Page 19 of Flames and Blood

Kent is standing at my truck with his gear. Meyer’s beside him with his arms folded and his bag on the ground at his feet. Whoever turned Meyer caught him in his forties and left him there. Heavy brows, a nose broken and badly set, gray coming through the stubble, and a way of standing still that most men never learn.

“Faine said we’re expected back,” the kid says. “Not ordered.”

“She did.”

“So we’re coming with you.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yes.” He picks his bag up off the tailgate. “Where are we going?”

I don’t ask them again, and I don’t talk them out of it.

The phone buzzes twice more in my pocket on the walk to the remaining vehicle. I don’t answer either time. The Guild taught me that one. If I never take the call, nobody’s told me to stop.

I’m not planning to stop.

Chapter 5

Kalli

This compartment has windows. Narrow, high, meshed on the outside. The light comes through the mesh in a grid and lies across my cuffed hands. When the road bends, the grid slides over my knuckles and back. It shows up a tiny seam in the cuff on my left wrist.

It also shows me what a year has done. My hands are thinner than they were. There’s a red rope of hair down my front that hasn’t been cut or brushed in weeks, and when I push it back off my shoulder it’s heavier than it should be, and it smells of the van. My mother used to have it pinned every morning by a woman whose whole job was to take care of my hair. She’d have something to say about it now.

I keep looking at the cuff. Small thing. But it keeps me occupied.

Two men sit across from me. A cup of coffee gone cold in the corner. They haven’t said anything since we got on the road.

Last time they moved me in the dark, and I had to work everything out by ear or fingertips. This time I can see the whole compartment. It hasn’t helped.

I watch them anyway. There’s nothing else in here to watch.

The one on the left is older. Gray at the temples. A wedding ring. Boots that have been resoled, and the work was done well. The one on the right is younger. He sits without moving at all, and he’s pleased with himself about it.

They check the windows in turn, and they never do it in the same order twice. Somebody trained them.

None of it helps me. And a seam in a cuff is a long way from getting out.

Fine. Then I’ll talk to them.

“Long shift,” I say.

The older one looks straight at me and takes his time about it. He isn’t afraid of me. He isn’t interested in me either.

“It’s a long drive,” he says.

The younger one doesn’t look at all.

“How long?”

“Long.”

“You’re a wonderful conversationalist.”

“I’ve been told.”

I let ten minutes go by, quietly testing the pressure against my wrist. Then: “Can I ask you a question?”