7
Turned out the bank opened at eight-thirty, and by nine they were seated across from one another in a window booth at Mosby’s Diner, steaming plates of ham and eggs in front of them, two-hundred dollars richer. Rooster had awakened starving that morning, and shoveled his food in with only a token stab at table manners. By contrast, Red only picked at hers, tired eyes downcast, hand limp on her fork.
“Eat,” he prodded, nudging her plate toward her.
One corner of her mouth lifted, a sad attempt at a smile. “I feel kinda sick.”
“That’s ‘cause you need to eat.”
She speared a wiggly clump of egg with her fork and looked at it dubiously. Her gaze slid to the laminated menu cards in their rack behind the salt and pepper shakers. “They have chocolate chip waffles,” she said, voice all innocence, and bit down on her lower lip in that way that meant she was trying, badly, to contain a smile.
Unlike her, Rooster had gotten very good at holding back smiles in these sorts of situations, content to enjoy the little blossom of warmth in his chest. “That shit’s just sugar.” He tried to sound stern. Which was a waste, because she’d never once been put off by that.
She looked up pleadingly through her lashes, green eyes catching light from the window, dazzling as gemstones. “I’ll eat the eggs, too. Promise.”
Rooster feigned a deep sigh and flagged down the waitress.
Red beamed at him, and it was the kind of smile that toppled kingdoms. God knew it had toppled him a long time ago.
~*~
Red loved diners. The blended smells of savory and sweet, thick curls of steam licking off the massive flat-tops behind the counter. She loved the clink of plates and cutlery, the outdated country music on the radio, the rustle of newspapers and controlled shouts of the kitchen staff as they worked at a lightning pace to get everyone’s food out. She loved the gleam of morning sunlight on the chrome of the stools, the glass of the bakery cases, the fake-maple syrup pouring down onto her waffles. She especially loved diners in the morning, when the world was waking up, when sitting in a booth felt like being a part of something bigger, like being involved in the mundane dramas of some small town where everyone’s biggest worry was finding a seat for the Friday night football games.
Across from her, Rooster choked down the last bite of his breakfast, pushed his plate away, and turned his gaze to the window and the street beyond, little line sprouting between his brows. On guard, as ever. Gone was the sleepy, pain-free man who’d tucked her into his side last night, and back was the Marine in the middle of a warzone, at least three guns on his person.
Red loved diners, but she hated what they did to Rooster.
“These are really good,” she said, chiming the tines of her fork against her plate. “You want some?”
“Nah, you eat them.” His gaze slid to her, briefly, sparking warm a moment, giving that divot in his brow a second’s respite, before he returned to his vigil. “I know how much you like your chocolate.”
And what do you like? she wanted to ask. He took scrupulous care of his guns. He drank bourbon – sometimes enough to get maudlin. He always ordered his Whoppers with cheese, and sometimes, through closed hotel bathroom doors, she heard him groan in a grateful way when he stepped into a hot shower.
But unless he was smiling, his mouth was tight with stress, even in sleep sometimes. He didn’t ever seem to enjoy anything, not the way people did in movies and TV shows, laughing and playing and spending “guys’ nights” in front of football games with all their friends. Rooster had friends – he had Deshawn, anyway – but they never saw each other, only talked on prepaid cellphones sometimes.
Rooster didn’t have a wife, or even a girlfriend, a woman to kiss, and hold, and take to bed, and make gasp. She thought he probably needed that. Didn’t everyone? She didn’t know for sure, but was starting to be curious. Sometimes she felt…
Well, she didn’t know. But she wondered, sometimes.
A vanload of children in soccer uniforms and knee socks came bursting into the diner, all talking excitedly, blocking the door and drawing eyes.
Red grabbed her coffee mug and slid out of the booth.
Rooster’s gaze snapped around immediately, watchful frown deepening into an expression a lot like panic.
Before he could ask, she smiled and waved her mug at him. “Just gonna get a refill.”
He scowled. “She’ll come around and do that.”
Red gestured to the counter. “It’s two steps. Be right back. Promise.”
It took an effort not to laugh at his face – the awful, overdramatic, twisted-up frown – and she turned, took the as-promised two steps to the counter, and climbed onto an empty stool.
The waitress on the other side spotted her empty mug and held up a finger. “Just a sec, hon.”
“It’s fine.” Red sent her a smile and settled in to wait. The sugar of waffles and chocolate was helping, but truth be told she wasn’t back to full strength yet. She didn’t normally perform and then ease Rooster’s pain in the same night; it had sapped her, truly.
She took note of the men seated on either side of her: one was young and blond, her age, maybe, having an omelet and a Coke, paging through a hefty textbook and smearing the pages with grease. The other, on her left, was someone who reminded her, at least a little, of Rooster. Mid-thirties, powerful build that wasn’t well hidden under his windbreaker and busted jeans. He wore a ballcap, but what she could see of his hair was dark and clipped military short. A little scar curled down from the corner of his near eye, pink and shiny, still almost fresh. Military, his bearing screamed, and she’d know – she’d spent the last five years sharing Slim-Jims and hotel beds with a Marine.
Tired as she was, something in her tightened. Not fear, exactly – she had enough juice to raze someone to ashes, if she needed to – but a disquieted sort of feeling.
She swore she could feel the heat of Rooster’s scowl behind her. Damn. Always so protective. Like the world’s biggest brother…who thought she was totally helpless. The self-sacrificing idiot.
Then the blond boy turned toward her and choked on his next bite of omelet. “Oh shit. Um. Hey. You’re that girl. From last night.”
Red turned to him with a wide, pretend smile in place. Smiles always set people off their guard, helped them forget details. It was Rooster’s fierce scowls that the Institute people always remembered. That and her red hair…
“You’re her, right?” the boy asked. “With the fire?” He lifted one greasy hand and spread the fingers in a little exploding gesture.
“Yes, that’s me,” she said. “Did you like the show?”
“Dude,” he exclaimed, grinning wide. “That was badass. How’d you do that?”
“Magic,” she said, with an answering smile of her own that she hoped was coy. She’d never actually seen a coy smile, or been shown how to execute one, but in the paperbacks she picked up in grocery stores – “What the hell is going on in this book?” Rooster had demanded once, scandalized, when she got out of the shower and found him sprawled back on one of the hotel beds, paging through her current romance novel. “This is,” he’d spluttered, face going red along the high ridges of his cheekbones, “this is – you’re not old enough to read this.” But of course he hadn’t forbidden it, only gave her pained, sidelong glances when she read in the truck. – women were always smiling coyly at men. If the books were to be believed, it was a means of getting your way – or, in her case, pulling off a deception.
He laughed, half-delighted, half-frustrated by her evasion. “No, but seriously. How do you do that? Is it, like, Roman candles or something–”
“Here you go, hon.” The waitress topped off her coffee.
Red gave the a woman a quick smile. “Thank you.” And slid off her stool.
Started to, and the boy darted a hand out like he meant to touch her.
She wasn’t a jumpy person, all things considered, but no one touched her. No one but Rooster. And before that –
“…shows promising development…”
“…experiment had little to no effect…”
“…weaponize its abilities…”
She shied away from the enthusiastic blond boy, a hard leap off her stool, and collided with the man on her other side. Her hand bumped his shoulder, and hot coffee slopped all down his arm, and onto his bare hand.
Red froze a moment, horrified. The man hissed through his teeth, but otherwise remained admirably still. Unlike her, he wasn’t panicking, even though he had to be in pain. She could already see the bright pink of a terrible burn coming up on his skin.
The waitress gasped. “Oh, let me – here, hold on–”
The blond boy knocked his own stool over as he scrambled to his feet, saying, “Whoa, whoa.”
Red didn’t think. Her awareness shrank down to the sight of an injury – an injury that she’d caused – and she reacted. She laid her hand on the stranger’s forearm and funneled a burst of energy into him.
“Ah–” He made a short, sharp, aborted sound, and then went still, the way Rooster did, when–
Oh no, Rooster!
It was his arm, she knew, that went around her waist from behind. He grunted as he was hit with a bit of castoff energy, but didn’t let go, dragging her back from the man, breaking the contact. The second her hand left his arm, the power surge drained out of her, like a bathtub with the drain pulled. She sagged back against Rooster’s chest, panting, and for a moment, the entire diner was dead silent, save the slow spinning of George Strait on the radio.
It was just the chaos, she told herself: the fallen stool, the leaping boy, the gasping waitress, the man’s cry of pain. Rooster, looking big and threatening, lifting her up off her feet. There was no way anyone could know what she’d just done, that she’d used her powers – that she even had any.
Then one of the little soccer players went goggle-eyed and said, “That’s the fire girl.”
“Fuck,” Rooster growled, “come on.” He bulled his way to the door, shoulder first, carrying her, and everyone scrambled to get out of his way.
Red tossed a look behind her as they fled, and saw the stranger she’d healed staring down at his hand in open-mouthed shock. His skin steamed, a little, still hot from the coffee, but there was no burn.
Oh no, she thought.
A carnival act could be explained away, but not a miracle.
~*~
Jake stood in the alley that ran alongside Mosby’s Diner, slowly opening and closing his hand – his unburned hand. He could still feel the heat of the coffee, and a tingling, bright warmth that he suspected was part of- of whatever the target had done to him. But there was no pain. No side effects – he didn’t think.
He realized he was panting – stress, rather than exertion – and closed his mouth, pressed it tight.
Dr. Talbot had told him that their target had undergone experimental treatment not unlike that used on Jake himself and the rest of his team. They’d given him a team, Dr. Talbot and Agent West, other ex-military serum recipients. They seemed competent, so far, though he hadn’t really bothered to get to know them. This mission was a means to an end, a chance to prove that he was perfectly capable of serving again.
A video posted to Facebook, mined by one of the nerdy techs back at the Manor, had indicated that the target was in Evanston, Wyoming, and Jake’s team had left right away, flying through the night. He’d followed the target and her bodyguard-partner-boyfriend-creepy uncle-whatever he was from the Holiday Inn to the diner, told his team to take up a holding position and wait. This was just recon, really. He hadn’t expected to contain the two of them. According to their briefing packet, the target was highly dangerous and great care would need to be taken to subdue her somewhere where risk of civilian casualties was minimal.
He’d known she was only a girl, a little redhead with a sprinkling of freckles over her nose, but he hadn’t realized, until he’d seen her eating chocolate chip waffles, just how small she seemed. How fragile.
He’d had a moment, hiding under his ballcap and listening to the target and her companion – Corporal Rooster Palmer, Marine Corps, medical discharge, Purple Heart – talking about a TV show, one of those obnoxious singing contests.
She was barely twenty, and she put too much syrup on her waffles, and thought someone named Devon deserved a record deal, and her laugh sounded like the quiet flutter of bird wings.
What the hell was he doing? How was this kid a threat?
But then she’d spilled her coffee on him, and touched him, and- and…
He didn’t know what.
“Hey,” a female voice said, right in front of him, and he jerked, hand going for the gun concealed at his hip. He hadn’t heard anyone approach, lost in his own thoughts, and his heart leapt up his throat. He didn’t use to startle so easy.
One of his teammates – Ramirez, he remembered – stood in front of him, windbreaker pushed back at one hip, hand resting on the butt of her own weapon. She stared at him with admirable blandness, only the arch of her dark brows and the tilt of her head saying really? “You alright?” she asked, like she’d already decided he wasn’t.
He cleared his throat and forced his churning doubts away. “Yeah. We need to get going. They’re on the move. Spence disabled their truck?”
She nodded. “I don’t know how – I’m not a mechanic. But yeah, he said they shouldn’t get far.”
“Good. Call ahead to the garage.”
“Yes, sir.”
~*~
“You’re mad,” Red said, about an hour later, empty Wyoming lowlands stretching brown and stubbly on either side of the road.
Rooster took a deep breath in through his nose and ignored the way his hand tightened on the wheel until his knuckles went white. “I’m not mad,” he said in a carefully measured voice.
And he wasn’t. He was petrified.
“I know,” Red continued, voice tired. When he snuck another look at her – he hadn’t been able to stop since they’d pulled out of Evanston City – he saw that her eyelids were at half mast, fighting off yet another power drain. Goddamn it. “That I’m not supposed to attract attention. But I couldn’t let him be injured because of me. I…” She trailed off, tone upset.
“You got a real guilt complex, you know that?” he bit out.
“Mad, see?”
“No.” He was running scenarios through his head, trying to figure out an escape plan. And berating himself. He should have never let her do the show; should never have let their money get so tight that he needed to. He’d done odd jobs before: loading hay into trucks, putting up fence; he’d washed dishes, and harvested corn, and driven tractors. There was always work and a little cash for a strong back, and he should have found work before Red saw that flier, so that he could have told her no. Between last night’s show and today’s display at the diner, whatever that man would go out and say on social media…their cover was blown.
“We’re gonna go up toward Jackson,” he said, deciding it, “and before we get there we’re gonna make two stops. Gotta get a box of hair dye at one of ‘em.”
She made an unhappy sound.
“I know, I know, but–”
He registered the whine coming from underneath the truck the same moment he realized that it had been going on for several miles, too soft for him to pay proper attention to it. But it spiked, suddenly, loud and droning, and he had just a moment to think oh fuck, the transmission, before there was a crunch, a lurch, a growl, and the truck started to slow, slow, slow, the RPM needle surging.
“Fuck,” he said, and managed not to sound as panicked as he felt.
Red pulled her feet down off the dash and sat up straight beside him. “What is it?”
“Transmission.” He pressed the gas pedal to more revving, and yet more slowing.
The truck cruised to a halt on the shoulder and then just sat there, idling. Useless.
Rooster killed the engine and braced both hands on the wheel. Listened to the hissing and popping under the hood and counted to ten silently in his head.
When that didn’t do a damn thing to alleviate the awful, dark swell of panic building in the back of his head like a tidal wave, he said, “Shit,” with great feeling. That didn’t work either, but it was like a valve opening, steam pouring out. “Shit, shit, shit, shit–”
Red laid her hand on the bare skin of his forearm. No power this time, only the cool press of her palm. “It’ll be okay,” she said, aiming for brave, voice shaking just a fraction beneath the façade. “We’ll call a tow truck. Maybe someone will come by.”
That was exactly what he was worried about. An hour out from Evanston City was too close for comfort; close enough to be overtaken by anyone who might be following.
A part of him acknowledged that he was super paranoid.
A part of him knew that no government on earth would let someone with Red’s power slip through the cracks and eventually give up on chasing her down.
He shut his eyes a moment and shoved the exhausted, emotional, runaway side of himself down into its little box, letting the Marine side take over. When he opened his eyes, he felt alert and industrious.
He peeled his fingers off the wheel and handed Red his phone. It was prepaid, but still a smartphone, and had basic Internet capabilities. “Here. Google a tow company we can call. I’m gonna check the truck.”
She flicked him a quick, knowing look and took the phone with a nod.
“Lock the doors behind me.”
Another nod, this one distracted as she scrolled through the phone’s offerings.
Rooster climbed out, shut the door, and waited for the thump of the locks engaging before he moved. Good girl.
The truck was, close as he could tell, totally fucked. From what he could see crouching in the dirt, the transmission was leaking fluid, slick with more of it.
He dropped the tailgate, opened the camper shell, and climbed up into the dark, hot interior of the bed. He’d built the three gun racks there himself, in a borrowed workshop in Tulsa. Crafted boxes and their sliding drawers, glued diamond plate to the exteriors. They would look like toolboxes to the untrained eye, but when he opened the one on the left he was greeted by a third of his arsenal, drawer, after drawer, after drawer of it.
One drawer housed collapsed duffel bags, and he started filling them with all that he could carry: all his handguns, a shotgun, even a broken-down M4. Box, after box, after box of ammo. And a handful of tactical knives.
Satisfied – as close to it as he could get – he zipped the final duffel and climbed out of the truck, dragging the heavy bags with him.
Just in time to see a flatbed pulling up behind them.
Panic rose like bile in the back of his throat. His hands twitched on the handles of the bags, and his first, knee-jerk urge was to pull the twelve-gauge from the bag in his right hand and shoot right through the windshield, turning the driver’s face to hamburger.
No, he thought, wildly, savagely. You can’t have her.
But then he forced himself to take a breath and read the details. It was a white flatbed rather than a panel van or unmarked Suburban, mud-spattered wheel wells and a layer of reddish dust on the hood. The tag on the front labeled the truck’s owner as an Oklahoma fan. And the driver, clearly visible through the untinted windshield, was a lone man with a baseball cap and no sunglasses, squinting at Rooster from under the brim of his hat.
Probably not a team of paramilitary, government-funded kidnappers.
Probably.
The driver gave a little wave and cut his engine, opened the door and got out slow, like he could read the tension in Rooster’s body. “Hey,” he called, stepping around his door, but hanging back. Hands in view, posture non-threatening, no visible weapons. He wore battered Wranglers, a plaid shirt, and a windbreaker; his hat was stitched with OU, a match to the truck’s front plate. “Engine trouble?”
Rooster set the bags carefully on the ground, and reached inside his own jacket as he straightened, heart pounding. Because the man in front of him was the man from the diner, the one Red had healed.
“Nah,” he drawled, “transmission.” And drew his Colt in one smooth motion, muzzle pointed at the man’s heart. “On your knees,” he said, toneless and calm. “Hands behind your head. I won’t ask twice.”
To his credit, the man didn’t react the way most people did in this situation. No gasping or flailing or insisting that he didn’t mean any harm. No reaching for his own gun – which would have gone badly for him. No, instead, he lifted both hands, nice and slow, to press them to his hat and then sank down to his knees in the dirt, expression careful, but not hostile.
Surprise stayed Rooster’s hand a moment.
A gust of wind sent loose dirt and handfuls of dry grass scuttling across the road between them. Carried with it the faint, but unmistakable lowing of cows from somewhere out of sight.
“What branch were you with?” the man asked.
Rooster blinked. “What?” he asked through his teeth.
The man shrugged without moving his hands from his head. “I’m just saying. A civilian breaks down in the middle of nowhere and a truck pulls up, his first reaction is usually to say, ‘Thank God.’ Not to pull a gun on somebody.”
Rooster flashed his teeth in an approximation of a smile. “And all vets are crazy, huh?”
“No. Necessarily cautious, I’d say.”
Rooster studied him a moment, waiting for the inevitable wince, for the begging, the show of nerves.
It never came.
Gun still trained, he walked toward the guy, swung wide, got behind him. “Don’t move.”
“Wasn’t going to.”
A quick glance in the truck proved that it was nothing special: battered vinyl seats, some crumpled McDonald’s wrappers, a water bottle and a Coke in the cup holders. Rooster checked the near door pockets for weapons and found none.
“You didn’t answer the question,” the guy on the ground said.
“You’re so smart, why don’t you guess?” Rooster said as he did a quick, one-handed pat down of the man. No weapons there, either.
“Alright,” he said. “I’m gonna say Marine Corps.”
“Yeah? What about you?” Rooster circled around in front of him again. “National Guard?” he asked with contempt.
The man tipped his head back so he could maintain eye contact. “Army,” he said, unabashed.
Rooster snorted.
“I’m Jake,” he offered. “There’s a garage twelve miles up the road that can take a look at your truck, and I’ll be happy to take it there for you.”
“Why?”
“It’ll be my way of saying thanks. That’s some hell of a trick your girl’s got.”
And there it was: the real reason for this unasked-for kindness.
Rooster lifted his gun a fraction, so the muzzle was aimed at the guy’s face, finger sliding inside the trigger guard. He felt a grim smile tug at this mouth. This just got so old. The same shit, over and over. “I give you credit: you played the game longer than most of them ever do.”
Jake – if that was even his name – looked scared for the first time now, eyes wide and white-rimmed. His mouth opened on a small, gasping breath. “Now wait, just wait, I don’t know–”
A truck door slammed behind him, and Red said, “Rooster, don’t.”
No. No, no, no, no–
Jake’s gaze flicked away from the gun, toward Red.
“Don’t look at her,” Rooster said through his teeth. To Red: “Get back in the truck. Now.”
She didn’t listen. Of course she didn’t. Her boots scuffed quietly over the short grass as she walked toward them. “You can’t shoot him,” she said, reasonably. “He–”
Rooster flung out his left arm and blocked her from coming nearer. “I swear to God, if you don’t get back in the truck–”
“There were witnesses,” she said. “All those people back at the diner saw us and saw him. Saw what I did. If they find him dead on the road–”
“Then they won’t find him! I’ll dig a fucking hole!”
She rested her hand on his arm, like he was some wild animal she could soothe with a touch. “You’re always telling me to be smart. Right? We have to be smart here. And I don’t think he’s one of them.”
“It’s not worth the risk.” But she was right, to a point. He’d killed people these past five years, but all those dead agents – or whatever they were – never made the news. This guy, if he was telling the truth, and was a civilian…that would hit the media. Even if he just disappeared, someone who loved him would file a missing person’s report and the cops would get involved. They could run from shadow organizations all day, but local cops and a murder of a citizen…that would be the thing that caught them, finally. And then Rooster would go to jail, and the Institute would take Red back, and…
He was hyperventilating. The gun shook in his hand.
His hostage stared up at him, frightened, but not backing down. “You haven’t done anything you can’t take back yet,” he said. “It’s okay.”
Red rubbed the arm that he held in front of her like a barrier, small fingers gentle. “Rooster.” A request, a balm.
Rooster swallowed, and his throat was so tight it hurt. “Who do you work for?”
“I own my own wrecker company. I work out of a garage in Farley. Just twelve miles up, like I said.” He wet his lips and added. “Look, I don’t know who you’re running from” – his eyes made a fast dart toward Red, like he knew the why of it – “and it’s none of my business. I’d just really like to not get shot and I’ll give you a tow if you want. I might be Army, but I’m not stupid.”
Rooster was…trapped. Caught in a place from which he couldn’t shoot his way out – not without putting them at greater risk. And he…was tired. So tired. All the good Red’s healing had done last night seemed to bleed out of him now, carried away on a tide of soul-deep exhaustion.
Like he sensed that Rooster’s resolve was wavering, Jake said, “You can even hold a gun on me the whole time if you want. But your arsenal will have to ride in the back.” He nodded toward the duffels that still lay on the ground.
Red’s hand touched his shoulder, a silent please.
Rooster exhaled in a rush. “Fine.”