Six skated at full speed only just long enough to keep Evita from catching up to him, then slowed down to a steadier pace, absently rubbing at his left arm, where the muscles trembled underneath his skin. To his relief the trembling soon stopped, though he could still see a slight shake in his fingers when he held his hands out in front of him. He dropped his hands down by his sides instead and made himself concentrate on the road until the rain began. Shading his eyes with one hand, he looked up at the sky and grimaced, then started looking for somewhere to shelter until the clouds cleared away.
He found an old gas station a little further on, its small store's door still locked and the windows whole, if only because they were covered with wire netting. Six studied the door for a moment then backed up a few feet and charged at it, hitting it with his shoulder and spilling it and himself into the interior of the store. He picked himself up and moved further inside, ducking behind the dusty counter and pushing open the door to the back office. It was dim and desperately in need of a clean, but it was dry enough to he decided it would do until the rain stopped. Brushing off the seat of the chair behind the desk, he dropped down into it and eased his skates off, massaging the arch of one foot.
The rain beat down on the roof in a steady rhythm and he soon found himself growing sleepy. He tried to fight it but within moments his eyes had slid closed and he slumped back in the chair, his breathing evening out into the steadiness of sleep. He slept while the rain slowed to a drizzle and the fog came in, sending questing fingers across the floor of the store, and didn't wake until nightfall, feeling groggy and disoriented. A chill had settled into him as he slept and he felt stiff as he pushed himself up from the chair, rubbing at his sore neck. His stomach growled painfully but he ignored it in favour of stumbling off to the bathroom to relieve his aching bladder first.
When he was finished, he rummaged through the store's shelves to see if there was anything he wanted, taking a pack of lighters and a handful of wrapped jerky sticks. He shoved them into his pack and took out one of the sandwiches he'd packed—slightly battered now, and soggy—and ate it while he was pulling his skates back on. He stepped out into the cool night air and paused a moment to look around warily, then made his way back to the road.
He skated at a steady pace for a while, all his senses on high alert. The night remained silent all around him, and so dark that he felt as though his eyes were opened too wide to compensate. A flicker of movement to his right made him skid away, breathing hard and dropping his shoulder defensively, but he saw it was only the wind ruffling the overgrown bushes along the road. Rolling his eyes at himself, he looked back ahead and forced himself to keep skating.
The night passed slowly and by five am he was exhausted enough to start looking for another place to catch a few hours of sleep. He'd made it into the outskirts of what had once been a major city, now crumbling to ruin and overgrown with weeds, and its close confines made him feel even less safe than the open countryside he'd just passed through. He made his way towards the nearest house then stopped, spotting the telltale marks of thin skate wheels crossing the mud onto the cracked sidewalk. Beside them he saw other prints, thin but longer than his hand, like the footprints of a tall bird.
In a split-second decision he followed the tracks up to the house, silently freeing his knife from its sheath on his hip. The long blade, honed to a razor-sharp edge, glimmered pale pink in the first light of dawn. He paused long enough to take off his skates and slipped into the house with the knife held defensively up near his chest, ignoring the slight tremble in the fingers gripping it as he made his way in silent socked feet through the dark front hall. He could smell something swampy inside the house, a smell like brackish water and rotting meat. It nearly made him gag but he fought the urge back, easing around the corner of the hall until he could see into the living room.
Whoever was sleeping there had wrapped themselves up into a cocoon of blankets, hiding themselves from view, and was completely unaware of the bird-like creature standing over them, head cocked so it could study the blanket-wrapped form with one beady eye. It looked a little like a blue heron the size of a tall and skinny man, but where its beak should have been there was only a hole ringed with a double row of sharp teeth. It breathed so noisily that Six couldn't believe the sleeper didn't hear it, and viscous yellow drool dripped down to splatter the blankets.
Six didn't wait for it to realize that he was standing there. While it was still distracted by contemplating its oblivious meal, he stepped up behind it, grabbed its slender neck in one hand, and brought the blade of the knife whickering across, nearly severing its head from its body. The head flopped obscenely back in a welter of blood and he shuddered in disgust at the light still in its rheumy grey eyes, then hurriedly tried to scramble out of the way as it took a swipe at him with one great clawed foot, still obeying some last impulse from its lost brain. Just the tips of its claws dug into his thigh, but even that was enough to knock his leg out from under him and spill him in an awkward heap. He clapped a hand to the blood welling from his leg and held the knife ready, but the creature did a spastic dance and collapsed in a pile of swampy feathers and dark blood.
Breathing hard, he pushed himself up and nearly fell again, until a hand caught him under his upper arm. He looked up into Zephyr's pale face and groaned, yanking his arm away and steadying himself.
“Of course it's you,” he muttered. “I knew I should've kept going.”
Zephyr didn't even acknowledge it, his wide eyes fixed on the dead bird creature. Its legs twitched suddenly and he scrambled back so quickly he tripped over the edges of his own blankets and landed with a hard thump. The horror was written so plainly on his face that he looked nine instead of nineteen, an image only strengthened by his sleep-tousled hair sticking up in spikes and tufts. Torn between laughing at him and reassuring him that he was safe, Six settled for extending a hand to help him up instead. The movement put weight on his injured leg, causing fresh blood to soak into his shorts, and he hissed through his teeth, unconsciously tightening his grip on Zephyr's fingers.
“Ow!” Zephyr looked at him, some colour coming back into his cheeks. “Let go before you break something.”
“Shut up, Zeph.” Six released him and carefully leaned down to wipe his knife clean on the top blanket. He slid it back into the sheath and limped towards the door, tossing back over his shoulder, “I'm out of here. Where there's one there's probably more.”
“Wait!” He heard Zephyr scrambling behind him, but already had his skates back on by the time Zephyr made it out, his hair still stuck up in spikes and his pack slung over one shoulder. “Um. Look. Thanks. Um, I know it's a competition and everything but can we... stick together for a bit? Of everything I was expecting, that wasn't it.” He cast a quick glance over his shoulder, hunching up as though expecting an attack. “You hate me, I know, but at least I can watch your back.”
“Sure,” Six said, heading down towards the road again.
“Really?” Zephyr caught up to him, the relief in his voice mixed with suspicion. “You're not just fucking with me?”
“Nope.” Six led the way to the concrete stairs leading down into the nearest subway station. “Then I don't have to outskate the monsters. I only have to outskate you.”
Zephyr fell back for a moment then followed him down. “Funny. What happens after they've eaten me?”
“Indigestion.” Six took out one of the lighters he'd taken from the gas station and flicked the wheel, muttering a curse when it didn't light right away. He rolled it between his hands for a moment then tried it again, relieved to see the flame spring up. “Shut your mouth for five seconds while I look around.”
He moved around the long platform carefully, trying to ignore the throbbing pain in his thigh; checking the tracks on both sides and leaning over to look into the tunnels. When he was satisfied that it was empty, he made his way back over to Zephyr, who still stood at the foot of the stairs, looking lost. Handing him the lighter, Six sat down on the bottom step and pulled a first-aid kit out of his pack, followed by a small steel bowl barely bigger than the palm of his hand. He poured bottled water into the bowl and gave it to Zephyr.
“Hold the lighter on that and try to make it hot.” He took off his skates again and stood up to strip out of his shorts, examining the triple gashes across his thigh. The middle one was deepest and still bleeding sluggishly, though the other two had clotted over again.
“Here.” Zephyr awkwardly knelt down in front of him and stuck a finger into the water to test it. “Not great, but if you've got some disinfectant in there, it should be okay.”
“I don't need the help.”
“Yeah, well, I happen to think my life is worth at least this much.” He leaned over to grab the first-aid kit and dumped a liberal amount of disinfectant in the water before using one of the big bandages to start scrubbing out the gashes across Six's thigh. “Though this is sort of becoming a regular occurrence.”
“You're just so willing to get on your knees.”
“Ha.” Zephyr went silent for a few moments. “So, um, why are we down in a subway station? Isn't this just the type of place monsters like?”
“Not these ones. They don't like it underground for some reason. Why do you think our cities are so safe there?”
“I dunno, I guess I just thought they were guarded well. You know a lot about this, Six.” He glanced up with half a grin. “Smarter than you look.”
“Maybe if you didn't spend all your time being an annoying little shit, you'd actually be able to learn something,” Six said, his voice sharper than he'd intended it to be.
“I didn't think it was common knowledge, that's all. Sorta classified, in fact. And you killed that thing pretty easily, almost like you knew exactly how to do it.”
“It's not that hard to figure out. Even you could probably manage it, if you weren't stupid enough to almost get eaten in your sleep.”
“Where'd you grow up anyway?” Zephyr smeared on antibiotic cream and slapped a bandage on top of it. “You showed up out of nowhere.”
“What's with all the questions?”
“I'm curious.” Zephyr heaved himself to his feet, dusting off his legs. “Nothing much else to do right now but talk.”
“Wrong. I'm going to nap and then I'm going back out on the road. Come, stay, get eaten, I don't care.” Six pushed himself up and pulled his shorts on again, moving away from the stairs to find a flat spot of floor to curl up on, wrapped in a blanket and using his pack as a pillow. He closed his eyes but sensed Zephyr join him, sitting on the floor nearby. Zephyr said something but by that time Six had drifted too far into sleep to hear him, and let himself drift away without bothering to find out what it was.
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