“It’s a fucking bloodbath,” Fie said. “All bets are off. Just get your asses hidden and wait for this shit to blow over.”
“Where?” Dedrus asked.
“Fuck if I know. I got to cover my own ass.”
“Listen,” Kinzer said. “This is bigger than the Raze infiltrators being outed.”
Fie followed Kinzer’s glance as he looked to the magazine stand in the bookstore.
Maggie rested a magazine on her bloated belly. She looked to a few racks away. A blond kid, on his knees, pulled stacks of crossword puzzle magazines off the rack and set them beside him. She smirked.
Fie fell into a fit of coughs. “Shit…that’s…not…” he said, struggling to push the words through phlegm-filled spams.
Dedrus nodded.
“Oh, fuck. This is worse than I thought.” He balled his hands into fists. “Okay. I’ve got a place in the mountains that I was planning to go to. I’ll head back to my place now and get some—” He stopped. His mouth hung open.
Kinzer looked to see what had distracted him. Through the cafe window, Craetis walked down the sidewalk.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” Kinzer said.
He scanned the scene. His eyes flashed to the adjoining bookstore. Just a few yards behind Maggie, Mika skimmed through a book on a rack labeled “Paperback Bestsellers.” He pursed his lips. The dip in them became even more defined.
“We have to get her out of here,” Dedrus said.
As Craetis approached the cafe door, a man, who’d just let his family out, politely waved him in.
“Thank you,” Craetis said, glancing over the cafe patrons as the door shut behind him.
Kinzer stared at Maggie.
Look up, he thought.Come on, bitch. Look up!
Maggie flipped to a page in her magazine. She tucked her thumbnail between her teeth and arched her back.
Fie, still in crone-form, shook as he got on his feet.
Dedrus rose, pushing the walker toward him. “What are you gonna do?” he asked.
“I’ll distract them,” Fie replied. “You guys just get her the fuck out of here.”
Look up!Kinzer continued thinking at Maggie, wishing his gift had been telepathy.
Maggie’s glance flitted from her magazine to the table where Kinzer was. As she saw Kinzer staring her down with a penetrating, deliberate stare, she stared back, as if waiting to receive a psychic message. His eyes shifted to behind her, and she followed his line of sight slowly, cautiously, until she saw Mika tucking a paperback on the rack behind her.
She turned back to Kinzer, shrugging ever so slightly, as if saying, “What the fuck am I supposed to do?”
Kinzer threw his glance to the bookshelves on the other side of the magazine aisle.
Tucking the copy of the fashion magazine under her arm, she speed walked toward the cafe, slipping around the magazine stand and turning down the row of bookshelves. She was out of Mika’s view. Unfortunately, she was also out of Kinzer’s.
“Well, well,” Craetis said, approaching Dedrus and Kinzer’s table. “Funny running into you here.”
“New leg?” Dedrus asked.
“Like it? You can thank Vera. She made a few deals. Got us some new limbs.”
“I’ll bet she did. So how did you find us?”
