“All right, yeah. What do you think she’d do if I said she had to sit this out? She’d take off. If I said she needed more discipline, same thing.”
“I know that, too. Just as I know Duncan and Tonia, and most of the others, were already in the fight by her age. But with so many joining, we’ve been able to up the age for combat, give them more time.”
“Her father’s in New York,” Fallon said again. “Everyone she really knows, the world she considers home. I can’t stop her, so I use her, yes, but she goes back with an army. She doesn’t go back alone.”
“And still, it makes me sad. I can know you’re right, that I’d very likely do the same, and still be sad. I’ll get your paper.”
Rising, Lana stepped over, pressed a kiss to the top of Fallon’s head.
With the new information, Fallon huddled with her parents, Duncan and Tonia, Will. She added Katie, Jonah, Rachel, and Fred for their knowledge of old New York.
“Tony and I lived here.” Katie laid a finger on the old map. “My parents here, his here. This is the hospital where you were born.”
“DU Central now,” Duncan said, then immediately looked at Katie. “Sorry, Mom.”
“No, that’s the reality. New Hope’s home, where I raised you and your sister, where we made our life. They’ve twisted and burned what was my home, but that doesn’t mean we can’t and won’t take it back.”
“I lived here, started out here,” Rachel said, “but I wanted my own place, and an easy commute to the hospital. I didn’t grow up there like Katie, and wouldn’t know the area nearly as well as Jonah would, as he drove those streets every day as a paramedic.”
“We were based here, covered this section.” It took him back, those street names. “I imagine some of the buildings are gone, some of the streets destroyed, but the layout’s the layout. We took the boat from here to get out, decided to try for Hoboken.”
“Hell of a night,” Rachel said, and laid her hand over his.
“Yeah, it was.”
“We could get troops into Brooklyn by water. Boats, merpeople.”
Jonah nodded at Fallon. “There were bridges, tunnels.”
“Marichu says the tunnels, for the most part, are for the dead and the lunatics. The bridge from Manhattan to Brooklyn, destroyed, leaving Brooklyn essentially cut off. If we come in as you left, by the water, we can retake what they’ve claimed. From the outside in, while we flash more troops into the center. We do the same in Manhattan.”
“Arlys and I worked here, in Midtown. She lived close enough to walk to work. It all happened so fast,” Fred remembered. “People dying, people killing, people running. The magickals—well, there was a lot of confusion at first. I mean, one day you’re an intern, learning the ropes of broadcasting, running around New York with a cool job, a dumpy apartment you love, and the next you’ve got wings. It’s not like being born knowing. It’s a rush, and a little scary at first. Some couldn’t handle it, just went crazy, others went dark.”
“You didn’t,” Eddie reminded her. “Not my Fred.”
“You could have left,” Tonia pointed out. “Why didn’t you?”
“Arlys, the people we worked with. They needed me. After that last broadcast—God, that was awful—Jim, he was in charge then, said that Arlys had to get out, and I just knew I had to go with her.
“We walked down to Thirty-fourth—here.” She showed them on the map. “And walked the PATH tunnel to Hoboken.”
When she pressed her lips together, Eddie laid a hand on her thigh, rubbed.
“We got through it.” She put her hand over his for a quick squeeze. “The thing was, Hoboken was pretty deserted, but it wasn’t destroyed. Not even looted much.”
“PW base now, according to Marichu. We take it out,” Fallon said, “make it ours.”
“We’re fighting on a lot of fronts, Fallon.” With the others, Will studied the maps, old and new. “PWs in New Jersey, DUs and PWs in Brooklyn, military in Queens, and all of that in Manhattan.”
“That’s why we’ll win. Not in a day, not in a week, not in a month, but we’ll win. We’ll drive them out. I was conceived there, like Duncan, Tonia, Hannah. Ross MacLeod traveled back from Scotland to die there. The firsts of New Hope found each other there, and found their way out. Now it’s time to go back.”