Because life as Jean from Safeway is boring.
“I used to know someone,” Dekka said. “A girl. She died in the FAYZ.”
“Yeah?” Armo said, puzzled.
“She died because she went out to fight one too many times. I told her. Everyone told her. No, don’t. You can’t win, Breeze. You’ll die . . .” Tears filled Dekka’s eyes. “But she went. And she died.”
“So . . . you’re saying we do the smart thing and turn your bike around?” Armo asked.
“That would be the smart thing to do,” Dekka said. “Look at that thing! That thing belongs in a movie!”
“Scariest thing I’ve ever seen, and I was at the Ranch,” Armo said with a sigh.
“That was her grave I stopped at, you know, up in Perdido Beach. ‘None so bold.’ That’s what’s on her tombstone.” Dekka’s voice changed as she said, “You were bold, Breeze. Goddamn, you were bold and brave. And crazy.” Then her tone changed again, hardening. “I loved that girl. I don’t know if she’s up in some kind of heaven watching, but if she is, well, she’d be pretty ashamed of me if I just walked away now.”
Armo said, “I didn’t know your Breeze person, but I know common sense. And common sense says that thing there cannot be beat by the two of us.”
Dekka nodded. “I understand. You make your own choices, Armo. I’ve figured that much out about you.”
Armo laughed. “You understand squat. I’ve never chickened out of anything yet, I’m not going to start now. But hell, look at that thing! It’s like fighting a dragon!” He shook his head in amusement, as though this was all an entertaining joke. “My family goes all the way back to Björn Ironside, a very badass Viking. Tell you what, if old Björn had ever run into a dragon, he’d sure as hell have gone after it.”
“You’re gonna go die because you’re descended from some crazy-ass Viking?”
“You’re gonna go die for some girl named Breeze?”
“I am.”
“Me too, then,” Armo said.
Dekka shook her head and laughed. “Well then, white boy, should we get started?”
“You’re the one driving,” Armo said.
Dekka gunned the engine and the bike leaped eagerly. They were both morphing before they had cut the distance in half. Dekka glanced around for a safe place to park her motorcycle, realized there was no longer any such thing as “safe,” and simply left it.
The magma creature spotted her walking steadily toward him, already morphed, and laughed. “Why, it’s Dekka Talent!”
That caused Dekka to miss a step. How did the creature know her?
“Don’t you recognize me, Dekka the righteous?” the monster sneered. “It’s your old friend Tom Peaks! Although I think it’s time for a name change. So call me . . . Napalm! Hah hah hah! Napalm! You like it?”
Of course, Dekka thought grimly. Of course: Peaks.
“And I have another friend of yours, too!” Napalm crowed. “You can call him . . . Whip Hand!”
Dekka stopped dead. Armo ran past her, roaring as he ran, but beyond him Dekka saw the one thing more terrifying than Peaks.
Drake Merwin was squeezing the life from someone who looked like a bizarre cross between a flea, a Power Ranger, and a teenaged girl.
Armo leaped, sailed through the air straight at Napalm, roaring as he flew, but the brave roar ended abruptly as Napalm simply swatted him aside like a mosquito.
Every fiber of Dekka’s being wanted to go at Drake. She had hated him for a year in the FAYZ, hated him since, hated him when Peaks had shown her the video, and hated him now, hated his cruel eyes and his chiseled cheeks and hated, above all, the twisting, writhing python tightening relentlessly around the unknown super.
But Dekka was not new to combat. Dekka was a veteran of many, many fights, many, many battles. She was only nineteen, but she was old in war and she knew Drake was a distraction. Peaks was after the Mother Rock. And that was to be the point of this fight.
“Armo!” Dekka yelled. “Take out Whip Hand!”
Armo, lying winded on the ground, heard Dekka. And what he heard from her sounded a lot like an order. Instinctively he rejected it. No one told Armo what to do. No one. He was going after—