Of Blood and Bone (Chronicles of The One #2)(78)

They left at night, calculating speed, miles, potential delays and detours, with plans to arrive for the raid an hour before dawn.

He saw his mom with Arlys, shot her a salute. Others stood outside to see the rescue party off. He saw the brothers he’d helped rescue, and Petra.

He sent Petra a quick grin. He knew she was stuck on him, but as pretty as she was, she struck him as just too young yet.

Give her another year maybe, and who knew.

“It’s sticky,” Tonia said in his ear.

“What?”

“The hero worship. It’s so sticky it’s going to clog your pores.”

“Ah, give it a rest.” He shot the bike forward and left New Hope behind.

They hit the first jam at mile thirty-two, and stopped while Eddie broke through the bottleneck. On her own bike, Maxie, one of the elves from Flynn’s original party, pulled up beside Duncan, gestured east.

Flickers of fire through the dark, the haze of smoke rising.

“Raiders,” Maxie said. “They burn for the fuck of it. We ought to send a team to drive them off.”

Normally he’d have agreed with her, and volunteered to join in. But they had fifty miles to go.

“Probably be gone before we got there. Raiders usually set the fires after they’ve picked a place clean.”

“Yeah.” She looked ahead, revving the bike. “Like a shot at them though.”

Maxie had purple hair with feathers pinned on the side. She was about three years older than he was and had seriously interesting breasts.

As they drove on, the possibility that he might talk her into getting naked with him kept him occupied for ten miles—and through another jam.

Stop and start, he thought, start and stop. He wanted to get there, get doing. Five miles out, when they stopped, he and Antonia would head northwest, with Maxie and Solo the shifter. Another team would peel off northeast. Duncan would take out the guards, then his primary task was the gate. Get it open, shoot some lightning—he’d gotten damn good at it—back to the building he could see on the map in his head. The armory.

Boom, bang, boom.

Sweep in. Tonia would head for the prison with her team; his team would head for the communication center. Most everybody still in bed, scrambling for weapons, half-dressed.

Guards, gate, armory, comms, he thought. They’d be in a world of hurt already.

They were fifteen miles out when their headlights swept over the girl on a white horse standing in the middle of the road.

She might have been a statue, spotlighted in the blue cast from the half-moon.

He knew her, Duncan thought as the party stopped. From dreams. He knew her from dreams, and the thought of it left him shaken and angry and thrilled.

“It’s a trap,” she called out. “They know you’re coming.”

He got off the bike, vibrating. Pleasure, temper, fascination all at once battering at him.

Did she know a dozen weapons were aimed at her? If she did, she didn’t seem to care.

Will jumped out of his truck. “If you make a move for a weapon, it’ll be a mistake.”

“I’m not your enemy.”

Eddie walked up beside Will. “Who the hell are you then? And where’d you get that horse?”

“We found each other.” She dismounted, just flung a leg over and leaped down to stand with her hands out and up. “It’s a trap,” she repeated.

“Eddie, go down the line and tell everybody to hold.”

“Eddie?” the girl repeated. Duncan watched her face, so serious, bloom with a smile. “Eddie Clawson. Where’s Joe?”

“He’s back at the … How do you know about Joe?”

“I know a lot of things about you. How Lana and Max found you, how you taught them about snow chains. You play the harmonica and come from Kentucky. I’ve seen where that is on maps.”

“Listen, kid, you’re going to have to …” Eddie walked forward as he spoke, then saw her eyes. “Oh my God. Oh sweet Jesus. You have his eyes.”

“I know.”

“You have your daddy’s eyes.” He ran the last few steps, threw his arms around her. “It’s Max’s kid. Max and Lana’s kid.”

“You were his friend. I’m your friend. I’m Fallon.”





THE SWORD AND THE SHIELD


Men at some time are masters of their fates:

The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,

But in ourselves, that we are underlings.

—Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare, Act I, Scene III





CHAPTER SIXTEEN


Hands on Fallon’s shoulders, Eddie drew back, his eyes damp as he studied her face. “She gave you his name. You look like him, and her, too. Got the best of both. Your mom’s okay?”

“She’s very okay.”

“I … I promised Max I’d look out for her, for you. I didn’t.”

“That’s not true. You risked your life to try to get to them during the attack. But Max was dead, and she was already gone.”

“Where is she?”

“I can’t tell you. It’s not time. I’m sorry, but she’s safe.”

“Okay. Okay.” Eddie rubbed his hands over his face. “We’ll get back to all that. But right now, you’re what, fourteen? What are you doing out here by yourself? On that big-ass horse.”