“You’re going to be my deus ex machina?” Red said. “I don’t think so. Look at the size of you. You’re going to attract attention when I’m trying to be sneaky.”
“You don’t think a lone girl in a red hood wandering through a battle zone is going to attract attention?”
Red sighed. There really wasn’t anything she could do to stop him from following her like an abandoned puppy. She should probably be grateful that he wasn’t trying to drag her away to quarantine, but she wasn’t. Mostly she just wanted to be left alone so she could think. How could she think with this annoying person looming over her?
She followed the perimeter of the store until she reached the back.
“Ah,” Red said. “That’s what I was looking for.”
There was a large warehouse door, the metal type that pulled down from the ceiling and was large enough to drive a truck through if necessary. Next to it was what Red thought of as a human-sized door. There was a light-up EXIT sign above it, though of course the light was out.
Red went to the smaller door, Sirois trailing behind her. She pressed her ear up against the door and listened. There was rifle fire, shouting, the revving of engines—but it all seemed far away. There was a good chance that all the action was centered on the main road.
If that was the case she could slip away while no one was looking. Of course, “slipping away” was a relative term—in order to slip away she would have to climb the hill that surrounded the town and then go west (and out of her way) in order to escape any watching eyes. She hated climbing hills. It was better than going down, but it was always too easy for her to lose her balance. Once she was away from the town and out of the valley she could circle back to the main road that would lead to the woods.
She pulled a map out of her pack to confirm her route.
“What are you doing?” Sirois asked.
Red gave him a dirty look, not dignifying such a stupid question with an answer.
“Okay, that was dumb,” he acknowledged. Then he said, “Do you really think the lieutenant is in that room?”
“I do,” Red said, folding up the map again. “Are you going to tell me what’s in there with him?”
Sirois looked as if his tongue were rolling up behind his lips.
“Fine, keep your classified information in your mouth,” Red said. “And don’t follow me.”
She grabbed the door handle and pushed down, easing the door open a crack so she could peek outside.
All she could see was the back of the building. The chemical smoke smell returned with a vengeance, even though the source was on the main road. She pushed the door open a little farther, so that she could get a better look in both directions.
To the right there was only the back end of the town, and a couple of abandoned cars. To the left—south, the direction she and Adam had come from
(don’t think about Adam)
there were two soldiers holding rifles. They were about twenty or thirty feet away from her and peering through a space in between the buildings. Red couldn’t tell if they were the fakey soldiers or the real ones, but it really didn’t matter since both sides carried guns and could shoot her for no apparent reason if she was seen.
There was nothing for it. She would have to take her chances. Two soldiers were hanging around now. It was possible there might be twenty or thirty in a minute.
The rifle fire seemed to be tapering off to the occasional fusillade. Red didn’t know if that meant things had been fought to a standstill or if somebody had won, and she didn’t care, either. Let them shoot each other.
She adjusted the straps on her pack, made sure they were secure, and double-checked her shoelaces. Red was not going to fall on her face because of something stupid like an unlaced shoe. She took a deep breath even though it was a cliché, but oxygen was important when you were about to make a mad dash up a hill and possibly be forced to dodge bullets.
And then Sirois grabbed her shoulder and pulled her back inside. The door slammed shut behind her and made a noise that sounded inordinately loud.
“What the fuck?” she shouted, shoving his arm off her. “Just what the fuck are you doing, Sirois? I told you to go the hell away. I was about to escape and now you’ve probably attracted their attention, you goddamned idiot.”
“You can’t go out there. You’re going to get shot,” he said. His eyes flicked down to her leg and back up to her face.
“Oh, that’s what this is all about,” Red said. She could practically feel her blood reaching the boiling point. “This is because you think I’m a Helpless Little Crippled Girl.”
“No,” Sirois said, but his eyes couldn’t stay on hers.
“Yes, it is,” she said, and poked him in the chest. “I am perfectly capable of taking care of myself. I have freed you of obligation. Stop getting in my way. I’m leaving. And if those guys are outside the door I am blaming you, one hundred percent, because the door wouldn’t have slammed shut if you hadn’t grabbed me.”
Red took her axe off her belt again and held it loosely in her right hand. If those soldiers were just outside, then they were in for a surprise.
But I’d really rather not use it, she thought. When she thought about Adam
(don’t think about Adam)
and all the blood all around him it was hard to imagine using her axe to hack at anyone. But she would. If she had to.
All she wanted was to leave. She didn’t have any kind of stake in this argument between the army and the Locust Militia. She glanced behind her, where Sirois stood watching her.
She flicked her hand at him. “Go. Go away. I don’t want you.”
“I’m going to follow you out and give you cover,” he said, his mouth set in a grim line.
“Fine,” she said. “Do whatever you want. Just don’t get in my way.”
“Actually,” he said, “it would be better if I went first.”
Red huffed out a breath through her nose and looked up at the ceiling.
“Give me strength,” she said, and stepped out of the way with a dramatic flourish. “Here you go.”
“On my count,” Sirois said, taking out his sidearm.
“Yeah, yeah,” Red said.
He burst through the door like a police officer in a crime TV show, sweeping his weapon right to left. It was so perfectly executed that Red wanted to applaud.
She trundled out in his wake. He was large enough that she could literally use him as a body shield without even trying. If she stood behind him she would effectively disappear.
Her axe was still in her hand but it appeared that it wouldn’t be necessary. The two men who’d been lurking on the corner were gone.
“Go,” he said, and gestured up the slope.
“I’m going,” she said.
She’d only taken a few steps when Sirois called her name.
“Red.”
“Mother of God,” she said, rolling her eyes and turning back. “What now?”
“You know how you said the Cough might have been made in a lab?”
“Yeah?”
“Well,” he said, and it looked like it was a real struggle for him to say whatever was trying to come out of his mouth. “I don’t know about the Cough. But the other thing—the, er, tapeworm—it did come out of a lab.”
She raised her eyebrow at him. “And?”