Текст книги "UnSouled"

Автор книги: Neal Shusterman

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Текущая страница: 18 (всего у книги 27 страниц)

40 • Bam

Bam moves through the tunnels and chambers of the mine, taking mental snapshots.

A kid in tears, mourning the death of a friend.

A terrified new arrival, calmed by an older stork.

A hapless fourteen-year-old “medic” trying to suture a leg wound using dental floss.

She sees scenes of hope and despair around her and doesn’t know which to give more credence.

She passes one kid sharing his ration of food with another, while beside them a young girl teaches an even younger girl how to use one of the automatic rifles they confiscated from Cold Springs.

And then there’s the boy who was forced to shoot the harvest camp director, sitting alone, staring off into nowhere. Bam would comfort him, but she’s not the comforting type.

“Starkey’s proud of all of you and happy with our victory today,” she tells them. “We took the battle to the enemy, and we made history!”

She primes them, but she holds back, because she knows she mustn’t steal Starkey’s thunder. She’s Bam the Baptist, preparing the way for the Savior of Storks.

“He’ll be gathering everyone before dinner. He’s got a lot to tell you.” Of course it’s really not about telling them anything; it’s about rallying them and keeping them focused on the positive, just as he told Bam. He’ll have gentle words for the dead, but will move past it. Gloss over it. Direct the audience’s attention elsewhere. He’s so very good at that. It’s why they’ve gotten so far. Bam is in awe of the way Mason Starkey can work magic in the world around him. He’s kept their hoard virtually invisible for more than a month now, keeping them clothed and fed with money that no one can trace. Yes, she’s in awe of him, and she’s also a little more afraid of him every day. That’s normal, she decides. A good leader should be just a little bit frightening in the way he or she wields power.

When she’s done priming the masses for Starkey, she turns down a side passageway that should be familiar, but she bumps her head for the umpteenth time on a jutting piece of stone. So many of these tunnels are alike; she always knows exactly where she is when she hits that damn stone. The walls begin to spread, opening into a wider cavern. The lights, which are strung around the edge, create an odd sense of darkness in the very center of the space, as if there’s a black hole in the middle of the room.

This is the storage room, where food and supplies are kept. This is also where Hayden is currently stationed, with an armed guard at all times who is there for both his protection and to make sure he stays on his best behavior.

“He’s a flight risk, but we can’t make him look like a prisoner,” Starkey had said. “We’re not the Juvenile Authority.”

Of course, Hayden is a prisoner—but God forbid they make him look like one.

It was Bam’s suggestion that he be put in charge of food distribution. First because it was what he did when he first arrived at the Graveyard, so he had experience. Second because the kid who had been doing it was killed today.

She finds him taking inventory of their canned goods and being very chatty with the guard, gleaning information about the plane crash and everything that happened since then from the 7-Eleven raids and their stint at the abandoned Palm Springs hotel to Camp Red Heron and the Egret Academy. Bam is going to have to make sure the guards know enough not to talk about anything with Hayden that doesn’t involve Spam and canned corn.

The guard asks if he can go to the bathroom, which is quite a hike from this spot in the mine, and she lets him go. “I’ll watch Hayden until you get back.” He offers her his Uzi, but she refuses it.

Hayden has a pad and jots down notes about their food supply.

“You have way too much chili,” he says, pointing to a stack of gallon-sized cans. “And it’s not like you can disguise it to be anything but chili.”

Bam crosses her arms. “I knew you’d already be complaining. In case you forgot, we just set you free. You should be grateful.”

“I am. In fact, I’m ecstatic. But incarceration at a harvest camp must have left me a little brain damaged because suddenly I’m putting larger concerns ahead of my own.”

“Like having too much chili?”

He doesn’t respond to that—he just moves around the room continuing his inventory. Bam glances off, wondering when the guard will be back. She came here because she considers it her job to keep an eye on Hayden, but she doesn’t like him—never did. Hayden’s the kind of guy who gets in your head, but only goes there to amuse himself.

He looks up from his inventory pad, catching Bam’s gaze. He holds it—longer than a glance, but shorter than a look. Then his attention is back on his pad again. But not really.

“You realize he’s going to get you all killed, don’t you?”

Bam is caught off guard—not by Hayden’s comment, but by how it infuriates her. She feels her cheeks flushing in outrage. She must not allow him to put thoughts into her head. Especially when those thoughts are already there.

“Say one more thing about Starkey, and the next sound you hear will be your head cracking like an egg at the bottom of the nearest mine shaft.”

Hayden just smirks. “That’s clever, Bam. I had never counted you among the clever!”

She scowls, not sure whether to take that as a compliment or an insult. “Just keep your mouth shut and do what you’re told, unless you want to be treated like a prisoner.”

“I’ll make a deal with you,” Hayden says. “I won’t say a thing to anyone else, but I get to speak my mind with you. Fair enough?”

“Absolutely not! And if you try, I’ll rip your lousy tongue out and sell it to the highest bidder.”

He guffaws at that. “Point for Bam! You truly do excel in disturbing imagery. Someday I may want to study under you.”

She shoves him—not hard enough to knock him down, but enough to push him back and off balance. “What makes you think I’d want to hear anything that comes out of your mouth? And what makes you think you know better than Starkey? He’s doing amazing things! Do you have any idea how many kids we saved today?”

Hayden sighs and looks to the stacks of canned food he’s been counting, as if each can represents another kid saved. “I won’t begrudge Starkey the statistics of salvation,” he tells her. “But I wonder what it will mean in the long run.”

“It means all those kids won’t get unwound.”

“Maybe . . . Or maybe it means they’ll be unwound more quickly once they’re caught—along with every other kid awaiting unwinding.”

“Starkey’s a visionary!” she yells. Her voice is so loud, she hears it echoing from the stone around her. She wonders who might be listening. In these tunnels there’s always someone listening. She forces herself to use her indoor voice, although it comes out in an angry hiss. “To Starkey, it’s not only about taking down harvest camps. It’s about making a stand for storks.” She slowly strides toward Hayden as she speaks, and Hayden moves away, trying to keep a healthy distance between them. “Can’t you see he’s igniting a stork revolution? Other storks who think they have no hope—who know they’re second-class citizens—will rise up and demand fair treatment.”

“And he’ll do this by terrorist attacks?”

“Guerilla warfare!”

By now she has Hayden backed against the wall, and yet he appears at ease. Instead she feels like the one who’s cornered.

“Every outlaw is eventually brought down, Bam.”

Bam shakes her head, forcing the thought into submission. “Not if they win the war.”

He slides away from her, to the other side of the room, and sits on the stack of chili cans. “Although it unsettles the stomach as much as this chili will, I have to give you at least some benefit of the doubt,” he says. “It’s true that history is full of self-important madmen who managed to claw their way to power and lead their people successfully. Offhand I can’t think of any, but I’m sure they’ll come to me.”

“Alexander the Great,” Bam suggests. “Napoléon Bonaparte.”

Hayden tilts his head slightly and narrows his eyes, as if trying to visualize it. “So then, when you look at Mason Starkey, do you see any of the qualities of Alexander or Napoléon—aside from being short?”

Bam hardens her jaw and says, “I do.”

And there’s that slithery smirk from Hayden again. “I’m sorry, miss, but if you want the part, you’ll have to do a much better job of acting than that.”

Although Bam would like to knock out a few of Hayden’s perfectly straightened teeth, she won’t let her anger rule her now. Not after seeing how Starkey let his anger take control today. “We’re done here,” she tells Hayden, deciding not to wait until his guard returns.

Hayden’s smirk broadens into a condescending smile, which is even more infuriating. Maybe she’ll punch him after all. “But you haven’t heard the best part yet,” he says.

She should just leave now, before she becomes the butt of yet another one of his personal jokes, but she just can’t do it. “And what might that be?”

Hayden stands and saunters toward her—which means that maybe he’s going to say something that won’t risk losing him some teeth. “I know you and Starkey are going to continue to liberate harvest camps, for better or for worse,” he says. “That being the case, I’d like to help keep more of your storks alive. Remember, I was the head of tech at the Graveyard. I know a thing or two that could help.”

Now it’s Bam’s turn to smirk. She knows Hayden too well.

“And what do you want in return?”

“Like I said before, all I want is your ear—and not in an unwinding sense.” Then he gets quiet. Serious. She’s never seen Hayden serious. This is something new. “I want your promise that you’ll listen to me—really listen to me—when I have something to say. You don’t have to like it; you just have to hear it.”

And although she had refused the same request five minutes ago, this time she agrees. Even though she feels like she’s making a deal with the devil.

41 • Connor

Were Connor to come face-to-face with Camus Comprix under any other circumstances, he would hate the Rewind with every measure of his soul. Connor certainly has reason to despise him. For one, Cam is the darling of Proactive Citizenry. He’s the shining star of all those who promote unwinding as a natural and acceptable consequence of civilization. Second—but even more important to Connor—is Cam’s connection to Risa. Just imagining the two of them together—even if Risa was being blackmailed to be with him—draws his hand into a fist so tight his nails cut into his palm. It’s Connor’s jealousy and Roland’s anger all rolled up into that powerful hand. No, there would be no hope that Connor and Cam could be anything but bitter enemies under any other circumstances.

However, the circumstance of their first encounter gives Connor some unexpected and unwanted pause for thought.

It begins with Una.

It’s Connor, Lev, and Grace’s eighth day holed up in her small apartment. With the announcement that Connor attacked a harvest camp in Nevada, word from Chal is that the Hopi are not too keen on giving him fictitious asylum. Even though the news recanted the accusation the next day, Chal is still having trouble making the deal, which means they’re in a holding pattern here for who knows how long.

If the Tashi’ne home gave Connor cabin fever, being stuck in Una’s place is like being packed in a shipping crate again. Even Grace, who can always find ways of entertaining herself, keeps asking with an “are we there yet” sort of persistence, if she can go out and do something.

“Just a walk. Maybe some shopping. Pleeeeeeeeeze?”

Only Lev seems unfazed by all of this, which Connor finds maddening.

“How can you just sit there and do nothing all day?”

“I’m not doing nothing,” Lev responds, holding up a worn leather-bound tome he’s been glued to. “I’m learning the Arápache language. It’s actually very beautiful.”

“Sometimes, Lev, I just want to smack you.”

“You already hit him with a car,” Grace tosses in from the other room. Connor’s response is a growl that doesn’t do much of anything but at least makes him feel a tiny bit better. He’s sure Pivane would say he’s connecting with his animal spirit.

“You forget that I was under house arrest for a year,” Lev points out. “I got used to semi-incarceration.”

Una spends most of her time down in the shop, either tending to customers or crafting new instruments in the workshop. The whine of drills and the gentle tapping of a hammer and chisel have become accustomed sounds. It’s when those sounds stop that Connor wonders what’s going on.

Two days ago, and then again yesterday, Connor heard Una locking up the shop, and he peeked through the blinds to see her leaving. He wouldn’t have thought much of it, except for the fact that she was carrying a guitar in one hand and her leather rifle case in the other. Where she might be going with both a guitar and a rifle did not take Connor’s imagination to happy places.

“Una has issues,” was Lev’s entire assessment of the situation.

Connor, however, suspects that it’s more than that.

Later that afternoon, she leaves again, and Connor decides to follow, against Lev’s warnings to just let her be. “We should be grateful she’s letting us hide out here. Don’t repay her by messing in her business.”

But he doesn’t have time to argue if he’s going to effectively tail her. He pushes past Lev, down the stairs to the shop, then out into the street, where he sees her turning the corner. There are people in the streets, but Connor wears a woolen Arápache hat he found in Una’s closet, so no one pays him much attention. Besides, it’s not like Una is seeking out crowded places. Even though the rifle is in a carrying case, it’s pretty obvious what it is. Wherever she’s going, she probably doesn’t want to be questioned about it, which, Connor reasons, is why she’s taking only the quietest side streets to get wherever it is that she’s going.

At the edge of town, Una lingers until there are neither cars nor pedestrians on the street; then she crosses to a narrow footpath that leads into the woods. Connor follows, giving her a long lead.

Although he can’t see her in the dense woods, the ground is soft from an early-morning rain, and he can follow her footprints. There are several sets of them. She’s been back and forth on this path many times over the past few days. About half a mile in, he comes to a building—if it can really be called a building. It’s an odd-looking structure, the shape of an igloo, but made of mud and stone. He hears two voices inside. One is Una, and the other is male—but doesn’t sound like anyone Connor’s already met on the rez.

His first thought is that Una is meeting a lover here for a secret liaison and perhaps they should be left alone . . . but the argument inside doesn’t sound like a lover’s spat.

“No, I won’t do it!” shouts the male voice. “Not now and not ever again!”

“Then you’ll be left here to die,” Una says.

“Better that than this!”

There’s only one door, but the apex of the dome is in disrepair and full of holes. Carefully, quietly, Connor climbs the curving surface of the stone and mud structure until he can peer through a gap where the stones have given way.

His first impression hits a chord in him as resonant as any instrument Una could build. He sees a young man about his age with odd multitextured hair of different shades. He’s tied to a pole, struggling to pull himself free. By the smell of the place and the look of him, he’s been here for a while, in this helpless, hopeless situation, without even the freedom to relieve himself anywhere but in his clothes.

Connor’s immediate gut reaction is identification. This prisoner is me. Me being held in Argent’s basement. Me desperately trying to escape. Me struggling to hold on to hope. The sense of empathy is so strong it will flavor everything that transpires between them.

Una is not Argent, Connor must remind himself. Her motives, whatever they are, must be different. But why is she doing this? Connor waits and watches, hoping she’ll give him a clue.

“Either you have to let me go, or you have to kill me,” her captive says. “Please do one or the other, and let this end!”

To that, Una responds with a single, simple question. “What’s my name?”

“I told you, I don’t know! I didn’t know yesterday, I don’t know today, and I won’t know tomorrow!”

“Then maybe today the music will remind you.”

Then Una undoes his bonds. He doesn’t even try to run—he must know it’s no use. Instead he sobs, his arms going limp. And into those limp arms Una puts the guitar she brought.

“Do it,” Una says. Now she speaks gently, and she caresses his hands, lifting them into position on the instrument. “Give it life. It’s what you do. It’s what you’ve always done.”

“That wasn’t me,” he pleads.

Una moves away from him and sits down facing him. Taking her rifle from its case, she lays it across her lap. “I said do it.”

Her prisoner reluctantly begins to play. Sorrowful strains fill the space and echo, the entire building becoming like the tone chamber of the guitar. Connor feels it resonating in his chest.

This music is beautiful. This prisoner of Una’s is a true master of the instrument. He’s not sobbing anymore. Instead it’s Una who sobs. She holds her gut as if there’s great pain there. Her sobs grow into wails that resonate with the music like some great chanting of grief.

Then Connor shifts positions, and a pebble the size of a marble dislodges from the edge of the hole and drops to the ground inside.

In an instant Una leaps to her feet and swings her rifle into position, aiming it at him through the gap in the stones.

Connor pulls back reflexively, but loses his balance and falls over backward, tumbling down the outside shell of the building, bumping and bruising himself on the rough stone. He lands on his back, the wind knocked out of him, and when he tries to rise, Una is there with the rifle barrel just inches away from his nose.

“Don’t you dare move!”

Connor freezes, half-convinced that she really is going to blow him away if he moves. Then, her prisoner, seeing his chance, bolts into the woods.

“Hííko!” she curses, and takes off after him. Connor gets to his feet in pursuit, to see where this little psychotic drama will end.

As she closes in on her escaping prisoner, Una drops her rifle and launches herself at him, landing on his back and bringing him down. She struggles with him, her long hair like a dark shroud covering both of them as they thrash on the ground, and Connor realizes that he is suddenly the one with a distinct advantage. He picks up Una’s rifle and aims it at both of them.

“Up! Both of you! Now!”

And when they don’t listen, he fires the rifle into the air.

That gets their attention. They stop struggling, and they both rise to their feet. Only now does Connor notice that there’s something odd about this guy’s face.

“What the hell is all this about?” Connor demands.

“None of your business!” Una snaps. “Give me back my rifle!”

“How about I just give you one of the bullets?” Connor keeps the rifle trained on her but shifts his gaze to her prisoner. The odd patchwork nature of his face—a starburst of flesh tones that seem to continue into the shades and textures of his hairline—is unnatural, yet familiar.

All at once it strikes Connor who this is. He’s seen him enough in the media—imagined him enough in his nightmares. This is that abominable Rewind! The recognition must be mutual, because the Rewind’s stolen eyes register recognition as well.

“It’s you! You’re the Akron AWOL!” And then, “Where is she? Is she here? Take me to her!”

The only thing Connor knows for sure at this moment is that there’s too much flying at him to process. If he tries to sort it all out in his head right now, he’ll make a crucial mistake, one of them will get ahold of this rifle, and someone else will end up dead—maybe him.

“This is what we’re going to do,” he says, forcing calm into his voice but keeping the rifle raised. “We’re all going back to the igloo thing.”

“Sweat lodge,” snarls Una.

“Right. Whatever. We’re going back there, we’re going to sit our asses down, and we’re going to sweat this whole thing out until I’m satisfied. Got it?”

Una glares at him, then storms back toward the sweat lodge. The Rewind isn’t as quick to move. Connor trains the rifle on him. “Move it,” he says. “Or I’ll turn you back into the pork and beans you were made from.”

The Rewind gives him a condescending glare from his stolen eyes, then heads back toward the sweat lodge.

•   •   •

Connor knows his name, but calling him by a name implies too much humanity for Connor’s liking. He’d much prefer to just call him “the Rewind.” As the three of them sit in the sweat lodge, they are both reluctant to tell Connor anything—as if they resent him for cutting into this dark dance they’ve been doing.

“He has Wil’s hands,” Connor prompts, having already figured that much out. “Let’s start there.”

Una explains the details of Wil’s abduction—or at least what she was told by Lev and Pivane. The Tashi’ne family never got any answers as to what happened to their son and never expected to. Kids who are taken by parts pirates rarely turn up at harvest camps; they’re sold piece by piece on the black market. But apparently Wil Tashi’ne was a special case. Connor can’t imagine the kind of pain Una must feel, knowing this creation before them has the hands of the boy she loved and has his talent literally woven right into its brain. His talent, his musical memory, and yet no memory of her. It could drive anyone mad—but to hold him prisoner like that?

“What were you thinking, Una?”

“Una!” The Rewind smiles triumphantly. “Her name is Una!”

“Quiet, Pork-n-beans,” Connor says. “I’m not talking to you.”

“I wasn’t thinking clearly,” Una admits quietly, looking down at the dirt floor of the sweat lodge. “I’m still not.” Instead of talking about the Rewind, she talks about Wil again. How he would tune and test all of her guitars before they were sold. “He put his soul into his music. I always felt that a tiny bit of him was left resonating in the instrument after he played it. Once he was gone, the guitars never felt the same. Now when they play, it’s only music.”

“So you thought you’d make our friend here your little guitar slave.”

She raises her eyes to burn him a glare—but she doesn’t seem to have the strength for it anymore. She casts her eyes down again.

Connor turns to the Rewind, to find his eyes locked on Connor, practically drilling into him. Connor tightens the grip on the rifle in his lap.

“Why are you here?” Connor asks. “How did you even know to come here?”

“I have enough of Wil Tashi’ne’s memory to know that this is where your friend the clapper would run to hide,” he says. “And I think you know why I’m here. I’m here for Risa.”

Hearing her name coming from his mouth brings Connor’s blood toward a boil. She hates you, Connor wants to tell him. She wants nothing to do with you. Ever. But he sees and smells the Rewind’s urine-stained pants and remembers the helplessness of the Rewind’s captivity, so much like his own in Argent’s basement. Sympathy is the last thing Connor wants to feel, but it’s there all the same, undermining his hatred. Desperation just about oozes out of the Rewind’s seams, and as much as Connor wants to add to this creature’s pain, he can’t find it in himself to do it.

“So, you’re going to blackmail her into being with you, like before?”

“That wasn’t me! That was Proactive Citizenry.”

“And you want to bring her back to them.”

“No! I’m here to help her, you idiot.”

Connor finds himself mildly amused. “Careful, Pork-n-beans—I’m the one with the rifle.”

“You’re wasting your time,” pipes in Una. “You can’t reason with him. He’s not human. He’s not even alive.”

“Je pense, donc je suis,” the Rewind says.

Connor doesn’t speak French, but he knows enough to decipher it.

“Just because you think, doesn’t mean you are. Computers claim to think, but they’re just mimicking the real thing. Garbage in/garbage out—and you’re just a whole lot of garbage.”

The Rewind looks down, his eyes glistening. “You don’t know a thing.”

Connor can tell he’s struck a nerve in the Rewind—this whole subject of life. Of Existence with a capital E. Again, Connor feels that unwanted wave of sympathy.

“Of course, Unwinds aren’t legally alive either,” Connor says, making Cam’s argument for him. “Once an unwind order is signed, as far as the law is concerned, they’re nothing but a bunch of parts. Like you.”

The Rewind lifts his eyes to him. A single tear falls, absorbed by the knee of his jeans. “Your point?”

“My point is, I get it. Whether you’re a pile of parts, or a sack of garbage, or a full-fledged person has nothing to do with what I, or Una, or anyone else thinks—so do us all a favor and stop making it our problem.”

He nods and looks down again. “Blue Fairy,” he says.

“You see!” snaps Una. “He is like a computer—he spouts garbage that makes no sense.”

But Connor finds himself making an unexpected leap of insight.

“Sorry, Pinocchio, but Risa’s not your Blue Fairy. She can’t turn you into a real boy.”

Cam looks at him and grins. Connor finds the grin disarming, which makes him grip the rifle more tightly. He will not be disarmed in any way.

“How do you know she hasn’t already?”

“She’s pretty amazing, but not that amazing,” Connor says. “You want magic, talk to Una. I’m sure the Arápache are more tuned in to magical stuff than the rest of us.”

Una stiffens and frowns at him. “I don’t have to take insults from a runaway Unwind.”

“I was actually being sincere,” Connor admits. “But I’m happy to insult you, if that’s what you want.”

Una holds her glare a moment more before returning her gaze to the ground.

“You said you want to help Risa,” Connor asks the Rewind. “Help her how?”

“That’s between me and her.”

“Wrong,” Connor tells him. “I’m between you and her. You talk to me, or you don’t talk at all.”

The Rewind seethes, breathing through his nose like a dragon about to flare. Then he backs down. “I can help her bring down Proactive Citizenry. I have all the evidence she needs. But I won’t share it with anyone but her.”

The Rewind seems sincere—but Connor knows he’s not the best judge of character. He made a crucial mistake trusting Starkey. Connor won’t make the same mistake again. “You expect me to believe that? Why would you bring down the people who made you?”

“I have my reasons.”

“Are you going to tell him?” Una asks Connor, her patience failing. “Or do you intend to string him along all day?”

“Tell me what?” Cam looks back and forth between them.

Connor thought he’d relish giving him the news, but now it just feels empty. “Sorry to disappoint you, Pork-n-beans . . . but Risa’s not here.”

The despair in the Rewind’s eyes is as soulful as any legitimate human being. Connor wonders if maybe the Blue Fairy paid him a visit after all.

“But . . . but . . . the news said she was traveling with you!”

“Yeah, the news also said I attacked a harvest camp in Nevada. You of all people should know not to trust the media.”

“So, where is she?”

“I don’t know,” Connor tells him, then adds, “But if I did, I wouldn’t tell you.”

The Rewind stands in frustration. “You’re lying!” Connor rises just as the Rewind lunges toward him. Connor levels the gun at his chest, and he stops in midlunge.

“Just give me a reason, Pork-n-beans!”

“Stop calling me that!”

“He’s telling the truth,” says Una. “It’s just him, Lev, and some low-cortical girl. Risa Ward wasn’t with them when they showed up.”

It’s more information than Connor wants him to know, but now he seems to accept the truth. He drops to the ground, putting his head in his hands.

“Sisyphus,” he mumbles. Connor doesn’t even try to figure that one out.

“You realize I can’t let you go. I can’t take the chance that you’ll tell the authorities where we are.”

“I’ll tie him up again,” says Una, advancing toward the Rewind. “No one comes out to this old sweat lodge anymore.”

“No,” Connor decides. “We’re not doing that either. We’ll take him back with us to your place.”

“I don’t want him there!”

“Too bad.” Connor looks at both of them, judging their frame of mind as somewhat stable, and he clicks the safety back on the rifle. “Now, we’re going to leave here and walk to Una’s place like three old friends back from an afternoon of hunting. Are we clear?”

Both Cam and Una agree reluctantly.

Then he turns to the Rewind. “Whether you deserve dignity or not, I’m going to give you some.” And although Connor finds this hard, he says, “Should I call you Camus?”

“Cam,” he says.

“All right, Cam. I’m Connor—but you already know that. I’d say ‘pleased to meet you,’ but I don’t like to lie.”

Cam nods his acceptance. “I appreciate your honesty,” he says. “The feeling is mutual.”

•   •   •

Pivane is there when they get back to the shop. Connor hears his deep voice upstairs talking to Lev as they enter.

“He can’t know about Cam,” Una says. “The Tashi’nes must never know about Wil’s hands. It will destroy them.”

The way it destroyed you? Connor wants to say, but instead he just says, “Understood.”

Una sends Cam down into the basement. He’s too weary and spent to protest.

“I’ll wait here and make sure he stays put,” Una says. “Can I please have my rifle back?” And when Connor hesitates, she says, “Pivane will have a lot of questions if he sees you coming upstairs with that rifle.”

Although the last thing Connor wants to do is put that rifle in her hands, he gives it to her—but only after taking out the shells.

Una takes it, leans it up against the wall, then reaches into her pocket, pulling out several more rifle shells, showing them to Connor in defiance. But rather than loading the weapon, she just puts the shells back into her pocket and sits herself down on a stool near the basement door. “Go upstairs and find out why Pivane’s here.”

Connor resents being given orders, but he recognizes Una’s need to feel in control again—especially in her own domain. He heads upstairs, leaving her to guard Cam.

“Do I want to know why you were out?” Pivane asks as soon as Connor walks in.

“Probably not,” Connor tells him, and leaves it at that. He glances at Lev, who clearly wants to know what happened but is wise enough not to ask in front of Pivane.