Page 20 of Flames and Blood

“You can ask.”

“That’s not the same as an answer.”

“No,” he agrees, “it isn’t.”

“So, is there a list that you work from? What you can tell me and what you can’t?”

“Why not ask, and find out?”

He isn’t playing with me. He’s telling me the rules once, so I don’t spend the whole day finding them out.

“Fine. Are we going north?”

“We’re going up.”

“Up isn’t a direction.”

“It’s all I’m giving you.”

I sink back against the wall and blow a loose hair off my face. I give my wrist a tiny twist and feel the cuff move a fraction.

More minutes drag by before I start again.

“What’s the weather like up there?”

“Cold.”

“Do I get a coat?”

“There’ll be a coat waiting for you.”

“Will it be a heavy coat?”

“It’ll be a coat.”

Sometime past midday, the younger one takes a bottle of water from the kit at his feet, cracks the seal in front of me so I can see it break, and sets it on the bench just close enough for me to reach. Then he sits back.

Neither of them comes any closer than that. Not once.

“You could hand it to me,” I say.

“He could,” the older one says.

“But he won’t.”

“No.”

I drink it. It isn’t kindness. It’s the same as the good food and the medic looking me over. Somebody’s paid for me to stay healthy.

“Do I get lunch, or is that also a question you can’t answer?”

“You get lunch.”

“What is it?”

“Chicken and rice.”

I let my head go back against the wall. “Look at that. Two facts in one day.”