove of trees just beyond the gated entrance but you can just make out some turrets poking up beyond the canopy of the trees. It comes as absolutely no surprise to me when Jason confirms that Overkill Mansion is, indeed, our destination.“Like I said,” Jason says with a shrug, “Frank has done well for himself by going straight.”Almost makes me think about going straight, myself. Almost. If I thought there was any chance that there was

Last Updated : 2022-07-20

20

20We find a restaurant—a real restaurant, not just a diner, for once!—to have some dinner, then seek out a motel to spend the night. We agree we shouldn’t check the Dark Web app until we’re ready to leave Phoenix, or whatever location we are currently at whenever we check in, just in case we do set off any silent alarms. After checking into our motel room, we decide it’s a good time to switch up our appearances and identities again. I adopt a chin-length blonde wig accompanied by brown-tinted contact lenses and a new prosthetic nose. This time Jason decides to be the one to go ginger with hair dye and a fake beard.Our new disguises donned, Jason asks, “So, what do we do now? We’ve got the whole night ahead of us since we can’t check the Dark Web app until the morning.”“Well, we could . . . you know . . . ” I smile.“I don’t think we should repay Frank’s hospitality by killing some random Phoenician immediately after Frank risked his career to help

Last Updated : 2022-07-20

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