Fallow doesn’t wait. He bursts outside without looking around, taking big, heaving gulps of air.
I move very slowly as I walk out, and keep about as far away from him as I can but still be heard when I whisper.
“Are you alright.”
I expect snark, as usual. Or to be told to fuck off. Fallow just nods, though.
He’s still breathless and doesn’t say anything, but he meets my eye and nods, no anger in his face.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t have a choice.”
Fallow just keeps nodding and then waves a hand at me in awhatevermotion, and I choose to take it at face value. If he was really angry, I’d probably have a knife at my throat. It takes a good forty seconds for him to really catch his breath, and then longer to center himself enough to speak.
“It’s fine. Thank you for preventing my kamikaze mission. In hindsight, an ill-advised finger fuck in the closet was probably preferable to a messy death.”
I smile at him, more relieved than I want to admit that he’s already joking around about it. It all happened fast, but there was an undercurrent of fear the whole time that he would never forgive me for crossing that line.
“Where do you think they went?” I ask, not sure what to do next.
Fallow tilts his head and holds his breath like he’s activating a superpower.
“I can hear them. Barely. Let’s follow them. I can’t believe they put a fucking tracker on the car. It must’ve been at the motel before the attacked. Smart, but also makes them stupid for taking so long to catch up when we’ve been driving around like tourists.”
I nod, and without more fussing we turn to follow whatever Fallow’s listening to. We move quickly, and once we get a little closer, I can hear them as well. They’re not subtle, now that they’ve decided we’re not here. It sounds like they’re still arguing about how to find us, and whether or not they should just stake out the car.
That adrenaline returns, and we both move a little quicker and about as silently as I’m capable of. When we turn the corneraround the next enclosure, I can see a single guy who stopped to piss on the fence.
Fallow is moving before I have the chance to decide what to do. In a few long, silent steps, he’s behind the man, covering his mouth with one hand and holding that sexy fucking butterfly knife to his throat with the other.
“Shhh,” he whispers in the man’s ear. “Or I’ll slit your throat. Nod only.”
The man nods.
“Are there more than four of you?”
Nod.
“More than six?”
He hesitates, but I’m not sure if it’s because he’s considering lying or because he’s struggling to count. In the end, he shakes his head.
“Are there others coming?”
Another shake of the head.
“And you. Are you so committed to finding us that you’re willing to die for it?”
The man shakes his head fervently, but Fallow tightens his grip.
“Then I suppose you made some poor choices in life.”
There’s no time to respond before he slits the man’s throat. The wound gapes open, bright red blood spurting out to cover the fence in front of them that’s already covered in his piss. Fallow keeps him quiet as he gets weaker and eventually collapses, but I focus on looking around for cameras.
I checked when we came in and didn’t see any except one in the parking lot, but the situation has suddenly become a lot more critical.
Fallow grins when he looks at me, obviously happy to have his bloodlust sated for the day.
“Shall we kill the rest of them?”
