Page 41 of Monster Queen Rising

He rises. Gun.

A shot.

Thaw fires.

The guard is falling and he fires again.

He’s down. The morning is quiet except for the tick of cooling metal and the dry grass moving at the edge of the road.

I reach the stretcher.

Mary Wylie is twenty-two. The straps held her through the roll. Her eyes are open and she's looking at me — and then the light goes out of them. The second round got her. The blood is fast and dark. I get two fingers to her neck and there's nothing, and her hand when I take it is still warm.

I hold her hand. The slate is up on my arms. The canines are down.

Behind me Thaw is on the radio. "Driver's dead. Guard's dead. Mary's gone. Second van kept south."

"I've still got it on camera," Dean says. "I'll ride it as far as the network reaches."

"Stay on it."

My bonds go sharp. Brief. They all heard the radio. Mary’s gone. Then the rage comes up the bond. My palm goes to my chest.

I look at her. I'm still holding her hand.

"Mary Wylie." My voice doesn't shake. "I'll remember your name. I'm so sorry. I'm keeping your name."

I'm crying. I let go of her hand.

Thaw is at the front. He looks at me, sees my face.

"Come here."

I cross to him. He puts both arms around me.

He holds me on the shoulder of I-5 while the sun comes up over the valley and Mary cools in the wreck fifty feet away.

"The second van," I say into his chest.

"Going south we didn’t see them grab another woman." His arms don't loosen. "We think it’s empty, but will Dean stay on it and keep watch just in case."

"And then we take Mary," he says. "We're not leaving her with them."

"No."

"The far house. We bury her where the women who get out are going to come, so they can know her name."

"Yes."

He lets me go, gets the tarp from the truck bed, and we wrap Mary Wylie together. Thaw at her shoulders, me at her feet. Out of the wreck, onto the shoulder, into the back of our truck. We close the tarp.

Thaw says. "Somebody's going to come up on this van. We're not here when they do."

He's already moving — driver's tablet, the paperwork, the small dark device from under the seat, into a bag, into the cab. We wore gloves. We were never here. The lead van smokes onits side in the grass with two dead men in it and the valley going gold around it, and we leave it exactly like that.

"Dean," he says into the radio, pulling us onto the road. "Clear, heading home. Kill the cameras you can reach on our route north. Tell me if anything moves behind us."

"Copy. Nothing behind you yet."