by Talis Jones
“What is that?” he growls. “Where did you get that?”
I look down and see that in my struggling the necklace came free from my shirt gleaming for everyone to see. On the sidelines I see Rat grinning so wide all her pointy teeth are bared. Suddenly all the tricks and betrayals make sense to me. Rat must have convinced Shade to steal the boss’ dead wife’s necklace and give it to me knowing that the boss would see it tonight creating a spectacle of punishment for everyone to see.
“I-I-I found it,” I stammer. My tongue breaks free and bolts for the door leaving me behind drenched in icy panic.
“You little liar,” he hisses with a hint of maniacal laughter. Reaching forwards he yanks the chain from my throat leaving a painful burn where it breaks against the back of my neck. Stepping back he aims his gun at me and I remember quick to send up a prayer.
“Boss, please.” Hero has wedged himself in front of me, hands out and eyes pleading.
I blink and my mouth falls open in surprise. A full grown man now Hero had become one of the boss’ trusted men, a surprising feat, but I didn’t think he’d risk it all for some girl who followed him everywhere like the big brother she never had. Hero was always the nicest but that’s just who he is, he’s nice.
The boss’ left eye twitches and his hand lowers but an inch as he takes in the situation: a filthy weak thief being defended by the golden cowboy of his Corral. “She’s a thief, son.”
“No.” Hero’s voice remains deep and steady despite his desperately shaking head. “No, I stole it. I gave it to her.”
Doubt ripples across the boss’ face but he turns his gaze to me nonetheless. “Is this true, Flinch?”
Words abandon me and even though I try to call them back they won’t come. If I said I’d taken it I would die. If I said Hero took it then we’d both die. And if I said the whole truth we all might die. Maybe we all weren’t real friends but we always stuck together. Besides, in every scenario I’m gonna be dead so why not do it with the least amount of collateral damage, right? Hand over hand I reel back my words dragging them forcefully back into my lungs and I take a deep breath that I know might be my last.
“No, he’s just trying to be a hero. Can’t escape your namesake, right?” I keep my stare strong as steel and fixed upon the boss.
A gunshot rings through the space singing painfully in my ears and I flinch like a fish pulled out of water. “No, I guess you can’t,” he agrees.
I try so hard to keep my eyes up but gravity pulls them down and I nearly collapse at the sight before me. Blood splattered all over my clothes, pooling on the ground, drowning the body of a fallen hero crumpled in the dust.
An overwhelming urge to throw up shakes my bones but I swallow it down and let the tears drown the sight instead. Tears course down my cheeks so thick they threaten to wash my glasses right off my nose. Right then and there I promise myself that I won’t flinch at anything ever again. Nothing was gonna trap me to this place.
“Take her away and give her a change of clothes before she meets her new owner,” the boss instructs and once again big burly arms begin yanking me away but this time I don’t fight them. “Oh, since you’ve already been paid for,” begins the boss. He walks right up until we’re mere inches apart and plucks my glasses from my face, drops them to the dirt and stomps on them with the heel of his boot. “Pick ‘em up,” he barks and for the first time I do not flinch.
Kneeling down I pat the ground before curling my fingers around the twisted frames. Lifting them up with shaking hands I place them on my face. Once my safety and comfort they’ve been reduced to broken pieces of glass resting crooked on my nose, all but useless. A shattered memory, a shattered hope, a shattered future.
I’m dragged away and I put up no fight. My bones go soft and my heart goes still and I lock eyes on Shade hiding in the shadows and I give him a look that asks him why? Why did you do this? Why? Why? Why? What’s gonna happen to me? Who’s gonna cry over Hero’s grave? I thought we were friends. Why? Why? Why?
That night I meet Master Hans and ride across the border to his home in Alabama where I’d meet his witch of a wife, Lizbeth, the silent hunter, Kody, the beautiful gunsmith, Katya, the foolish boy, Miles, and the demon-plagued daughter, Maurene. Almost two years I’d spend there until a strange black man with surprising green eyes would ride up on a wild stallion and take me away. Another place, another face.
CHAPTER 13
“We’re stoppin’ here,” Connors grunts.
I swing my leg wide and hop off the exhausted beast. Massaging my half-numb legs I glance around taking in the reddish brown rocky soil that seems to be found no matter how far or wide you ride. Vaguely I wonder what the rest of the world looks like, if they’re just as affected, when my eyes lock onto the descending sun. Scarlett and mango streaks light the sky on fire draining the sapphire dry and leaving nothing but inky vastness in its wake. The angry sun lowers slowly below the mountainous horizon with a threat to return in the morn. A threat I fear and a promise I beg it to keep.
“Hey, come help with the bags, kid.”
I walk over and grab the duffle he untied from the saddle carrying it a few feet off then dumping it because what else was I supposed to do with it? “So where are we?” I ask curiously.
“Tennessee,” he grunts as he hauls a few more bags off to lighten the horse’s load. “Hard to tell but somewhere just past the border I’d guess. Not that that means anything to you. Or anyone nowadays.”
Considering I was six the last time I saw a proper map, opened in my Momma’s lap when we found that tent city, locations mean almost nothing. I know the States well enough though. They reviewed that back in Skills.
Connors must have caught sight of my fingers brushing my arm, absentmindedly reaching for my tattoo, because he asked, “You came from the Tennessee Corral?”
“Yep,” I answer casually, carefully. I watch as Connors opens one of the bags and takes out flint and strikes it lighting a fire in the small pile of sticks he’d surrounded by dry rocks. My stomach clenches. “You don’t happen to have any food do ya?”
A chunk of bread flies at me in response and I manage to catch it right before sinking my teeth in its crusty goodness. “Thanks,” I mumble over the flour-baked mass in my mouth.
Connors places a pot near the fire, dumps in a can’s contents and starts stirring. “So where were you before that?”
I rub my itchy nose on my sleeve. “Indiana, I think.”
“Oh really?” He looks at me intrigued. “They traveled far to find you it seems. Or you traveled far to find them. You’re from Pennsylvania, you said?”
“Yep, but we left the day things started falling apart and didn’t stop until we found a bunch of other runners who’d set up some sort of tent town in Indiana. Stayed there maybe a year? I dunno, I just remembered turning six and I’d turned five a couple months before we left home so probably around a year.” I swallow the last bite of my bread and then sniff hopefully at the soup steaming lightly in the pot.
As if reading my mind, or probably just noticing my blatant desire for more food, Connors takes out two tin cups and dumps the soup into each before handing me my share. I tip it back into my mouth and almost drop it as my body jolts from the heat.
“Yeah. It just came from a pot by the fire. It’s hot.”
I roll my eyes and blow gently on the liquid willing it to cool quickly. “So what about you? Where were you before Hans and after Georgia?”
Connors sits back and takes in the stars starting to freckle the sky’s face. “Made it to Mississippi, losing my family one by one along the way. Buried ‘em like breadcrumbs leading me back home but I don’t plan on going back. Ten years is a long time to let the world fall apart and resettle. Not a lot of towns left. After losing my last daughter I found myself drunk as a skunk and stuck in the armpit of America for a very long time.”
“Jersey?”
“Louisiana.”
I give a
n amused snort.
“A palm reader told me to get my act together. I don’t believe in those kinds of folks but I listened. By the grace of God her words cut through me like butter and I put myself back together. Then one day I heard about a place up north, a place with no gangs and no Rangers, just a city of peaceful anarchists. They called it Sanctuary.”
“A city or a cult?”
“Guess we'll have to wait and see,” he shrugs.
I shake my head out of the trance that had taken me between watching the flames dance and the soothing low cadence of Connors’ voice. “So that’s where we’re going?”
“Yep.”
“Doesn’t explain why you went east to Alabama though.”
“It’s taken a bit of wandering to clue together where this place is and I still don’t have it marked on the map.”
“A place without a map,” I chuckle dryly. “Sounds impossible.”
“What?” he asks, smacking his lips of the last drops of canned soup.
“Sanctuary,” I say. “You really believe people can live in bliss together?”
“Nope,” he agrees with a slight frown. “But a few rules have helped ‘em last as long as they have.”
My eyes narrow at the mention of rules. “Oh yeah, and what rules might those be?”
“Don’t break the last five Commandments,” he smiles with a quiet sternness. “Although in my opinion if we weren’t such fools then the first Commandment is all we should need.”
Little whispers of memories tug at my mind, music and teachings and warm distorted colored light from my past brushing a soft finger across my heart. I shake my head with a soft shudder of frustration as the memories slip through my fingers when I try and grasp onto them.
Connors reaches over and takes my cup. “Time to get some sleep.”
“Hey so do I get a gun?” I tease half-serious.
“Nope.”
“You have enough for your own militia,” I joke, pushing a bit harder.
“Nope.”
“Why not? What if someone tries to attack us in the night?” I point out stubbornly.
“What if you try to shoot me and ride off with my horse?” he retorts.
I snort a laugh. “Yeah because I’m that stupid.”
“You tried to run earlier.”
My face flushes slightly. “Yeah but I’m not gonna do it again.”
“Mhmm.”
“I’m not,” I whine. “Whatever, I’ll just wait ‘till you’re asleep and snatch one from your ridiculous arsenal.” And I knew I’d made a mistake the moment the words left my mouth. I cringe at how young and silly I sounded so I try to catch the words in the air before they can reach his ears but I can’t.
I don’t think Connors really believed I’d shoot him or take off on his horse but the idea of me stealing a gun apparently didn’t seem so impossible. Holding out his hand he says, “Give ‘em to me.”
I back up a step. “Give you what?”
“Your specs. Come on, give ‘em to me,” he insists. “If you’re gonna threaten to be stealing guns then I’m gonna make it just a bit harder for you to find ‘em.”
“Over my dead body. And no one calls them specs,” I snap, a small flutter of panic racing through me.
In one quick lunge Connors swipes my glasses off my face and I stand there angry and stunned watching him fold them and slide them into his shirt pocket. “You can have ‘em back when I’m sure you’re not gonna do anything stupid like touch my guns.”
With a yell like a vicious jungle cat I lunge at him, fingers bent like claws thirsting for blood but before I can strike flesh he’s grabbed my wrists and twisted so that they’re locked in his iron grip behind my back. I thrash desperately, afraid of having my sight taken from me again.
“Give up, kid,” he snaps kindly. “You’ll get ‘em back, I promise.”
I relax resigned. For now. “You’re a jerk,” I hiss with venom.
Connors sighs. “Yeah, I know.”
We roll out blankets and try to pretend it's possible to get comfortable on this hard ground. We lie there in silence, neither asleep, both watching the remnants of smoke curling so high yearning to touch the bright stars above. But what was once a sight full of dazzling pin-sized diamonds scattered across a velvet curtain over the earth has now been reduced to nothing but blackness and the occasional bright smear so small I blink and it’s gone again until I screw up my eyes willing it to come back.
Anger and fear still hum in my veins but even so…
“I’m sorry about your family,” I whisper.
“I’m sorry about yours,” he replies softly.
“I kinda hate you right now, just so ya know.”
“I’ll survive,” he rumbles before turning onto his side and collapsing into sleep.
I lie there a while longer battling between playing out every delightful revenge scenario I can think of and just wanting to extinguish the flames in my heart so I can relax and give in to sleep. Fury puts up a good fight but in the end exhaustion wins. Thank you.
CHAPTER 14
Morning yawns long and bright prying up my eyelids despite my sluggish bones. With a resigned sigh I roll up into a sitting position and rub my palms against my tired eyes. Looking to my right I see the blackish smudge that is the remnants of our fire from last night and across from it crouches a large dark figure, whom I assume is Connors because if it isn’t then it’s past time to panic. My mouth hinges open in a wide yawn that alerts the person.
“Awake at last I see.” Yep, just Connors the prick.
He gets up and walks over dropping something into my lap. “Look on that and find the nearest natural water source. I’m keeping an eye out for any old road signs but for now look around Lawrenceburg, it’s near the 64.” With that he returns to his packing and crooning to his beloved horse whose name as far as I can tell is just Horse.
“I thought you didn’t know where this place was?” I ask skeptically.
“North, they tell me, so north we will go.”
I give him a long hard look. “I need my glasses back.”
“You can have ‘em back when I know you’re not gonna put a bullet in my head and rob me blind.”
“First of all I know you don’t really believe I’d do either of those things. Second of all if I put a bullet in your head then it wouldn’t matter if you were blind or robbed because you’d be dead.” Sass trickles into my voice but I really don’t care.
Fortunately he chuckles. “You’re right.”
I wait but he makes no move to return my glasses, instead he sits down and takes a long swig from his canteen. A trail of glistening water escapes and runs down his chin, something I can only put together because he’s five feet from me and it’s either water dripping off his chin or the sun finally got so hot that he’s actually melting.
My mouth feels cottony from sleep and thirst but the sight of dripping water makes my mouth impossibly drier. “I need my glasses to read,” I push bluntly.
“Figure it out,” he drawls. “What are you gonna do if you lose ‘em or they break?”
Practically spitting at him I deliver the iciest stare I can muster then turn my attention to the stupid map. Unraveling it in my lap my fingers slip along the thick dusty coating and I feel the worn ridges where it’s been folded a thousand times. Before me opens up a colored map of the country and I take a moment to admire it before plunging my face so close that my nose almost grazes the heavy paper and search for the 64 through Tennessee.
“What the hell are you doing, kid?” he calls half-amused half-irritated thinking I was being dramatic or petulant or something. “Trying to see back to the trees of its ancestors?”
True this close my eyes could make out the fibers of the paper but clearly he does not properly understand the situation. I don’t even spa
re him a glance. “I’m reading,” I growl. Putting all my focus into finding where on this stupid map we are, I search faster, harder. A calloused hand pushes the map down gently.
“You playing games, kid?” he asks, his eyes scrutinizing my face for any trick I might be playing.
Frowning I reply, “No. I was reading. Without my damn glasses.”
A beat then he lets out a low whistle of disbelief. “Damn, kid. How have you even made it this far?”
“I’m not blind,” I snap. “I’m just somewhat visually impaired.”
He breathed a dry laugh. “Kid, this is the end of the world. If your eyes ain’t sharp as an eagle’s then you’re blind.”
“Then what’s a blind person?” I ask bristling at his words.
He stares me down hard and he answers my question. “Dead.”
I blink. I didn’t expect his blunt response but then again what was I expecting? It was probably true and I was one lens-crack away from it. He hands over my glasses and I snatch them possessively nearly crying as the cryptic smears of colors sharpen and focus back into softly-blurred meaning. More than gold, I realize. These glasses are worth more to me than gold.
He nods towards my dirt-smudged lenses. “I trust you’ve got a backup pair somewhere?”
“Yep.”
Connors squints at my face. “Liar.”
“I don’t see why you say that, Connors. This is the damn end of the world, there are prescription glasses galore and I always make sure to carry a plethora of options at all times to coordinate with my outfits.” He doesn’t laugh, just lets a little wrinkle of worry betray him on his brow. “Fine. I don’t have another pair. These are from the cold face of Hans’ dead father. They’re not perfect but they’re...close.”
He gives me a hard stare.
“Close-ish,” I amend.
Rubbing the back of his neck he asks, “You didn’t have any before then?”
I shrug. “I mean yeah but they were from when I was five so not only were they not fitting my head so great but the prescription was in dire need of an upgrade.”
