“Trade secret.” He swung the knapsack onto his back and headed for the door.
“Wait, are you going back to the Feral Zone?”
“What’s it to you?”
“Can I follow you?”
He swung around, surprised. “No, you can’t follow me.”
“I won’t get in your way.”
“Looking at you gets in my way.”
I wrinkled my nose. He was making no sense at all. But I had a feeling I knew how to speak his language. “I’ll pay you to take me to Moline.”
His eyes narrowed with interest. “Pay me how?”
“How much do you want?”
“How much of what?”
Was he being dense on purpose or along with those scars had he taken a few too many blows to the head? “How much money do you want for escorting me to Moline?”
“Money?” His grin softened the precise angles of his face. “That’s good. Silky, the only thing I can do with paper money is burn it or wipe my —”
“Got it,” I said quickly. “You don’t need money.”
“What’ve you got to barter?”
I pulled off my father’s bag and peered inside. “A flashlight, matches —”
“How about a sleeping bag?” he interrupted.
I slumped. Of course, something like a sleeping bag would be valuable in his world. “No.”
“Perfect. Share mine tonight and I’ll take you to Moline in the morning. Deal?”
My lips parted, but words failed me. He wasn’t serious. He couldn’t be. “You’re a pig!”
“Absolutely not.” He extended his arms as if offering himself up for inspection. “I am one hundred percent human.”
“That’s debatable,” said a voice from the doorway.
I turned to see Everson with a gun in his hand. With relief I took a step toward him, only to be jerked backward, hard. A tan forearm stretched across my ribs. The guy’s naked chest was pressed against my back. With a cry, I tried to pry his arm off, but then a cool line touched my throat. His knife.
Everson’s alarm froze me into place. “Rafe, right?” His too-calm tone amped up my panic another notch. It was the pitch I used when trying to soothe a snarling stray. “Let’s talk about this.”
“Jerk, right?” Rafe said, sounding sociable, though his arm tightened across me. “Shut up and get in the closet.” He tilted his head toward a door on the far wall.
Everson might have been taller and broader, but I had no doubt about which of them was more dangerous.
“Let the girl go first.”
“Why?” Rafe asked. “What’s she to you?”
Everson glared at him. “Let her go.” He set his gun on the floor and held up his hands. “And you can walk out of here. I won’t stop you.”
“Heck of a deal. Here’s my counter….” The pressure of the knife against my throat vanished.
Releasing my breath, I started to pull away when a flash of pain seared across my forearm.
“You son of a —” Everson beat a fast path into the closet. Once he was inside, Rafe dragged me over as well. Stumbling, I stared at the blood beading up on my arm.
He’d cut me. With a knife. Who did that?
He flung me against Everson, sending us both sprawling against the shelves at the back of the closet. “She’s all yours,” he said, and slammed the door shut.
Everson leapt up and grabbed the knob just as there was a loud scrape from the other side. The knob turned futilely in his fist. Crouching, I peered under the door and saw two legs of what must have been a leaning chair propped under the knob.
“Have fun, you two,” Rafe mocked, and his footsteps faded away.
8
In the dim glow from my dial, Everson did a quick search of the shelves and tossed me a gauze pad. “Press it to your cut. It’ll slow the bleeding.”
I gingerly did as he said and was rewarded with a throb of pain. Trapped and bleeding. Just when I didn’t have a minute to spare. “Who was that scumbag?”
Everson ran his hands over the wall on either side of the door. “A thief who’s turned Arsenal into his own personal Quickie-mart.” He gave up patting down the wall and crouched beside me. “The light switch must be outside the closet.” He nodded to my arm. “Show me.”
I lifted the bloody wad of gauze and bit back a cry. That savage had sliced a nasty three-inch cut into my arm. What passed for civilized over here? Not eating your neighbor?
“Could be worse.” Everson snagged a bottle of hydrogen peroxide from a shelf.
“That’s comforting,” I grouched. At least my tetanus vaccination was up to date.
“You could’ve gotten knifed in the gut, like the cook’s assistant. His mistake? Walking into the pantry while Rafe was cleaning it out last month.”
Okay, yes, that was worse. But I still wasn’t happy about having an open wound this close to the Feral Zone.
“Can your dial go brighter?” He ripped open a new gauze pad.
I lifted my dial, remembering only then that it had been recording the whole time. This was going to make a heck of a movie — if I survived to edit it. With a tap of my finger, I made the screen glow with emerald light — not as bright as a flashlight, but enough to see by.
Everson crouched next to me where I was sitting against the door — all the other walls were lined with shelves. He gently took my forearm and tilted it. I winced as he poured peroxide over the cut and watched as he neatly wiped away the excess froth with gauze. His movements were steady and efficient as he bent over my arm to bandage it, I’d always thought crew cuts were ugly — still did — but I was tempted to brush my palm over his hair just to see how it felt. Soft or bristly?
He sat back and caught me staring. I tugged my arm away and pretended to try to activate the dial’s call function.
“It won’t work as a phone,” he said, standing to reshelve the supplies. “The patrol jams the signal. We’re not allowed to have dials or cameras — nothing that can record. Actually, I should confiscate that.” He walked toward me, and I clutched the dial protectively. “But lucky for you, I’m only a guard on the outside.” He stepped over me to get to the door.
“What are you on the inside?” I asked.
He started pounding, trying to attract someone’s attention. Guess I wasn’t going to get an answer.
After a while with no results, he gave up. “I brought Jia here so the medics could work on the guy. I left her asleep in one of the empty beds.” He shoved a hand through his hair. “I need to get her to the orphan camp before someone finds her and sends her back across the bridge.”
“Is she okay? Not … grupped?”
He sank down beside me, his shoulder brushing mine. “She tested clean. So did the man, according to the medic. But it might be too late for him. He lost a lot of blood.”
And here I’d been feeling resentful about the passing time. Yes, every hour mattered if my dad was going to escape execution, but for the man who’d been mauled, minutes meant the difference between life and death. The air in the closet suddenly tasted stale.
I tugged down my sleeve to cover the bandage, even though I was starting to feel sweaty. “How come we know nothing about what’s going on over here?”
“Titan makes sure of it.” He leaned back, one leg outstretched, not seeming to care that we were trapped in a cramped closet together. “All of our communication is monitored — radio calls, letters. And those are just to other bases. We’re not allowed to talk to civilians while we’re stationed east of the wall.” He glanced at me, a hint of a smile on his lips. “So, I’m incurring some serious infractions right now.”