Ezekiel looked to the uniformed pair again. The Asiabloc girl looked utterly exhausted, and the dark-skinned boy looked even worse. If Zeke looked hard enough, he could still see a glow in his eyes, ember-soft and red.
“What are your names?” Ezekiel asked.
They looked at him curiously—the bullet holes in his chest slowly knitting closed, the metal coin slot in his flesh gleaming through the tears in his shirt. Burning winds kissed Ezekiel’s skin, the air about them still crackling and rippling.
“I’m Grimm,” said the boy, thick with WestEuro accent. “This is Diesel.”
“You’re deviates,” Abraham said.
The girl named Diesel stared up at the boy with suspicious eyes, brushing her black waterlogged bangs out of her eyes. “Ditto, kid. You wanna explain how the heir to the goddamn Brotherhood turns out to be a freak just like us?”
“Deez, we got no time for the chit or the chat,” Grimm muttered, smothering a cough. “We g-gotta get back to Lemon. BioMaas m—”
“Lemon?” Ezekiel’s heart leapt into his throat. “You know Lemon Fresh?”
Grimm blinked. “…Do you?”
“I’ve been looking for her for the past five days!” He tasted blood in his mouth, wincing as he pressed a sticky red hand to his chest. “Where is she? Is she—”
“LEMON?” The metallic shout rang over the boulevard, startling the stragglers in the buildings around them. Cricket glanced at Solomon’s whiteboard again to make sure he’d read right, then back to Grimm. “YOU KNOW LEMON FRESH?”
Diesel looked up at the WarBot, paint-smudged lips pursed.
“You’re Cricket,” she finally deduced. “The rustbucket botbuddy Lemon dragged her idiot ass out into the desert to find.” Dark eyes turned on Zeke. “Which makes you Ezekiel. You were in Paradise Falls a few days back. Killing people.”
“I didn’t kill anyone,” Ezekiel replied. “My brothers and sisters did the killing in the Falls, not me.”
“Mmm,” Diesel said, obviously unconvinced.
“Where is she?” Ezekiel asked.
“WHERE IS SHE?” Cricket demanded a moment later.
“She’s back at Miss O’s,” the girl said. “She’s safe.”
“She’s not s-safe,” Grimm said. “The Major said BioMaas was tracking her.”
“The Major said a lot of things, Grimm,” Diesel murmured.
“We gotta bounce,” Grimm snapped. “Sharpish.”
Blistering winds blew in from the north, the scent of death and char on the air. Grimm was already shuffling toward the square. Ezekiel felt torn, unsure which way to turn. Preacher had made off with Ana’s body, still in her cryo-tube. She was just a shell now. Those arms that had held him, those eyes that had adored him, that heart that had filled him—all of them were empty. It was as if she were as good as dead, and the thought of it almost brought him to his knees. If she was the girl who’d made him live, he wondered how he might go on without her. Wondered what the point of any of this might be. But the thought of her in Daedalus hands took hold of him, seized that empty space inside his chest and filled it with anger.
She wasn’t some trophy to be kept on a mantelpiece.
She wasn’t some test subject to be poked and prodded in some damn lab.
I can’t just leave her with them.
I can’t let it end like that….
But still, he’d made a promise to Lemon. And the thing of it was, beyond the emptiness in his eyes and the rage in his chest, Ezekiel knew this was a world where a promise didn’t count for much. Where inevitably, the people you put your faith in would let you down. But it didn’t have to be.
“I’m coming with you,” he said.
Grimm looked him over, eyes narrowed.
“She’s my friend,” Ezekiel said simply. “I made a promise to her.”
The boy glanced down again at the bullet holes in Zeke’s chest. The wounds were now all but closed, just a handful of small punctures in his olive skin.
“You’re like us,” Grimm murmured.
Ezekiel shook his head, heart aching. “I’m very different.”
Diesel and Grimm exchanged a quick glance. The girl shrugged.
“Well, you’re Lem’s crew,” the boy finally sighed. “So I s’pose you’re right by me. The deets can wait for later, we got rubber to burn.”
“I’M COMING, TOO,” Cricket said, still following the conversation on Solomon’s whiteboard.
Diesel shook her head. “Our truck won’t fit you, Rusty.”
“We have our own transport,” Abraham said. “We can follow you.”
Atop Cricket’s shoulder, Solomon tilted his head. “YOU PLAN ON TRAILING AFTER THESE…PECULIARS…INTO THE WASTELANDS, MASTER ABRAHAM?”
“It’s not like I have anyplace better to be. Unless you’re planning to…” Abraham looked at Diesel, made a popping noise, opening one fist, then another. “You know…”
The girl shook her head, her face pale and drained. “I’ve got nothing left in the tank. We’re gonna be driving regular for a while.”
“Okay.” Ezekiel looked at Abraham, glad to just have a direction and something to take his mind off the end of his road. “My bike’s trashed, can I…?”
Abraham shrugged. “Any friend of Paladin’s.”
Zeke slipped his arm under Grimm’s, hefting his weight. The boy nodded thanks, and the group shuffled from the boardwalk out into the bedlam of the town square. Brotherhood members were shouting orders, directing a convoy of trucks, 4x4s and bikes laden with gear and people. The air stank of distant smoke and ashes, methane exhaust and fire. The rev of rusty motors filled the air.
Ezekiel helped Grimm and Diesel up into the truck’s cabin, the boy cursing as he struggled in. The pair looked like twenty klicks of rough road.
“Can either of you drive?” the lifelike asked softly.
“If you’re offering to chauffeur,” Diesel relented, “I wouldn’t say no.”
“Ezekiel!”
The scream rang out over the throng, the rising motors, the chatter and the fear. Zeke turned and saw the shell-shocked citizens parting before a limping, broken figure. Ezekiel’s heart twisted at the sight of her.
Faith…