Page 21 of Rook
"That's the cavalry. The cops," she clarified, catching his confusion. "Someone reported all the gunfire and actual fire. They're going to want to know what's going on." She was already shoving the wounded forward, barking orders. Then her eyes cut to his. "You should probably get out of here. They'll have a lot of questions, and 'I'm a dragon from space' isn't going to go over well on the incident report."
He hesitated. He'd never abandon a fight, but he recognized the hard line of her jaw. She was right. He couldn't explain himself or his fire, not to these people.
He closed the small distance between them and took her hand. It was small, battered, and alive. He'd let her out of his sight once. He couldn't do it again.
"Come with me," he said, the words low and rough in his chest.
12
A sob of relief nearly broke free. Adrenaline sweated out of every pore as she ran. She'd be an idiot not to follow Rook. If he asked her to leap off a cliff right now, she might just do it—her judgment was that shot.
They kept low, dodging a toppled trash can and sliding through the smoke-choked shadow between the bathhouse and her van. Rook moved like he'd been bred for this, all purpose and control, while her limbs felt like overcooked spaghetti. Her van crouched on the far edge of the lot, its battered brown sides splattered with ash and god-knows-what smudged on the windows. Its familiar ugliness was the only thing that made sense anymore.
Red and blue lights spun across the ruined lot. The police, late as always, were wading into mayhem long after everything good was already on fire.
She jerked at Rook's sleeve, nearly missing when she spotted a box truck pulling out fast. It skidded over crushed cooler lids and half-melted tents, white and dented with one busted headlight and a long, wet streak of blood arced across the passenger door.
Her stomach dropped so hard she tasted bile. "They're taking people," she whispered, her voice like sandpaper. "Look."
Rook didn't speak, but his eyes flashed with something that definitely wasn't human. He gave one sharp nod.
No time for panic. No time for nonsense. Sasha ran for her van, keys already a fist of metal digging into her palm.
She skidded into the driver's seat, sweat making her shirt stick uncomfortably to her back, and Rook was beside her in an instant. He was too big for the cramped passenger side, his knees jammed against her grocery bag full of dirty clothes, his shoulders hunched so he wouldn't crack his head on the ceiling.
"Buckle up," she snapped, voice sharp with terror and a weird, giddy hope. "This is about to get bumpy." As if seatbelts would matter if the slavers decided to light them up.
The van's engine coughed like an old man with smoker's lungs but caught. Sasha muttered a quick prayer to every benevolent roadside god she'd ever scorned. "Not now, baby, I need you one more time."
By some miracle of unreliable machinery, the van lurched forward. Sasha jammed it into gear, swinging wide around a toppled picnic table. Her windshield was smeared with smoke and what might be bird poop from three days ago. She stole a split-second glance at her rearview mirror. Sirens flickered, chaos boiling beneath the hang of pine and fir.
Chasing monsters into the night. That was new.
She could taste adrenaline, metallic and hot in her mouth, mixing with the burn of old coffee and the sour-sweet tang of melted plastic drifting in through the cracked window. Rook's body heat made the already stuffy van feel like a sauna. Her T-shirt was glued to her lower back with sweat.
As soon as they cleared the lot and shot onto the two-lane road, tires squealing on loose gravel, it hit her all at once. She was alive. She should be dead but wasn't. Heady, wild relief warred with fresh panic.
That fire. Impossible, beautiful fire. She'd walked straight through it and hadn't so much as singed a hair. How?
She caught Rook's eye, trying to read danger or guilt or maybe an answer in his face. But he watched the road ahead, jaw clenched tight enough to crack walnuts, his hands knotted in his lap.
She swallowed hard. "Why didn't the fire touch me?" Her voice cracked like thin ice.
He didn't answer, at least not right away. The van rattled and groaned as they took a corner fast enough to nearly throw her through the window. The box truck's taillights flickered ahead, weaving through the darkness just past the twitchy edge of her headlights.
Sasha's insides twisted. Fine. If he wouldn't talk, she would. Talking kept her from screaming.
"I watched Erik burn," she blurted out, words tumbling like rocks down a hill. "And then that fire was thrown at me, it was coming straight for me. I should be a pile of ash. But I'm not. I …"
She bit her tongue hard enough to taste blood. Don't break, not now.
The van barreled up the winding road, the forest crowding close, her headlights stuttering between trunks and brush. Every so often, she almost lost the truck, but she pressed on, hands white-knuckled on the wheel.
Rook finally spoke, his voice so low she almost missed it beneath the engine's wheezing. "You are … marked."
Marked? Her chest squeezed. Like a dog, or a tree, or a …
She pushed out a shaky laugh that sounded more like a hiccup. "You want to maybe get a little less cryptic and a little more specific? Because when people from outer space burn down my backyard, I like my answers in full sentences."
