Chapter 1 Cora #3
We had been having this argument every Wednesday for four months.
I had drawn route maps. I had calculated fuel margins.
I had pre-cached three drops between LA and Vegas.
I had built the supply lists. Loren had said no every Wednesday because the off-Earth Lucian threat had not been ruled out and the camp could not afford to lose a five-person team into the silence, and the math of one daughter in Urbana versus two hundred and fourteen people at Mojave was a math he was paid to make.
Today he was not going to say no. I could see it on him before he opened his mouth. He had said no for four months because no had been the safer number, and today the number had moved.
"How many do you need."
"Five."
"Who."
"Me. Renn. Cruz. Sylvia. One more."
"Who."
I did not say the name. I did not have to. He waited. Crystal waited. Mark waited. Even Kiera, at the door, knew what was coming.
"Drew."
Loren closed his eyes. Just for a second. The way Loren had been closing his eyes for two years. A man who had been carrying too much for too long.
"He'll mark you to any Vampyren patrol within a two-mile radius."
"He'll also be able to walk the night watch alone, which means we can sleep in shifts of three not two, which means we travel three days faster, which means we get there before Hess's cell can dig in further. The trade is favorable."
"Hess."
"Renn picked up the name on a relay last week. Anti-Council, mid-tier, operating between Vegas and Albuquerque. He's mobile. If he hits the Urbana corridor before we do, the casualties will go from however-many-now to all-of-them."
"Cora."
"I have done the count, Loren."
He looked at me.
"How many."
"Six. Deedee. Nina. Jet. Mara. Patrick. Saul."
"Six."
"Six."
He did not press the six. Loren had never pressed the six.
Loren was the only person at the Mojave camp who knew that I would not write six on a list if I could avoid it, because I had told him once, three years ago, in a moment I did not remember consenting to telling, and Loren did not forget things and Loren did not use them. He nodded.
"Then five on the team. You have two days.
Bring me the route, the cache plan, and Renn's sign-off on the warrior side.
Cruz reports to me on the human-tactical side.
Sylvia I'll talk to myself. Brecca is going to lose her secondary medic and I want to be the one who tells her.
Drew I will not authorize. You will authorize Drew.
If he goes, he goes on your signature, not mine. "
"Why."
He looked at me. There was a long silence. Then he said:
"Because the only person at this camp Drew listens to is you, and if I sign him in, I am responsible for him refusing whatever order I give him. If you sign him in, you are responsible for him not refusing yours."
"That's not. Loren, he doesn't."
"Cora." Loren's voice did not change pitch. "He brought you dried meat last Tuesday."
I stopped.
Crystal looked up at me from the floor.
"He brought you dried meat."
"I. Yes."
"Cora." Crystal's voice cracked finally, just a little, just the corner.
"He has not given anyone anything in nine months.
He brought my daughter's would-be-rescuer dried meat.
He listens to you. Sign him on the team.
He is going to walk through fire to bring her home and he is going to do it because you signed the paper. Sign the paper."
I stood up.
The radio crackled. Static. No voice. Nina was gone again.
"Two days," I said. "I'll have the route by tonight."
I walked out of the tent.
Drew was at the supply tent. Standing in the doorway. He had the rebar in his hand. He had not gone to his tent to add it to the pile. He had walked back to the supply tent and waited.
He had heard everything. The Mojave camp was small. Vampyren-edge hearing carried fifty yards on a still morning.
He held the rebar out toward me. It was the first time he had ever offered me something with his hand open.
"For the perimeter pile," he said. "I'll add it tomorrow. Or you could. Yours, if you want it."
Yours. Not ours.
I took the rebar. Our hands did not touch.
"You're on the team."
"I know."
"You heard."
"I knew."
He was looking past my shoulder, the way he always looked past my shoulder.
His face did nothing. His eyes did the half-clinical thing: registering my pulse, my breathing, the angle of my shoulders.
He clocked the photograph in my chest pocket before I knew Crystal had given it to me, because Crystal had not given it to me yet.
The photograph was still in Crystal's pocket, and somehow Drew already knew there would be a photograph.
"Two days," I said.
"Two days."
He walked away.
I stood in the doorway of the supply tent and held the rebar, heavy, rough, his, and watched him walk back down the perimeter line toward whatever it was he did with his mornings, and I thought: he heard me say six.
He had heard me say six.
He had not flinched.
He had said yours.
The rust on the rebar came off on my hand. I wiped it on my pants. I went inside.
The clipboard was still on the shelf. Thirteen bags. The count was correct.
The radio crackled.
I started the route map.