The sky was a bitten peach, sun setting in blood and gold over the highway's empty mile markers.
Victor led them off the vine-choked road and under the wide, rotting gnaw of the overpass. Debris was scattered everywhere. A car carcass stood with doors torn open like broken wings. The moss-stuffed rectangle of an old metro sign lay nearby, its letters faded to bone.
Tommy and Snow Team set up a basic perimeter. Their fingers, restless, curled around their weapons, eyes sweeping the shadows.
The boys, horse and otherwise, relaxed only as much as Victor's mood allowed, which was barely a hair.
Felicity curled up beside a pillar crusted with old spray paint, knees nested to her chest. She pressed her cheek to her own arm, eyes deadened and damp, watching the twilight swallow up the city they'd left behind.
She kept silent. Not a word left her lips.
