Riven (Mirus 2)

“No, not Levi’s. Not now. We can’t bring the attention. Through there.”

Marley followed his instructions, half dragging him as they cut into a knickknack shop. For half a second she paused at the door, glancing over her shoulder to see a man watching her from the crowd. Tall with electric blue eyes she could see from fifty feet away and a vertical white scar slashing down his left cheek. Another Hunter? She checked for the gauntlet, but his forearms were bare.

“Marley,” Ian croaked.

She snapped her attention back to him, glancing once more over her shoulder at the watcher. But he was gone, eaten up by the crowd detaining the Hunter. She ducked into the shop. Everyone inside pressed to the front window, watching the debacle going on outside. No one noticed them slip into the back storeroom and out the back door onto an alley. The door shut behind them, and Ian stumbled, his greater weight almost bringing her to her knees. Marley wrapped her arm more firmly around him and braced to better support him. “What did he do to you?” she demanded.

“Nothing. Not related…to…the Hunter. I’ll be…okay. Just leave me…Go back to the cabin. Get supplies and go.”

“Like hell,” she snarled.

“Too…dangerous…like this.”

“Shut up and walk,” she ordered.

They weren’t going to make it far. Her own energies were flagging, despite the massive adrenaline spike. They needed transportation and they needed it now.

The alley let out to an access road running parallel to the strip. And all along it were parked cars.

Thank Christ. “C’mon,” she said.

Ian seemed past arguing and simply stumbled where she dragged him. She began covertly checking doors of each vehicle they passed, praying for an idiot or a careless driver who trusted too much in the auto lock feature. She hit pay dirt on a late-nineties sedan.

“Lucky number seven,” she muttered, pulling open the front passenger door and dumping Ian into the seat, narrowly avoiding adding a concussion to his list of problems. She buckled him in and circled around to the driver’s side, struggling not to run and draw attention to herself.

“No keys,” mumbled Ian as she slid into the driver’s seat.

“Don’t need ’em,” said Marley, yanking open the fuse panel and pulling the wiring harness free. She slid the small multi-purpose knife from her pocket. It wasn’t good for much, but it would work for this.

“You know how to hot wire a car?”

“I had a foster brother with a penchant for boosting cars and joyriding,” she said, twisting the bare ends of the power supply together. “He liked to teach.” She touched the ignition wire and the engine caught.

“Fascinating woman,” he slurred.

“Yeah. I’m a real catch. All kinds of secondary skills from hanging out with juvenile delinquents.” She pulled carefully into traffic. “I need you to keep it together, Ian. Tell me what to do.”

Silence was his only reply.

“Ian?” Marley glanced over to see his head tipped forward in a slump. Unconscious. “Shit!”

She was on her own.

~*~

Ian was burning up. Marley could feel the heat pulsing off him as she leaned into the passenger side of the car and unfastened the seat belt. God, what was wrong with him?

“Wake up.” Marley tapped at his cheek, gently at first, then hard enough to leave a faint red mark. Swearing a steady blue streak, she wrapped her arms around his torso, struggled to shift his bulk. She was never going to get him inside the cabin. “Damn it, you’re a dead weight. I can’t get you out of this car if you don’t help me.”

“Let me.”

Marley froze at the sound of the voice behind her.

I chose wrong, she thought, pulse beating a trip hammer in her throat. She should’ve kept driving, not risked coming back to the safe house for their things. And now the Hunter had found them.

Moving slowly, she ran a hand down Ian’s back, feeling for the butt of the pistol. The metal was warm from his body as her fingers closed around it, drew it from the holster. It felt huge and heavy in her hand. She didn’t know if bullets would stop what had come after them, but she’d be damned if she was going down without a fight.

“I’d really appreciate it,” she began, keeping her voice even as she extricated herself from Ian and whipped around, leveling the gun at the man beyond the car door, “if you’d step the hell away from the car.”