And without fanfare, Three led them off down his side alley, perpendicular to their previous route. Within the first few yards, he was back to his old self, hesitating every so often when some instinct kicked off a silent warning. He seemed to be straining every possible sense, listening, watching, feeling for any hint or sign of danger. After some indeterminate span of time, Cass began to feel that her own measured breathing was too loud for his liking. Even so, she had to hazard a question.
“How many of them did you get?” she whispered.
Three shot her a sidelong glance, then went back to scanning the way ahead.
“None.”
He must’ve misunderstood. She clarified.
“I meant with the explosion.”
“So did I.”
Cass couldn’t understand Three’s matter-of-factness. All the trouble he’d gone through, the risk he’d taken, and he hadn’t killed even one of their pursuers. She would’ve thought there’d have been some hint of embarrassment, or disappointment at least. He must’ve picked up on that.
“I wasn’t trying to kill them.”
Surely this was some sort of defensive response, a casual I-meant-to-do-that.
“Oh?”
“Nah, I was killing us.”
She rolled it over in her mind, making some sense of it, but not a lot. The explosion, the rubble, the plumes of concrete dust. Maybe the wreckage would disrupt signal enough to buy them some time. Or maybe Asher was busy sifting through the wreckage for her body, or for some trace of residual impulse. Too many maybes, never any answers.
She opened her mouth to ask another question, but Three pressed ungentle fingers over her lips and shook his head. Enough talk. The rough, callused skin left a trace of heat when he pulled his hand away. He set off again wordlessly, silently, a mist of a man dissipating across the jagged asphalt terrain.
For his part, Wren was holding up well, keeping pace without complaint, picking his feet up instead of scuffing them along as he was wont to do. He had declined a piggyback ride, which was practically unheard of. He seemed more relaxed than Cass could remember him being, more confident. Older somehow, though she couldn’t be sure when he’d grown.
Progress was slow, but steady, and after the first two or three hours, Cass grew nearly accustomed to the broken rhythm of the journey, the patternless flow that Three kept without any apparent effort. At first it had irritated her, being unable to predict how long they might crouch in the corner of an abandoned building, or how far they’d travel across open space before they stopped. But eventually Cass discovered the benefits of it. Alertness. Focus. Rhythm bred complacency, and that was one thing none of them could afford.
“We’ll rest here,” Three said, almost at full voice. The sudden volume was shocking in the dull and heavy silence that pervaded the dead city around them, and Cass couldn’t help but flinch.
“Are you sure it’s safe?” she whispered.
“Not at all,” he answered. “But you need it.”
He glanced to her briefly, caught her eye, added a little nod. Cass had started to protest, but Three’s tone was neither condescending nor accusatory. Not gentle, perhaps, but there was a hint of care or concern in his voice that she hadn’t noticed before. And suddenly, she was glad for it. Cass only now realized how exhausted she was.
They found a niche in what had once been a large fountain, though no water ran there now; a curving serpent wrapped around a stylized mountain, which offered them cover from three sides and some slight concealment from the fourth. Cass and Wren nestled together with their backs against the concrete base. Three produced some sort of ration from his harness: a synthetic combination of carbohydrates and protein; spongy, flavorless. They ate it without conversation or enjoyment, though Cass could tell it was at least nourishing.
After they’d eaten, Wren lay down and put his head in her lap, while Cass leaned back and let her eyes drift closed.
“So what’s the plan?” she asked without opening her eyes again.
“North a few more miles, then west.”
“Where does that get us?”
He inhaled deeply.
“Northwestish.”
Cass cracked an eye open. Three crouched by the opening, hands clasped, elbows resting on his knees; the closest thing to relaxed Cass had yet seen of him. Whether he had intended to say more or not, Cass wasn’t sure, but he reacted to her when he saw her looking. A half-smile, one corner of his mouth turned down slightly. A lightness in his eyes. A joke.
“The Vault’s up that way,” he continued. “Heard of it?”
Cass shook her head.
“Yeah, not many have. Not the nicest place, but it should be safe for a night, maybe two. Gatekeeper’s a friend of mine.”
“You have friends?”
Three exhaled abruptly through his nose; apparently his version of a chuckle.
“Enough to get by,” he replied. Then added with a nod, “Get some rest, girl. We’ll move soon.”
Cass let her eyes fall closed again, felt herself drifting off already, welcoming the deep embrace of sleep under Three’s watchful eye.
Three ran a thumb back and forth over the checkered grip of his holstered pistol, mind working to calculate all the variables that would affect the rest of their travel. He’d already let the woman and kid sleep nearly half an hour. Every minute that ticked by robbed them of precious daylight, their only ally out here in the open. They’d been making better time than he’d expected. Much better. Tough as the two were, though, they’d been showing signs of exhaustion. Three didn’t know how far he could push them.
Five more minutes. Then he’d wake them.
Three scanned their surroundings from his constrained viewpoint. Less visibility than he would’ve liked. And it was rarely a good idea to back into anything that only had one way out. But he knew Cass and Wren would feel safer here, surrounded by walls, hidden from view.
He chuckled humorlessly at that, touched the shallow, weeping cut across his throat. Seemed like he’d been making a lot of compromises lately.
He glanced over at the slumbering pair, and found Wren sitting upright, staring at him with glassy eyes, blond hair standing straight out from the side of his head where he’d been lying in his mother’s lap. Three nodded. Wren wiped an eye with the back of his hand and tossed a casual wave in response. For a moment, they just sat there, looking at each other, Wren’s sea-green eyes fixed unblinking on Three.
Three flashed back to when he’d first seen those eyes, back at the Enclave, back in that dive bar. Days ago? Another lifetime. Something in those eyes had captured his notice and escaped his definition then. Even now, sober and alert, Three found he couldn’t quite identify what he saw there. Something hovered at the outer edge of his consciousness, just beyond his grasp, a vanishing dream he fought to recall. Something…
Cass spasmed abruptly, eyes wide, hands shooting up from her lap; the sudden movement made Wren jump.
“They know,” she rasped. “They know I’m alive.”
Three was already in motion.
“Tracerunnin’ you?”
She shook her head.
“Can’t be. But he knows.”
Three’s mind scrambled through the scenarios. They’d been headed in a different direction before the blast. Not directly opposite, but far enough off-track to make other routes equally plausible. They’d avoided the obvious double-back. And there was an outside chance that the Vault was off-grid enough to escape Asher’s notice… No. No reason for optimism now. Three never counted on the outside chance, unless it was bad.
“If he can’t track your signal, he’ll have to split his crew, three, maybe four ways to cover the bases. Worst case, I figure we get to the Vault a good hour before they do, and by then, well…”