Paige stopped, there was only silence on the line.
He prayed she couldn’t sense the tension that had clenched his eyes shut or caused his lips to form silent obscenities.
“Cole? You didn’t already call MEG, did you?”
“Maybe.”
Instead of the unholy tirade he’d expected, she only took a long, measured breath before saying, “We’re on our own now. Don’t call MEG again. Don’t go anywhere you’ve used as a home base before. The Full Bloods are converging here for some reason, and I don’t know how many more will be coming. There’s already one that I’ve never seen before.”
“Have you heard them talking about something called the Breaking Moon?”
Paige chuckled into the phone. Although her breath made a scratchy bit of static as it hit her speaker, he savored the moment as much as he could. It was the closest thing to touching her that he could hope for.
“All they’re talking about out here,” she told him, “is how badly they want to rip us up. One of the new Full Bloods did mention the Breaking. She told me to enjoy mine. Since it was after she tore the hell out of me, I’m guessing it could be what they call transforming someone into a Half Breed.”
“Shit!”
“Don’t worry,” she said before he could get even more worked up. “I’m getting patched up right now. Our Euro pals brought supplies we needed, and by the look of things, the stuff works faster than what we whip up. I’ll have to get the recipe.”
Cole couldn’t understand the language that drifted in from somewhere beyond Paige, but it had the same feel as the Amriany dialect. Judging by the venom in the woman’s tone, she wasn’t too anxious to swap medical tips with a Skinner. “I should get going,” Paige said. “Lots of work to do. Do you think Tristan will follow through on her promise to help transport you somewhere safe if you needed it?”
“That was before the legal trouble, but I may be able to wrangle something. She does owe us big-time.”
“You’re damn right she does,” she snapped. “Call her and set something up if you can. If not, just try to get someplace where you can stay alive.”
“No!” The word came out of him as if it had been squeezed up from his ankles. He winced at how much noise he’d made, but continued in a determined whisper. “This is my fight too, remember?”
“You’ve been through more than anyone. I made the mistake of trusting someone too soon and nearly lost you. I thought you were dead,” she stated in her steely tone. “I won’t hand you over again.”
“I was unconscious most of the time,” Cole said with a forced, unconvincing chuckle. “From what I’ve heard about prison life, that’s a good way to go. Randolph told me some things.”
“Randolph, huh?” Paige grunted. “No more Mr. Burkis?”
“That’s one of his names, and I’m sticking to it, okay?” In a strange way, squabbling with her again made Cole feel better than any amount of food he could smell whenever someone opened the door to the truck stop. It filled him up, heart and soul. Knowing better than to get that corny with her, he said, “You’ve got your thing going on in Oklahoma and there’s something going on here as well. Since they’ve both got Full Bloods attached to them, I think our things are connected.”
“Insert dirty joke here,” Paige said. “Before I let you go, I think we should consider something.”
“What?”
“That we may need all the help we can get,” Paige said with a wince Cole could feel through the phone line. “Lancroft worshippers or not.”
Cole ground his teeth together hard enough that he thought the sound might have carried through the phone line.
“If these guys are all like the ones that took me from Canon City,” he said, “they pride themselves on being the ultimate Skinners or something. They were getting slaughtered when I left that place.”
“But they’ve got to be preparing something against what’s happening. At the very least, they’ve got more people to stand against these things.”
“Cannon fodder,” he said. “I like the sound of that. Too bad Rico’s still got my weapon.”
“You can make a new one. Are you okay?”
The change in her voice was subtle, but Cole picked up on it without a problem. For Paige, the absence of that edge to her tone was no small thing. “I’m better now that I’m out of that prison. What about you?”
“In the middle of a freaking meat grinder.