“So where are they?”
“That’s the question. I’m asking you to keep your eyes and ears open. And be careful.”
“Careful?” Lucy’s voice rose. “Who’s to say they didn’t let them walk out of here on account of them being men? Last thing we need is more mouths to feed.”
Lynn raised an eyebrow, an accusatory black line tented in the moonlight. “We?”
“Yes,” Lucy spat. “We. There’s no reason to think any harm was done to them, any more than’s been done to us.”
“Yeah,” Lynn said quietly, the word coming out harsh and ragged. “And what has been done to us?”
Tears sprouted in Lucy’s eyes, all the more painful for having been absent for so long. “Get out of here before I wake up Nora,” she said. “And don’t ask me to look for something to fight in every shadow that crosses the path. I don’t want to live like you.”
Lynn watched Lucy for a moment before rising, her renewed health evident in the hard lines of her body as she stood. “I didn’t want to live like me either, little one,” she said. And then she was gone.
Ben was at her door early the next morning, a fresh bundle of flags gripped to his chest.
“Really?” Lucy picked sleep from her eye as she stood in the doorway. “I thought today was the Let’s-Show-How-Smart-Ben-Is Day.”
“Oh, it is,” he said. “But work before pleasure, Dad says. Get dressed, he’s picking us up when everything is ready.” Lucy dressed quickly, and as the two of them marched out of the city she heard Lynn’s bullets flying overhead and wondered if the ghostly conversation from the night before had only been a dream. The sun soon burned away thoughts of anything except water, and Lucy’s stick pointed sure and true, as if her own limbs were suddenly clear of confusion.
“You’re confident today,” Ben said as he placed a flag.
“I feel good,” Lucy admitted. “It helps.”
“You haven’t felt good before?”
“I was… unsure.”
“What changed?”
Lucy didn’t answer for a moment, thinking of Lynn’s stealthy conversation in the night, the heavy words weighted with dread. Whether it’d been a dream or not, it had solidified in Lucy that she didn’t want to live in fear and suspicion. Lander and Nora would never be Stebbs and Vera. But her affection for them would grow, and she would let it.
“Hello? Water monkey?”
“You, however, I will never like,” Lucy said aloud.
Ben shrugged. “Like me, not like me, whatever. After today you’ll respect me.”
Lucy ignored him, switching her stick over the dry dust in front of her. When the sound of the car engine cut through the air hours later, Lucy realized how lost in her own reverie she had been. Ben’s arms were empty, the sterile desert behind them populated by waving blue flags.
“Well done,” he said. “I’ve not seen you that involved before.”
The car pulled to a stop in front of them, sending a spray of dust into Lucy’s eyes. She shaded her face to see Lander emerging from behind the wheel, his shadow far outreaching either of theirs.
“Lucy.” He smiled at her, casting an arm behind them at the expansive waste littered with flags. “You worked hard today.”
“I did,” she said cautiously, still unsure of his smile.
“How about a break? Ben said you’ve made a decision to stay, and Nora agrees you’re ready to understand the importance of what you do for us here.”
“I couldn’t ever not understand the importance of water,” Lucy said as she slid into the backseat. “Whether it’s some I’ve found or not.”
“Maybe not,” Lander said as he drove, “but Ben thinks you should know exactly what’s at stake.”
Lucy thought of the endless desert, her tongue so swollen it stuck to the dry roof of her mouth, Lynn falling in her tracks and unable to rise. “I know what’s at stake.”
“Just enjoy the ride then, and you’ll see when we get there,” Lander said, his good nature uninhibited by the tartness of her response.
They crossed over the highway, the car bouncing as it made the transition from sand to asphalt and back to sand. Lucy took her backpack off and set it next to her on the seat, rummaging for the bottle of water. It tasted bad as ever, but she forced it down, determined that someday she would forget the cool sweetness of water from her own pond and be thankful for what she had.
A flash caught her eye on the horizon, and Lucy realized they were heading toward the same spot she had noticed weeks before, drawn to her attention by a similar wink of light.
“Where we going?”
“You’ll see,” Ben said, his tone all the more lofty with his father nearby. Lucy rolled her eyes and took another swig of water, resting her head against the back of the seat.
When the car stopped, Lander came around and opened the door for her, offering his hand. She left the cool of the car for the blast of heat from the desert, and Lander’s forearm was suddenly tight around her waist, pulling her back into him and pressing her lungs flat. His other arm snuck around her chest, pining her arms to her side and crushing every inch of her body against his. Lucy gulped hot air into her lungs, feeling as if Lander’s body were taking over hers, enveloping her tiny skeleton into his frame and making it his own.
“I’m going to turn you around in a moment,” he whispered into her ear, his voice low and thready. “And when I do you’ll understand how badly I need those flags to be in the right places. Are you ready?”
She nodded slowly, aware that he was fully capable of snapping her in half. He turned her and she saw what they had dragged her out into the desert for.
A huge plane of glass hung suspended from crudely formed metal beams, their angles awkward and imprecise. The glass was a patchwork mess of different shapes and thicknesses. Lucy spotted tinted car windows, broken pieces of mirror, and even a riot of color where a stained-glass window from a church had been soldered in, all forming an uneven surface that swayed from the unsteady poles. The baking sun’s rays bent and refracted through its twisted surface to glisten off the red meat that lay underneath, cooking in the heat of the day. Lucy lay limp against Lander’s chest, confused.
Until she saw the finger among the red mess.
She bucked wildly against him and Lander clamped down harder, squeezing the last breath of air from her lungs, the words she would’ve screamed dying in her throat.
“Listen to him,” Lander said. “Ben wants to show you how it works.”
Ben nearly pranced in front of her. “I made this,” he said proudly. “Well, I drew the plans for it anyway. I can’t actually lift things, you know.”
Lucy gasped and slid to the ground as her oxygen ran out and Lander went down with her, lessening his grip so she could breathe.
“Tell him it’s nice,” Lander said. “He wants you to be proud of him.”
“What is it?” Lucy managed to ask, and Ben lit up at her interest.
“It’s quite simple really. There’s another pane of glass underneath that mess. Heat from the sun bounces in between both of the surfaces. Once it’s hot enough, the moisture starts to evaporate. And then—check this out, it’s the best part… .”
He walked to the edge of the suspended pane, his thin arms shaking as he pressed down on the edge. It tilted with a groan of metal that perversely reminded Lucy of a teeter-totter Lynn had shown her in an abandoned park. Accumulated beads of pink water slid to the edge, where they dripped into waiting buckets.
“Moisture?”
“Yeah.” Ben grabbed one of the buckets and brought it over to Lucy, grandly depositing it in front of her to look into. “The human body is over eighty percent water. I found a way to get some of it out.”