Nick might have asked, but they didn’t make a habit of loaning out the walkies; they were used for security purposes. Not so that some kid with a fucking death wish could make a run by themselves. “Idiot,” she muttered under her breath. “He should have never let it out.” But she wasn’t going to start a fucking fight with a teenager. There were depths even she wouldn’t stoop to.
“So you’re not going to freeze up,” Bea phrased it as a statement, but it was really more of a question. Not a demand though, even if she would have liked to have made it one.
As good as Nick was at hiding her nerves, Bea could still see some of it poking through the resolve. Part of her identified, but only a small part. It had been so long since she’d actually allowed herself any measurable level of fear when she was out looting. Fear made you stupid and she couldn’t afford that. There still was, and probably always would be, a soft thrum of uncertainty whenever she was out, but not the bone-chilling fear of the world. Why be afraid of shit you couldn’t change?
She hated being out in the open, and the street was definitely out in the open. Maybe it came back to the Leaper attack in December; she was always going to be looking over her shoulder making sure something wasn’t going to jump from a rooftop, but Nick was true to her word and kept up with the pace once Bea started to sprint the last block to the truck.
“There,” she pointed, taking a second to pause and give Nick a sightline of the truck. “It’s unlocked.” In case the girl got there before Bea. Which could be a very real possibility since there were a few Shufflers making their way from the left about ten feet in front of the pickup. Damnit. Bea still wasn’t a great long-range shot, but if she got close enough she could get a couple of them. Maybe the rest with her knife, so she could keep the noise to a minimum.
“If you go around that way they won’t notice you,” she pointed out to the far right where the sidewalk was blocked by a burned out moving van. “I’ll be right behind you,” soon as I dispatch these fuckers, she didn’t add. No reason to freak Nick out more than she probably already was.