5. Sophie
SOPHIE
T he trade route doesn’t look like a road so much as a wound.
It cuts through the desert in a wide, ugly gash of compacted earth and scorched stone, churned by years of tires, treads, and desperate feet.
Heat rolls off it in visible waves, bending the air until distance lies outright.
Sound hits first—engines screaming out of tune, metal clanging loose, people shouting over one another in voices stripped raw by fear.
The crawler vibrates under my boots as Jax slows us on the ridge above it, the engine dropping into a lower growl that I feel in my teeth.
“Stay low,” he says. “Eyes forward.”
I peer down anyway.
Refugees flood the route in a chaotic tide. People on foot run beside carts pulled by beasts too thin to survive this heat much longer. Vehicles limp along on mismatched wheels, belching black smoke. A child stumbles and vanishes under the press of bodies. No one stops. No one can.
My stomach twists.
“Oh my god,” I whisper.
Gunfire cracks overhead.
Not aimed. Herding shots. The sound snaps sharp and final, echoing off stone.
Armored patrol rigs tear along the flanks of the route, riding high on massive wheels, frames bristling with welded plating and mounted weapons.
Men cling to the sides, faces wrapped in cloth and war paint, howling with laughter as they fire into the air.
Exhaust stacks belch flame. The smell of burned fuel mixes with dust and sweat and fear until it coats my tongue.
“That’s Dzu,” Jax says. “Or his dogs.”
One of the rigs swerves, clipping a refugee cart and flipping it violently. Supplies scatter. Bodies scatter faster.
My hands curl into fists. “They’re not even pretending this is control.”
Jax doesn’t look away. “Power never pretends for long.”
A woman breaks from the crowd near us, eyes wild, a child clutched to her chest like a shield. She stumbles toward the crawler, hand outstretched.
“Water,” she gasps.
I move instinctively.
Jax is faster.
He brakes just enough to lean out, shoving a canteen into her hands without stopping the crawler completely. “West,” he orders. “Do not stop.”
She sobs and disappears back into the chaos.
The crawler surges forward again, engine snarling as we skirt the edge of the route, dust spraying in violent arcs. The vibration hums up through my bones, steady and reassuring in a way I didn’t expect.
My gaze keeps drifting to the pack strapped behind Jax’s seat. The seedlings. The future of places like this.
“This is why you keep moving,” I say quietly. “Why Sweetwater matters.”
“Yes,” he replies.
The sound changes.
Engines behind us shift pitch, dropping lower, tightening into something coordinated. My skin prickles.
Jax glances at a cracked mirror bolted to the frame. His jaw sets.
“They’ve marked us,” he says.
I turn.
Three patrol rigs peel off from the refugee mass, engines roaring as they angle toward us, dust plumes rising like storm fronts. Mounted gunners swivel, silhouettes sharp against the glare.
“They’re coming fast,” I say.
“They always do.”
The crawler lurches as Jax guns it, engine screaming in protest as we tear away from the trade route and into open desert. Wind rips at my clothes. My stomach drops as speed steals my breath.
The rigs fan out behind us, hunting formation, engines howling like predators.
“This thing can outrun them?” I shout.
Jax bares his teeth in something that might be a grin. “Outrun, no.”
A round cracks past my head, close enough that the sound feels physical. Stone explodes beside us.
“Outthink?” he finishes.
The crawler bucks hard as we hit broken terrain, suspension screaming. Jax rides it like the machine is part of him, hands steady, eyes locked on the land ahead.
A rig surges closer, gunner leaning out, weapon chattering. Metal screams as a round punches through a storage panel behind me.
“Get down!” Jax yells.
I drop flat against the frame as another burst tears through the air above us. The smell of hot metal and burned oil fills my nose.
“They’re corralling us!” I shout, peeking up as a second rig swings wide to cut off our right flank.
“Yes,” Jax snaps. “They want us boxed.”
The land ahead narrows, rock formations rising like broken teeth. A ravine cuts through it, twisting and deep.
Jax doesn’t hesitate.
He aims straight for it.
The crawler plunges into the ravine mouth, shadows swallowing the light in a heartbeat. The temperature drops just enough to shock my skin. Stone walls blur past close enough to touch.
The rigs follow.
One slams into the ravine wall, metal shrieking, but keeps coming. Another scrapes through, sparks showering.
“They won’t stop!” I shout.
“They don’t know how!”
The ravine twists hard left. Jax yanks the wheel, the crawler skidding sideways, tires screaming. My teeth clack together as we slam into the opposite wall and bounce off.
A gunshot cracks. Stone chips spray my face.
My heart hammers so hard it makes my vision pulse.
“They’re too close!” I scream.
Jax glances back once, calculating, then makes a decision so fast I barely register it.
He slams the brakes.
The crawler fishtails violently. I shriek as we spin sideways, dust exploding around us.
The lead rig plows past us in a roar of metal and confusion, barely missing us as it skids.
Jax guns the engine again, spinning the crawler hard and blasting back the way we came, straight at the remaining rigs.
“Hold on!” he yells.
The impact rattles my bones. The crawler clips one rig hard enough to shear plating, metal tearing with a sound like a scream. The gunner tumbles, vanishing under wheels.
The other rig swerves, recovering fast.
Too fast.
It rams us from behind.
The crawler lurches violently. I slam into the frame, breath knocked clean out of me. The engine howls in pain.
“Jax!” I cough.
“I know,” he snaps. “I know.”
The rig crowds us, grinding metal on metal, pushing us toward the ravine wall.
Jax exhales once, sharp and controlled.
“They’re going to take me,” he says.
“What?” Panic floods my chest. “No?—”
“They want the guardian,” he continues, eyes locked forward. “They will keep coming until they have me.”
The crawler shudders again as another impact lands.
“Listen to me,” he says, voice iron. “Capture is inevitable.”
My throat tightens. “No.”
“Yes.”
He reaches back, unstraps the pack, and shoves it into my arms. The weight nearly knocks me off balance.
“What are you doing?” I shout.
“Giving Sweetwater a future.”
“I won’t leave you!”
“You will,” he says fiercely. “Because this matters more than either of us.”
He swings the crawler hard toward a narrow cut in the ravine wall, a side path barely wide enough to squeeze through.
“When I break left, you jump,” he orders. “You take the seedlings and run west.”
“I can’t?—”
“You can,” he snaps. “You must.”
The rig slams us again.
Jax yanks the wheel and floors it.
The crawler rockets toward the cut, engine screaming. At the last possible second, Jax jerks the controls, sending the crawler skidding sideways.
“Now!” he roars.
I leap.
I hit the ground hard, rolling, the breath tearing out of me as the crawler blasts past, Jax still inside, engine howling.
The rigs surge after him, engines screaming as they peel away, dust and noise swallowing everything.
I scramble to my feet, clutching the seedlings to my chest, heart pounding so violently it hurts.
The sound fades slowly, swallowed by stone and distance.
Silence crashes down, sudden and terrible.
I press my back against the ravine wall, chest heaving, dust coating my tongue.
Jax’s crawler disappears into the wasteland.
The weight in my arms feels heavier than anything I’ve ever carried.
For the first time since I crashed, I understand exactly what survival costs.