The Token (#10): Shepard Read Online Free PDF Page A

embarrassment for the moment.
    Shepard pushes me aside, and Hugo smiles with an expression of satisfied calculation.
    The barrel of a gun rises beside my face, and I flinch.
    Hugo holds his hands out. “ Non !”
    My eyes sweep the area, and no one is here except Hugo—the loser whose balls I abused—and this guy with the weird name who is holding me.
    With a gun in his hand.
    Fire breaks from the end of the barrel, and a soft thump sounds as the impact from the bullet dives into Hugo's torso.
    He staggers backward. A patch of red blooms on his chest like a flower opening to the sun.
    Oh, shit.
    I start to take off, and Shepard hits my vagus nerve with the butt of the gun he just shot.
    His hand captures my shirt, easing the fall.
    I must black out because when I wake, the gun is on the ground by me and Shepard is beating the guy I kicked in the nuts. He's super thorough about it, pounding the shit out of him.
    I blink and reach for the gun.
    And Shepard kicks it just out of reach.
    I blink again.
    When I wake next, I'm not at the depot. I'm in a place I don't know. Cold sinks its teeth into my bones as I survey my unfamiliar environment.
    My backpack sits on a chair not too far from where I find myself lying on a couch. My neck and head hurt like hell, but my eyes move to my pack, where my whole life is. My ID, my wallet, my keys—everything.
    Inhaling deeply, I sort of tip and roll myself off the couch and land in an ungraceful pile on the floor. The rough landing jars my head, and my eyeballs feel as if they're going to fall out of my skull.
    I take more deep breaths. Zen ones.
    I hiccup back my humor—there's no space in my brain for that. I can't afford it. I have to pee pretty bad and chance a glance at the windows, trying to gauge the time. Orient myself.
    Solid-wood slatted shades are closed to the outside. A soft darkness fills the space. Okay. I crawl toward my pack. I'm getting out of wherever I am.
    I know I'm not with Hugo because the memory of his death fills my skull. And the other guy got a taste of Shepard. I didn't see his end, but I don't even bother to guess.
    I know.
    There's a certain finish that this Shepard dude seemed to bring.
    Finally I get to the chair that holds my pack. I wrap my shaking fingers around the straps and drag it to me. It's empty. Just a shell remains.
    Fuck. The first angry tear drains out of my eye.
    “Do not,” a disembodied voice says from behind me.
    I know that voice. Unforgettable. Shifting my body, I clutch the backpack against my chest while wet rage streams down my face. “I won't say anything, just let me go,” I state in a low, controlled voice.
    I've never meant something more. If Shepard knew what I'd lived, he'd believe me.
    He shakes his head, and I see him clearly for the first time. Without adrenaline. Without fear clouding the forward part of my brain.
    Shepard is a beautiful man.
    Deadly.
    “Who are you?” I ask in a whisper, my palms damp.
    He spreads his elegant and powerful hands away from his body. “The man who saved you.”
    A terrible truth.

FIVE
    Shepard
     
    My eyes dispassionately linger over the cherry.
    I cannot help my automatic assessment. She is tall but not to the point of oddity. And exotic—even for an American. The countrymen—and women—of the United States are so diverse at this point that true exoticism is lost.
    But not so with her.
    La famille thought to recruit me by setting up a meeting wherein I was placed in the position of acquisition of this cherry.
    Not badly thought out, as plans go.
    However poorly executed. On many occasions, I have made my stance known.
    Roi, French for “king,” is no longer. A bullet from an American lawman ended his wretched existence forever, a fact that makes me most glad. Most.
    The cherry and I stare at each other, her fetching slate-gray eyes glaring hard into my own.
    She has a sharp jaw, high cheekbones, and large eyes. Eyes that crackle their hate at me.
    I begin to smile, and she