Born of Treasure (Treasure Chronicles Book 2) (32 page)

oldiers lined the hallways, their blue uniforms pressed and the badges across their chests as polished as their buttons. Without looking at the visitors, the soldiers tipped their rifles to the right, as if guiding Clark to the Senator.

“I think they’re threatening us,” Amethyst whispered.

He squeezed her hand, heading in the direction the soldiers indicated. At the end of the hallway, they tipped their weapons to the left instead, and he followed, his heart thumping harder as they massed behind him, blocking the exit. Maybe he should’ve forced Amethyst to stay behind, but the Treasures were more her family than his.

Paintings peeked out from behind the soldiers’ broad shoulders. Who were the men in army hats and medaled sashes? Fighters had created Hedlund from untamed land and Bromi tribes. Apart from destroying the Bromi, the first settlers had made something out of nothing. They grew crops to feed the masses back east and they raised livestock. Men had shed blood to live on the plains. Would Clark be ruining that by taking down the senator?

Eric shimmered into appearance beside him. “You’re doing the right thing, son.”

Amethyst turned toward the spirit. “They’re blocking us in.”

Clark squeezed her again, gazing forward. His father had been rubbed out for his inventions; now those same inventions would destroy the man who’d put the hit on his life.

“Family is everything.”
His mother’s words danced through his memory. He did this for family, not for the west. He couldn’t protect everything.

Two soldiers opened double doors and Clark led Amethyst into an office. The walls, a deep burgundy in color, closed in around him. Velvet curtains covered the windows, so the light came from lamps and a chandelier.

Senator Horan sat behind a long mahogany desk, his boots propped on the corner and his chair tipped backward, his hands folded over his belly. A smile curled around his lips to match his oiled mustache. The Treasures sat on stools around a long meeting table, their hands bound with silver cuffs.

Eric’s special cuffs that required a code to unhook, rather than a key.

“Amethyst,” Jeremiah exclaimed. “Are you hurt? Where have you been?”

“Well, now, boy. So glad you could make it.” Senator Horan peeled his boots off the desk and slammed them onto the hardwood floor in twin taps. “I really don’t know what to do with you. See, you keep running off on me. You don’t want to be a captain. Think of what a great raise that is. Zachariah,” he barked. “Tell Clark how honored he should be to become captain immediately upon joining.”

Zachariah stared forward. “It will take ten years for most.”

“See, here’s another problem,” Clark drawled. “I never up and joined.”

Senator Horan laughed as he swaggered across the room. “You’re just a mining boy. You don’t have a choice in the matter.
None
of us have a choice if the army wants us.”

A side door opened and Captain Greenwood strode in, swinging his arms and puffing. Clark glimpsed a set of stairs behind him before the door banged shut. Jolly good, he could take them both out.

“You destroyed my barracks,” Captain Greenwood hollered. “You killed my men. The president has been summoned. He’ll have your neck for this.”

“You can’t kill me.” Clark narrowed his eyes at Senator Horan. “I survived the potion. You need me.”

“You committed high treason.” Senator Horan stroked his chin. “A sentencing can linger until our troops have been trained.”

It didn’t matter if they did get him for high treason.

Clark released Amethyst and stepped toward the doorway, his arms lifted. “Captain. Come get me.”

“Oh, I’ll like this.” Captain Greenwood hunched forward, a sickening smirk on his face, and lumbered toward Clark.

Clark walked to meet him, puffing his chest, matching the captain’s smirk. “Come get me.” What a classic gang statement. He’d never given that much attitude to someone before.

It felt good.

Clark twisted around the captain to jerk open the door to that hallway. The Treasures would be safe if he got the captain away from them.

“Are you running away from me?” Captain Greenwood’s face reddened from his chins to his protruding ears.

Clark chuckled. “Afraid of the chase?” Hopefully, the soldiers wouldn’t have filled in the stairwell.

“Treasure,” Captain Greenwood growled as he marched toward him. “I won’t be made a laughing stock by the likes of you. You won’t ruin my regiment.”

“What regiment?” Clark backed down the first few stairs in the narrow walkway.

“Treasure!” Captain Greenwood pulled out his pistol and Clark ran down the stairs. A bullet struck the wall near his head and he ducked. The captain would be angry and unfocused. Perfect.

Clark jumped off at the next landing and plastered his back against the wall. The stairs led downward further and higher above. The captain’s steps echoed off the coldness.

Clark wouldn’t be afraid. He wouldn’t allow his heart to race or the sweat to coat his body. Captain Greenwood held no real power over him. Only Amethyst had the ability to hurt him anymore.

“You don’t know what you’ve done.” Captain Greenwood staggered down the stairs, waving his pistol overhead.

“No.” Clark released his two handguns. “You’ve ruined my life.”

“The army—”

“You killed my mother. I don’t know why I never considered standing up to you before. By the way.” Clark cocked both guns, one atop the other; he pulled the trigger on the lower one. The bullet ripped through Captain Greenwood’s leg. He shouted, crumpling onto his side. His gun went off, the bullet lodging into the wood.

“My name’s Grisham.” Clark fired the other pistol into the captain’s skull.

Senator Horan darted after Clark and the captain at the sound of the first gunshot, and Amethyst darted to her father. “Lift your hands.”

“Amethyst, get out of here,” Garth whispered. “There’s a backdoor. They let us in that way.”

She yanked his hands up and pressed the colored buttons on the underside to the correct code. “Blue three, yellow eight, green two, red one.” That didn’t make sense. “You press the blue one three times, the yellow one eight, the green one twice, and the red just once. Got it?” The cuffs clicked and tumbled off her father onto the floor. “Go help someone else.”

“How do you know?” Georgette asked, but she held out her hands.

“We have to hurry.” It would be much too long of a story. Amethyst worked on her mother’s while her father moved to Zachariah.

“Where have you been?” Jeremiah demanded. “This isn’t a good situation. Don’t you get that?”

Amethyst slid her mother’s cuffs around her belt in case she would need them later, and she rolled her eyes at her brother, sticking out her tongue. “No, I thought I was having a fancy tea.”

“Where were you?” Jeremiah sputtered. Even after his father unhooked him, he gaped at her.

“Why is Alyssa here?” Amethyst started on the girl’s cuffs. Her brother might stop with his questions if she posed one of her own. “They shouldn’t have pulled you into this mayhem.”

“I married your brother.” Alyssa rubbed her wrists.

“Zachariah?” Amethyst whipped around to ogle him, where he stood staring at the wall. Who would want to marry him?

“Me,” Jeremiah snarled. What had gotten his knickers in a knot, other than the imprisonment thing? “The west isn’t like the east. You can’t run off—”

“Bloody gears, hush up.” The gang members had taught her a bit of a more colorful dialogue, but Jeremiah would probably have an attack over that language. “This way.” She ran to the back entrance of the room and kicked the door.

It didn’t swing out. Clark would’ve been able to do that. Amethyst kicked it again, closer to the knob, and pain sizzled up her leg. Cursing, she hopped back. “We’ll blow the knob off.” Clark would’ve done that too.

“What are you doing?” asked her mother. “We can just open it.”

“No, it’s—” The knob turned in her hand and Amethyst cursed again. “Come on.” The hallway walls seemed to close around them. Who knew which way they went, but it had to be better than being back there, where the senator would return. Clark would find them later, once he dealt with Captain Greenwood.

The footsteps behind her let her know they followed. At least Jeremiah had stopped complaining.

Amethyst turned the hallway to find the next door blocked by a row of soldiers. Brass glass.

“We’ll fight our way through.” Amethyst pulled the pistol free from her holster and aimed it at the lead soldier. “Draw your weapons.”

The gang members would’ve displayed their assortment of goods: guns, knives, hatchets, pickaxes… Her family lifted their hands in surrender, apart from Zachariah, who continued to stare through blank eyes.

The soldiers drew their lovely weapons. They had polished rifles, with handguns and swords hanging from their wide belts. She turned to her father, careful to aim her weapon at the soldiers.

“Father, we have to stop this.” Her voice rose into a whine. “How can we just surrender? They won’t let us go.”

“Because,” he cupped her cheeks to stare into her eyes, “we are subjects of the kingdom. We would have to flee far, far away, my darling, to be free.”

“So you would give up?” The gun lowered to her side. Her strong father, that rock she’d always known would be there if she needed him, would let the senator win.

“Put the gun down, sweetie,” said one of the soldiers. “You don’t want your family shot, do you?”

“You wouldn’t dare.” Amethyst swung the pistol toward the crowd, hoping whoever had spoken would step forward. A gun went off, the sound loud in the stillness, and Zachariah pitched forward. He landed on his knees and then his chest, and blood soaked across the tiles.

Extra bullets slammed into Captain Greenwood’s limp form. Clark leapt back against the wall, aiming toward the intruder approaching from downstairs.

A girl stepped closer, her heels clicking, her handgun firing into the captain. “Take that, you rotten piece of bitch dust.”

Clark cocked his pistol. “Brass glass. Mable?” He’d last seen her as a little girl with oily hair. Her hair still had that oily sheen, but she’d grown breasts and hips, and a mouth that rang true with her child self.

“Hey, Clark.” She smiled, that familiar gap between her teeth. “He’s real dead, ain’t he?”

“Um, yeah. He’s dead.” Clark stepped around the body to hug her side, careful of the guns she remained fixed on Greenwood. “Where’ve you been, Mable? I was worried about you. I looked for you back in Tangled Wire.”

“I’ve been around places.” She blew on the barrels of her guns.