"Somewhere not here," Mei said. "I'm thinking west. If we can make it into Fort Worth, that should give us a little more cover, right?"
"Worth trying," Dahlia agreed. "So, Grapevine?"
"Sounds good to me," Mei agreed. "Never mind that I can't keep half the suburbs straight. It's basically one big town with little signs to mark where things change. Not like back in our day."
"In my day, we didn't know how to write," Dahlia reminded her. "That kinda made signs pointless."
Mei hiked the backpack onto her shoulder. Dahlia tossed their room keys on the long dresser. Then, without a backwards glance, the women walked through the door and on to the next part of their lives.
Chapter Nineteen
THANE
By the time Thane had to head back to work, his bruises were faded enough to not be noticeable. He left his house in the dark and made it to the Church just as the sun began to lighten the sky. In the far back corner, the personal vehicles of both teams took up quite a few spots. Thane found an empty one and pulled in.
Locking his truck, he headed to the back door of the massive building. Typing in a code got him in, but like always, a priest was waiting on the other side to check his arm for a ward. Thane flashed his tattoo, then turned down the hall for the hunter's operational area. Most of the building was still asleep, it seemed. A few halls over were the priests' dormitories. Half a block ahead of him was the main worship area. The section that jutted off to the side was where he belonged.
Thane stepped into the room, not surprised to find it packed. A few of the guys were laughing about something. Brice was in the middle of them, looking like warmed-up dog shit. The scuff on the man's temple had some very impressive bruising around it.
"What the hell happened to you?" Thane asked.
The entire room fell silent. People turned to look at him, and there was a new tension in the air. Thane looked around, trying to get a hint of what was going on, until Brice finally cleared his throat.
"We found the blonde. I was pulling down a shift because Marty has the flu. Ended up driving, and um, she killed a priest and two hunters."
"You get out of there in time?" Thane asked.
Brice shook his head, then groaned as if the movement hurt. "No. She said she didn't want to kill us. She told me that if I didn't reach for my clavum, I could live. Considering that she was right up in my face, I didn't really have much of an option. Then she bashed my head against the side of the truck, and I woke up when backup arrived."
"Fucking bitch," Thane snarled. "It's kinda what she did to me. It's like she's just fucking playing with us!"
Around the room, people began to relax. Someone called out a taunt meant for Brice, but Thane ignored it. Brice wouldn't quite meet his eyes, and that made him think there was a little more to this story than they were letting on.
Then Dale walked into the room. "Thane!" he barked. "Bishop wants to see you in his office. Brice, you're to head to the Deacon. The rest of you, get where the hell you belong. Last night's shift is free to go. My team? Clean this place up."
"Fuckers leaving us with a mess," someone complained, but Thane was already heading for the door.
His guts were in a knot because Dahlia had been spotted again. He was being called in to talk to the Bishop. Something was going on, and he felt like he didn't have a damned clue. He'd taken no more than five steps up the hall when Brice walked through the door.
"Thane?" he called. "Wait up!"
He paused, and Brice jogged to his side. "What the hell is going on?" Thane asked.
"You've had a tail on you for a while now," Brice said. "We found the blonde coming out of the pub you went into. She seemed surprised to learn you were there. I'm going to guess you didn't see her?"
"Wait, not yesterday, but the day before?" Thane asked.
Brice nodded. "Yeah. Cute little pub, you were wearing a white shirt."
Thane groaned. "Her name was Cora, Dale knew I had a date with her, and she picked the place. Hot little schoolteacher. Kinda got into the talk about kids."
"Fuck," Brice huffed in sympathy. "Yeah, that's never fun. You crash and burn?"
"And got slapped for wasting her time," Thane said, pointing to his cheek. "Bitch did a full-arm swing. Next time, I'm gonna lead with that, not when we start talking about a second date."
"Or you can pull the whole 'I had no idea' line," Brice offered. "Just figured you should know, since I'm pretty sure that's what the Bishop wants to talk about."
"Is she following me?" Thane asked.