“You’re a skunk,” she said, her voice shrill enough to send shards of pain into Rune’s brain. “You’re a son of the witch! Damascus is your mother.”
He lifted an eyebrow.
Blue roared and banged the back of her head off the wall.
“Blue,” Rune said. “Shut the hell up or I’m going to stuff that piss-soaked rag down your throat.”
The bald guy grinned. “Thanks, little princess.”
“Fuck you,” Rune growled.
He snorted. “My name is Elias Burken.” He pointed at the driver, who remained silent and never bothered to turn to look at the new arrivals. “That’s Lem.”
There was another man in the car, and he glared at them all, his face set in what appeared to be permanent lines of hatred. He looked to be around forty, older than his two companions, and was tall and skinny. “And that’s Jeremiah. We’re the lead team of Rachel’s Rebels.”
“Rachel?” Rune asked, curious despite her quickly worsening condition.
Elias hesitated. “She wore hope like a dress. Never lacked faith that everything was going to be all right. Legislators hung her on a pole and skinned her alive. She was dead when we found her.”
No one spoke for a few long moments. Not even Blue.
“Can you get us to Flesh quicker than we can walk there?” Rune asked, her hand to her chest.
Elias studied her. “Yup.”
“Then let’s get going.” She slumped back against the wall of the car, panting. “I’m going downhill too fucking fast.”
Elias gave a sharp nod, and the driver, perhaps seeing him in the mirror, released the brake and got the big, boxy vehicle rolling.
“You fought the crawlers and birthed a crow,” Z said. “It took too much out of you.”
“No shit.”
“Birthed a crow?” Blue asked. “What does that mean?”
Rune lifted her palm away from the stickiness of drying blood and choppy flesh of her chest. “It was inside me. I called, it came.”
Z grinned, despite the worry in his eyes. “Shiv Crow.”
Elias was more interested in the crawlers. “You got crawlers on your tail?” He frowned, and held up a hand.
The driver put the brakes on.
“You’re taking us to Flesh,” Z said. “Crawlers or no crawlers.”
“Crawlers are more trouble than we need,” Elias said. “They get our scent and they’ll never leave us be. You know that.”
“Chicken shit,” Blue spat.
He ignored her and continued looking at Z. “If they catch us, we’ll be no good to anyone.”
Z leaned forward. “Then don’t let them catch you.”
Elias thought for a moment, then blew out a long, hard breath. He nodded. “Take us out of here, Lem.”
Rune breathed a silent breath of relief and let her body relax. If he’d refused to take them to Flesh, there wouldn’t have been a whole hell of a lot she could have done about it.
“Where are Naddy and Roma?” Z asked.
Blue glared at Elias. “He put us in separate trucks, the bastard.”
“They okay?” Z asked.
“Yeah,” Blue said. “They were fine when they got shoved into the vehicles. You guys are supposed to be on our side,” she told Elias.
“We have to be careful.” His voice was mild. “You should know better than to think we could trust you right off the bat.”
“You didn’t have to trust us. Just treat us with the respect we deserve as enemies of the fucking witch.”
He didn’t look away from Blue, but Rune was almost certain she saw a quick spark of shame deep in his chocolate brown eyes.
“If you’ll be a good girl,” he said, “I’ll get you out of those restraints.”
“Release her,” Z said. “She’ll behave.”
Blue glanced at him, hesitated, then nodded. “I’ll want my swords. And the bag of supplies I had.”
“You’ll get them when we drop you at Flesh.” Elias leaned forward and snagged a key from under his seat, then tossed it to Z. “She’s your responsibility now, my man. Sorry.”
“Asshole,” Blue muttered.
Z took Rune’s hand and caressed it lightly with his thumb. “You okay?”
She rolled her head weakly on her neck to look at him, and stared at him as though he were her lifeline. “No, Z.”
He squeezed her fingers. “Elias.”
“Yeah?”
“Hurry.”
Elias turned toward the driver. “Give it some speed, Lem.”
“How long?” Rune asked. The world was fading. Or she was. Colors had become muted and vague, and even the vivid green of Z’s eyes had dulled. “Everything’s so gray.”
“Sweet thing,” Z whispered, agony in his face.
“We’ll be there by morning,” Elias told her.
“Not good enough,” Rune murmured. “It’ll be too late by morning.”