“It is her, isn’t it?” Jawbone whispered. She could still see it, I guess. Beneath the filth, the grace still present. That same poise that danced above the forest, a hundred footsteps high.
“Harvest,” I called, turning to face him. “These women should come with us now. Part of the trade.”
Harvest just laughed. A drawn, cruel sound. Not a drop of humor in it. “Trade?” the man said, sealing the cell door shut behind us. “What trade?”
“Wait.” Jawbone spun and clutched at the bars. “What the hell are you doing?” she yelled. “Let us out.”
“Sorry, Captain,” Harvest said, shaking his head like he really meant it. “Time’s up. Last orders. I’m cashing my chips in. All of them. I’ll be taking everything.” He bared his teeth, smiling in the dark. “And everyone.”
Jawbone stood at the cell door, fingers clamped on the bars like she might snap them in two. I watched her through the murk, studied the straight edge of her back, the blond hair matted tight on her skull. And I knew there was not an ounce in her that could give up. It was killing her, I reckoned. Her people were in danger and there was not a damn thing she could do about it.
Zee was still trembling against me. Hina still cowered at the wall. Footsteps echoed down the walkway as Harvest disappeared, but then all trace of the man was gone, swallowed by the moan of the prisoners and the coughs of despair.
“I thought you were dead,” Zee whispered against me. Her chest was wheezing worse than ever. “They said they killed you. In the tent.”
“Where’s Crow?” I asked her. “Frost?”
“Crow’s here, I think. Somewhere. Frost bartered us all away.”
“He traded you up?”
“We’d just reached the corn. I tried to run. Into the fields.” She punched at her chest as she started coughing.
“Where’s Harvest taking you?”
“We don’t know,” Zee said, her voice cracking.
“He’s taking them to be sold,” Jawbone said from her vigil at the cell door. “It doesn’t matter where.”
“Did you go back to the house?” Zee said through the tight sound in her chest.
“Yeah. I went back there.”
“I told Sal I’d take care of him.”
“He’s here.”
“He’s okay?”
“Not for long.” I peered back at Zee’s mother again. The woman my father had loved. I had questions for her. But no time now to ask them.
“Banyan,” Zee whispered. “I heard they run a meat trade. In the Electric City.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I heard it.”
These folk were too scrawny, I told myself. But then I reckoned they could be fattened up if they got stuffed full of Superfood. Didn’t make sense with what the Rasta had told me — the trees, the boat across the ocean. But none of that made much sense, either.
I pulled myself loose of Zee but she followed me to the cell door. “What do you think his next move is?” I said to Jawbone.
“Depends how big his army is.”
“So what’s the plan?”
She smiled a little, her eyes gleaming in the dull green light. “The plan’s the same as it’s always been,” she said. “Since old Harvest parked his ship too close to my city.”
Jawbone pulled off her soggy boots and plucked a string of wires from inside them, spilling her wares across the floor.
Explosives. Whole reel of them.
“Hope you’re ready for a fight, tree builder,” Jawbone said, staring at me. “We’re going to gut the bastard from the inside out.”
Zee gathered up the rest of the people in the cell, shuffling them tight to the far wall as I helped Jawbone set a small pack of plastics on the door.
“You know how big this’ll blow?” I asked, watching her hands working a short fuse, her fingers full of fury.
“Big enough,” she said. “The rest we slap on a live fuel line. Then I suggest you get above deck, fast as your friends can move.”
“What about the other folk? The rest of the prisoners?”
“You want to waste time down here, go ahead. I’ll be trying to save the rest of my people. Alpha included.” She let her eyes linger on me a moment longer, watching to see what I was going to do. But there was no way she could read me. Because I had no idea my damn self.
Jawbone reached down the front of her pants and retrieved a gold lighter. She flicked the thing open and waved it at the fuse.
“Ready?”
I backed up. Stumbled and fell. Then I rolled over and leapt to the back wall, the crazy girl with the bombs coming right on behind me.
I heard the blast an instant before I felt it. And when I did feel it, the shock wave lifted me off my feet and hurled me at the wall. I crashed into steel. Choked on smoke. The heat scorched my throat and I crouched there with my eyes watering.
I staggered up and bent forward as the smoke lifted. I screamed for Jawbone. But she was already gone.
Out on the walkway I peered through the patches of smoke, panic setting in as I realized I’d no idea which direction Jawbone had headed. I called her name again, loud as I could, but other voices had risen up now, and the screams all joined together.
I sprinted back into the cell, grabbing Zee and her mother, suddenly furious with their lack of speed. But then I saw Zee’s face. She was choking up, and each time she coughed a little splatter of blood sprayed on her hands and dripped down her chin.
“Listen,” I said, trying to get her to breathe. “They got this room full of books in this city. We get out of here and you can just sit there and read each one.” She blinked at me, wiping the blood off her fingers.
“Makes you feel better,” I said. “Remember?”
I turned to Hina. “You gotta run.” I pointed in the direction Harvest had disappeared. “At the end of the walkway there’s a ladder. Go up. Far as you can.”
“What are you going to do?” Zee said, her mother pushing her forward.
“I’ll be right behind you,” I lied. “Start running.”
I watched them for a moment. Then I turned and bolted down the corridor, heading deeper into the hull.
I slammed at the cell doors as I ran alongside them. But it was useless, each one was padlocked shut. My best guess of our location made me figure any sort of fuel lines would be at this end of the transport. And I knew if I thought the juice was this way, then Jawbone would be betting the same thing.
I’d no idea what I’d do if I caught her. No plan. No options left. But there had to be a better way. A better answer than letting all these lost souls disintegrate in the bowels of this horrible ship.
Hands reached through the bars at me, swiping and clutching. Voices begged me to stop.
“Jawbone,” I screamed, like the name had torn its way outside me. And for a moment I saw her. But then she was just blowing right through me, sprinting back down the walkway as I sprawled on the floor.
She turned and called back, never losing her pace. “It’s too late,” she yelled. “I found a hot spot. Run with me.”
“Better do what the lady tells you, little man.”
I spun around at the voice. Crow’s voice.
He reached through the bars and gripped my neck in his hand, dragging me to my feet and pulling me close.
I stared into the cell and the whites of his eyes. I studied his beard, his dreads, limp now, all matted with filth.
Crow grinned his glittery teeth through the blackness. “You get out of here, little man, you catch up to Frost, you say hello to him for me.”