The pieces didn’t fit.
His brow twitched down.
He didn’t know who to believe.
The girls were closing in on the stairway, and if he didn’t want to be left standing in the middle of an abandoned subway tunnel, he really had no choice. Drawing a breath, he climbed up onto the platform and followed, uncertain when he’d ever felt more at a loss in all the six months since he’d first met Merlin’s bloody queen.
Chapter Twelve
Ashe followed Spider up the steps from the tunnel and, when the girl headed through the shadows to a maintenance stairway, she followed her up those as well.
Somewhere in the past few hours, the day had become a ride. She couldn’t stop it, couldn’t get off, and had spent most of it just trying to figure out how to hang on without crumbling so they could reach the end alive. But suddenly, she’d found herself here and, on some level, this was the most unbelievable part of all.
Her gaze trailed Spider as the girl climbed, the clunk of her boots echoing strangely from the concrete walls.
She hoped she wasn’t actually lying unconscious somewhere, imagining the one bit of amazing news in this hellish day.
Five stories up, the steps came to an end in a steel door. A broken light fixture dangled overhead, and in the dim glow of a bulb farther down the stairwell, she could just make out the words ‘roof access’ stenciled in red paint across the door.
Spider glanced back as Lily and Cole reached the landing, and then she hesitated, looking to Ashe.
“Sam would’ve called up here the minute I left,” she said quietly.
Ashe met her gaze. “Hey, Lil?” she called over her shoulder. “Stay here a sec, okay?”
Brow furrowing in protest, Lily shook her head. “No, we stick together.”
“It’s just for a second.”
The little girl’s expression hardened.
“I promise.”
Lily hesitated and then reached over, her hand finding Cole’s. Pulling him along, she retreated a few steps and then came to a stop, giving her sister a stubborn glare.
Ashe glanced to Spider. The girl’s lip twitched. Shrugging the shotgun from her shoulder to let it hang low by her side, she turned and inched the door open. Brilliant sunlight shone through the crack. Beyond the opening, heated voices fell silent.
“It’s me,” Spider called. For a heartbeat, she waited, and then continued onto the rooftop.
Light filled the stairwell and Ashe blinked against the glare. Gravel spread away in front of her, stretching to a parapet of roughhewn granite that surrounded the broad roof. Schooling her face back into impassivity, she followed Spider through the door.
A trio of stone-like gazes locked on her.
But she really was only watching one.
As she walked onto the rooftop, Bus glanced from her to Spider, and she couldn’t read anything past the guarded look in his bright blue eyes. On either side of him, the other men’s faces darkened, their hands twitching as though they wished they had weapons and not just walkie-talkies nearby.
“It’s alright, Bus,” Spider said, glancing to the adjacent buildings as she lowered her shotgun by its strap to the gravel. “It was like you said.”
The stone-like expression cracked into a slow smile. Ignoring the others, he strode across the rooftop, coming to a stop directly in front of Ashe. With rough hands, he grabbed her shoulders and, for a moment, his eyes ran over her like he was trying to decide what to say.
“Glad you’re back, kiddo,” he stated. “You look like hell.”
An incredulous noise escaped her, and his smile grew. Tugging her forward, he pulled her into a hug.
“About time you got here, girl,” he told her kindly.
He patted her back and then pushed her away again.
She swallowed hard, trying to return his grin when she felt like at any second, the people around her would shatter as she woke from this dream.
Spider cleared her throat.
Ashe glanced over, and then followed the twitch of her gaze to the stairs.
“I take it he called up here,” Spider said.
As Bus made an affirmative noise, Ashe looked past him to the other men on the roof. Loathing radiated from them, but at her glance, they returned to their surveillance of the street, as if too disgusted to meet her eyes.
She shivered, the warmth of the moment before fading away. Drawing a breath to stay focused, she turned back to the stairwell door and, with a small jerk of her head, motioned for Lily to come out.
Cole by her side, the little girl stepped from the shadows, a trace of stubbornness still hovering on her face.
“Holy…” Bus started. He cast a glance to the other men, but they seemed to have decided nothing on the rooftop behind them existed anymore. Blinking, he ran a hand over his white hair. “Samson wasn’t kidding.”
“What’d he say?” Spider asked.
Bus looked over at her. “Well,” he amended. “About…” He gestured to Lily and then paused, exhaling slowly. “Yeah,” he finished, as though answering his own thoughts. Taking a breath, he walked toward the girl.
Ashe followed, Spider coming a step behind.
“Hey there,” Bus said as he neared the door.
Lily looked to Ashe.
“Bus,” Ashe said. “I’d like you to meet Lily… my sister.”
He glanced from her to the girl and back, but whatever his confusion at her words, she could see him stifle it quickly. Bending a little, he cocked his head as though to catch the girl’s attention.
“How’re you doing, Lily?” he asked.
For a heartbeat, the girl eyed him, her brow furrowing cagily. “Bus?”
“Yep?”
“Why’s your name ‘Bus’?”
He chuckled, straightening again. “Because I’m the transport, kid. Ain’t a one of these folks could figure their way out of a paper bag without me.”
“Hey!” Spider protested.
Bus grinned. “Well, ‘cept maybe her,” he admitted with a nod to the other girl.
Spider rolled her eyes. Lily looked between them as if uncertain what to make of what she saw.
“And who’s your friend?” the old man continued.
Lily glanced up. “Cole.”
“Cripple,” Spider commented.
Bus’ eyebrows shrugged appreciatively and he extended a hand. “Good to meet you.”
Cole hesitated, and then shook the man’s hand briefly, his expression anything but warm.
“No sense in us all standing out here, eh?” Bus continued, motioning toward the door and giving no sign he’d noticed the pause, or the ice. “We’ve got food downstairs, and you look like you could use someplace to clean up.”
He directed the last to Ashe.
She couldn’t quite keep the dry look from her face, and at the expression, he grinned.
“Oh, hush, girl. You’re just lucky Memphis let himself get distracted by some car wreck a few blocks away when you showed up earlier,” he nodded toward a man by the front of the building. “Looking like that… it’s a good thing you made it to the door.”
He clapped a hand on her shoulder and then started for the stairs.
Keeping her gaze from Lily, Ashe followed, well aware it wasn’t just because of her own appearance that they’d been lucky.
The ground floor was empty when they reached it, and the sound of the stairwell door opening echoed in the silence. Striding past the entrance to the subway, Bus led them across the massive waiting room and around the corner to a hallway beyond the ticket counter’s end. Destroyed marble paneling lined the walls, though nearly every surviving surface had served as a spray paint canvas at some point. Narrow windows sat near the ceiling, pouring sunlight down on the graffiti as though lighting an art gallery. Halfway down the hall, Bus turned, pushing open a pair of swinging doors and then holding one for the others to follow.
Few chairs and tables remained in the expanse of the cafeteria, though most we
re broken in one way or another and looked forlornly tiny beneath the high vault of the ceiling. Columns lined the room, their marbled veneers shattered to reveal the struts underneath, and on the far wall, a long row of windows stretched to the ceiling, their surviving glass haphazardly guarded by crisscrossed boards. Letting the door swing closed behind them, Bus strode ahead, leading the way into the kitchen. Broken shelving and tapioca-colored countertops ringed the next room, with space left only for an old metal fridge and an enormous stove with generations of cobwebs trailing from its hood.
“Here you go,” Bus called back as he snagged a tattered rag from a jumble of towels on a countertop. He turned, tossing it to Ashe as she came through the door. “You can use one of the blue buckets over there.”
Catching the rag, she looked between him and the collection of five-gallon buckets just visible around the corner of the large island in the middle of the kitchen. Releasing Lily’s hand, she headed toward them as Bus continued to the refrigerator, grabbing its metal latch and succeeding in hauling the dented door open on the third try.
“Blasted thing,” he muttered. He glanced back at Lily. “What’s your pleasure, kid? We’ve got grape, orange, and cherry… I think. Red’s tricky, so don’t quote me on the last one.”
Lily’s brow drew down, her expression lost between confusion and caution.
“Popsicles, girl,” he explained as though it was obvious. “What’s the matter? No one ever told you you’re supposed to eat dessert first?”
An incredulous grin surfaced on Lily’s face as if it wasn’t sure it should be there. She cast a look to Cole, who was standing by the door, and then shrugged. “Grape?”
“Best choice.”
Ashe suppressed a smile as she reached the other side of the room. A dozen buckets stood in two groups in the corner of the kitchen, with permanent marker scrawl on their sides denoting their purpose. Moving past the white buckets labeled ‘drink’, she dipped the rag into one of the blue containers of water intended for washing and then began cleaning her face and arms.
“So where’d that happen?” Spider asked quietly, coming up behind her.
Ashe paused halfway through wiping her arm and glanced over. Hoisting herself onto the countertop, the other girl grimaced as her hand landed in a patch of dirt. Wiping her palm on her jeans, Spider jerked her chin toward the smears of dried blood. Across the room, Bus seemed engrossed in entertaining Lily with descriptions of the military ration packs stored in the cupboards, but Ashe could see him watching her, listening between his comments for her response.
“Airport.”
Spider nodded in understanding. “The terrorist attack.”
“What?”
“On the airport,” she elaborated and then twitched her head back toward the rest of the building. “One of the old offices still has a television.”
Ashe hesitated. “What else did you hear?”
Spider shrugged, watching Bus insist Lily choose from the meal packets hidden behind his back. “The usual. The reporters say terrorists, but admit it might not have been. They don’t know and it’s under investigation, which means that by the time the police find anything – if they find anything – no one in the media will care enough to report much on it anymore.” She grinned. “What else is new?”
Wiping the last of the blood from her arm, Ashe paused. It wouldn’t have changed anything to know the cops had found the others’ bodies. No one would be safer, or any less dead. She didn’t know why it felt like it would have helped.
Though maybe it would have felt a little bit less like she’d just left them behind.
The sound of the cabinet closing pulled her from her thoughts. Studying the selection of meals in her arms, Lily trailed Bus from the kitchen, with Cole rolling one shoulder off the doorframe to follow as they passed. Spider jumped down from the counter and headed for the main room.
Ashe hesitated and then left the stained rag hanging on a pipe to dry before starting after them.
With a flourish that left Lily grinning, Bus sat the little girl down at one of the few surviving tables, and then proceeded to demonstrate how to heat the ration as though performing a conjuring trick. Joining her at the table, Ashe watched Lily laugh as he pretended to burn himself and then confronted the offending meal like it had injured him on purpose.
Her gaze caught on Cole. Seated a few feet away, he was studying Bus and Lily as if they were a puzzle to which he’d just discovered someone had stolen a piece. From time to time, his eyes would flick toward Spider, though only when he thought the girl wouldn’t notice.
Pulling her meal closer, Ashe glanced to the wrapper to determine what she’d been given, and then slid her gaze to Spider. Perched on the edge of another table, her feet propped on either side of a broken-seated chair with her shotgun lying nearby, the girl gave every sign of being focused on the tray in her hands. And then her gaze twitched up just long enough to meet Ashe’s eyes.
Ashe exhaled, going back to her food. Cole had no idea how observant the people around him could be.
As though proving her thought, Bus lowered himself onto a chair with a sigh and then glanced to the young man. “So how do you fit into all this, Cole?” he asked as he picked up a plastic fork.
Cole froze. Across the table, all the nascent relaxation in Lily’s face transformed instantly to panic.
“Well…” he started. His eyes darted to Ashe. “I was just in the–”
“He saved us,” Ashe interrupted flatly, watching Lily. “Back on the farm and then at the airport today.”
The little girl’s panic crumbled into relief when nothing else followed the words. Cole stared, as though uncertain why she’d done that, or if he’d trust any explanation he’d receive anyway.
She returned to her food, noting distantly that the grayish-brown substance tasted mildly better than it looked. From the corner of her eye, she could see Spider and Bus glance to each other before the old man spoke again. “Ah,” he said neutrally. “Thought I remembered Ashe mentioning your name before.”
Plastic forks clicked as they kept eating.
“How’d you meet Ashley?” Lily asked Bus.
Ashe glanced up. Eyebrow rising, Bus looked askance at the little girl, a smile pulling on his mouth. “What? Your big sister never tell you about us?”
Uncomfortably, Ashe looked back at her dinner as Lily shook her head.
Bus chuckled. “Saved that girl’s life, we did. Or Carter and Samson anyway. Ashe here’d stumbled into a trap we set for a feral back in Utah. Guy would’ve killed her if they hadn’t stopped him first. Tiny little ghost of a thing when Carter found her, wasn’t she, Spider? Running for her life and looking like the hounds of hell were on her tail.” He glanced over at Ashe. “Of course, that was then.”
She hesitated, reading between the lines. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I just–”
“Eh,” he interrupted kindly. “I forgive you, kiddo.”
Watching him for a moment, she managed a smile.
“You didn’t tell me you were their queen,” Spider commented, her quiet words at odds with the hint of accusation beneath her tone.
Ashe glanced over. “Would you believe I didn’t know?”
The girl paused as though weighing a response.
Ashe dropped her gaze to the table. “I found out from Carter, right before he died. I didn’t say anything because…” She shook her head. “I thought maybe I’d misheard or something. It sounded crazy.”
Consternation flickered over Spider’s face. “But how did he suddenly know? Or had he known all along? That night at Twitch’s, he just…”
“It was his cousin,” Ashe said into the pause. “Cornelius. Carter met him downstairs that night, and I followed.” A wry expression crossed her face. “The rats had been keeping me awake. But I overheard them talking. Cornelius was looking for me… us.” Her brow drew down at the memory, and the old question of how things might have gone. “Carter didn’t tell him I was the
re.”
“Was this Cornelius one of the…” Spider asked, gesturing vaguely to fill in the venomous description she’d probably have used if Lily wasn’t around.
“No, he was a good one.” Ashe paused. “The Blood killed him today.”
Silence fell over the table.
“I’m sorry,” Spider said.
Ashe nodded.
A moment slid by.
“So where’d you go?” Spider asked.
Ashe took a breath. “Croftsburg.”
“Nice?”
“Not really.”
The corner of Spider’s mouth twitched and, in spite of everything, Ashe felt herself mirroring the expression. Shaking her head, she looked down.
A second passed and her smile faded, memories driving it away.
“What happened?” she asked. “After… after I left?”
Spider looked to Bus.
“That’s not really important,” the old man said, his tone making it clear a change of subject was probably in order.
“Why didn’t you go?” she pressed.
Bus looked back at the other girl.
“Sam said not to,” Spider answered.
Ashe paused, hit by the incongruity of feeling grateful to the man who’d tried to shoot her a few minutes before. “And so you just…”
Spider exhaled, her gaze on her food.
“Samson…” Bus began, and then sighed, revising whatever he’d been about to say. “Losing Carter hit him hard, in no small measure because he wasn’t there. Blames himself, I think, for what happened.”
“And me,” Ashe added quietly.
Bus paused and then tilted his head in acknowledgement. “Even if he shouldn’t. Carter knew what going after the Blood meant; we all did. And as for the wizard stuff…”
Face tightening, Spider looked away.
“You had your reasons for not saying anything,” Bus told Ashe, and then he glanced to the other girl. “You both did. And you thought there’d be more time.”
Spider didn’t respond.
Bus watched her a moment longer and then went back to his dinner. “Regardless,” he continued, dropping the topic, “the boy’s been driving himself to fill Carter’s shoes ever since. I mean, in our own ways, we’re all trying to maintain what Carter left behind. But for Samson, a part of that was a hardcore distrust for anything wizard, including anything that involved you. So when the word came that you were looking for help fighting the Blood…”
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