I’m not the only dime-store philosopher in the group. ‘Yeah. With a couple of bee stings maybe.’

Once again, it’s the bee stings that bring Deacon back. ‘Screw you, Daniel. We gotta get out of here. I need Goran alive; without her I’m finished on the force.’ She stares into my eyes and I glimpse a hopeful expression I haven’t seen before; makes her seem at least ten years younger. ‘If I bring Goran in, and you make a statement, I could salvage something out of this shitty day. They’ll bounce me back to uniform, sure. Maybe even make me take some psych sessions, but I can stay on the force.’

My palm is resting on the reinforced door throughout this speech and I feel a sudden shock wave run through my fingers as vibration from the building transfers through the surface. Door slam.

‘They’re out the back door.’

‘To a hospital, maybe?’

‘It must be Faber who’s behind this. And I sincerely doubt they took her to a hospital.’

Deacon smiles, and I am reminded of a wolf that tracked me through the Loup Valley once. ‘They gotta believe we’re on their tails,’ she says thoughtfully.

I see where she’s going. ‘So maybe they’ll drive around a bit.’

‘Except we know where they’re going.’

‘Maybe.’

‘So we can get there before them.’

‘Big maybe.’

Deacon lopes up the stairs.

‘Big maybe,’ she agrees. ‘I’ve survived worse odds than that.’

Deacon makes me sit in the back seat on the drive across town, which is completely ridiculous as I’m not under arrest and it’s not even a secure cruiser. There’s no mesh, and if I had a mind to, I could probably get at the shotgun cradled under the passenger seat. I don’t have a mind to. Instead I use the short trip to grab a little shut-eye.

Power napping doesn’t usually work for me. If I nod off for ten minutes during sunlight hours, I’m groggy for the rest of the day. But in this instance I have no choice. In spite of the few hours’ sleep in the apartment, I am so exhausted it feels like my eyes are bleeding.

Daniel McEvoy is not as young as he used to be.

True as God.

Deacon is driving faster than she should, drawing attention to herself, but I don’t mind. All the bouncing is rocking me to sleep. Even the drone of her voice, stringing together long and complicated litanies of swear words, is soothing.

I slide down on the back seat, cradling my head in the safety belt, which smells of marijuana. My thoughts are just dissolving into dreams when Macey Barrett’s phone rings in my pocket.

The damn thing is leaking radiation into my ear before I think to check caller ID.

‘Hmmph?’ I blurt sleepily.

‘You bloody AWOL asshole.’