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  “It’s all right.” She squeezes his shoulder awkwardly. “Let me be with her a little, and then you can bring the cog girl in.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he says. “Sorry.”

  As she lifts the tent flap and ducks inside, I catch a brief glimpse of Eden. She lies on a sawhorse table in the center of the space, her mud-streaked hair gathered over her shoulder, her arms stiff at her sides.

  The flap falls and I turn away. Is that what Ellison looks like now? And Danica and Will and Marco? Are they still lying in that field beside our overturned truck, watering the ground with their blood? Or has someone come along and carried them off, zipped them safe in the black cocoon of a body bag? My throat burns. A strangled sobbing sound escapes me before I even know it’s coming.

  Alder narrows his eyes. “You’re crying?”

  I swallow and wipe at my cheeks furiously. I don’t answer.

  Alder’s eyes snap wide and his Adam’s apple bobs in his throat. “You are.” Then he gathers himself and tightens his grip on my arm again. “Good.”

  I let out a bark, something between a laugh and a sob. “You think I’m crying for her?”

  “Who are you crying for, then?”

  I dig my fingernails into my palms. “No one,” I say. Everyone.

  Deacon Ward ducks out of the tent and turns to Alder. “Go gather everyone. Tell them to meet around the fire once they’ve finished unloading the trucks.”

  Alder looks at me. “What about her?”

  “She’ll stay with me.”

  “Are you sure?” Alder shifts his feet. “She’s already run—”

  “Alder.” The Deacon stops him. “You trust me, yes?”

  Alder hesitates. “Of . . . of course.”

  “Then leave her with me. Besides . . .” Deacon Ward fastens her gaze on me. “There’s nowhere for her to go.”

  Something tells me this isn’t like the other times I’ve been left more or less unguarded. There will be no more chances. I step into the tent. Malcolm lies barefoot on another table. He’s been washed and dressed in patched, clean clothes. For a moment, I think he’s only sleeping, except that his chest is so still. Someone—her father, probably—has closed Eden’s eyes, but otherwise her body still bears all the marks of the battlefield. The mud in her hair, the freckling of blood across her lips and pale cheeks, the ragged hole in her neck.

  Silently, Deacon Ward circles her daughter. She picks a wet cloth from the plastic water jug balanced by Eden’s side, wrings it out, and gently wipes the smudges of blood and dirt from her face.

  “I didn’t want to kill her,” I hear myself say, even though my brain is screaming, Shut up, shut up. You’re only making it worse.

  Deacon Ward looks up and raises her eyebrows.

  I swallow. “They attacked us. I didn’t have a choice.”

  The Deacon stares at me until I drop my eyes. Stupid. Even I hear how weak my protests sound. This is her daughter. She doesn’t care who fired first.

  “I’m sorry.” My voice wobbles, and I hate myself for it.

  “That’s war.” Her voice is rough. She finishes wiping Eden’s face clean and begins on her arms. Outside, the scavengers’ shouts echo up the hill as they carry their pillage into the camp.

  “Are you going to kill me?” I ask.

  Deacon Ward doesn’t answer. She holds her daughter’s hand tenderly as she scrubs her fingers.

  “They wanted to earlier, but Alder said you should be the one to decide.”

  The Deacon sighs and drops the wet cloth back into its jug. She leans against the table for a moment, eyes shut tight, and then she opens them again and draws herself up. “You know where our camp is.” She speaks softly as she combs her fingers through Eden’s hair. “And what you did . . .”

  “I told you, I didn’t want—”

  “I know,” she says. “Like I said, that’s war.”

  I can’t look at her, so I keep my eyes on Eden instead.

  The red bandanna is gone from her neck, and in its place hangs a chain with a carved wooden symbol on its end. I’ve noticed some of the other people in the camp wearing it, too. It’s that cross shape I’ve seen beside the road out on eradication duty, the one people sometimes put to mark where somebody died. Those things aren’t official, just something you do if you lose someone, and AgraStar management mostly looks the other way. An uneasy feeling comes over me. I’ve seen Rosalie plant one of those. She would never have done that if she knew it was a scavenger symbol.

  “What did you mean, there’s nowhere for me to go?” I ask.

  “You saw what happened out there. We were trying to blow a door. We didn’t—” She clears her throat and swallows painfully. “Things didn’t go as we planned.”

  “You set off the explosion?” Cold shock races through me. Here is this woman blaming me for taking one life, when she’s good as killed us all, even her own people. I step forward, my voice rising with my anger. “You . . . Do you have any idea how many people spent their lives building that compound? And now you destroy everything, everything, all because you’re too lazy to work a day in your life.”

  “Don’t you dare.” The Deacon grabs me by my collar and pulls me so close I can smell the stench of sweat and gunpowder lingering in her clothes and hair. “Don’t you dare, after what you’ve done, you little cog bitch.”

  Tears prick my eyes. I don’t care anymore that she could order me dead, that she could shoot me herself with the brace of pistols at her hips.

  “What have I done?” My body, my eyes, my throat are all on fire. I’m a column of fury. “What have I done that you haven’t done a thousand times over? This is your fault. Yours.” I spit the final word in her face.

  “I know,” she thunders back at me, eyes sparking. Then pain twists her face. Her voice drops to a rasp, and she lets my shirt go. “We didn’t mean it to happen that way. Those bombs, they were only supposed to be a diversion, so we could raid the distribution warehouse. But we placed them too close to the R and D labs. . . .” She closes her eyes.

  I stand frozen. The air between us hums.

  When the Deacon speaks again, it’s in a whisper, as if she’s talking only to herself. “There must have been something volatile in there. Something that aerosolized. We should have waited instead of rushing in when we heard about the Kingfishers.” She opens her eyes. “You were out in the field when it happened?”

  I nod.

  “Then you saw what it did to the plants.”

  It isn’t a question, but I nod again anyway.

  “Whatever it was, it works the same way on people, but more slowly.” She rubs her throat again, fingers her damp bandanna. “If we hadn’t brought protection for tear gas . . .”

  “But the substations . . .” My own voice croaks.

  Deacon Ward shakes her head. “It’s spreading. By the time we hit the gates, all we saw were bodies.”

  “Spreading,” I echo. “Is it coming this way? Will it reach us here?”

  “I don’t know.” The Deacon smooths the hair from her daughter’s forehead. “Twenty years I’ve lived here. I’ll bury my Eden here. But I think . . . maybe we should go. The land is dead. This place is dead.”

  “You don’t know that.” My eyes tear up again. “AgraStar could fix it. The company can fix anything.” Even if I’m about to die, I feel a sudden, urgent need to know that life will go on as usual, that the world I know will be there without me. I look at her, almost pleading.

  Deacon Ward stares back. I have the disconcerting feeling she’s looking straight through me, though, as if I’m nothing more than a thin sheet of plastic.

  She’s decided something. “Come with me.”

  She grabs my arm and hauls me roughly from the tent, out into the open air. Dawn has come creeping up while we were inside, a breath of dusky rose hanging in the air. The scavengers sit sullen and tired around the fire, where one of the younger boys is tending a pan of cornmeal griddle cakes.

  They look up wh
en they see us. I spot Juna in the crowd, hefting a plastic water bucket. A satisfied smirk lights her face when she sees me. Alder is there, too, silent and watching on the other side of the fire.

  The Deacon marches me forward without a word.

  The strength anger lent me has gone. My vision blurs. She’s going to kill me. She’s taking me out to the woods to kill me and leave my body to rot like Will and Danica and Marco and Ellison. I shake my head to clear my eyes. My wrists are slippery with my own sweat and blood, and I try one last time to twist them free of the zip ties. No luck. It’s all I can do not to trip over the brambles and brome as Deacon Ward leads me into the trees.

  The first eddy of sunrise streams into the forest, lighting the mist before us in gold. The high call of a morning bird echoes in the treetops. A few times I almost think I hear someone following us, but when I glance over my shoulder, I see only trees. No one is coming to save me. The world is dew bright and fresh, and I am going to die.

  The terrain edges up again, and up and up, until we emerge on the lip of an escarpment. Deacon Ward stops before a jut of land anchored by a live oak. Its trunk bends low to the ground to form a natural bench, and then branches out over the drop, into the open air. The sitting oak. This must have been Eden’s place. Below, separated from us by a few acres of forest, the AgraStar compound spreads out its neat circle. But where the bright green fields of corn should be, a sickly grayish-brown stain has taken over. It bleeds out beyond the perimeter fence and touches the forest edge with uneven fingers, like a spreading rash.

  Deacon Ward stands still, regarding the spoiled land below us. Then she turns to me and rolls up her jacket sleeve. “Let me show you something.”

  I tense. This is it. I should run. But there’s nowhere to go.

  “Look.” Deacon Ward holds out her right arm, clenched fist facing up.

  “I don’t see—” I start to say, but then I do.

  Two pale, twin scars mark the inside of her wrist, like a viper bite. I touch my own raw wrist where my data band was. “You were with the company.”

  Deacon Ward nods. The morning sun shines on her face, bringing out its thousand spidery wrinkles and care lines. “I was a biochemist.”

  All the air has gone out of me. “You left?” I always thought scavengers were too lazy to strike a contract with a company, or else people who grew up outside the gates and didn’t know any better. Who in their right mind would leave the comfort and security of the company for this? Who would betray their friends, their contract, leech off their own people?

  “You never heard about anyone doing that?” she asks.

  “No.” I’ve heard of people transferring to other facilities, even rewriting their contracts so they can go from transport duty to sharecropping. But leaving? Terminating a contract? “Never.” I stare at her. Is she lying, trying to trick me, playing some last game with me? She must be, except I don’t see why she would.

  “It happens.” Deacon Ward eases one of her revolvers, an old-fashioned .22, from her belt. She flips open its cylinder and begins slipping tiny rounds into its chambers.

  This is it. I’ve thought about how I’d want to die. Everyone in security forces has. We all tell each other we’d be calm and noble, professionals to the end. Now, standing dirty and bloodied, hands tied, in the clean wash of morning, I can’t stop shaking. I look down and try to focus on the dirt, try to come up with a plan to get me out of this, but I’m like an engine that won’t turn over. None of this feels real. Not the gentle breeze in my hair, not the fresh, wet scent of dew, not the delicate click of Deacon Ward loading her weapon.

  She snaps the cylinder closed and levels a look at me. “Put your back against the tree.”

  “What?”

  She raises the gun and cocks the hammer. “Put your back against the tree.”

  I do as she says. Pine needles cushion my feet and the sun brightens. I grit my teeth and squeeze my eyes closed. The world is fire behind my lids.

  Something tugs at my wrists. I look down. Rope. Deacon Ward is wrapping rope around my already-bound hands.

  “What are you . . .”

  She’s circling my body, circling the tree, finishing each rotation with a slipknot that will only tighten if I struggle. She’s tying me to the tree. Why would she bother doing that if she’s just going to shoot me?

  My training kicks in. Flex your muscles. Make yourself bigger so there will be slack left later, when she’s gone. I arch my back ever so slightly. Bow out my elbows a fraction, enough to give me room, but not enough for her to notice.

  In the valley below, the last of the mist burns away. All that remains of our crops is an uneven band of green near the perimeter fence. Everything is still. It’s another thick, humid, summer day, like any other, though it seems impossible that the sun can still be climbing. It should have stopped when everything else did. As I watch, the edges of the blight creep outward, spreading like a slow-moving stain.

  Deacon Ward ties off the end of the rope and steps back.

  “What are you going to do with me?”

  “Nothing.” Deacon Ward looks out on the fields. “How long can a body survive without water, do you think? Three days? Four?”

  I don’t respond. She and I both know the answer. Not long.

  “Will it be that or the blight, I wonder?” she says. “What will happen if you’re still here when it reaches this tree?”

  I forget myself and struggle against the ropes. The knots tighten.

  Deacon Ward watches me. “I’m sorry I can’t let you go. Maybe you would have seen AgraStar for what it is, with a little more time. But Eden . . .” She looks into my face. Her eyes are dull and dead. “I’m not above revenge. Especially when it’s what my people need.”

  She turns, her footfalls muffled by the carpet of fallen leaves and pine needles.

  Don’t do this. I almost shout after her. But if I beg for mercy, she might give in and shoot me. If I stay silent, at least I have a slim chance of getting away. I stand with my back to the tree, my arms rigid in front of me, watching her disappear. Below me, the blight advances on the edge of the forest.

  .6.

  BRACKEN

  PTERIDIUM AQUILINUM

  The moment the Deacon is out of sight, I relax my arms and shrug one shoulder up, then the other. The first of the knots is near my clavicle. I work my fingers up, against the rope’s rough fibers. My tactics have bought me a few millimeters of space—maybe enough, maybe not. Sweat breaks out under my arms, my breasts, along my neck. The sun hits the tree’s exposed roots.

  A twig snaps in the woods. I stop, holding my breath, listening. Nothing. I inch my fingers up again. The rope scrapes my skin. My hands are wet, and mosquitoes cluster around me. I can’t think about them or the tips of my fingers going numb or how the wetness on my hands is probably blood. I’m going to get out of this. I’m going to survive.

  The sun is above the tree line when I reach the first knot. My stomach rumbles and my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth. One at a time, I tell myself. Stay focused. I pick at the loops, but they’re tight, tight. I close my eyes and bang the back of my head against the tree in frustration. The image of Ellison’s body wells up in my mind—him lying on his back in the rich dirt, the blue sky above, no breath passing his lips. I don’t want him there, out in the open. I don’t want the ants and the weevils crawling over him. He needs to be safe beneath the ground. All of them do—Ellison and Danica and Will and Marco.

  I start again. I am a machine. It doesn’t matter if I rub my fingers raw. It doesn’t matter if my nails split or the ropes cut my skin. All that matters is this one knot. I am going to get free. I’m going to live, and I’m going to bury them.

  One of the loops gives. I pull, and it comes easier, and then it’s loose. The ropes slacken. Instead of millimeters, I have inches. I work over to the next knot. My wrists may still be bound with the zip tie, but I have more latitude to move them, and the second knot comes easier. The sun glares
down at a steep angle. I squint at it. Late morning, maybe 1030 hours. Already the earth is baking. Sweat soaks my clothes. I count back. It’s been at least fifteen hours since I last had water. The blight has sunk its fingers into the forest. Once it reaches me, how long do I have?

  I start on the next knot, and the next. My shoulders are free, and then my elbows and waist. Only my bound wrists are slowing me now.

  The sun is nearly at its zenith and my hands are a bloody mess by the time I untie the last knot. I stumble away from the tree. My head spins. I’m not going to die. I’m not going to spend my last hours watching the fields and forest below me curl with rot and liquefy. A laugh almost escapes me.

  Keep it together, Tempest. First things first. Water. I’m going on seventeen hours now, and the base of my skull has begun to ache. I could make my way back to the compound. There’s a footbridge and a stream somewhere along the way, I think. But that would take an hour, maybe two. I know I can live a few days without water, but how long can I keep moving without it, especially in this heat? I shade my eyes and look out in the direction of the compound. Brown-and-gray patches of dead leaves mottle the forest canopy. The blight is still spreading. Will it infect the stream, too?

  The shirk camp is closer. It’s risky, but I could keep to the woods, circle it, and see if they’re gone. They might have left some water behind. Maybe a knife, too, so I can cut my hands free.

  I move through the trees. Ahead, something small rustles in the undergrowth, but nothing comes at me. No footsteps, no voices, no engines. How long did it take the Deacon to walk me out to the sitting oak? I’m fairly sure I’m going in the right direction, but the world was mostly dark when we started off, and I wasn’t the most calm I’ve ever been.

  And then I’m at the camp. I jump back behind a tree, heart thumping. Very smooth, Torres, blundering right into it. I peer around the side of the trunk. Nothing stirs. The campfires are ash and damp coals. Debris litters the ground—a shirt trampled in the mud, an empty coffee tin, a ripped sack, and a scattering of corn kernels, little flecks of gold in the dirt. I creep out, all my senses alert. A small breeze sways the treetops, but where normally the sound would soothe me, today it reminds me of masked footsteps and poisoned air.