A man leaned casually against the car, eating a pastry, his pose all she needed in order to identify him as one of the entitled and not the sedan’s chauffeur. Eston’s face joined hers at the window and he made a chortling, happy sound.

She smiled. His interest in his surroundings gladdened her heart even as it added to the heavy burden of guilt and worry she felt about abandoning him at the Mission.

They drew abreast of the sleek sedan. The man looked up, and for an instant Rebekka could have sworn she saw surprised recognition on his face. But when their eyes met and held, no memory stirred, and then he looked away, his attention shifting to something else.

The bus lumbered on, almost empty of riders now. It skirted more areas claimed by the wealthy before those gave way to increasing poverty as they drew closer to the Barrens.

Houses huddled together in clusters like tiny outposts of reclaimed civilization. These places belonged to whoever was willing not only to restore them, but to defend them against bands of outlaws and the twisted dregs of society who called the Barrens home.

“Let’s get out here,” Levi said, breaking his trip-long silence as he reached up and pulled the cord that signaled the bus driver to stop.

Rebekka didn’t protest the added walking distance. The bus would turn around at the next stop anyway, before reaching the Mission.

A moment later she stood and followed Levi off the bus. There were no children playing outside under the watchful eyes of women working in gardens or hanging laundry on lines. The yards surrounding the houses they passed were empty, though she could feel people watching from behind barred and cloaked windows.

Levi headed toward the waterfront, where they’d be less noticeable from the street. There they found suspicious-eyed men fishing from rocky banks and half-starved mongrels scuttling around, hoping to snag an unguarded catch.

Rebekka’s arms were weary from bearing Eston’s weight, but she didn’t want to ask Levi to carry the child. If there was trouble, he’d need his hands free to protect them.

That was the curse of her gift. It made her helpless. For a healer to injure another, to kill another…

She shuddered. Even to save her own life she wasn’t sure she could do it, for fear of destroying her ability to heal, tainting it so it became something dark and evil.

They were halfway to the final stop on the bus route when she heard the rumble of its engine. “Wait,” Levi said, lightly touching her arm before they broke away from the cover provided by what remained of an old gas station.

The bus came into sight, empty save for the driver. A heartbeat later, a camouflage-painted jeep with a single guardsman slid into view, trailing behind the bus, its uniformed driver scanning the area on either side of the street.

Rebekka’s mouth went dry. It had to be coincidence, she told herself, the presence of the guardsman unnerving her.

“Did you recognize him?” Levi asked, quickening her pulse with the question.

“No. What about you?”

He answered with a slight shake of his head then stepped out from behind the shelter of the collapsed building. They moved quickly, minimizing their exposure from the street.

Rebekka felt hyperaware of her surroundings, on edge. She attributed it to Levi, told herself she was picking up on Were edginess.

There was no reason for them to be the focus of a hunt—not by guardsmen anyway.

Unless the guardsmen also served Anton Barlowe.

Rebekka’s stomach knotted as the last stop on the bus route came into view and she saw the guardsman waiting there. He was on foot, a rifle held casually at his side as he talked into a handheld radio.

This one she recognized. Jurgen. He was a frequent and brutal visitor to the brothel, a man who left those he visited in need of a healer.

Movement drew her attention to a cluster of houses beyond the bus stop. Another guardsman emerged, his pistol drawn. She recognized him as well. Cabot.

“This is no coincidence,” Levi murmured as a silver car slid into view from a side street leading to the waterfront.

The sight of it chilled Rebekka to the core. She’d seen it often enough in the red zone, with Farold or Gulzar driving it.

Levi tensed when Gulzar became visible behind the steering wheel. Rebekka didn’t need to use her gift to feel Levi’s rage and hatred and desire to kill the man who’d tortured him into something neither lion nor man.

“How could they know we were coming here?” Rebekka asked, guessing at the answer even as the words left her mouth.

“The man who escaped the ambush must have hidden and overheard us talking,” Levi said, making the same guess.

Rebekka’s heart thumped violently in her chest. Gulzar or the guardsmen would have already talked to the bus driver and learned a man, woman, and toddler had gotten off at the previous stop.

“Where do we go?” The prospect of entering the Barrens without guns and overnight supplies terrified her.

Levi turned to her. “We split up and head toward one of the other bus routes, or get downtown and catch the bus there. If we’d been recognized they would have gone to the brothel looking for us and we’d have heard about it. Give me the child.”

Rebekka’s arms tightened around Eston at the steel in Levi’s tone. Eyes that usually reminded her of molten gold were ice cold, frozen in ruthlessness.

She didn’t need to ask what he intended. She knew.

Survival came at a cost. Always. And Levi wouldn’t risk theirs for the sake of a human child.

He wouldn’t hurt Eston, not physically, but he intended to leave the toddler somewhere and trust to fate that someone would find him and take him the remaining distance to the Mission.

“No,” Rebekka whispered. “I’ll take him ahead.”

“And walk right into a trap?”

“I’ll find someone I can trust when I get closer. I—”

“No. You’re too valuable,” Levi said, his fingers curling around Eston’s sides, forming a wedge between the child’s body and hers.

She pulled back automatically, and Eston began crying, frightened by the argument and Levi’s attempt to wrest him away from Rebekka.

Rebekka stifled the noise quickly by pressing the toddler’s face to her neck, and he quieted as though recognizing and responding to the threat of danger. But it was too late. The sound of his cries had already carried, alerting the guardsmen to their presence.

“Go!” she told Levi, turning her back so he couldn’t make another attempt to take Eston from her.

She heard the soft slide of a blade leaving its sheath. Terror for Levi coiled and knotted in her stomach; fear that he’d go after Gulzar melded to what she held for herself. If she was taken and questioned—

Rebekka blocked it from her mind and began running. Levi was smart. The desire for revenge wouldn’t overcome his survival instinct. He would kill the guardsmen and Gulzar if he had a chance, but primarily he would try to lead them away from the route she would take.

A shout went up behind her. A gun fired.

It was followed by more shots and the squeal of tires. But rather than coming toward her, the silver car headed in the direction of the Mission and the Barrens.

Rebekka’s breath labored and her chest burned from running even a short distance with Eston. Some of the fishermen looked up as she hurried past them, their eyes and postures telling her to keep going, they would offer no aid.

She stumbled and nearly fell, the jerky movements making Eston cry again. Her heart skipped a beat when she saw the jeep that had been trailing the bus. “Hush, please hush,” she pleaded, crouching in the nearest shadow, rocking, trying to muffle his sobs.

The jeep sped by, its engine noise masking the sound of Eston crying. For a split second Rebekka thought all of the men had gone after Levi. But then a bullet ricocheted off the ground near her and a male voice shouted, “Stay where you are.”