“I’m sorry, I know you’re not at your peak, but we’ve got to get moving,” he said, crossing the space back to his bed. He reached underneath it and pulled out a shotgun and a box of ammunition. “There’s only twenty shells left,” he explained as he emptied the box into one of my cargo pockets. He also slipped a knife in. “Hopefully it’s enough to keep you alive until you can get home.”
“I’ll make it enough,” I said, accepting the shotgun. It was old, but it was going to have to do.
“Come on.”
With his help, I climbed on top of the armoire and lifted the board to the floor above.
Dust clouded my lungs from the rug that covered the hidden door. I coughed as quietly as I could manage. Tristan lifted me into the space above.
It seemed to be one of the few buildings in Seattle the Bane didn’t occupy. How Tristan had managed that, I didn’t know and I wasn’t going to risk speaking and calling them to us. Tristan popped up after me, and taking one of my hands in his, led us out of the building.
It was raining lightly and I felt my clothes slowly dampening. Once again, we walked in the middle of the road, up the street, rising away from the water.
We moved slowly and I was getting tired of feeling weak and human. But I kept pace as best I could.
Thankfully, we didn’t go far before slowing at the side of a road.
“These are the keys,” Tristan said, placing something cold and hard in my hand. He stopped beside a very aggressive looking motorcycle. “This is a bullet bike. It’s built for speed but it isn’t necessarily built for stability. The roads aren’t exactly in good shape these days so you’re going to have to be careful. You know how to drive one of these?”
I nodded. Avian had been teaching me how to ride his.
“Good,” Tristan said. He kept checking around us but there wasn’t much to see. With the overhead clouds, it was incredibly dark. “You’re going to head up this block and get on the freeway. This road will lead you right to it. You’re going to drive on it for a few hours and watch for the exit for highway 101.” He was speaking quickly now as if sensing our window of time was closing. “It will take you straight back to your home and it’s a smaller road than the freeway. Smaller cities, less Bane. It’ll take you longer than the freeway, but you stand a higher chance of surviving.”
“Got it,” I said. I stretched my neck from the left to the right. I was starting to feel like my normal self once again. My skin felt tight around my scalp. The stitches were already healing. I’d have to cut them out in a few hours.
“Now, it’s probably going to wake the Bane when you start this. It isn’t exactly quiet. This might sound a little non-chivalrous, but wait until I get back inside before you start the engine, okay?”
This managed to crack a smile on my lips.
“Chivalry is wasted on someone like me,” I said.
This brought a upwards curl to his lips. For the first time, I noticed his bottom teeth were crooked. But unlike Margaret’s, which were disgusting, Tristan’s were…endearing.
He met my eyes again. “I regret that I haven’t gotten the opportunity to get to know you more, Eve,” he said. “I can only keep my fingers crossed that I will get the opportunity later.”
“Me too,” I said, my expression growing serious again. “Thank you. For everything.”
“Somehow I have a feeling you’re more important than just learning how the Bane came to be. Something tells me you might be able to save us all someday.”
“I think you might be overestimating me,” I said, shifting uncomfortably from one foot to the other. I wasn’t unsure how to deal with his over spoken, very serious statement. “But I appreciate the heroics.”
He nodded and clapped a hand on my shoulder.
“Godspeed.”
“Stay safe,” I said back.
Tristan then turned, and jogged back toward the coffee shop.
I’d counted my steps on our way here and translated them to seconds.
That’s exactly how long I waited before roaring the motorcycle to life.
A brilliant beam of light shot through the dark, directly into a window. The Bane inside instantly crashed through the glass.
I gunned the gas, and shot straight toward them.
I wasn’t left handed, and since I only had one hand to shoot with, I missed the first shot. The three Bane rushing me grew closer as I rocketed toward them.
I fired again, taking one of them down.
The other two were closing in on me when I turned sharply to the left, down an alley. It was barely wide enough for the bike to fit through, but keeping my balance and the handlebars straight, I leaned flat against the bike and rocketed between buildings.
I took the next right I could and got back onto the main road, the one Tristan had said would lead to the freeway.
I glanced over my shoulder and saw a dozen Bane already sprinting down the street after me. The light drizzle above wasn’t enough to keep them indoors.
But they weren’t as fast as the bike beneath me and they soon fell behind. The headlight illuminated a green sign with directions to the onramp for I-5. I had to slow momentarily as I climbed the ramp. The road was badly cracked and dropping away in sections.
The freeway practically sang to me as I reached it and pushed the bike past ninety miles an hour.
“I’m coming, Avian,” I breathed.
SIXTEEN
All along the freeway there was city after city. I saw Bane waking to life off the side of the road, but by the time they reached it, I was long gone. The Bane were fast, but this bike’s speedometer read over one hundred miles an hour when I really pushed it.
I realized just how far I’d been taken north by how much longer it took the sun to faze into the sky. It was also nearly the end of December and the days were at their shortest. I had turned off the freeway onto Tristan’s highway 101 for a half hour before the sun started lightening the world. The air was crisp and had I been normal, I would be freezing with the thin jacket Tristan had brought me. The moisture in the air hung between the point of dew and frost.
A tiny costal town had just fallen behind me when I decided it was time to hide for the day. I left the motorcycle on the side of the road, next to an abandoned bus, and headed into the trees. The scarce grass crunched under my feet as the temperatures hovered at freezing.
Finding an ancient maple tree, I climbed high into its branches and settled.
Taking out the pocket knife Tristan had given me, I felt along the crown of my head. The stitches were pulling tight. The incision line was completely healed. I tried not to wonder if they had pulled my entire scalp off to dig in my brain. Or if they cut the top of my skull off…
Trying my best to be careful, I slipped the small knife under the thread, and cut.
Small trickles of blood traced their way down my face and neck by the time I was done, but I cut each of the stitches and piled them on the branch.
The back of my throat swelled.
I’d never given much thought to my hair before. Many times it had felt like a nuisance, always getting in my vision.
But for the first time in my life, I actually felt ugly.
My hair was now shorter than Avian’s. And Avian very nearly didn’t have hair with how frequently he shaved it.
How long would it take to grow back?
I collected myself after a few minutes. I had to survive a fifteen-hundred-mile journey. I didn’t have time to mourn the loss of something as silly and unnecessary as hair.
The sun broke over the tops of the trees, and through them, I could just barely make out the ocean.
It seemed Tristan was right. This highway literally ran right next to the ocean, and so far, there had only been small towns along it. Towns small enough to not even have any Bane in them.