When they were miles away and certain nobody was following, they pulled over behind a boarded-up gas station to take stock. They looked like they’d been swimming in a lake of blood. Real Deal sat shaking on his bike, his head in his hands.

“Can you keep going?” Antonia asked him. “We shouldn’t be out, looking like this.”

“We should be riding back to burn that fucking house down,” Bob said.

“We’re too beat up right now to think straight. Let’s go to Bull’s and get our shit together.”

“I’m fine,” Bob said. “I’m a hundred percent ready to throw down.”

“Throw down by yourself then,” Antonia said. “I’m not gonna be pushed into something stupid.”

“You’ll come, Elijah, won’t you? For Johnny and Pedro and Yuma.”

“Antonia’s right,” Elijah said.

“Of course she is,” Bob snarled.

“She is,” Real Deal said. “How long till daybreak? We go off half-cocked, we’ll all get caught out and never have a chance to get even.”

He started his bike and rode off. Antonia and Elijah followed. Soon enough so did Bob, cussing under his breath.

Sitting at the picnic table, the story finally straight, Antonia sips from the bottle of tequila.

“And now here we are,” she says.

“I’ll stand guard till dawn,” Bob says.

“Who are you expecting?”

“The kid and the spook who helped him.”

“You think they’ll show?”

“That French fucker knows we’re staying here. He’ll give us up real quick.”

“Maybe they’ve had enough.”

“After what I did to the girl? Jesse’s coming for me.”

“If that’s the case, we should take off, find new rooms, and hunt them down tomorrow night.”

“Like we hunted them down in Phoenix?” Bob says. “No. I’m not leaving, not playing any games. I’m betting the kid’ll try for me here, and I’ll be waiting.”

“I’m not leaving either,” Real Deal says. “If you think they’re coming, I’m staying too.”

Antonia has a belt of tequila. Nothing she says will change their minds, so it’s only her and Elijah she has to worry about. They’ve got an hour before the sun comes up—enough time to make a quick getaway. Her pride hangs her up, though.

She and Elijah have been leading the Fiends for seven years. And while it’s true she’s sick of wrangling psychos and true she’s dreamed of splitting from the gang, to run off now, after the deaths of Yuma and the others, and leave Bob and Real Deal to face what’s coming next on their own doesn’t sit right with her. She’ll be nothing but trash if she abandons them.

“Go in and get cleaned up,” she says to Bob. “I’ll hang out here.” She turns to Real Deal. “You too. Sleep if you can.”