By the time Lionel and Jesse made it far enough south to recognize the smoke in the distance as Detroit, Lionel was sure she was dead. Didn't stop him. He didn't want to believe in anything but the anger that he felt close to his heart, having lost his one chance. Didn't really see a point in existing, if he couldn't have her beside him. And he still didn't have the guts to blow his brains out.
Jesse tried to drag more information out of him, about what had happened. Lionel felt the radiation in his bones, making him move quicker, making his head pound with hate. He wasn't afraid. He was mad, like she had said, and he felt the sting of the Royce's intolerance against him. He was mad at the kid, too.
They camped in a small hollow between a couple of rocks, under the smoke-tinged sky.
"I have been alive for a long time," he told the kid. "I do not give up."
"I believe you, man," Jesse told him. "But I don't see this ending well for anyone."
"No," Lionel said, "it will not." The kid ducked his head at the words, like they were daggers flung at his head. There was a moment of silence, before Jesse popped a knuckle in the dark and snickered.
"You're just gonna go in, guns―gun―blazing?" Jesse asked, with a smile. It took Lionel a lot of willpower not to smack the kid upside the head. "Why?" the kid added, quieter.
He was surprisingly optimistic in his response. " 'If you love someone deeply enough, anything is possible.' "
"That... is ridiculous," Jesse said.
"I know," Lionel shrugged. "Saw it in a movie, once. Point remains proven."
The kid stared at him with a slightly open mouth, dumbfounded. Lionel ignored it for a minute, then picked up a dead branch and pushed it under the kid's chin to shut his mouth. "That's really how it is?" Jesse asked him. "We're about to try to assault a city of maybe five hundred or more people, and you're quoting about love?"
"Kid, I don't know how it is." Lionel tossed away the stick. "I know it's gonna hurt like hell, though."
"More than being shot four times, chewed up by ants, a roof falling on you, and a crowbar in your gut?"
"Hell, kid," he said, "that wasn't pain."
Jesse raised an eyebrow at the ghoul. No, Lionel thought, real pain was hearing her needing me, crying out for me, and not being able to do a goddamn thing about it. He clenched his jaw. "Every last motherfucker," he muttered to himself.
"I don't fault your reasoning," Jesse said. "But we really need a plan. I mean, I'm just a punk kid from Northern Michigan, and you're―"
"I'm what?" he asked the kid, edgily.
"An old, one-armed ghoul with a death wish?" Jesse said, cautiously. "We're gonna need big-time smarts to go up against Paramount, at any rate."
"Suppose you know how to get information," Lionel said, looking pointedly at the kid, "since you're a bounty hunter."
Jesse shrugged and leaned back on a rock. "I only really know how to talk to people."
"That makes one of us."
"Well, shit." The kid looked up at the sky and hesitated. "I guess we could hit up locals for gossip, maybe test the waters..."
"You could," Lionel said. "I would just get us killed."
"...But that'll fuck up your schedule of running in like a damn fool," Jesse finished.
"If she isn't dead by now, she's not going to be," Lionel said, dully. He cracked his neck and felt a strange pop in the muscle on his bad shoulder.
"How do you know?" Jesse asked.
"Because," the ghoul rumbled, "if you didn't kill her right away, and you had her enslaved, what would you do with her?" He might not believe any more, but Lionel hoped to God she was dead, in this moment.
A second passed before the kid shot straight up, his boots thudding on the rock. "Holy shit, man!"
Lionel let the sick feeling fall to the bottom of his stomach and rest there. "You're quick enough, kid."
"Whoa, but―" Jesse frowned. "Man, I've heard some horror stories about Detroit, but―"
Lionel stood and pushed the kid back down onto the rock. "We're on the same page," he said. "Don't move. I need to talk to a man about a mule."
"What?" Jesse was simultaneously confused and concerned.
"Damn, kid, let me take a piss," Lionel rumbled. "Stay here."
The area around Detroit was dead. Very little had survived the bombs, even in the suburbs, and the ground was barren earth. Dry trees stood haphazardly, leaning to the left and right, but Lionel found a rock to lean on. It never got any easier, but his bladder didn't seem to care.
The sky was coated in the black clouds of industrial soot, and puddles of irradiated water were everywhere. He'd already warned Jesse off of them, something he ought to have done for her, back before St. James. A stupid plan, he thought, but something had come of it. He shut his his eyes to her memory, trying to keep her both in his mind and out of his head. Didn't need a black rain dream with her in it. He tried to remember what day his birthday was, but all that came to mind was the year he'd gotten so fucked-up drunk he'd cracked his skull off the deck of his houseboat.
That had been a good year. He'd met Dolly, that year.
Lionel laughed at himself for the thought. Lost one, gained one, lost one, and already thinking about another lady. He looked down and regretted it. Dolly was long dead, much like certain parts of him that didn't need to be thought about.
Lionel looked up at the sky and knew she was dead. A bruised portion of his ego refused to believe it. He was the knight on the white horse, here, bustling in to save the day. The hero untying the lady from the train tracks. Though, in that case, he knew he needed to watch out for the train he was entirely likely to throw himself under.
Besides, if she was dead, what the hell was he waiting for?
"More than two shakes and it's playing with it," someone said behind him, and he turned. "Might fall off, rotgut."
Lionel spat blood onto the ground, dark and hot, like the landscape. He grinned at Landis, in front of him, and raised his fist. The first one's always free, he thought.
Landis had spiked knuckles on his hands. He stared at the ghoul with a hateful look, and moved to the left, feinting. Lionel knew better, went right, grabbed his hand and squeezed. Landis groaned, but stood, yet. A bit of respect for the fucking bigot went through him.
"Where is she?" Landis asked, in a fury. "I went to the town, and they said they was all taken!"
"Hmph!" Lionel grunted, and pushed back against the man. Landis punched out and hit him in the jaw, knocking him sideways but not off-balance, and swept out a leg, trying to take him down. Lionel twisted the man's hand, hearing the cracking of the tiny hand bones. He pushed Landis down onto the ground, in pain. Jesse rounded the hill at the sound of a fight, and came to a stop nearby.
"What's this shit?" he asked, looking at Lionel.
"Oh, for fuck's sake," Landis muttered, and punched repeatedly at Lionel's wrist. He released the man and booted him firmly under the jaw, knocking him up and backwards.
"Told you not to move, kid," he growled at Jesse.
"Shit, that's Cameron Landis!" Jesse moved into the fight. "Break it up!"
Mildly annoyed, but still riding the high that came from fighting, Lionel grabbed the kid by his hair and held his head up, looking at him intently. "I finish fights," he said.
"Yeah," Jesse said, "but we need the nasty bastard, man!"
Landis got up, wiping his chin of the blood that flowed freely, and held up his fists. "Come on, shuffler," he said, setting his feet. "Let's go."
Lionel threw Jesse at him, and followed up with a swift punch to the side of the head, knocking Landis out entirely. He stood, breathing heavy, fist clenched, and looked down at the two. "Why?" he asked Jesse.
The kid stood and rubbed the arm where he'd landed on the other, grumbling. "He's been to Detroit before, right?" Lionel shrugged. "Alright, maybe he knows his way around better than us. He's got a better reason than you to get in there and find Celia."
This time, Lionel did not let his morality stop him, and smashed the kid in the eye. Jesse swore something inventive, something Jen would say, and dropped. He stopped himself, feeling the blood draining from his head, the rage subsiding.
"You have a point," he said, and offered Jesse a hand up from the ground. "But don't fucking assume."
Landis moved slowly, and the two stared down at him. "He's gonna be hurting tonight," Jesse said, and winced, poking the raised flesh around his eye. "Man, how'd you get to be so damn tough?"
Lionel rolled his arm in the socket and pulled Landis up off the ground, staring at the wrinkled old man with a hard eye. "Meets it, beats it," he said, and dragged him off to the hollow in the rocks where they were camping.