Chapter 5
CHAPTER FIVE
Ronin watched the red-haired woman from behind a mess of rotting lumber, bricks, and sun-faded shingles that had once been a building.
Though the raging wind and heavy rain made it impossible for his audio receptors to distinguish her words, he detected desperation and despair in her tone. Yet she appeared physically unharmed.
Why had she come out here alone? This far from the settlement, she was exposed and vulnerable, the perfect prey for wandering reavers or other scavengers. Ronin had seen both humans and bots end one another to seize any advantage that would aid their own survival.
The woman, propped on hands and knees in the gutter with her cloth wraps dangling into the steadily rising water, bowed her head. Her shoulders shook.
Ronin had no reason to go to her. She didn’t want his trade, didn’t want his help, didn’t want anything to do with his kind.
But the emotion in her posture triggered hidden processes within him. He left his cover and jogged toward her. Before long, the road would be submerged completely. She wasn’t safe here, and neither was he.
The cloth around her head was askew, and a few wild strands of hair had slipped free. The rubble gathered at the storm drain in front of her was acting as a small dam, creating a growing pool around her. She didn’t appear to care.
Ronin stopped behind the woman. She didn’t move save for the slow, shaky rise and fall of her shoulders. Her soft sobs were barely audible over the storm.
It was normal for humans to cry, wasn’t it? Especially after a fall like she’d taken. Yet something in her posture and the quiet sound of her cries spoke of something more.
“Are you well?” he asked.
The woman stiffened, lifted her head, and looked over her shoulder.
Her reddened eyes met his optics. She spun toward him with surprising speed, crawling backward on hands and feet.
The cloth covering her head fell back, and her skirts bunched between her thighs and floated on the murky current, revealing her pale, shapely legs.
She pulled a knife from her thigh holster and jabbed it into the air between them. “You!”
“Have been for as long as I can remember.”
“Why are you following me?” As she stood, she wiped moisture from her face with her free hand. She kept the knife up as though it were the thing holding Ronin at bay.
“I’m a dustwalker. My business takes me out of town frequently.”
“This isn’t the Dust.”
“No. But all roads lead to it.” He almost said more, but he wanted to put her at ease. Speaking about death wouldn’t help.
“Then go,” she said, wagging the knife toward the south.
Ronin tilted his head, studying her. The woman’s tone was firm, her voice strong, but her eyes were red, and the flesh around them was slightly swollen. She pressed her lips together, but it didn’t hide their trembling. Her grip on the weapon was excessively tight.
“Are you well?” he asked again, modulating his voice to a gentler tone.
“I’ll be fine once you’re gone.” She took a single step backward. Water streamed around her ankles like river rapids. Cheyenne was a thirsty place, but it could rarely handle anything more than a drizzle.
He ran his optics up one of her exposed legs. There was a scrape on her knee. A superficial wound, but organics were susceptible to many diseases and infections that could prove fatal without treatment.
“You’re bleeding,” he said.
“I’ll. Be. Fine.”
Ronin frowned. He’d seen no small amount of blood during his existence, and there was no reason for hers to concern him, but the idea of her in pain was unsettling. “I can dress your wound.”
“What the hell do you want from me?” she demanded, voice breaking into a higher pitch.
What did he want? Why had he entered the human settlement with the first light of dawn and followed this woman out here, only to watch her from hiding? Why had he finally approached her?
There was no logic behind anything he’d done or felt regarding this human.
Moving slowly, he shrugged off his pack and brought it to his front.
The woman took another cautious step back as he unfastened the flap.
Reaching in with a bare metal hand, which she followed with wide eyes, he withdrew the bundle he’d purchased from the food vendor with uncharacteristic impulsiveness.
Her wary gaze darted between his face and the paper-wrapped item in his hand. Ronin extended his arm, holding it out to her. She didn’t look away from the bundle, didn’t move any closer. The rain pattered on the wrapper.
“If you’re hesitating because nothing’s free, I’ll barter with you for this.”
“I-I told you, I don’t trade with bots.” Her lower lip quivered.
Ronin shouldered his pack to free his other hand. Taking the corner of the paper between forefinger and thumb, he peeled it back, giving her a glimpse of the spiced, dried meat inside.
“I have a proposal to make,” he said, folding the paper closed. “This food in exchange for you hearing it out.”
“I…” She stared at the bundle, eyes gleaming.
“Just listen to what I have to say.” He glanced up at the dark sky and wiped water away from his optics with his sleeve. “After we return to your dwelling.”
“I don’t wa—” She snapped her mouth shut and dropped her gaze, brow furrowed. The hand holding the knife fell to her side. “Fine. But I’m not promising anything beyond that.”
Ronin nodded. “I only ask that you listen and give my offer fair consideration.” He tucked the food into a pocket inside his coat. Her eyes tracked it the entire way.
“I’ll assist you through the debris.” He held his open hand to her.
Glaring at his hand, she shoved the knife back into its holster, walked past him, and muttered, “Don’t need your help.”
Shoulders squared, she shuffled forward, struggling through water now up to her mid-shin. When she stumbled, she waved her arms in wild circles, somehow maintaining her balance. Grumbling, she bent down and yanked off one of her boots. The partially detached sole flopped.
Ronin frowned and scanned the road back to the human settlement.
Rocks, chunks of concrete, and cracked asphalt were the least of her worries.
The rising water hid countless hazards—wood splinters, rusted nails, and shards of glass.
Another open wound, especially in this filthy water, was too great a risk.
“It’s safer if I carry you.”
“The hell you will.” She moved slowly, keeping her attention in front of her as she carefully set down her bare foot. “You’re not going to—”
Ronin closed the distance between them in two strides, dipped into a crouch, and swept a forearm behind her knees.
“What the hell are you doing? I said no!” she shouted as he stood up and cradled her against his chest. She twisted and thrashed to escape his hold, but her struggles only resulted in her becoming tangled in her wet clothing.
“You made an agreement with me. You can’t listen to my proposal if you get killed on the way back.”
“Even if I get an infection, it’s not going to kill me right away!” She pounded on his chest three times before wincing and shaking her throbbing hand. “I’ve done well enough on my own. I can manage a mile walk home.”
“Probably could. I’m just making sure of it, so I get my end of the deal.”
With her eyebrows angled down over the bridge of her nose, she clutched her damaged boot to her chest, turned her head, and shifted her shoulders as far away from him as she could. “I haven’t gotten mine yet.”
“Soon.” Ronin walked, increasing his pace steadily as he passed the deepest floodwater. Though the air had cooled significantly with the storm and wind, the woman’s body was hot against his. He shifted from a slow jog to a run.
She blinked up at him, raindrops dripping from her lashes. “What are you doing?”
“Hold on.”