Chapter 6
DIANA
The next day breaks in hard sunshine and a sky so blue it looks scraped clean, like we didn’t just get dumped with a bunch of freezing snow.
To give Mother Nature some credit, the air has thawed a little since we’ve passed around the mountain, the temperature rising just enough to make breathing easier.
The train grinds slowly on rails that are completely clear of snow, as wherever we are, it’s too warm for that. It’s actually a little muggy.
I tug at my chest, fingers pressing against my sternum, because it feels like Judge isn’t far.
Sensations of him have faded in and out the entire time, one minute full of concern and rage, and then what feels almost like relief.
We have to be ahead of him, but it seems like he’s just always close enough in my fucking shadow to be a problem.
Either way, I enjoy how this train feels like a bullet proof plan, because there’s no way any of his cars can go as fast as this.
One way or another, we are ahead.
I spot Rebecca sitting up, staring at her hands while Selene and Jess have a conversation, so I make my way over to the other omega.
“Can you feel Jack?” I ask, sitting next to her as she flinches when I sit down, like she was lost in her mind. “You look even better today. Just maybe worn out.”
Rebecca’s brows pinch together as she studies my face, all of our hair a little stuck to our faces from the humidity. “He feels small… like something is wrong with him. I just fucking hope I get to the Witch Doctor first.” She looks me over. “How are you?”
“Judge doesn’t feel far away.” My blood races, pulse hammering in my throat. “I can feel him. He feels more determined than ever, too. Like he doesn’t feel nearby, but he’s definitely trucking it, wherever he is.”
Rebecca’s expression sharpens, as if she’s waking up from a long sleep and realizing it’s been two days on this train.
“Oh… oh, that’s not good. Diana, his aura’s bleeding into yours.
I can see it. Has he been fucking driving this whole time?
” She looks down, as if to help her concentrate.
“Some echoes are stronger, like him, and that means that they can push themselves in ways we can’t…
” She turns to Jess and Selene, not waiting for a reply, her voice cutting through the noise of the train.
“Judge is tracking us, shocking no one, but I bet he knows we’re on this train. ”
“What?” Selene asks, slowly rising to her feet. “What do you know?”
My breathing grows thinner like my vocal cords are tightening. “I can feel him,” I mutter, almost embarrassed that the reason we need to all be afraid is because of something related to me.
Rebecca clears her throat. “I can also see him in her aura. It was really minimal before, but it’s stronger now. He’s not on our heels, but the jackass is not far, either.”
Jess pops up to her feet, too. “Oh, that’s definitely not good.”
I don’t get to wait for an answer from Selene before a shadow cuts across the carriage, sudden and sharp. We all glance up, the doors open more now that the air is warmer. A hawk spreads its wings against the sun. Rebecca’s expression falls, and her face goes pale.
“Oh, fudgeknuckles.”
“Pardon?” I ask through a lame chuckle, my heart already sinking.
“That’s Beast’s hawk.” Rebecca steps closer to the open door, squinting up at the sky.
“Echoes can sometimes bend certain animals to their will. I swear I saw a note tied to her leg. And—” Rebecca leans out dangerously far, her hand gripping a bar.
“She’s heading for the conductor. It’s marked with Beast’s aura.
.. yeah, it’s definitely a Dominion bird. ”
Selene whistles low. “Oh, yeah, we’re cooked.”
Rebecca looks us all over. “Good news, though. I don’t think it’s Judge, so much as it’s the bird that made the aura seem stronger on Diana. It’s his overall presence. Although his actual presence can’t be that far.”
My mind races through possibilities. The others are in danger, but I’m not.
At least, I will live. I can’t say for certain the other women will, though.
There has to be something I can do about that, right?
Jess pulls out a crumpled map from her bag, spreading it across one of the crates.
After a time of her looking it over, the hawk streaks back into the sky, flapping hard toward the horizon with powerful, deliberate strokes.
Rebecca watches it go, her jaw tight. “It’s flying back. I’m going to guess Beast isn’t with them, since he’s the one who takes over if Judge isn’t around. But Jack’s taken the hawk a few times before, so I know it can be lent out.”
“What was the hawk delivering?” I ask, dread pooling in my stomach.
“Instructions? Letting them know I’m on here?
Demanding that we be captured as soon as the train stops?
” I concentrate on the bond, reaching into it despite every instinct telling me not to, because Judge will feel that.
“I don’t know how this thing fucking works,” I mutter, frustrated, touching all over my chest. “He just feels… normal. Confident. Focused?” I jump away like a spider startled me. “Ah, he reached back out.”
Jess snorts as she runs her hands over the map, her tone grim. “Alright, sorry… okay, so clearly he rode through the past two nights, then. He can’t be right behind us, but I mean it could be anywhere from a few hours to six or eight.”
Rebecca exhales hard, her hands clenching into fists as she nears the map.
Before I know it, we’re all over there, looking down at it.
“Okay, think,” Jess says. “If he plans to take us at the depot we’re coming up on, since this is marked as a frequent stop, he could very well have sent orders to grab us as soon as we stop.
At least, we can probably trust that someone was given orders about us.
And if we’re at where I think we are, we’re right here.
One station before the Black Mirage depot,” she points to a stop on a rail line that’s near a train depot, “which means we need to come up with a plan and pretty goddamn quick.”
So far, we’ve stopped at four points, but we only lingered for no more than an hour each time.
None of them had a hawk preceding us.
Selene frowns, leaning over the map. “Wouldn’t he have sent orders to the town ahead of time? Why the conductor?”
“Maybe,” Rebecca murmurs, her gaze distant. “Maybe not. Depends on how quietly he wants to handle this. Judge doesn’t like making scenes unless they serve a purpose.”
“Um, no, he loves making a scene,” Selene corrects.
Rebecca’s hard eyes flash up at her. “Only when it’s strategic. Trust me. I learned that from Jack.”
It’s kind of odd that my first reaction is to want to join in and give my own two scents, since I’m his freaking mate, only to realize I know nothing about him as an operator.
So instead, I inhale deeply and keep my head down.
I’m not useless here. I can feel him, right?
So I can be the beacon we need to know when to act.
“Hey, guys, crazy idea,” Jess interrupts.
“But like, what if when the train gets slow enough, we just jump out and run into town? I know we said we’d ride this to Dock’s, but what if we bail the first chance we get?
Red Hood is a pretty big outpost, so likely to have resources, and we can blend in for at least an hour or two. ”
My ass puckers so hard, my cheeks may as well have fused together. “Oh, absolutely no to jumping out. I’ve seen too much to do that.”
“We can use the furs for landing,” Selene adds, already moving toward the pile. “Cushion the fall.” She glances at me, then cringes. “Okay, at the same time, Diana is right. It’s um, not the most advisable path.”
“Maybe,” Rebecca says, nodding her head side to side. “Maybe we just jump off right as it almost stops. So like before the conductor gets out, you know? Give ourselves a head start.”
“Wouldn’t they see us jumping out and running into town?”
Selene moves to the open doors. “It’s all wooded. We can easily run into them for coverage. I think we’re either in southern Arkansas or northern Louisiana, based on the maps. Thick foliage.”
It goes quiet. We initially planned to ride the train down south and get as close to the general area that the Mirage wanders as possible, and like Jess stated this is one exit before then.
But I’m also really liking the spontaneity of being one step ahead of Judge.
“So what do we do about the Mirage? How do we get there?”
Rebecca eyes Selene. “You got money, right? Can we use it for horses? Or a car, maybe? Like will they loan them out this close to the Mirage?”
“Should be able to. When I talked to Jericho—that guy who got us through the snowstorm—he said that near the Black Mirage, there’s a lot of money in offering transport.
Kind of like what he did for us. He said that they a lot of people actually use horses, and you have a guide who goes with you and returns them.
The roads there suck for cars; kind of why biker gangs are so popular.
More dirt bike-type stuff. I’d be surprised if they didn’t offer it…
oh, maybe they’ll have bikes for us to ride!
Either way, I bet it’s just adding an extra day of travel on horse, if I had to guess.
If we can get a bike, then we can get there in a half-day.
” Selene leans over the map, tracing a route with her finger.
“But I don’t know about this depot. We could be risking a lot.
They could also literally have nothing there, and it’s all at the next stop. ”
Jess looks up, her expression grim. “The train is slowing, either way. So it’s not like we have much of a choice.”
I grind my teeth. “So what if the conductor notices we’re missing? He could alert the town.”