Getting away from Nux had been harder than Warbird intitially thought it would be, but as soon as she told Slit that they should go out near Bullet Farm to do some raiding, he was in his car and out of the citadel without a second thought, leaving her to hobble around on her own. Scuttle, the war pup, tried to join her at one point, but she shouted at the others to get him some food and he was quickly distracted.
She had chosen the right day to sneak off. Everyone else was out on raids, and Joe and his sons were nowhere to be seen, leaving Warbird to drag herself through the halls. She was beginning to grow numb to the pain in her hip again, and walking was becoming slightly easier than it had been the day before. She slipped toward the vault slowly, sticking to the walls as she made her way to Joe's wives, only stepped out of the shadows when she had reached the heavy door and dragged herself inside.
The biodome surprised Warbird just as much this time as it had the last. A large part of her wished that she lived there, but the rest of her knew that she should never dream for something with such vile undertones. She also sometimes wished that she had been the one assigned to the wives instead of Furiosa, but she was content with taking care of war boys instead of breeders. She could only sit and listen to Miss Giddy for so long before the itch to blow things up returned.
Furiosa appeared to help Warbird as she entered the vault and the wives all looked up from the circle they sat in. "Thank you for coming," Furiosa whispered. "I can't do this without you."
Warbird shrugged and nodded. "You've made me start seeing a few things the way you do lately, I guess."
"Warbird, come sit here," Angharad said, moving slightly to the side and patting the ground between herself and Cheedo. "Furiosa was just starting to explain the rig."
As Warbird complied and took her spot, Furiosa picked up where she had left off before the new arrival. "It's going to be cramped, but it's extremely important that you stay put. If Ace sees you, everything is over."
"Ace?" Warbird frowned. "He was assigned?"
Furiosa nodded. "I had no say. If I spoke up, it would seem suspicious. I shouldn't be picky about who goes with me on routine supply runs. There's nothing I can do about it."
"Why does it matter?" Cheedo asked. "He's just a war boy."
Warbird's nostrils flared. "He's a friend."
"Why?" The Dag asked haughtily. "Cheedo's right. He's just a war boy. It's not like there's a shortage of them. They're all the same anyways."
"They are not."
"Are too."
"Well, I think all breeders are the same." Warbird snapped, anger rolling off her in waves.
"That's enough," Furiosa said sternly. "We need to focus. We can't stay here much longer and we need to get this figured out."
Warbird and The Dag both huffed. They couldn't understand each other.
"The rig holds enough water and mother's milk to last the trip, and we'll be fine on guzzoline as long as the pod is full. We're going to need food, and it's going to have to be rationed."
"We can take care of that," Toast said. "Joe keeps us fed well. He won't notice if we take more than usual."
Furiosa nodded quickly. "Good. The compartment you'll be in is too small to bring much more than yourselves. Don't try to bring anything past trinkets."
Warbird cleared her throat. "If you've got everything figured out, why do you need me here?"
"I need you to make sure the war boys don't get in the way."
"How, exactly?"
"Keep an eye on things. Don't let them get suspicious. If and when Joe decides to pursue us, stop them."
"You expect me to disobey orders?"
"I expect you to help us," Furiosa gritted her teeth. "Like you said you would."
"And I'm going to. But I'm not going to turn on the boys."
"If the time comes-"
"It won't." she snarled. "I'll keep them away from you for as long as possible, but I'm not going to harm them myself." She turned to look at The Dag. "They're people too. They have lives that I refuse to take away."
"Half lives," The Dag muttered.
"Stop it," Furiosa snapped. "Warbird, can we trust you?"
The Dag cut in before she could answer. "I don't think so. She's one of them."
"But she's gone to all this trouble to be here," Capable said.
"What if she's a spy?" Toast asked quietly.
Furiosa sighed in irritation. "She isn't."
"How do you know?"
"I bet Joe sent her-"
"Dag, that's enough." Angharad interrupted, her gaze harsh. "Don't you see? He's hurt her, just as much as he hurt all of us."
"You don't know that." The Dag grumbled.
Warbird's anger was swelling inside of her again. She couldn't stand all of this. "After my last visit here, Rictus Erectus took me from my room and literally threw me in with the other boys. This is the first day I've walked so far on my own since then." She glared around at all of them, The Dag in particular. "I'm living with the war boys now, just like I did when I was a pup. They've helped me by bringing me food and giving me a place to sleep."
Their expressions were all turning somber, so she decided to keep going. She wanted them to understand, to see what she had gone through for them already. She also wanted someone else to listen, and on some level, she wanted to feel validation. "So if you want me to listen and make sure they don't know anything, I'll do it. If you want me to stall them when they start to go after you, that's fine, too. I'll divert them and confuse them and do what I can, but I'm not going to purposely hurt them in any way."
"But Rictus hurt you," Capable said, her brow furrowing in confusion. "Isn't he a war boy?"
"He's our superior," Furiosa explained. "He carries out direct orders from Joe. Past that, he doesn't do much."
"How did he hurt you so badly?" Cheedo asked. "Do you need anything? We have some books on medicine…"
Warbird's anger was starting to subside again. "Bad hip. My mother…when I was living among the Wretched, she beat me if I didn't fetch enough water. She kicked me until I couldn't feel my leg anymore. It never healed." She looked at Cheedo, who was starting to stand to find the books. "It's fine. Organic Mechanic gives me goo to help, but the pain never goes away. When Rictus threw me out of my room, he carried me and dropped me on the stone, and I landed on that side. I have no sympathy for him or his father."
The five wives all nodded slowly, finally in agreement again on whether or not she was trustworthy. The Dag offered her a small apologetic look.
"There." Furiosa said, eager to get back on track. She knew they didn't have much time to spend dawdling in the vault. "That's finished. Let me show you the route we're taking."
They spent the next hour going over the plan, after which Warbird limped out of the vault alone, Furiosa staying behind to leave on her own to minimize any suspicion on the two of them leaving the same part of the Citadel together. Warbird was grateful for such a relatively small role in their escape, and she hoped that everything could go smoothly and the Citadel would be back to semi-normal quickly so that she could fight to have her bed back again. Sleeping on the floor with the boys was killing her back and hips, and she really didn't need the added complications while she healed as much as she could.
What she did need, though, was a nap, and lacking the energy to go outside, she settled for the garage. She got as comfy as she could on top of a scrapped VW and had just closed her eyes when she heard the familiar rumbling of engines and a party of war boys roaring in, towing a rather nice looking car along with them.
"Warbird!" Morsov shouted, running toward her. "Look at it! See it?"
She sat up and rubbed her eyes. "Whose is it?"
"Slit's now, once it's fixed. Came with a blood bag we just brought in. He's absolutely wild, too. Mad. Whoever gets his blood is a lucky bastard."
"I bet," Warbird said absentmindedly. "Did you find anything else good?"
"Some supplies from an abandoned rust bucket. Oh, almost forgot…" he fished around in his pocket and pulled out a small bird skull. "Found this today." He held it out to her and she took it, running her thumb over the sharp beak.
"Thank you," she said. "Where was it?"
"Some dried up bushes by a few rocks. Nothing exciting. Figured it's a crow that got lost or something." He shrugged and turned to leave. "By the way, Nux wanted me to tell you he won't be back tonight."
"What? Why?" she was surprised by the small panicky feeling growing in her chest.
"Him'n Slit are staying in Bullet Farm. They'll be back sometime tomorrow. If you need help with anything, let me know and I'll be there as fast as I can."
With that, ironically enough, he left her alone with the skull. "So much for helping," she mumbled as she careful put the ex-bird in her pocket. She wished she had a better place to keep it, but she knew she couldn't go back to her old room without Rictus somehow sensing it and coming to hurt her again. She had so many things left in that room that he had probably gone through and broken by now.
She heard a small shuffling noise and looked down to see Scuttle standing there, staring up at her with those wide eyes. "Why'd he give you a present?" he asked in his tiny voice.
Warbird smiled a little and patted the spot on the car next to her. "The boys like bringing me presents," she said as he climbed up to sit. "And I like getting them."
"How do they know what to give you?"
"I figure they just grab whatever little things they see and can fit in their pockets."
"Wow," Scuttle breathed.
Warbird's smile widened. He was so fascinated by something so simple.
"Can I bring you a present?"
"I suppose if you find something you can, but you don't have to. I've got more than enough things to be happy." She found herself debating those words as she said them. She definitely enjoyed receiving gifts. She liked hoarding her trinkets and skulls and rocks.
"I want to," he said, nodding eagerly.
"Then I won't stop you."
They were quiet for a bit, watching boys run back and forth with tools as they worked on the cars. A few of them had started trying to make modifications to the new car, and at one point, they called Warbird over to take a look at it.
"What d'you think?" a polecat named Dent asked. "Gotta work on the wells if we're putting on better tires, don't you think?"
She nodded, doing her best to walk around and survey the car while she held Scuttle's hand and he went with her, wincing at the sparks flying as the boys worked. "What the hell did you do to this? It's going to take hours to bash back into shape."
Dent grinned. "Guess it went for a little roll. Think we should add another supercharger?"
"Stacked, yeah," she answered, doing her best to peer at the car's undercarriage. "Not really in bad shape, though. It was the blood bag's?"
A repair boy shoved his welding mask up. "That's what they said. Must've been somebody important to get this kinda car."
"Too bad Slit's taking it," Dent mumbled. "I would've taken it in a second."
"And stopped being a polecat?" Warbird asked as she continued walking. "Are you even a good driver?"
"I am!" he huffed.
She snorted in amusement and stopped to look inside the car. "Looks like he was living out of it. Or at least I would've if I was him."
"I'd live anywhere if I could have this car," Dent said, stopping next to her. "I'd name it something good, too. Something better than whatever Slit's going to come up with."
"If you say so."
"I would!"
"You can prove it when you get your own car."
He grumbled a few choice words that Scuttle probably shouldn't have heard and skulked off to grab some bolt cutters, mumbling the entire way as he went. Warbird looked over the car one last time and nodded in approval before deciding it was about time to be getting Scuttle to sleep. She hadn't played den mother in a while, and part of her was very content to be taking care of another pup.
"Your clay is wearing off," she commented as she limped to the sleeping room.
He scowled. "So's yours!"
"That's because I don't wear as much as you're supposed to," she led him over to the large basin in the corner where they always kept a small amount of clay. The big clay pit was outside, of course, but the boys liked to keep some nearby, just in case. She leaned on the basin's side and scooped some of the soft white clay out, working it in her hands for a moment before she attacked Scuttle with it, rubbing it all over his torso despite his protests.
"Why don't you wear it?"
"I do, just not very much. I'm allowed to wear less because I'm an imperator." She paused to wonder about that. No one had told her that she wasn't anymore, but then again she hadn't exactly seen anyone who ranked much higher than her. "You, however, need to be covered head to toe so that you have a better chance."
"At what?"
"Going to a good job. You have to look your best."
"You're lying," he accused.
"I am not," she said, faking astonishment at the idea. She was definitely lying, but he didn't need to know that. "I'm completely serious."
Her lie worked and he sat much stiller for her until he was blindingly white again and she let him go, wiping the remaining clay on her own face to get rid of it. "All right, time for bed."
"What? No!" he whined as she stood up straight again and started limping away to where her blankets were waiting. "It isn't even dark out I bet!"
"You don't know that," she said as she laid down clumsily.
"But I bet it is!"
"Then why don't you go check?" she said tiredly, already feeling sleep in her head.
She heard him make a little huff before running off, and the next thing she knew, she was dozing off and was eventually trapped in a heavy slumber, despite the hard ground and cold air.