Only the lead wagon is marked in any way—a pale flag with the symbol of some type of instrument stitched onto its face. A hammer perhaps, or a pick. The flag flaps too much for me to be sure.
Loyalists meet the convoy just before the Backbone, and the wagons roll beneath the lowest canopies, disappearing from view.
A shadow falls over me. “Weed,” the guard barks.
I’m too parched to argue, and after standing upright for so long, dropping to all fours is a relief. I return to my work, considering how a soul can end up broken, with or without drugged water.
* * *
I’m in a bad place by late afternoon. My vision swims, and even moving my basket of weeds leaves me winded. I should have had some of the water, maybe just a sip. I can’t help my pack if I’m dead, and that’s where I’m driving myself.
I glance up, praying to find the water wagon nearby. Instead I see a familiar face on the dirt road.
I squint, certain the heat is playing tricks on me, but the figure remains unchanged. Dark hair and broad shoulders and a slight limp in his step from a broken ankle that never healed right. Flint. I blink several times. It’s him. The problem is he’s wearing the Loyalist garb—black from head to toe. He’s even carrying a rifle. In all the years I’ve known him, he’s rolled into Dead River to trade with nothing but a pair of Old World knives and a slingshot.
I bolt to my feet and am running before the shock of such movement registers with my body. I nearly wipe out a couple of rows from where I was weeding, but I manage to keep my feet beneath me. A guard shouts for me to stop, but I’m already bursting onto the dirt path.
Flint starts at my sudden appearance. His weapon comes up, and he freezes when he recognizes me.
“What the hell is this?” I say, grabbing his dark shirt and balling it in my fist. “My pack . . . Flint, my pack is here and you’re . . . how are you . . .”
“That won’t be necessary,” he says, his gaze drifting over my shoulder, and I can only imagine that the guard who’d been chasing me has a weapon aimed at my back. If I turn to check, I fear I might pass out. Skies, if I let go of Flint’s shirt, I might pass out.
“Delta,” he says, eyeing me up and down. “You look awful. Have you had anything to drink?”
I squeeze the cloth harder. “You’re a Loyalist?”
He shrugs in the indifferent way he’s always had about him. Flint was never much of a talker.
I drop his shirt in disgust. “What happened to trading?”
“It got too hard. Barely scraping by. Always a day away from starving. Running tonics and meds for settlements instead of seeing to myself. I went where things were better.”
“But you never mentioned this place. Not once. How long have you known about it?”
He swallows and looks up. This has always been his tell: a gaze skyward instead of at me meant he was lying, or at least withholding. He’s known for ages. He’s kept it from me, from the pack.
“You rusted-up, scudding—”
“I couldn’t tell you,” he blurts out. “I was trying to protect you, but things got hard. I found myself in a bad place, and it was this or work even worse than trading.” He glances at the fields.
“They killed Old Fang, Astra, and Cobel. Did they tell you that when you joined? They abducted our entire pack!”
“I know.”
“Abducted, Flint! Forced to work these fields and—”
“I KNOW!”
I freeze. He’s looking away again, refusing to make eye contact. “I made the deal I had to make,” he mutters.
In the span of a blink, I’m reliving the night we rolled beneath the stars on the outskirts of camp. I’d been straddling him, and his hands had roamed, slipping beneath the hem of my shirt. “What’s that?” he’d asked when his fingers grazed the scars.
“Nothing,” I’d said.
His hands climbed. “They’re everywhere.”
“Shut up, or we don’t do this.” I grabbed his hands and moved them to my front. I kept the shirt on, but we fell asleep after, and when I stirred, he was already awake, making a fire.
I stagger away from him now, unable to believe it. He saw my back, must have looked when I was asleep. He knows what happened to our Dead River pack because he’s the one who pointed out the way for the General. I don’t know what led him to be cornered by the Loyalists, but when faced with working the fields—a life even more demanding than trading—he spilled my secret, spoke of scars that could be a map.
I made the deal I had to make.
They came looking for me at Dead River because he betrayed our entire pack.
“You bastard.” I swing a fist, but I’m so sluggish and heat-sick that he easily dodges the blow. I crumple to my knees, bracing my palms against the dirt. Something hard connects with my torso, and I roll onto my side, wheezing.
“Dammit. I said I had things under control,” Flint snaps.
“She attacked you,” the other guard says.
“And I dodged it. You didn’t have to kick her.”
“Can’t let field varmint openly attack a Loyalist without punishment. It sets a bad example.”
“The others are so ilked-up they don’t notice anything but the coming and going of the drink wagon. She’ll be the same by tomorrow. Let it go.”
There’s a creak, and a shadow rolls over me. “You lot are in the way,” a new voice says.
I get an elbow beneath me. Lift my head. The convoy is back, and the lead wagon has stopped just paces from where I lie on the ground. The dark-skinned driver at the reins nods in my direction. “Well, are you gonna move her?”
“Drive over her if she doesn’t move herself,” the guard says. “Come on, Flint.”
And Flint goes. Doesn’t even argue. The traitorous ass turns his back and leaves me in the dirt, dizzy and weak. What Indie once said about lying with a person—how it makes you blind to their faults—rattles in my ears. Was I really that naive? Flint never talked much, and I had to get him blitzed before he ever shared anything useful, but he wasn’t always this awful person. He was just private, quiet. He wasn’t trying to hurt anyone.
He was selfish and always has been, my brain hisses. You had to get him blitzed because he was keeping secrets. He didn’t want you to know the way to Zuly’s Ark, because then you could go for meds on your own. He wasn’t eager to tell you about the inverted well, because then you wouldn’t be tied to Dead River. Anything that might have made you independent and erased the need for a trader, he kept secret until you pushed and begged for him to share it. He was always protecting himself, right until the moment he told the Loyalists about your brand.
I shake my head, and the world streaks white. I think I’m going to be sick.
“Get out of the way, girl,” the driver calls.
I try to stand but everything goes sideways. Dirt scratches my cheek. Running to confront Flint has left me empty. I’m not sure I could sit even if I want to.
A pair of leather boots enters my vision. Next thing I know, someone is slapping my cheek. “Hey, girl. Come back. That’s it. Open your eyes.”
The driver comes into focus slowly. Deep brown skin and hair cut close to her scalp. A woman. I hadn’t noticed that at first, but the height of her cheekbones and the smooth slope of her neck give it away. One of her eyes is hidden behind a patch. The other sweeps over me, honey-brown and wide.