“Yeah,” I murmur, my pace quickening. “That’s you.”
Each step pulls me further into the Deadlands, the heat pressing harder, the air thinner, but I don’t slow, because the pattern holds, because the signs are there, because nothing about this reads like a body that stopped.
“She’s alive,” I say, the certainty settling into my chest as something sharper replaces the tension.
Not hope.
Not guesswork.
Recognition.
Because Jolie doesn’t go down easy.
Because she doesn’t stop moving.
Because I know exactly what it looks like when she refuses to stay where she’s put.
The wind shifts, carrying dust across my face as I follow the trail deeper, my focus narrowing until everything else fades out.
CHAPTER 23
JOLIE
The desert does not wait for me to recover, and the realization settles into my body the same way the heat does—immediate, suffocating, and impossible to ignore. The sun presses down in relentless waves that burn through my uniform and into my skin, while the ground beneath me radiates its own stored heat back upward, trapping me between two sources of punishment that do not let up. Every breath I pull in drags dry and sharp across my throat, thick with dust that clings to my tongue and teeth, and the constant hiss of wind moving sand across the surface fills my ears with a sound that never fully fades, like the environment itself is trying to wear me down piece by piece.
I force my eyes open wider despite the sting of the light, and the world swims slightly at the edges before snapping back into focus in jagged clarity that feels almost too sharp to process. My arm trembles as I try to push myself upright, but the breath has been so completely blown from my body on impact that I’m not immediately able to move. I clamp my jaw hard enough to feel it ache, forcing the sound back down as sensation ripples outward, leaving a lingering burn that follows new oxygen making even the smallest movement feel deliberate and costly.
“Yeah,” I rasp, the words scraping out of a throat that feels like it has been stripped raw. “That’s not great, but you’re not staying here.”
I roll instead of forcing myself straight up, letting momentum carry me onto my side as the sand grinds against my shoulder and arm, its heat seeping instantly through the fabric. I lie there just long enough to get control of my breathing before I drag one knee under me, then the other, my hands sinking slightly into the unstable surface as I push up into a crouch. The horizon tilts hard enough that I throw a hand out to steady myself, fingers digging into the sand as dizziness claws at the edges of my vision, threatening to pull me back down if I let it take hold.
“Easy,” I mutter, squeezing my eyes shut for a second before forcing them open again as the world steadies in slow increments. “You don’t get to fall apart yet.”
The wind shifts and drives a hotter gust across my face, stinging against cuts I had not even registered until now, and I turn my head slightly, blinking through the distortion as I force myself to focus outward. The horizon stretches endlessly in every direction, broken only by heat shimmer that bends distance into something unreliable and deceptive, and for a moment the scale of it presses in heavier than the pain itself.
Then I look back.
The wreckage cuts across the sand behind me in a scattered line of dark metal and debris, each piece catching the light differently as it sits half-buried or exposed, some still faintly smoking while others lie silent and already being reclaimed by the wind. The sight anchors something in me, giving shape to what would otherwise be endless emptiness, and I shift my weight forward with renewed intent.
“Good,” I murmur, pushing myself to my feet even as my balance wavers. “That means you’ve got something to work with, so stop standing here and use it.”
The first step lands unevenly, my weight shifting wrong as pain flares down my side and into my leg, and I stagger forward before catching myself with a sharp inhale that burns going in. My breathing turns rougher, uneven, but I force each step into something controlled as I angle toward the largest section of wreckage, the sand dragging at my boots and making every movement cost more than it should.
“You can fall later,” I mutter under my breath as I keep moving, my voice tightening with each step. “You move now, and you deal with everything else when you’re not in the middle of nowhere.”
By the time I reach the first piece, my vision has narrowed slightly, the edges dimming in a way I do not like, and I drop to one knee beside the debris with careful, deliberate movement. The metal radiates heat when I touch it, even through my glove, and I pull my hand back instinctively before forcing myself to grip it again and shift it aside, scanning for anything intact.
“Come on,” I mutter, working through the debris with controlled urgency. “Give me something useful, because I really don’t have time to improvise without it.”
A compartment door hangs twisted nearby, its latch damaged but not completely broken, and I drag myself toward it, my movements slower now as I fight the drag of exhaustion starting to creep in. I wrench it open the rest of the way, the metal groaning as it gives, and lean in to search.
A pack sits wedged inside.
My breath catches—not relief exactly, but recognition of what that means for survival—and I pull it free with shaking hands, dropping it into the sand in front of me as I tear it open.
“Yeah,” I say, digging through the contents quickly. “That’s what I needed, so don’t screw it up now.”
The fabric is scorched along one edge but intact enough, and I move through it with increasing urgency, pulling out water, rations, and a compact med kit that immediately becomes priority.
