"Slow. She has four mates already, Daron. We are doing what we have always done. Steady. Useful. The thread will tell us when, and we do not pull on it before it does."
"I am not pulling."
"You are checking the mirror every other second."
"I know."
"Daron."
"What?"
"Stop checking the mirror."
"Fuck off."
He laughs.
"What about Fen?"
The grin goes off his face.
"You saw him," I say.
"Crull carried him out. Crull is back there with him now. He woke up and has been pacing since we hit the gravel, he is going to be a fucking situation when we stop."
"Is he —"
"He's alive, Daron. He is in worse shape than Thaw and he is going to take longer. But he is in there. Crull's got him and he is not going to lose him in the back of this truck."
I look at him. He is leaning forward with his elbow on his knee and the heel of his hand against his eye and his other hand on the dash and he is breathing in the way he breathes when he is not crying because he has decided not to cry. Dean does not cry.
The Syndicate is going to come.
I know that the way I know weather. They will count what is missing. They will figure out who took it. They will come.
The thought should sit heavy. It doesn't.
For two years the word has beensurvive.Survive the pickup. Survive the transport. Survive another day.
Tonight the word is different. Tonight she is asleep in the back of the truck. Tomorrow she is going to wake up in a safehouse.
Anything that comes between her and that bed is going to come through me first. The Syndicate has not figured that out yet. They are going to.
Tonight Thaw is out. Crull is out. Harek is out. Fen is alive. Dean is beside me.
Tonight the Syndicate is the one who has to come looking.
They are going to lose.
"Dean."
"Yeah."
"They're going to lose."
He is quiet for a second. Then he opens his eyes and looks at me. The same face. The same brother.
"Yeah," he says. "They are."
