Shaun jerked upright, eyes open, hand going to the pistol at his belt. “Wha—”
“Settle, Mason. We can’t all be as polite as the wakeup call at Maggie’s fancy-ass hotel,” said Becks, turning the radio down again now that its purpose had been achieved. “We’re almost there. I need you on watch.”
“Right.” Shaun ground the heels of his hands against his eyes, wiping the sleep away. This time he finished the process of drawing the pistol from his belt, flicking off the safety. Once he was done, he twisted in his seat, shooting his old, familiar, who-gives-a-fuck? grin in my direction. “Sleep well?”
“Like a rock,” I said. I almost said “like the dead,” but realized he might not take that well. Like it or not, Shaun was going to be a little sensitive about that sort of thing for a while. Possibly forever.
“Good, because the good Doc’s going to be real interested in talking to you.” Shaun twisted back around to face forward, watching the darkened forest roll by outside his window. “She’s a little hard to explain if you haven’t met her. Hell, nobody explained her to me.”
“I read the files.”
“There’s reading the files, and then there’s the reality of a mentally disturbed Canadian woman throwing a live octopus at your chest so you can tell her whether exposure to Kellis-Amberlee has changed its reflex speed. Which, in case you wondered, doesn’t happen. An octopus infected with Kellis-Amberlee is still fast, smart, and incredibly easy to piss off.” Shaun shuddered. “All those suckers…”
“Wait. Octopuses aren’t mammals.”
Becks smiled coolly at me in the rearview mirror. “And that’s why Dr. Abbey is difficult to explain to anyone who hasn’t met her.”
I sighed. “I’m not going to like this, am I?”
“Probably not,” said Becks, and turned off the narrow dirt road we’d been traveling down, onto another, narrower, dirtier road. This one seemed more like a deer trail with delusions of grandeur than an actual thoroughfare, and the van shuddered and jumped with every bump and pothole. Shaun whooped a little, causing Becks to shoot him a wide-eyed look. He grinned unrepentantly back. I got the feeling that there hadn’t been much whooping while I was away.
The dirt trail—I refused to dignify it with anything that sounded more maintained—emptied us onto a road that was just as decrepit, but had obviously been better, once upon a time. Chunks of broken pavement jutted up where the roots of the encroaching trees had managed to break through the surface. Becks swerved around them with practiced ease, and actually sped up, cruising through the dark like she’d driven this route a hundred times before. Judging by the calm way Shaun was watching the trees, she had.
The road ended at a large parking lot in front of a large, glass-fronted building that was probably originally some sort of government building or visitor’s center. “Forestry center,” said Shaun, before I could ask. “Welcome to Shady Cove.”
“… thanks.” I shifted in my seat, putting my laptop to the side. “Is someone going to come out and meet us?”
“No, but you should probably count on lots and lots of people with guns waiting for us inside.” Shaun shot me another manic grin. “Dr. Abbey knows how to greet visitors.”
“With terror and intimidation?” I asked.
“Something like that,” Becks agreed. She slowed down but kept driving, steering us into a covered parking garage attached to the back of the building. There were only a few vehicles already parked there, including—
I sat up straighter. “My bike!”
Shaun’s grin softened, becoming sadder and more sincere. “You didn’t think I’d leave it behind, did you?”
I didn’t answer him. I couldn’t speak around the lump in my throat. As soon as Becks parked the van I opened the door and climbed out, heading for my bike in what I hoped looked like a reasonably nonchalant manner. Not that it made a damn bit of difference either way. There was nothing—absolutely nothing, including the sudden appearance of a shambler from the shadows, which thankfully didn’t happen—that could have kept me away from my bike in that moment. I actually hugged the handlebars, I was so damn glad to see it.
Shaun and Becks followed, pausing long enough to get their duffel bags from the car. They stopped about eight feet away. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Becks elbow Shaun in the side, mouthing the words, “Ask her.”
He looked at her uncertainly before he cleared his throat and said, “Uh, George? Did you want to start the engine? Make sure I’ve been doing regular maintenance and all that good shit?”
“That depends.” I stopped hugging the handlebars, straightening as I turned to face them. “Do you actually want me to check the condition of the engine, or do you want me to run my fingerprints against the ones in the bike’s database?”