Marco nods and wipes his eyes with the back of his hand.
“Falk is right,” Christine says. She blinks a few times and dabs at her eyes. “Chuck…well, Chuck always wanted to go out in a blaze of glory like some comic book hero. I think he’s satisfied with that. Now we need to get Hannah and Falk out of here to give Chuck’s actions some meaning.”
“I’ll make my way back there when I can,” I tell her. “If it’s at all possible, I’ll bring him back to you, make sure he gets a proper burial.”
“He wouldn’t want you to risk that.” Christine shakes her head. “Go on. Get out of here. There will be a lot of days to talk about the dead. Get Hannah somewhere safe. We’ll lead them off in another direction.”
“They’re going to come after you, too,” I say.
“I realize that.”
“I’ll make sure they follow me and Sam,” Marco says. “Katrina and Christine will head to the house, and we’ll head back to our camp. I can leave a clear trail. They’ll follow us, and the girls can get away.”
“If they find you, they’re going to kill you.”
Marco’s throat bobs as he swallows.
“I know,” he says, “but they’re not going to get Katrina. Christine, either.”
I look over at Hannah where she sits on a large slab of broken concrete, staring at the ground. I’ve got
a long walk ahead of me, and she’s still practically comatose. I need to get her somewhere where I can make her feel safe again, but I’m not sure how long it will take if I have to carry her the whole way.
“Will she fit in the cart?” Sam asks quietly.
“What cart?” I ask, wondering if he’s reading my mind.
“The one we use behind the bikes,” Sam says. “Would she fit in there? It would be better than carrying her.”
“She might.” I think about it for a minute. If I head all the way back to the camp for the bike, I’ll have wasted far too much time. I might end up at my destination faster, but I won’t be far enough away from the camp. Surely Caesar and his group are gearing up to come after us. “There’s no time to get it.”
“I stashed it nearby.”
“It’s here?”
“Just behind the pile of cars, where the parking garage used to be.”
“What made you bring it?” I ask.
“I thought if someone got hurt, they might need it.” Sam shrugs. “It would be a lot faster than carrying anyone.”
“Yeah,” I respond with a nod, “let’s get it.”
I head over to where Hannah is sitting, kneel beside her, and place a hand on her shoulder.
“Sam’s got some transportation worked out,” I tell her. “I’ve got a safe place where we can hide out until this blows over, okay?”
She just stares.
I follow her gaze to a puffy dandelion growing between the cracks in the sidewalk. I can’t get her to look at me or respond to my questions.
I’ve seen the same look far too many times in the eyes of the men who served under me—men who had seen one too many horrific acts for their minds to process. They were the ones to watch out for back at the base. If they weren’t able to snap out of it quickly, they ended up putting bullets in their own heads.
Sam retrieves the bike, and we get Hannah loaded into the cart. It’s actually fairly easy to get her to curl up and lay down. She continues to stare at nothing, looking so small despite the protruding belly, and my chest tightens up at the sight.
“In a week’s time, assuming all is quiet, I’ll head for Katrina’s house,” I tell them all. “If you aren’t there, try to leave me some kind of sign that you’re all right and where I can find you.”
“My brothers and I had a code for that,” Katrina says. “It’s math-based using coordinates and easy enough if you know what to look for.”