9

"I stopped expecting you to be responsible for me a long time ago," Aria said. "But you're not going to put everyone else in danger."

"Sir, return the medical kit, now," the guard ordered.

Nicholas dropped the holdall at his feet with a sullen thump, but his other hand stayed behind his thigh, curled round a smaller pack.

"He's still got one," Maya said, pointing. "Behind his leg."

"Mind your own business, you little..." Nicholas rounded on her, and Aria stepped between them without stopping to think.

"You won't frighten her into keeping quiet," she said.

The guard plucked the pack out of Nicholas's hand and held it up like evidence. "One more try, and you'll answer for it," he said, and Nicholas glared at Aria but did not move. Several of the survivors watched him with new, narrow eyes.

Inside, the driver and guard settled the injured against the walls while Aria knelt beside Mrs Bennett and checked the dressing. "You mustn't put your weight on it, Margaret, the cut needs proper stitching," she said, pressing her fingers either side of the wound.

"You fuss like my Thomas," the old woman murmured, patting her hand.

By the door, the scaled man stood with his back to the room and his gaze on the road, and the dressing round his forearm had gone dark. Aria crossed the tiles to him. "Sit down, let me see it."

"It'll close," he said.

"The dressing's soaked through, and healing fast doesn't make you immune to pain or infection," she said, and she waited until he lowered himself onto an upturned crate. The skin around the gash had knitted, but the flesh beyond it was hot and angry, and she cleaned it with a steady hand. "Hold still. Don't strain it."

"Do you always talk to people as if they're stubborn children?"

"Only when they behave like it."

He smiled, brief and reluctant, and she noticed it and said nothing. She tied off the fresh bandage and sat back on her heels. "Do you have a name, or should I carry on calling you 'you'?"

"Damon."

"Why were you walking about alone, Damon?"

"It's easier."

"Because people are frightened of you?" she asked.

He watched the doorway for a moment. "People have good reasons to be."

"I'm sure they do," she said. "But being dangerous and being cruel aren't the same thing."

He did not answer, and she could not read his face, but the silence between them was less sharp than before.

"Everybody, over here!" the driver called from behind the counter, where he had wrestled the shop radio into hissing life. "The checkpoint's closed to civilian vehicles, they've stopped taking anybody. The route's dead."

A low murmur rolled across the room. Aria looked at the injured and the stacked supplies, and the dark glass behind them, and she turned back to Damon. "We can't stay here, but we can't walk blindly into the dark either."

"I know another place," Damon said, rising slowly. "I won't promise it's safe."

"Why should we follow a man who looks like one of them?" Nicholas demanded.

"You don't have to trust him blindly," Aria said, looking round at the faces. "But you could listen to the only person who's got us this far alive."

Damon turned toward her. "You should be careful who you trust," he said.

"I already learned what happens when I trust the wrong person," Aria replied, and she did not look at Nicholas, though she heard him shift.

A metallic crash boomed from the rear of the building.

Everyone swung round, and the driver went grey. "That door was locked, I checked it myself."

Damon strode toward the corridor, but Aria caught his uninjured arm. "Don't rush in while you're still bleeding."

He glanced down at her hand, then up into her eyes, and the second crash shook dust from the ceiling. A deep, rattling growl followed, and the storage door began to bend inward on its hinges.

"The one we killed was not the only one," Damon said, and he moved in front of the group with his amber eyes fixed on the buckling steel. "Whatever's behind that door, the first one was the easy part."