Finn’s body ached like he’d been hit with a car. At least, this was how he’d imagine it feeling. The only sounds were the furtive movements of nocturnal animals and the thud-scrape of his and Lar’s boots through the desiccated foliage.

He’d have stopped walking a mile back already, convinced that everything he had to give was gone.

And then Lars had spotted the suggestion of lights through the trees. Nothing more than a distant twinkle, but it was all he needed to keep going.

“Hey, let me try walking,” Cora said, slurring due to how her cheek, and no doubt the inside of her mouth, had swollen. Lars had said something about Zachary doing that, but neither of them would ‘fess up about how it had happened.

He hadn’t seen; he’d been too preoccupied.

A desperate shove sent that thought far away. The last thing he needed now were those vignettes of violence that had played non-stop in his head for the past hour. Right now, he had to concentrate on keeping one foot in front of the other.

“Hope to fucking god that place has food,” Lars muttered beside him. Then, with a grunt, he set Angel down. “I’m done, buddy. You’re gonna have to drag yourself the rest of the way.”

“Finn.”

He looked down at Cora. Luckily, in the dark, he couldn’t see much of her face. But when it had still been light enough to see, there’d been swelling on the left side of her face. Drying blood on her chin and throat.

His muscles pleaded with him to listen to her, and after another few steps, he caved in and set her down. She slung her arm around his waist and together they hobbled forward.

Angel was having more trouble. Lars stood back, watching Angel as he tried to drag his wounded leg behind him. They’d applied a hasty tourniquet—Lars’s belt—and that seemed to have slowed the bleeding, but his jeans were still black with spent blood, and the amount of it worried Finn.

“Fuck my life,” Lars said under his breath, and went to prop Angel up on the one side. It meant the tall man had to stoop, and he threw Finn a scathing glare as if he and Angel’s height discrepancy was something Finn was personally responsible for.

The source of the twinkling lights came into sight a few minutes later. A gas station and, peeking out behind it, something that could have been a motel.

“Ah, Jesus,” Lars murmured reverentially.

The gas station’s signboard illuminated their path now.

“You’ll have to book us in,” Finn said. Of the four of them, Lars merely looked as if he’d had a roll in the dust. “You got cash?”

Lars rummaged awkwardly in his pocket and pulled out his wallet. He flashed Finn a smile so wide his teeth threw back a splinter of light. “Got plastic.”

“We’ll keep out of sight. You let us know when it’s clear.

They circled around so they wouldn’t get in sight of anyone working the register—god knew they had to look like the survivors of some b-rated horror movie.

Finn jostled Angel from Lars’s grip and helped him and Cora to a nearby stand of scraggly trees. Lars gave him a mock salute, scanned the motel’s near-empty lot, and hurried over the parking area toward the reception.

‘The Elegance’, Finn read on the motel’s signboard.

That name stuck with him for some reason, and not just because the motel was anything but elegant.

Then he thought of the botched accident the night he’d met Cora. The first time he’d touched her, trying to find a pulse. His body sagging when he’d finally found one.

The man who’d shot Jackson in the back and then nearly gotten away with Cora.

The card in his pocket.

‘The Elegance’, with its shitty print.

It could have been coincidence, but he believed in those as much as he believed in the fucking Easter Bunny.

But what choice did they have?

The way Cora stood beside him, her breath buffeting his bare arm. And with Angel pressed to his other side, they created a warm cocoon around him.

Which was fucking perfect, because he’d never been so cold in his life.

Lars came out of the reception room a few minutes later, did another casual scan of the parking lot as he moved across it, and went to stand in front of door twelve. Then he looked around again, and lifted his chin to where Finn huddled with the others.

Finn hoisted Cora and Angel to a stand, and they limped and hobbled over the parking lot, trying to stay in the shadows as much as possible. Lars had already opened the door, and Finn nearly fell through the doorway, so eager was he to get inside.

Lars gave him a bemused smile. “Guy behind the counter’s so high, I could’ve taken a room key and he wouldn’t have noticed.”

“We can’t stay here,” Finn said, and that wiped the mirth right off Lars’s face.

“You really have lost it, haven’t you?” Lars waved a hand that took in him, Cora, and Angel. “Perchance you’d like to look in the fucking mirror?”

“This place—” Finn paused and then gave his head a shake. Words rattled out of him, probably making no sense. “The guys at the blockade. That night we left Swan Manor.”

Lars crossed his arms over his chest but didn’t say anything.

“One of them had a card. This place. A card for this motel.”

“It’s probably the only motel in town,” Lars said dryly. He ripped his phone from his pocket, showing Finn the dead screen. “Which I would have confirmed, had I not run out of battery life about seven hours ago.”

“It’s not a coincidence.”

“Probably not,” Lars agreed with a sour twist to his mouth. “But I don’t give a fuck. That guy behind the counter wouldn’t be able to pick me from a police lineup. Even if I was the only guy in the fucking line up. Got it?” Lars walked over to the closest bed and sat down with a massive sigh. “Now, how we going to decide who gets to shower first?”