“You’re telling me he ordered you to let him go, and you allowed it?”
“He was trying to sneak out on his own. Swoop went with him. He’s thinking about you, Cass. He’s worried for your safety. And so are we.”
Cass started forward into the hall. “I’m going after him.”
“Cass, no, you can’t.”
Gamble put her hand on Cass’s shoulder to stop her. In a flash of rage and reflex, Cass snatched Gamble by her vest — using both hands — and flung her. She didn’t mean to throw her that hard.
As it was, Gamble’s feet left the ground as she catapulted into the wall. Her back impacted flat, her arms spread to catch herself, but she was tilted at an awkward angle and off balance, and crashed down hard on one knee. In a blink Gamble was on her feet and headed straight at Cass — but Mouse caught her, and Finn grabbed Sky, who looked like he was about to take Cass’s head off himself.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Mouse said. “Let’s not eat our own here. We’re all on the same side.”
“Are we?” Cass asked. “Your job is to protect my son, our governor. And you’re all here — doing what?”
“Protecting you,” Finn said.
“Well, I don’t need it.”
Gamble controlled herself, and Mouse released her, though he kept himself angled between the two women.
“We’re not going to let you go on your own,” Gamble said.
“You’re not letting me do anything,” Cass answered. “But I am going. I doubt you’d be able to keep up anyway.”
Gamble stared back at Cass for a long span. Cass held herself ready, uncertain about anyone else’s intent at that point. If anyone else grabbed her, though, she wasn’t going to hold back. Gamble’s shoulders finally lowered, and she took a step towards the wall, clearing the way for Cass to pass by. Cass pushed through to her room without another word.
Wren felt a soft touch on his cheek just under his eye that made him flinch and brought his attention back to the world around him. He’d lost himself in the rhythm of their ceaseless steps, for some unknown amount of time. It took him several seconds to figure out what had touched him, but as he glanced around at their surroundings, he finally got a glimpse of something drifting on the meager wind.
A snowflake.
Once he noticed the first, it was easier to see the others, like dust or ash, gently settling around them. The flakes were small and widely spaced at first. Even when he looked directly up into the grey sky, it was several seconds before he felt another flake fall to his face.
Now that his awareness of his surroundings had been reawakened, however, he was startled by the marked change. Wren had traveled enough of the open to understand that most of the sprawling urban wasteland looked like a bad place to be. But somehow the shattered former city around them now made him feel powerfully threatened far beyond the usual.
“Swoop, where are we?” Wren asked, and his voice seemed harsh, though he’d barely spoken louder than a whisper.
Swoop’s head snapped around and he bounced his index finger off his mouth, motioning for Wren to keep quiet. They stopped moving and Swoop swept his eyes across the space around them. Then he bent low and put his face beside Wren’s head, so close Wren could smell the sweat coming from him. “About five klicks from the bridge, if we go straight through,” he whispered. “Gettin’ into the badlands now.”
He glanced up at the sky, watching the snow fall. The flakes were already bigger than they’d been a minute before. Swoop shook his head, and then looked back to Wren. “Eyes sharp, OK?”
Wren nodded. Swoop straightened again with one more look at the sky, and then turned and led them onwards.
Cass had stripped everything out of her pack and was reloading her smaller lighter slingpack. She didn’t know what, if anything, she’d need for this trip, and she wasn’t in much of a planning mood. She grabbed what looked best and tossed it in her go-bag.
“Some of us can come with you,” came Mouse’s voice from the door. Cass shook her head without looking at him. “Wick still needs a couple of more days, else we’d all be coming along, whether you wanted us to or not.”
“I’ll be moving fast, Mouse.”
“I’m not going to try to change your mind, Cass, but I hope you know we’re trying to do the right thing by you and your boy. All of us are.”
Cass just focused on her packing. Good enough. She closed it up and slung the strap over her shoulder. Cinched it tight against her body. She turned and faced the door, where Mouse was standing.
“Let us know when you get there,” Mouse said.
“I will.”
Mouse nodded and backed out of the door reluctantly. “Watch yourself out there,” he said as she passed by. She stopped next to him.
“This isn’t how I wanted things to go,” Cass said.
“I know.”
“Take care of yourself.”
“You too. We’ll catch up when we can.”
Lil was waiting for her by the front entrance. They exchanged a few brief words, warm but hurried. Lil led her out through the gates and, unexpectedly, embraced Cass before they parted ways. Cass thanked her a final time and started off at run, trusting that her body would perform what she demanded of it. East to the bridge, and then south.
The snow was falling steadily in big wet flakes, coating the ground in a thin layer of slick grey slush. Just deep enough to leave footprints. It looked pretty as it fell, though, and made everything feel more peaceful to Wren. It seemed somehow less likely that anything bad could happen when it was snowing.
“Alright, check,” Swoop whispered. He stopped walking and turned towards the boys, motioned them close. “Mama’s on the way.”
“I thought Guh, Gamble was going to keep her there,” Painter said.
“Said she’d try.”
“Is she mad?” Wren asked.
“I’d count on it.”
“Are we going to wuh, wuh… to wait for her?”
Swoop shook his head. “We can’t sit in one place for long. She’ll have to catch up on her own.”
He paused and scanned their surroundings, intensely, like he was looking for something in particular. He’d been leading them in a fairly predictable path for the first several miles, mostly straight ahead. But for the past half hour or so, Wren had noticed a change in their pace and their pattern of movement. Their progress had been inconsistent, with more pauses, and they’d taken to winding through different alleys, sometimes even doubling back.
Wren knew they weren’t lost, but it almost felt like that. For all the walking, they hadn’t made nearly as much progress towards the bridge as Wren would’ve expected. Wren was briefly tempted to check their location, but he’d decided it was too risky. If Asher was out there looking for him, he might be able to locate Wren’s signal.
Swoop lowered his head and leaned towards them again.
“Look,” he said. “I don’t want to scare you, but it’s best if you know. We picked up a couple of stragglers. Been trailin’ us about fifteen minutes now.”
“Who are they?” Painter asked.
“Nobody we want to meet. Keep your eyes up.”
They nodded, and then Swoop turned and led them forward. As they moved, Wren glanced behind them, looking for any sign of the people Swoop had seen. He didn’t notice anyone, but he understood in a flash why Swoop had been shaking his head at the sky earlier. Their trail was clearly marked; three sets of slushy footprints, highlighted by the edges with crusted white. The snow would cover it up eventually, but definitely not soon enough to hide their tracks from their pursuers. He hoped they wouldn’t have to fight anyone. But he checked his knife in his belt anyway.
Swoop took them through narrow streets and alleys, hemmed in on both sides by sagging tenements with holes through the walls. The amount of debris and rubble in the streets was more than Wren could ever remember seeing. It was almost like someone had picked up each of the surrounding buildings and shaken their contents out all over the street. Most of the junk had been transformed by the snow into white lumps with the occasional jagged edge or frayed cable poking out. Wren could hardly believe that anyone would be living out here. But he couldn’t escape the feeling that others were around them. And not just behind them. He felt sure they were on all sides.