Page 60 of The Girl Who Only Died Once

“Yeah yeah, iron into gold, we’ve all heard the stereotype,” Chloe says, and the steering wheel isn’t exactly the most responsive, so she cranks it over to turn out of the city, onto a freeway heading east. “Of course I can do that, it’s just boring.”

She’s not watching him, but she still catches a smile in his profile.

“And you fucking blew up a tree,” Chloe says, and it’s been a bit since she drove a car this horrible. “I think that’s a bit weirder.”

“It distracted people,” he points out. “And took out the power to the security camera pointed out to the street. Win win.”

“So weird,” Chloe says.

He tips his head back in the chair as the car thrums along the freeway, baring his neck. It’s strangely vulnerable, like the detonation of the tree had exhausted all of his protections.

And she gets to see that vulnerability. That she is so lucky.

It’s a calm drive,once she turns off the main freeway and onto a more rural street, following along the railroad.

By all appearances it’s a normal railroad, with the normal ties and the normal trains, but the cars along the tracks gleam with a hint of magic, a little bit too much beauty, not consuming fuel or electricity.

Obviously college run.

Her skin prickles as the train rumbles past them, and a quick glance over to Killian shows a similar expression.

“So this is very much active,” Chloe says, coasting the car. There’s nobody behind them on the road, though a few trucks passed them a few minutes ago. “Not an abandoned base at all.”

Killian’s face pinches, back into the almost fearful expression of before.

“What do you think the chances are she’s still here?”

“Next to none,” he replies, clipped. “The trail from the cage is at least eleven months old.”

“Useful knowledge to have,” Chloe says, and there’s a meager gas station along the highway, so she idles into the lot, throwing the car into parking.

It shudders.

“Why are you stopping?” he asks, voice still cautious. “This car won’t start again if you turn it off.”

“Rude,” Chloe says, before she rubs at her face, the remnants of the coffee buzzing through her veins. “Okay. Still active base. Probably way more traps and alarms and guards than I was anticipating.” The compass still points true down the road, following the railway. “Different tactic.”

“Toronto was active up to a month ago,” Killian says, leaning back and stretching, an odd motion for a demon, from what she knows.

“And we purposefully hit it in between guards, on a floor that was mostly a cubicle farm, on a Sunday,” Chloe says, and heart beats uncomfortably. “We need some more planning.”

“I know the floor plan,” he says, once again neutral. She’s only spent like a day and a half with him, but she already hates that tone with a passion. “It’s always been a skeleton crew of a base, not a prison, more of a temporary assessment facility.”

“What happened to never being past Minneapolis?” Chloe mutters, and if responding from her mood, the car sputters. “Okay, you know more than me, why’d you even need my help?”

“There are dozens of these bases in this country alone, never mind other continents,” Killian responds, perfectly smoothly. “I would have no way of knowing which one.”

He absolutely avoided answering that question, which does very little to help, and Chloe swallows that down. “I don’t like having information kept from me,” she warns, and her voice only wobbles a little bit.

He tilts his head, as if giving her that one.

“Do you know the patterns of the guard change overs?” Chloe challenges, and he visibly hesitates, the shadow face much more shocked than the human. “Or where the pinpoints are for the traps? Anything like that?”

He’s silent, for a long moment, and the car rumbles in its spot.

“I mean, I’ll do it,” Chloe says, her pitch rising. “I’ll do a lot worse than storm a base, but this requires prep. This requires prep and intel that I don’t have, and if you’re willing to share—”

“Break down the demon trap around it and I can take everything else,” Killian says, and his jaw works.

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