“Poor guy. He’s really not used to field conditions.”

“Shaun, no one is used to this kind of field condition. Zombie mobs, abandoned malls, skateboarding through ghost towns, sure, we’re trained for that. Going up against the Centers for Disease Control in order to figure out who’s behind a global conspiracy? Not so much. That’s not why I became an Irwin.”

“So why did you?”

She blinked at me, surprised. “What?”

“Why did you become an Irwin?” I waved a hand at the windshield, indicating the storm. “Worrying about what may or may not be going on out there isn’t going to get us to Weed any faster. Now tell me why you became an Irwin while I try to get enough caffeine into my system to be safe behind the wheel.”

“Right. I—right.” Becks took a deep breath, drumming her fingers against the wheel. “How come you never asked me this before?”

“We were already busy when you hired on with the site, and then the Ryman campaign kicked into overdrive and there wasn’t time. After that… I don’t know. After that, I guess I was too busy being an asshole to realize it was something I needed to ask about. I’m sorry. I’m asking now.”

“Okay.” Becks shook her head a little. “Okay. You know I’m from the East Coast, right?”

“Yeah. Westminster, like the X-Men.”

“No, Westchester, in New York. No mutants. Lots of money. Old money.” She glanced my way. “My parents aren’t in the same weight class as the Garcias, but they’re well-off enough that my sisters and I had what must have looked like a fairy-tale childhood. Dance lessons at three, riding lessons at five—yes, on actual horses. That may have been the only dangerous thing my parents ever approved of. I was supposed to go off to school, get a degree in something sensible, and come home to marry a man as well-bred and well-mannered as I was.”

“So what happened?”

“I went to Vassar. My concentration was in English, with a minor in American history. Wound up getting interested in the way the nation has changed, and realized that what I really wanted was to go into the news.” Becks slowed as she swerved to avoid a fallen tree branch that spanned half the road. “So I told my parents I wanted to study politics at New York University, transferred, and went for a degree in film, with a journalism minor. My parents disowned me when they found out what I was really doing, naturally.”

“Naturally,” I echoed, disbelieving.