Tense, she held the seat ahead of her as they jostled back to the interstate. Kal drove confidently, one hand on the wheel, the sun on his face and his expression stoic as he concentrated on the road. The thought flashed through her that he looked amazing . . . and then she quashed it. Quen’s neck was red, the man holding firm even when Kal took a tight turn to run parallel to a railroad track. A slow-moving train was on it, and Kal raced down its length, looking for the engine and a chance to cross and be gone.
“Where are we going?” she called out over the wind, and Kal turned to her. There were little red marks on his neck as if from fingernails.
“Does it matter?” Kal said, and Quen’s expression stiffened.
“It does to me,” Quen said. “You tampered with Plank’s virus. You created a bridge between it and Trisk’s tomato. This is your fault.”
Kal took his foot off the accelerator. The car came to a quick, head-bobbing halt right in the middle of the road. “Is that what you think I did?” he said, and Quen’s eyes narrowed.
Daniel looked behind them, the click-click, click-click of the moving train an ominous metronome. “Uh, can this wait until we outdistance the mob with torches and pitchforks?”
“You’re responsible, Kalamack,” Quen intoned. “And you will swing for it.”
Kal’s lip twitched. “Get out.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” Trisk scooted forward to push herself between the two men. Her pulse was fast, and she could feel both their energies prickling against hers. “We can do this later. Kal, drive. Please.”
Kal’s eyes found hers. “Do you think I did this intentionally?”
Trisk’s lips parted. She didn’t know if Kal knew her well enough to see a lie.
Daniel stood up, hand on the car for balance. “They have cars, now. Can we go?”
Kal’s eyes slid from Trisk, and she took a slow breath. “Not until he apologizes.”
“Me?” Quen’s face reddened. “You threw the entirety of Inderland off balance and will be responsible for killing a quarter of the human population in the name of job advancement.”
“Out. Now,” Kal insisted, and Trisk looked behind her to the plumes of dust racing toward them. Daniel slowly sat back, his expression frightened.
“Stop it, both of you!” she said bitterly. “Kal, make this thing move or I’ll call your mother and tell her what you and I did in the barn last week. Quen, we don’t know it was Kal. I want to hear you say it.” Neither man looked at the other. “Now!” she yelled, and Kal twitched.
“I have no proof that it was you,” Quen all but growled.
Brow furrowed, Kal put the car back into drive, the click-click of the moving train lost in his angry peel-out. Trisk let the inertia push her back into the seat, where she stared at the backs of their heads. Beside her, Daniel heaved a relieved sigh. “I’m too much of a lab geek for this,” he whispered, but she heard it over the wind regardless.
“It wasn’t me,” Kal said, still racing the train’s length. “It was Rick.”
“Rick?” Quen spat. Trisk thought he was lying as well, but she was willing to overlook it—for the moment.
“Why else would he commit suicide?” Kal said, his posture easing. “He said it himself. He’s not a geneticist. He tried to shift the Inderland balance for his master, make a few less humans so they could come out of the closet and safely enslave what was left, giving them a net increase. I don’t think an outright plague was what he had in mind, but watching him was why the enclave sent me.”
Trisk’s eyes narrowed. Daniel, though, was nodding. “We thought you were here to stop Trisk’s patent transfer,” he said.
Kal’s hands clenched on the wheel. “I was watching Rick. But you’re right. It’s my fault. I didn’t watch him well enough.”
Lies, lies, lies, she thought, but he had a car, and once they joined Sa’han Ulbrine, Kal couldn’t hide behind them any longer. “We need to get to Detroit,” she said. “Once we prove the tomato is involved and how it’s functioning as a carrier, we can make a public announcement and end this.” She looked behind them at the town. “Or at least slow it down.”
A shudder rippled over her despite the hot wind. There had been no one human left in Fallon except Daniel, and it had felt wrong, unsafe. There hadn’t been enough infrastructure to take care of their weaker kin or figure out what was going on and perhaps prevent some of the deaths. She only hoped it was different in the larger cities. Maybe things would be normal in Detroit.
Quen was silent, a fisted hand to his mouth as similar thoughts probably skated through him. “How did you know where to look for us?” he asked, and Kal lifted a shoulder in a shrug.
“I ran into Rick’s master,” Kal said uncomfortably. “He said he tried to kill you in Fallon but wasn’t sure he had succeeded. I had to know for sure.”
“We can’t drive all the way to Detroit,” Daniel said. “They are following.”
“That’s why we aren’t.” Glancing at the slowly moving train, Kal slid his car onto the narrow shoulder and stopped. “We’re taking the train,” Kal said with a grand gesture, and Quen scoffed, the soft sound obvious in the still air.
“You mean this train? Right here?” Trisk asked, the creeping cars suddenly looking faster now that she was faced with possibly trying to jump onto one. “It’s a freight train.”