Loose gravel sprinkled the side of the hill, not the optimal climbing surface. They crawled more than walked, the tumbling stones similar to the roar of an avalanche in the pre-dawn quiet. Dan had one hand wrapped around Al’s arm, the other flat against the hil for balance. The gravel slid down the mound like a landslide.

They were so exposed, wide open and awaiting an attack.

“Easy, feel out your foothold. No rush,” the big guy instructed Ali in a low voice, which was good advice. The problem was, they needed to haul ass, clear the area as fast as possible.

Finn scrambled to the top of the mound, checking every direction and seeing nothing. That did nothing to appease the itch between his shoulder blades.

Time seemed to slow down to a deliberate, painful crawl while he watched them make their way up the incline. He wanted to grab her and run the minute she hit the top. Get her somewhere safe and never let her out again. Lock her up for her own protection.

The world was too dangerous. He couldn’t keep her safe this way.

“Let’s go,” Finn said.

Dan appeared solid enough with a gun back in his hands, and Ali was managing. Just. What parts of her not bruised or dirty were white as a ghost. She panted from the crawl up the incline.

Up ahead, the coal train looked like a giant hand had picked it up and draped it across the bridge. Two cars, one on each side, sat in the muddy water below, as if they were toes, testing the temperature. The fenced-in walkway beside the tracks would have been a dead end after all.

The other two hadn’t seen it yet. There was no excuse, he was plain tired, and telling them versus waiting the minute or two at most that it would take …

“Oh, no …” Ali saw it.

Daniel groaned.

“They’re going to try to trap us up here.” Daniel drew Ali in front of him with a hand to her hip. “No wonder they let us get this far.”

“So where are they?” she asked, sneaking around the big guy’s side, as far as his grip al owed.

“There’s got to be a way around.” Finn flashed them a smile, more teeth and determination than goodwill. He was feeling a little feral, all things given. “It’l slow us down, not stop us. How about we not accommodate them by standing around?”

Daniel ushered Ali on, fingers fixed around her arm. “Solid notion.”

As the sun rose, long shadows crept out from everywhere – the trees lining the riverbank, the houses up and down the street. Color faded into shadows, providing plenty of cover for both sides.

Their feet shuffled along the tracks, which were cluttered with coal spil ed and scattered from the train wreck. The wreck they were heading straight toward. The same one they somehow had to magic their way past. Their only option lay beneath the iron beast.

Maybe they should have tried the river. But with its swift current and so much debris in the water, the bridge had seemed the safer option.

Finn tried to look everywhere at once, but the shadows and smoke prevented him from seeing much at al , which meant stumbling every other step. From the trickle of warm liquid down his back, he knew his shoulder had started bleeding. He could feel the wet bandage against the open wound. It was just another irritation to ignore.

The ass**les were out there. He knew it. His head quieted, the whole world shutting up, shutting down as he went to work. His mind took on a clarity he couldn’t explain.

Finn caught the flare of light on the edge of his field of vision as the bottle arced through the air. It struck the chain wire fence separating pedestrians from trains and then fell toward the bridge. Two, three meters away at most.

The Molotov dropped, smashed against the wooden boards of the walkway far too near to them. It lit up the old planks like tinder, the flames burning bright, hot and close. The stench of the petrol filled his head and clogged his throat, making him gag.

“Go! Get to the train!” Finn yelled, turning to watch at least two of the bastards struggle up the side of the hill not far from where they had just come.

Daniel hustled Al along, keeping her between them. They were only halfway across the bridge. A solid head start but no cause for celebrations yet. They still needed to slide beneath the wreck and escape into the maze of housing estates on the other side.

Another two of the cocktails made their graceful descent. These ones cleared the fence to smash onto the train track, one of them exploding a bare few steps in front of Ali and Dan. It went up with a loud

“whoosh”, black smoke rising into the air. They used it for

cover even though it slowed them down.

Ali pulled her arm out of the big guy’s grasp and ducked down, gun in hand, searching behind them. Finn ground his teeth. Two of the bastards were trying to follow in their footsteps by climbing up onto the tracks, but someone was also back on the riverbank.

“Don’t stop!” Finn fired a few shots at the top of the mound, forcing the two bastards to keep their heads down. “Al!”

She either ignored him or didn’t hear, pausing to fire off a few rounds at the trees. Her bruised face the picture of concentration, but her shots going wild because her aim was shit.

They might have ideally wanted her alive, but even these dickheads had their limits. Someone shot at her from the bank.

“Fuck’s sake.” Finn sprinted for her, heart jammed in his throat. He jumped boxes and rubbish and the thick steel train lines. He didn’t turn at the smash of glass behind him, nor the rush of warmth from the resulting fireball, hot on his tail, warming his back.