The second the door clicked, Rooster gunned the engine and they peeled away from the curb. Several oncoming cars swerved to avoid them. Blare of horns. Crunch of metal. But they were clear, and he kept going. He’d stopped feeling guilty about property damage and theft a long time ago.
Red half-hung out the ruined window for at least a quarter mile, ready to throw more fire, but there were no shots, and no pursuit. She collapsed back against the seat. “What’s wrong with your leg?” she asked.
“What’s wrong with your arm?” He risked a glance and saw that she was working at the cuff with her left hand. They weren’t police issue: thicker than normal, with no visible clasp, eerily smooth and close-fitting. Her fingers came away bloody, and that was when he saw the tiny spikes on the inside of the thing.
“Holy shit,” Rooster hissed. “Is it stabbing you?”
Her fought the impulse to jerk the wheel and pull over. They were in the outskirts of town, houses giving way to fields and clumps of low forest. But they were still too close; he had to keep driving.
“I don’t know how, but it’s…” Her voice was strange, too slow, slurred. “I can’t use my fire with my right hand. It…I think it’s…” She trailed off, fingers still fumbling for a latch that wasn’t there.
“Shit,” he whispered. “Shit, shit, shit.”
“Your leg,” she said.
It trembled now, his foot shaking so badly that the car’s acceleration lurched and stuttered. The pain was terrible, but manageable; he’d lived with worse. The problem was the blood loss. He needed to apply a tourniquet. He was already dizzy and clammy, bile pushing up his throat. He didn’t have long before he passed out, he knew, and then he’d be of no use to Red at all. But they were still too close. He just needed to get a little farther…
If he hadn’t been bleeding to death, he imagined his reflexes would have been quicker. Because as it was, he didn’t see the spike strip until it was too late. He hit the brakes, but the front tires skidded over it.
There was a deafening pop.
And they were fucked.
*
The moment the cuff clicked into place around her wrist, Red felt its bite. The literal sting of the spikes, and the way, from first touch, it seemed to sap her strength. She couldn’t conjure fire in her right hand. A slow numbness was steadily creeping its way up her arm, like when she fell asleep on it wrong and she lost circulation. She kept tracing its smooth contours with her fingertips, scrabbling at it with her nails. She had to get it off. The stink of hot, fresh blood filled the car, and she knew that she was their only real defense against their pursuers. The bulk of Rooster’s arsenal was split between the truck and the hotel, all of it beyond reach. On top of that, the car was stolen, and would be reported, which meant local law enforcement would get involved. An untenable situation.
If she could just get the cuff off–
She had to fling up a hand and brace herself against the dash as Rooster hit the brakes. She heard what sounded like twin gunshots…and then a hiss that definitely wasn’t.
The car came to a shuddering halt.
“Spike strip,” Rooster said, voice detached in the way it got when he was in battle mode.
“We can’t stay in the car,” she said, and a second later, the windshield exploded in a spiderweb of minute cracks. The bench seat jumped, and Red saw that there was a hole in the windshield, and a matching one in the center of the seatback between them. The crack of the rifle came a fraction of a second later, after the shot was already buried in the upholstery.
Rooster pulled her down below the dash, a hand cupping protectively around her head. Both of them were panting, their breath loud and quick in the close confines. When she turned to him, she saw that his face was pale and clammy.
She started to reach for him with her left hand, to heal him, unsure if she could even conjure the necessary power with the cuff on her wrist, but he caught her hand with his own. “No, not now,” he said. “I want you to open your door, and when I say ‘go,’ we’re gonna go down the shoulder and into the trees, okay?”
Another shot pierced the windshield above them, and she heard shatter-proof glass rain down onto the dash. A few pieces landed in her hair.
“We can’t make it,” she said, stomach cramping with panic.
“Yeah, we can. Throw up a little fire screen, and I’ll lay down cover fire. Okay?” When she didn’t respond: “Red, I need confirmation.”
“Okay,” she breathed. “Okay, okay.”
“Alright. Get the door open, then wait for the next shot, then go.”
“Okay.”
When she pushed the door open – right arm numb, heavy, pained – a rifle round went through it; she thought she heard the quiet click of it ricocheting off the pavement somewhere beyond the car.
“Go,” Rooster said, and she went, bringing up a fistful of fire and pushing it out, out, out, the screen Rooster had asked for.
He kept one hand on her shoulder, his steps stumbling and uneven as he followed her. His Beretta cracked out shot after shot.
Red tripped on the edge of the pavement, and then skidded down the embankment into the little patch of forest, dragging Rooster along with her.
“Get up, get up,” he said when they hit the bottom, half-pulling, half-leaning on her.
They got their feet under them like an ungainly, newborn four-legged creature, and limped into the cover of close-growing pines.
Last light flared orange in the tree tops, lighting them from beneath, but down amongst the trunks it was all a shifting collage of shadows. The air was cooler here, and smelled of nearby fresh water.
Water might mean a stream, which could help them hide their tracks.
“Smell that?” Rooster asked.
“Yeah.” She turned toward it, and Rooster’s arm slipped off her shoulders. He went down hard on his knees with a curse, and she turned back to him.
He swayed back and forth, his face an eerie bone-white in the gloom, hair glued to his temples, and forehead, and the back of his neck with sweat.
“I have to help you first,” she said, reaching for him again. And again, he batted her away. “Rooster.”
“I’m fine.”
“You can’t even walk! Let me see it.”
“We don’t have time.” He glared at her. Or attempted to. He was half-a-head shorter than her on his knees, and he kept swallowing like he was fighting not to be sick.
“You can’t keep going like this,” she tried to reason.
He nodded toward her hand. “But you can?”
She frowned down at the cuff. No, not effectively, she couldn’t. The numbness was crawling up over her shoulder and spreading across her chest, cold but relentless, like frost across a windowpane. If left unchecked, it might move down her other arm, shut off her abilities completely.
They’d been made for this purpose, she realized: something in the throbbing points that pierced her skin, or the metal itself, was designed to contain her power. The Institute was getting smarter, bolder.
But there wasn’t much that could control fire.
“I’m going to try something,” she announced, and sparked a flame in her left hand.
“Red,” Rooster said like a warning.
“Shh.” She brought the flame to the cuff on her other wrist, touched it to it, and then pushed with all her might.
Light flared, bright enough to make her eyes water, and the heat burned her skin. She’d never managed to scorch herself; never found a single blister or even a pink patch, but the sensation was there: of roasting flesh, and melting bone; of being burned at the stake like the witch she was.
“Red, stop.” Rooster sounded scared now, but she kept pushing. Kept funneling more and more of her power into the heat. She wrapped her fingers around the cuff, willed all of her fire and her fury into it. Her scalp prickled; tears streamed down her cheeks. She became aware of a high whining sound, and finally realized it was coming from between her clenched teeth.
“Red.”