“You don’t understand the business.”
“I understand it very well.” She still drank her tea cupped in both hands, like they did in Ras Tieg. “I would rather stay here.”
“You have to go, Inaya. Please.”
“Just as I had to come here?”
“Why do you say things like that? You could have crossed that border without any trouble. You chose to do it the hard way.”
Her face reddened. Taite flinched but pushed on. “When was the last time you saw a midwife?” he said.
“With what money?”
Taite pulled out the notes Nyx had given him before she left and another buck besides, which he’d meant to deliver sometime earlier. “That’s for the midwife. I can move you tonight and get the rest of the money to you tomorrow before we leave.”
“Leave?”
“We have a safe house in Aludra with Nyx’s friend Husayn. It’s an old boxing gym on Shalome, a couple blocks down from Portage,” he said.
“Aludra? Are you mad? That city is even closer to the border than Punjai. You’ll be overrun or killed by some burst.”
“And in Ras Tieg we could have been killed on the street for being shifter sympathizers.”
“I sympathized with no one,” she said.
The self-hate was so strong, so deliberate, that Taite felt as if she had slapped them both. He said nothing, only stared back.
She let her gaze drop suddenly, and he saw her face redden again. Humility this time. She looked at a tapestry on the far wall—a bright, detailed portrayal of a courtyard garden in Ras Tieg. There was more water in Ras Tieg. More green things, deadlier things. Nasheen and Chenja had only prospered once they’d blighted the world and rebuilt it. Ras Tieg was still wild, water-rich, and dangerous. But she would never forgive him for bringing her to the desert.
“We need to go,” he said. “Khos has the bakkie parked a couple blocks away. He’s waiting. Just bring what you need.”
“I’m not going anywhere with that… man,” Inaya said, “and I will not share rooms with whores.”
“I’m sure you won’t.” Taite stood and held out his hand to help her up. What would his father have said? “We need to go.”
She struggled up without taking his hand, using the makeshift table for leverage.
Taite waited at the window while she packed her things. The light inside was dim, and there was some light on the street, so he had a view. He saw no one outside.
He heard Inaya bumbling around in the kitchen. “Can you hurry? Do you need help?”
“I don’t need your help,” she said.
She had never needed his help. When his parents smuggled him into Nasheen, she was in the middle of getting married, her own attempted escape into anonymity as attacks on shifters and sympathizers grew worse. But when her husband died, an old man already when they married, Inaya lost her protection. She was a widow, and in Ras Tieg it meant she belonged, once again, to her shifter-sympathizing father. It made her a fair target.
“I did everything correctly,” she yelled at him from the kitchen. He stayed at the window, did not reply. “I don’t need anyone’s help! I was a patriot. I was safe there, Taitie. I was a good woman, a proper woman. I covered my hair. I did not talk to other men. I went to church four times a week. I prayed for him. I was a good wife.”
He heard her continue to bang around, now in the bedroom. She gave a strangled sob, and the sound cut at his gut, but he did not dare go to her. Let her alone, he thought. She will push you away.
“You need to hurry,” he said.
She stepped out of the bedroom wearing her housecoat over her skirt and blouse, and had put on a hijab. She had carpet bags in both hands. Her face was red, but she had wiped her tears away. She stopped at the little figure of Mhari, saint of women scorned, that sat in the niche outside the kitchen. After going through the prayer rote, she bagged the statue of the saint as well.
Taite took one of the bags from her before she could protest, and headed down the stairs. He listened to her plod behind him.
Outside, they walked quickly. Inaya was stubborn and kept pace with him. She was breathing hard, and he slowed down. A couple of women hung out under the awnings of their buildings. A solitary dog trotted across the street.
Khos was still waiting in the bakkie. He’d slid down into his seat and pulled his burnous over his head.
“Hello, Inaya,” he said.
“I’d prefer a quiet drive,” she said without looking at him. “Where’s your regular bakkie?”
“I’m borrowing a friend’s,” Khos said. He opened up the door from the inside and then started the bakkie. “Get in. There’s too many dogs out tonight.”
Inaya got into the back. Taite put the second bag in next to her, and sat in the front.
“Let’s go,” Taite said.
Khos turned into the street. A swarm of red beetles pooled across their path. A dog barked.
Taite looked back at Inaya, but in the dim light of the street, her face was unreadable.
16
An hour out of Punjai, Nyx hit a hastily erected security checkpoint. She slowed the bakkie and rolled down the window. The bakkie hiccupped and belched, and she caught the rabid stink of coagulant. There was another leak somewhere.
A couple of women carrying acid rifles stood in front of the barricade across the road. There were half a dozen military vehicles on the other side of the barricade, and as Nyx got closer, she saw that they were directing traffic away from Punjai. Nyx was a little drunk and sen-numb, so the whole convoy had the fuzzy half reality of a dream. She’d bought whiskey and sen at the mechanic’s in Jameela before she got on the road again, and she hadn’t been sober since.
She stopped, and one of the women leaned toward the bakkie. Nyx looked out past her, to the stir of figures around the military vehicles. They were men. Nasheenian men. Not old men or boys, but men in their prime, dressed in organic field gear and carrying standard-issue rifles and flame throwers on their backs. She had a jarring flash of memory—men all coming apart, bubbling flesh, melted field gear.
“We’re redirecting through Basra, matron,” the woman soldier said.
“What’s going on?” Nyx asked. She tore her look from the men.
“We have a breach in Punjai. Minor skirmish. Should be cleaned up in half a day.”
“What’s the threat level?” Nyx asked.
The woman narrowed her eyes.
“I spent time in Bahreha,” Nyx said. “I laid the mines that took out Lower Azda.”
The soldier shrugged and looked blank, and Nyx realized all that had been a decade ago. A lifetime, in terms of the war. Thousands had died since then. Bigger cities had been contaminated or overrun or blown up. You’re an old woman, Nyx thought.
“A couple of bursts contaminated the southern half of the city, and a small terrorist unit got through. Nothing serious. We’ll have it cleaned up, matron. Go on toward Basra. We’ve cleared the road through to there.”
The southern half of the city. Nowhere near the Chenjan quarter, which meant her storefront might be safe. Had her team gotten out before the quarantine? Fucking hell.
“Thanks,” Nyx said. She looked again toward the men on the other side of the barricade. “You take care of the boys for me.”
“Yes, matron,” the soldier said. “We always do.”
Nyx turned the bakkie down the temporary sticky-graveled road that the military had put down to bypass Punjai. Punjai under quarantine would buy her time. Anybody—even a bel dame—would have a tough time getting into Punjai, and once in, would have a tougher time wading through the chaos of contaminated quarantined quarters. If her team had gotten out, they might have bought enough time to regroup in Aludra and bolt the fuck off to Chenja without any bel dame knowing the wiser.