“New Bethlehem?” Lemon heard her say.
“We can do this,” Grimm insisted. “You and me, Deez.”
Diesel looked down at Fix’s body. Pulled her hand away from Grimm’s.
“Let them burn.”
“You think he’d want that?” Grimm asked, desperation in his voice. “He spent his whole life fixing things. Making them whole again. He grew this place. He made it green. No way he’d want to burn it all black.”
The girl looked at the garden around them, new tears welling in her eyes.
“It’s not fair,” she whispered.
“I know, Deez. But I can’t manage this alone.” Grimm sucked his lip, placed his hand on her shoulder and squeezed. “I drive like an old man who took lessons from an old lady, r-remember?”
Despite her pain, Diesel managed a small smile. A tiny chuckle. Tears spilled over her lashes, running black down her face to gather on her lips.
“Can you even do this?” she murmured.
“No bloody idea,” he shrugged. “But if I mess it up, at least you get to have that cake.”
He held out his hand to her.
“Us freaks gotta stick together.”
She looked into his eyes.
“Please, Diesel.”
Diesel looked over Grimm’s shoulder at Lemon. Bloodstained and battered. The girls looked into each other’s eyes, and Lemon could see the pain there, the grief they both shared. Diesel seemed older somehow, tempered in the fire and remade harder. Stronger.
“I never fully grasped how deeply your brain was buried in your crotch, Grimmy,” she said.
And with a small sad smile, she took his hand.
With a wince of pain, Grimm hauled Diesel to her feet, a delirious grin all over his face. And without another breath wasted, the pair were running. Back through the greenhouse, past a baffled Lemon Fresh, their boots pounding hard on the metal as they dashed up the stairs.
“Where you going?” she shouted.
“New Bethlehem!” Grimm cried.
“…What?”
Lemon followed them through Section A, barreling upstairs all the way to the desert floor, alarms blaring all the while. Grimm had run down to the garage, returning with a full jerry can of juice under his good arm. He started refilling Trucky McTruckface, dark eyes on the western skies.
“So what’s the plan, genius?”
“We get to New Bethlehem before the missile does.” Grimm winced, pawing his bruised and aching chest. “And when it pops, deflect the blast.”
“…Are you insane?”
“Clearly,” Diesel muttered.
“The explosion is gonna be mostly energy,” Grimm said, resealing the fuel tank. “Thermal, kinetic, sonic. Radiant energy, love. That’s where I live, remember?”
Lemon couldn’t believe what she was hearing.
“Have you ever redirected anything close to this?”
He blinked at her, his expression incredulous. “What do you bloody reckon?”
Lemon shook her head. “Okay, so presuming you don’t just get fried to a crisp by the blast, that missile flies way faster than we can drive. By the time we get there, New Bethlehem is going to be a smoking hole in the ground!”
“Nah, love,” the boy grinned. “We got Diesel power.”
Lemon dragged her bedraggled bangs out of her face, looked Grimm square in the eye. He was filmed with sweat, bruised and gasping and spattered with blood. But his expression was fierce. His mind made up. It seemed the worst kind of plan, but true cert, she surely couldn’t think of a better one. And every second she spent trying to was another second wasted. And so she nodded, marched around to the rear door and tried to climb in.
“Where you going?” Grimm asked.
“Us freaks gotta stick together,” she said, making a leap for the foot rail.
“Shorty, you can’t come with us,” Diesel said. “There’s no point.”
“You’re not leaving me here!” Lemon snapped.
“Damn right we are.” Grimm took her arm, looked her in the eye. “Look, if this doesn’t work, me and Deez are brown bread. Simple as that. And your power won’t be any use. There’s nothing you can do to help us, so there’s no sense putting you in danger.”
“This is my fault, Grimm! I unlocked that hatchway, I help—”
“You just stopped six missiles from blowing the whole country to hell!” he shouted. “We don’t have time for guilt, and I don’t have time to argue! But…since I’m probably about to get blown to handsome little pieces…”
Lemon opened her mouth to object, Grimm grabbed her waist. And before she could speak, he pulled her in and smothered her protest with a kiss.
Her first instinct was to clock him right in the mouth, to knock him all the way out of his shoes. But he held her tight, his big arms lifting her almost off the ground, and any urge to punch him just melted away. Instead, she threw her arms around his neck and leaned into it, kissing him back as hard as she could.
His lips were warm and pillow-soft. His muscles taut beneath her fingertips. The rush of it, the feel of him, the taste of him, it made her head spin. She kissed him fiercely. She kissed him desperately. She kissed him like it was the first time, and probably the last. And Grimm kissed her back.
He kissed her like he really, truly meant it.
Diesel leaned on the horn, thumped her fist on the dash.
“Let’s go, loverboy!”
Grimm broke away from Lemon’s mouth, leaving her swaying and utterly breathless. She looked up into his big pretty eyes and realized she couldn’t feel her feet. There was so much she wanted to say. So much she wanted to do. And there was no time for any of it.
“See ya, love,” he winked.
Grimm leapt up into the driver’s seat. Kicking the ignition, he planted his foot, and the truck tore into the open desert, speeding northwest toward New Bethlehem.
Lemon watched them peel out, and she still had no idea how they expected to make the trip. New Bethlehem was hundreds of kilometers away, there was no chance they’d make it all the way to the coast before that missile. But as she watched through the shattered rear window, she saw Diesel hold out her hands. In the distance, so far across the wastes it was just a tiny, hazy smudge, Lemon saw a colorless rift open in the air, maybe three meters off the ground. And as the girl’s mouth dropped open, as she realized the full insanity of Grimm’s plan, another tear opened up right in front of the truck.