Page 37 of Red Rooster

She had arealname, if that’s what you wanted to call it. An official name on the driver’s license and passport he’d bought her. On those documents she was listed as Ruby Jane Russell. It was a nice name, she thought; she liked the way the Rs rolled off her tongue; like a character in a comic book. Which, given her talents, seemed pretty appropriate. Whenever they encountered strangers – which was every day – she introduced herself as Ruby. Red was just for Rooster, who’d saved her, given her a home, even if at the moment it was just a four-door Dodge truck coated in road dust. They’d settle somewhere eventually, he always said, but then someone somewhere would look at her just a little too long, and he’d get twitchy, start throwing duffel bags in the truck. Every time they started to think the Institute had stopped looking for her, there was another team of helmeted, black-clad specialists waiting around the corner.

Rooster hadn’t killed all of them.

In the middle of the night, curled up on a lumpy hotel bed, Red wished that he had. She could handle the running just fine, but it was hard on Rooster.

Like tonight: as they left through the portable corral gates that served as the main entrance to the carnival, she could see the little hitch in his stride that meant he was working very hard not to limp.

His hand rested steady on her shoulder, though, keeping her tight to his side – his bad one, leaving his right hand free to wield a gun, if he needed to. “Almost there,” he said as they crossed the field that served as a parking lot, and she knew he was talking more to himself than to her.

Red put her small arm around his waist as they walked to the truck, for all the good that it would do. Sometimes, she thought holding someone up was more about the gesture than anything else.

~*~

There was a cute and kitschy motel in the heart of downtown, one of those places that boasted authentic western flair, with leather everything and wagon wheel chandeliers. But that was too obvious. Rooster drove out to the Holiday Inn by the Interstate ramp, asked for a room on the third floor with two beds, and then prayed to any god listening that his Visa card still had a little juice in it. It did. He exhaled slowly through his mouth and felt the entire left side of his body tremble. Anxiety had burned through Red’s cure faster than normal.

The woman at the front desk smiled and said, “Have a wonderful stay,” passing back his card printed with the name Joel Rutledge.

Bless him, Deshawn was really good at cooking up these fake IDs.

“Thanks,” Rooster said, slipped the card back in his wallet and limped back out to the truck to collect Red. He never liked for her to interact with front desk people: the red hair was too memorable. If goons in riot gear kicked in the door tonight, he didn’t want it to be because the receptionist had ratted them out.

When he got back to the truck – parked away from the cameras, of course – he could see through the passenger window that Red had kicked off her boots, reclined her seat all the way back, and lay with her socked feet propped up on the dash, eyes shut, hands folded over her stomach. She looked like Sleeping Beauty. If Sleeping Beauty had a hole in her left sock big enough for her whole toe to peek through. Poor tired kid.

He rapped softly on the glass and she opened her eyes slow, blinking a minute, fighting the exhaustion of her earlier display.

“Got us a room,” he said.

She gave him a tired smile and raised the seat, unlocked the doors for him.

Another night, he would have carried her. But tonight, their bags were almost too much for him. He told her to go first up the staircase that ran along the outside of the building. Partly so he could keep an eye out, but also so she couldn’t see the way sweat popped out on his brow and he had to grit his teeth against the pain. It never really went away, even when Red was at her strongest and freshest, her hands hitting his skin like God’s own heating pads. But her power could push it back, drive it out of his nerves and into his bones where it lay dormant, buzzing quietly to itself, waiting until it found the chance to slip back to the surface and cripple him again. They tried to keep on top of it, but sometimes, like tonight, he fought it alone, playing the martyr, he guessed, until it came roaring back and got out of control.

On the second to last step, his left leg buckled, and he caught himself hard against the railing, one of the duffel bags thumping to the ground. The pain was so fierce he could feel it in his teeth, and his muscles had gone watery weak.

Red turned around, worry notching her brows, hands already reaching out.

“Nah,” he huffed, and knew his smile was more of a grimace. It hurt sofucking bad. “Just tripped.”

“Liar,” she said, and made it sound like an endearment.

Rooster bit down on the inside of his cheek until he tasted blood, bent at the waist, and snagged the fallen duffel. Almost there, almost there, almost there. His mantra for the last five years. Almost to the truck, almost to the room, almost to the next town. Almost done running.

When he fumbled the key card with shaking fingers, Red picked it up and unlocked the door to their room. From behind, he watched her shoulders relax as they stepped into the room and he managed to elbow the door shut behind them. Safe for now, away from eyes. She felt all those almosts, too.

Rooster secured the safety bar, and let their bags drop to the peach carpet. For a moment there, on that last step, he’d thought he might go down in the stairwell and not make it this far. But he had, and a standard double room with vertical blinds, an Ikea TV cabinet, and awful floral bedspreads had never looked so wonderful.

Red started fussing with the bedspreads right away, folding them down and peeling back the blankets. She’d watched a60 Minutesspecial about the microscopic dangers found in hotel rooms, and the black light demonstration had left an impression on her, needless to say. “Alright, come lie down,” she said. “And we’ll get you fixed up.” When she smiled at him over her shoulder, he saw the dark circles under her eyes.

He shook his head. “I’m fine. Watch some TV or something. Rest. I’m gonna take a shower.”

She’d let him deflect her up ‘til this point, but had now had enough of the game. She turned around fully to face him, fists settling on her hips. “Rooster.”

“Red,” he shot back. It took every last scrap of self-composure he possessed not to wince as he crouched down and dug a mostly clean shirt and sweats from the bag at his feet. “I wanna clean up first.”

When he stood – with another monumental effort, and an embarrassing grab for the edge of the nearest bed – he found her glaring at him. It was about as threatening as being glared at by a Disney character, but voicing that might get his hair singed.

“You’re hurting,” she accused.

“Five minutes to wash the stink off me, yeah?” And five minutes for her to lie still and recover a little, as best she could.