“Shut up. Need to be fast.” Victoria spun him around and shoved a plastic bag to his chest before dropping to the floor.
“Victoria? What the fuck?” Marcus stared down at her, blinking quickly. Her eyes darted from the door to the wild scribblings of charcoal on the white linoleum floor. “What are you doing?”
She glanced up at him, damp hair clinging to her cheeks and jaw clenched. “Probably getting myself killed, now put that on!” She snapped at him.
Marcus opened the bag and let out a breathy chuckle. His jumpsuit. She’d even nabbed the bandolier James had made him. Without further question, he stripped down again and slipped the jumpsuit on just in time for her to activate the runes, vivid green lighting up his torso, arms, then legs.
“Why are you helping me?”
“Because you’re a fucking idiot.” She snarled at him, pushing him out of the way to light up the runes on her own suit before scrubbing the ritual circle away with the sleeve of her hoodie. “Because I’ve fallen for a fucking idiot.”
Marcus froze halfway into his jeans, brows furrowing. She hadn’t stopped swiping at the ground, but did glance up at him for half a beat, as if to judge his reaction. “You what?” He must have heard incorrectly. Right?
“We don’t have time for this. Put your pants back on.” She grabbed the shirt and pulled it over his head.
Slightly dazed, Marcus did as he was told, though his confused stare stayed locked on her. “Hold on, you…”
“No time.” She interrupted him, pushing the door open to peek outside. “Stay close.” She pulled her hood up over her head before they hit the street and grabbed his hand interlocking their fingers. Marcus followed, doing his best to keep up with her pace as she wove them into the densest crowds she could find. They ducked and bobbed between umbrellas, tour groups, and cafe lines until she yanked him out of one mass of bodies and into an alley.
“Run,” she commanded before letting him go and taking off down the alley. The runes on her own suit pushing her to inhuman speeds.
Because I fell for a fucking idiot
Marcus’ mind raced faster than his feet. The more the words bounced around in his apparently hollow skull, the more he did feel like an idiot. They cut from alleyway to alleyway, ducked into an abandon building that led to another street, then more alleys. What little reference he’d gained for the area was long gone, but he kept with her as close as he could.
Eventually, she stopped at an old, rusted dumpster. Marcus kept an eye out the way they came as she shaved some rust onto her hand and blew it into the air. The dust and shavings revealed a single rune hovering in the air just above the ground. She waved a hand, and it went dormant before she pulled the dumpster back, revealing a hole that she would barely be able to squeeze through, let alone him.
“In.”
With several grunts and curses, Marcus popped himself through the hole into what looked like a glorified broom closet. A folding chair and a duffle sat in one corner with a stack of MREs in the other. Particleboard walls threatened to crumble were it not for the impressive set of enchantments she’d carved into them.
“So, I was really being followed?” Marcus looked down at her as she slipped easily through the hole and reached back to pull the dumpster into place.
“You were.” Victoria took a deep breath, tense shoulders finally relaxing as she breathed out and slid into the folding chair. “Not anymore.”
Victoria threw her hood back and pulled her hair free from the bun, letting tangled dark strands spill over her muscled shoulders. He’d not realized he was staring until she looked up at him and awkwardly tucked her bottom lip between her teeth.
“You meant that…” He searched her eyes for a truth she’d been reluctant to put to words. “What you said in the bathroom?”
Still breathing hard, she looked up at him, and her sharp features softened. Her voice came out quieter than he’d ever heard it. “I wasn’t sure I’d get another chance to say it.”
Marcus stood up suddenly, head slamming into a steel pipe overhead. When he grabbed it and leaned forward, his face met a particleboard wall. “Son of a…” He cut his curse off when she let out a quick snort, quickly covering her mouth when his eyes snapped to her. She couldn’t be serious. Now of all times? After everything that happened? He pulled off the beanie and tucked it into his front pocket. The confines of this closet were not suited for pacing, but he did his best.
After several minutes of silently walking in the tiniest imaginable circle, he looked down at her again. She avoided any prolonged eye contact, and her cheeks had a noticeable flush to them even after having recovered from the run. She was nervous.
“Do you know what’s happening here?” He gestured wildly at the walls. “In London, I mean, not this tiny box of confusion.”
She swallowed and looked at her feet. “I do, but I can’t…”
“You can’t say anything about it. I know.” He leaned back and slid down the wall until his knees were up against his chest, fingers slipping into his orange hair. “Okay, we’re gonna talk about this situation,” he bounced his finger back and forth between them, “between us, but not right now. I need you to tell me how to fix the London situation.”
He wasn’t sure what to expect from her. Maybe reluctance. Complete defiance? Victoria’s nervous shame slowly turned into a grin. The same dangerous, half-cocked grin that he hadn’t seen in what felt like months. Old and powerful feelings stirred in his gut, but he forced them down as she pulled a map from between two MREs and unfolded it on the floor between them.
“The circled areas are the parts that have been isolated.” She paused “I can’t say what is happening, but this is where the specimens are. They have med stations set up along with the government ones…here.” She indicated on the map just a few streets away.
“Med stations?” Marcus raised an eyebrow.
Victoria just nodded. “I can’t say, I’m sorry.”
Marcus shook his head. “We’ll come back to that. Can we extract the uhhh… specimens?” He swallowed as he felt his heart pump a dose of hot blood through his veins.
Victoria gave him a knowing, pity-filled grimace, but continued. “I doubt the local government has any idea what’s actually going on, but judging by the wide perimeter, they’re probably taking notes from Arcanex.” She slid her finger along the map in a wide arc. “Getting inside is simple. The problem is gonna be…well you know.”
“Yeah.” He confirmed, eyes locked on the map. They needed some way to secure the blightshrews or it would all be a moot point. “Don’t suppose you snagged anything besides my suit from the reserve?”
“Just the basics.” She shrugged.
“Any ideas on how to catch them?”
She winced, glancing down at the map again before meeting his eyes. “You’re not going to like it.”
Marcus swallowed hard. He knew what she meant, and she was right. He did not like it. “We’re not killing them unless there’s no other choice. They didn’t do anything wrong.”
“They’ve killed hundreds of people, Marcus.” Victoria urged him. “We don’t have any other choice.”
“That’s just because Arcanex is infecting…” Marcus snapped his mouth closed a beat too late.
Fuck. Now he’d done it.
The first few seconds, the burning sensation wasn’t that bad. Almost manageable. Maybe he could have breathed through the pain. With each steadily increasing heartbeat, a fresh new kind of agony pumped through him. It pulsed outward like wildfire in his veins. Luckily, he didn’t finish that sentence.
When Marcus came too, he was drenched in sweat. He had no clue how long he’d been out, but it was at least long enough for Victoria to slip behind him, arms wrapped around his waist. It took several more minutes for his senses to return to him.
His hearing came first. She whispered against his skin, face pressed against his neck. “Don’t die, don’t die, don’t die.” She repeated over and over.
His skin started tingling next. She’d stripped off his shirt and pulled the jumpsuit down his torso. The tip of her finger felt chalky as she drew a circular pattern just below his ribcage. Once finished, she lifted off, there was a slight burning sensation on the skin, and then she pressed the center of the circle, and a burst of arctic cold shot through his system.
Finally, his eyes flickered open, and a sharp metallic taste filled his mouth. His stomach lurched. He tried to throw up, but there was nothing there to dispel. Instead, he leaned forward and dry heaved violently, only being held up by her hands on his waist.
“You’re okay! Oh, thank fuck. You’re okay.”
Marcus’ head spun, and his eyes refused to focus. If he hadn’t known any better, he’d think he’d been kicked by a unicorn then trampled by the herd. “Need water.” He forced out of his dry mouth.
She scrambled out from behind him, attempting to lean him up against the wall she’d been resting on only for his useless body to slump to the concrete. After grabbing a bottle from the duffle, she squirted water into his mouth. The moment he swallowed, his stomach wretched and all that fluid came right back up.
“It’ll pass.” She curled up on the floor beside him, an arm slipping under his head to pull him up to her. “It’ll pass.” She whispered again.
The words, filled with pain and experience, flowed into his ears, and he did his best to relax. He let himself rest against her, bone deep exhaustion spidering through his body. His heartbeat finally slowed, and the agony settled into a dull but constant ache.
It took more time than he would have like to recover. The sliver of light that came from beneath the dumpster door had vanished in the time that his body was fighting a complete shutdown. Once he realized that night had fallen and with it a significant amount of time that he would not get back, he forced himself to sit up through the pain.
“We need to move…” His voice was ragged, tired, and he was struggling to keep his eyes open.
“You need to rest,” Victoria rebutted.
“People are dying. I can rest later.” He pulled away from her grasp, fumbling with the jumpsuit to get his arms back inside.
“Marcus,” she called, but he didn’t dare look back at her. He knew the tone, though he’d never heard such concern coming from her. “Please sit down.”
When her hand landed on his shoulder, he froze. His eyes flicked to the trembling fingers that gripped against his skin. Did he need rest? Sure. Not as much as these people needed to not be dead, though. He looked over his shoulder and took her in for a moment. She’d discarded the hoodie. The hint of the wing tattoo peeked out of the collar of the jumpsuit, leading up to the sharp, angular features of her face. Concern replaced the confidence and mischief he often found in her eyes and on her lips.
He stared into her eyes for another beat before tilting his head and gently biting one of the fingers on his shoulder. He gave her a wink, as much a lie as it was, and jerked his head toward the dumpster door. “Get the map.”