Chapter Twenty-Four What We Did
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
What We Did
Rhett woke in water.
Cold.
Fast.
He opened his eyes beneath a concrete beam and forgot his own name for three seconds.
Then pain arrived.
Shoulder.
Ribs.
Left leg.
Good.
Pain meant inventory.
The inspection tunnel had collapsed after he found the first charge.
He had cut one wire.
The second charge detonated anyway.
Not enough to destroy the spill gate.
Enough to rupture a service pipe.
Water now flooded the tunnel thigh-deep.
Rhett pushed the beam off his leg.
It moved.
He crawled.
"Eden!"
No answer.
Of course not.
She had gone east.
Good.
He reached the control alcove.
Three charges had been placed along the gate support.
One gone.
Two live.
He had no cutters.
The pistol was lost.
His knife remained in his boot.
Rhett pulled it.
The detonator wires ran through conduit toward the tower.
Manual trigger.
Sabra could fire anytime.
He cut the first wire.
Then the tunnel door burst inward.
Eden came through with water behind her.
Rhett stared.
"What are you doing here?"
"Disappointing you."
She reached him.
Her hands went to his face, shoulders, ribs.
He caught one.
"I'm alive."
"Unconvincingly."
He looked behind her.
"Convoys?"
"Both."
"What?"
"Long story."
"Glass Road?"
"Also both."
Rhett laughed, then coughed.
Bad idea.
Eden saw the charges.
"Two?"
"Yes."
"Detonator?"
"Tower."
"Then Sabra knows we're here."
"Likely."
She did not tease the word.
A shot echoed through the tunnel.
Stone chipped.
Tollhouse guards.
Eden pulled Rhett into the alcove.
"Can you run?"
"Define."
"Fast enough to regret it."
"Yes."
She grabbed the remaining wire bundle.
"No."
Rhett caught her wrist.
"You don't know which is trigger."
"Neither do you."
"I know one thing."
"What?"
"If we leave them, Sabra owns the decision."
Eden's face tightened.
"That's not worth dying."
"No."
He looked at the gate.
"Water is."
She stared at him.
Then nodded once.
They worked.
Eden traced conduit.
Rhett cut insulation.
A bullet hit the control box.
Sparks showered them.
"Faster," Eden said.
"Helpful."
Footsteps splashed closer.
Rhett found two red wires.
"Both?"
"One may be dead-man circuit."
"Meaning?"
"Cut wrong, boom."
Eden closed her eyes.
Not praying.
Thinking.
"Caro's film showed three charge points?"
"No."
"The spill gate design. Emergency demolition?"
Rhett stared.
"You memorized that?"
"I memorize routes."
"That's not a route."
"Water route."
She pointed.
"Pre-Burn gate safety would use normally closed circuit. If the wire breaks accidentally, it cannot detonate."
"So cut both."
"Yes."
"You sure?"
"No."
He smiled.
"Good."
Together they cut.
Nothing happened.
Footsteps reached the bend.
Eden grabbed Rhett.
"Now run."
They ran.
A Tollhouse guard appeared.
Rhett hit him with the empty cutter handle.
Eden kicked the rifle into water.
Second guard.
Shot.
Rhett felt heat along his side.
Not deep.
He tackled the man.
They crashed against the wall.
Eden took the rifle.
"Enough!"
The guard froze under the barrel.
Rhett got up.
Blood wet his shirt.
Eden stared.
"Graze."
"You are banned from that word."
"Later."
They emerged from the tunnel into chaos.
Water poured through the ruptured service pipe but the main spill gate held.
Glass Road and Dustline people had reached the tower from opposite sides.
Tollhouse guards were pinned behind pump rigs.
Sabra stood on the upper platform with a detonator box in one hand.
She pressed the switch.
Nothing.
Her face changed.
Eden raised the rifle.
Sabra looked at her.
"Shoot me, then."
Eden did not.
Sabra laughed.
"You always needed the road to tell you what to do."
Rhett felt Eden stiffen.
He stepped beside her.
Sabra looked at him.
"Junction Twenty-Seven."
Rhett's wound burned.
He did not look away.
"I did it."
Dustline people heard.
Glass Road people heard.
No place to hide behind manipulation.
"I ordered the raid. Kest fed us a lie. I wanted the lie."
Sabra's smile faded slightly.
Rhett continued.
"I wanted Glass Road guilty enough to hurt."
Mina stood below the platform.
Esme beside the north pump.
Rhett did not make a speech to them.
He was speaking because the truth belonged in the same air as the consequence.
"I can't undo it."
Eden looked at him.
Something painful opened in her face.
Sabra said, "How noble."
Rhett looked at her.
"No. Expensive."
Then the western support groaned.
The ruptured pipe had undermined the tower base.
Sabra's platform tilted.
She grabbed the rail.
The detonator fell.
Eden moved first.
She ran up the stairs.
Rhett shouted.
"Eden!"
Sabra slipped.
Eden caught her wrist.
For one absurd moment, the woman who had tried to own the reservoir hung above the spill channel from Eden's hand.
Sabra stared up.
"Why?"
Eden strained.
"Because I'm tired of dead people making every argument permanent."
Rhett climbed and helped pull Sabra onto the platform.
Dustline fighters took her.
She did not resist.
Below, water continued to waste through the broken service line.
Eden looked at it.
"We need to close that."
Rhett laughed.
Of course.
They climbed down.
Glass Road and Dustline worked on the repair together because the pipe did not care whose dead were older.
No forgiveness happened.
No one asked for it.
At sunset, the leak stopped.
Reservoir pressure stabilized.
Sabra sat under guard beside one of her own pump trucks.
Mina stitched Rhett's side while insulting his judgment.
Eden sat nearby with her ankle in cold water.
Rhett looked at her.
She looked back.
They had survived the reservoir.
They had not solved what stood between them.
In some ways, that was harder.
Later, when the camp quieted, Eden found him alone beside the dry channel.
"You said it publicly," she said.
"Junction."
"Yes."
"Needed saying."
"Not for me."
"No."
He looked at the dark mesa.
"I've said it privately for years. That I ordered it. But always with the reason beside it."
"Salt Narrows."
"Yes."
"Sabra."
"Now."
Eden sat on a rock.
Rhett continued.
"Reasons can become hiding places."
She was quiet.
Then: "I knew Hesk had used my route three weeks after Salt Narrows."
"I know."
"I could have sent a warning to Dustline anyway. Even late. I didn't."
"Why?"
"Because I was afraid you'd come for us."
"We did."
"Yes."
Rhett sat beside her, leaving space.
"I don't forgive that because I want you."
Eden looked at him.
He held her gaze.
"And I don't need you to forgive Junction because you kissed me."
Her throat tightened.
"Good."
"I hate that word now."
She smiled faintly.
The smile vanished.
"What are we doing?"
He knew she did not mean water.
Rhett looked at his hands.
"I don't know."
For once, the answer felt honest enough.
Eden nodded.
Then stood.
"Tomorrow we have a reservoir and two convoys that hate each other."
"Sounds restful."
She turned to leave.
Rhett wanted to stop her.
Did not.
At the edge of camp she looked back.
"Rhett."
"Yeah?"
"I still want you."
Then she walked away.
He sat in the dark, bleeding slightly through Mina's stitches, and realized uncertainty could hurt more than hatred.