“These are nailed to saloon doorways in nearly every town west of the halfway bridge,” she says as my eyes read over each word twice. “Those three bodies back in town, hanging from the post office…” She breathes through her nostrils. “They were killed because Theorists thought they might know something. And they leave the bodies as a reminder to everyone else.Talk, or lose your life.”
I remember how Pa refused to tell me why the three people were killed—I sensed he knew more than he was saying. He didn’t want to frighten me, because he probably also knew about the flyer that I hold in my hands. He’d surely seen them before, posted at saloons. He knew what they meant.
“They’re coming for you,” she assures me. “They won’t stop.”
A wave of dizziness crashes against the curves of my skull.They’re looking for me, for anyone who bears a mark.And now… those in the saloon have seen mine.
They will know who I am.
What I am.
“We have to go now,” the girl says, snatching the paper from my hand and quickly refolding it before shoving it back into her pocket. “I saw them knife a man in the alley behind the saloon yesterday. Quick as that, because he refused to say how far east he’s traveled, and if he’s seen anyone with a mark.” She shakes her head, silver studs gleaming along the shape of her ear, and I think of the boy who said he stole boots off a dead body—probably the same one.
My eyes click slowly up to hers. “Why are you helping me?”
She snorts, and I can’t tell if it’s sarcasm, if she’s not actually helping me at all, or if it’s something else. But she shoves a hand againstmy shoulder, nodding out across the plains, the studs along her ear glinting against the rising sun. “If we don’t get out of this heat, it won’t matter anyway. We’ll both be dead.”
The water tower comes into view: a tall, wooden structure casting an insectlike shadow over the desert floor.
But when I bring a hand over my eyes, I see that there are other shadows too—human figures standing like stunted trees around the base of the tower, while others are perched high on the platform that encircles the round, wooden basin.Dozens of them. And although my need for water is sharp and desperate at the base of my throat, my fear is greater, and I slow my pace as we approach.
I think of the poster, the offer of a reward, and I wonder if this girl is leading me into a trap. I believed I was in danger in Fort Bell, that this girl with a feral glint in her eyes was helping me escape, but what if I got it wrong, and she has just brought me somewhere far worse? What if she only saved me so she can hand me over and collect the reward herself?
There is nowhere to run. My fingers fidget at my sides and my gaze darts across the darkened faces of those gathered around the water tower—trying to see if there is greed in their eyes, spite and hate. Or sympathy.
But they are too concealed in shadow.
The girl walks ahead of me, her stride swift and agile, as if we haven’t just trekked all night into day, as if she isn’t feeling the pain in her feet or the dry air in her throat like I am.
Sweat drips down my temples, my spine, and I squint at the facesahead of us as they come into view. Our arrival is no surprise—the human forms at the tower saw us coming a good distance off—and when we’re within a couple yards, I can feel the sharpening of their eyes on us, the shifting of their stances like they’re ready for a fight.
I’m an outsider; I don’t belong here. And I also might be prey.
“Who the hell is this?” someone shouts, and my eyes flash to a thin, lanky boy stepping out from the shadow of the tower, wearing a gray bandanna tied across his forehead, and a row of tiny hollowed-out seeds suspended from a string around his neck. He looks like the others—coated in a film of reddish dust, their eyes like white pebbles. Most wear hats or strips of fabric tied around their heads to shield the sun. None of them is much older than me, eighteen or nineteen at most, with the youngest around ten. And all of them have a knife or a makeshift blade strapped at their waists, fingers twitching.
“Found her in the Buffalo,” the girl says, scanning the group. I try to read her tone, determine if she is still my ally, or if she has brought me to the doorstep of hungry wolves. But she won’t look at me, won’t even give me a gentle nod to reassure me that everything will be okay. My heart ratchets up into my throat.I’m on my own.
“And look,” the girl adds, holding out the bottle of dark liquor, spinning it in her hand so the liquid swirls up the sides. The faces of the group change, eyebrows raised, and she hands it to a girl with long, dark braids and a ring through the center of her nose, who takes a drink, winces, then passes it to the shorter, muscular boy beside her. Even the youngest in the group take sips, smiles peeling wide across their faces.
“How’d you get a whole bottle?” the braided-hair girl asks.
“She traded for it.” The girl—who could be my ally, could be myenemy—claps me hard on the shoulder, as if to convince the group that I’m okay. That I’mone of them. But I know I’m very much not. Everything about this feels wrong: the dryness in my throat, the throbbing at my temples from lack of sleep, the deep painful thirst, and the eyes of so many watching me. Untrusting. I’ve never felt so far from home.
Above us, three figures begin climbing down the wood ladder of the tower. I try to make out their faces once they reach the ground, but the sun is in my eyes, hot against my forehead.Thirst, thirst, thirstscreams at me.
Before they’ve come into view, one of them says, “It’s her. She traded with me for a bottle of tonic.”
I blink, sweat flicking from my eyelashes, and at last I make out the young boy from the market—the boy who ran off when I asked about the Architect. He’s among this group.
“Why’d you bring her here?” another voice asks, words deep and unsettling, like flood water roaring through the valley after it rains. I squint, trying to see him through the blinding sunlight, and when he steps forward through the shaft of golden light, his features come into view—dark-as-night hair swept to one side, eyes lidded against the slanted sun, skin a warm copper. But there is no warmth in his gaze; he is hard-jawed and severe, surveying me coldly, his green, river-deep eyes sliding from my face down to my boots, calculating if I’m a risk—when it’smyheart beating out of my chest, ready to run, ready to fight. Knowing how quickly this could change.
His eyes skip back to the girl standing next to me, jawline tugging downward, waiting for an explanation.
“You said to find her,” the girl answers, lifting both of her dark eyebrows.
Find me?What are they talking about?
“Yes, but not to bring her here.”
