Walls of Gray

Chapter 17: A Questionable Situation

(cw: loss of a friend/loved one, implied suicidal ideation)

=====

This tent was the absolute last place Lianna wanted to be.

Sure, it may have been well-kept and cozy enough to sit in with leg room to spare — and in any other circumstance she would've made herself right at home. But considering she and Clancy had been practically ambushed in the middle of the night by someone who claimed to be the leader of a group that wasn't supposed to exist, Lianna wondered just how much sanity she had left before she started going around and questioning everything in her line of sight.

She hadn't been this irritated in years.

Everything had happened too quickly for her to catch up: Josh had waltzed right up to her and Clancy, made Clancy fall right down the side of a hill and knock himself out on the way down, and after all of that had been said and done he'd just told her to follow him back to camp, saying he would explain as another Bandito hauled Clancy over his shoulder. Settle down, he'd said as they had cleared the slope up to the Bandito camp. As soon as he wakes up we'll tell you everything.

But even with Clancy awake she wasn't willing to stick around and find out what Josh and Brendon wanted in the first place. Besides, she had no doubt that Esther and Lawrence were waiting for her, probably looking for her.

"So," Josh said as he put down his cup, steam rising from whatever hot beverage he had inside. "I'm gonna go on a limb and say you both know about the Banditos?"

"We've heard the stories," Lianna replied.

Josh nodded. "That's good. Anyway, feel free to make yourselves at home. Not exactly the best living conditions, but it's what we've got."

"And if you're used to moving around Trench every couple of weeks then you'll both fit right in," Yarrow added.

Lianna and Clancy looked at each other before turning back to Josh. "Save the small talk," Lianna said. "Tell us why we're here."

The leader of the Banditos hunched forward, sitting cross-legged atop his bedroll, his fingers brushing the clay cup. "A few weeks ago we lost one of our own to the Bishops."

"And?" Lianna pressed.

"Normally we wouldn't ask for outside help like this. We end up having to go on rescue missions all the time," Josh continued, "but the fact of who he is makes things... complicated."

Clancy stiffened slightly. "How complicated are we talking about?"

"Very," Brendon replied. "It's risky business enough rescuing one of our own, considering the Bishops know what most of us look like. But trying to get a Bandito out of Dema doesn't hold a candle to trying to get Tyler out of Dema. For a lot of reasons."

Lianna nodded slowly, going off the assumption that whoever Tyler was, he was probably the person Josh and the Banditos were trying to find. "Go on."

"For starters, this is the first time in two years that Tyler's been taken by a Bishop. Were this any other Bandito, we'd have some idea of what to do."

"So..." Clancy began. "What exactly makes all this complicated?"

"As corny as this is gonna sound, Tyler's not like the rest of us. He's the only one out of all of us with close connections to the Niners." Here Josh paused, stroking Jason just behind the ears. The cheetah had curled up by his side when he'd taken Lianna and Clancy to his tent. "And a particularly close connection with Nico."

Clancy's eyes went wide. At the mention of the leader of the Bishops, Lianna blinked slowly. "Wait, hold on. You're saying—"

"There might be more than a few of us, but Tyler is the only one of us with such close ties to the Bishops. And it's not just that. He... I don't know what Nico did to him in Dema and I honestly hope I never find out, but that's why I can't just let him sit in there and let him find his own way out. They're going to do something to him." Josh gripped his cup tighter, his brow furrowing.