They touched fists, and the deal was done. Both signaled to their followers to bring up the stores, the Cats the boxes of fruit, smaller than Hawk would have liked, but still sufficient, and Candle and River sacks containing the cells and flashlights. The stores were exchanged and their bearers retreated to their respective positions, leaving the leaders alone.
Hawk looked up at the sky. The rain had passed and the clouds were breaking up. It would get hot before long. He shoved his hands in his pockets and looked at Tiger.
“Came across a Lizard down past the Hammering Man on our way here,”
he said. “A big one. It was all torn up. Dying. What do think could have done it?”
Tiger shook his head. “A Lizard? I don’t know. What do you think did it?”
“Something new, something we don’t know about. Something really dangerous.
Better watch your back.”
The bigger boy pulled back the edge of his slicker to reveal a shortbarreled flechette hanging from his belt. “Found it a few weeks back.
Let’s see anything get past that.”
Hawk nodded. “I’d be careful anyway, if I was you.”
“Just get me that pleneten,” the other growled, dropping the slicker back into place.
“Tomorrow, same time, same place.”
“I need three days.”
Tiger glared at him. “Maybe Persia doesn’t have three days.”
“Maybe that’s the best that I can do.”
Tiger stared him down a moment longer, then wheeled away to join the other Cats. They slouched off up the street in a tight cluster and didn’t look back.
Hawk watched them until they were out of sight, thinking about the bargain he had just made, wondering how he could justify asking Tessa to risk herself yet again when he knew the danger of doing so.
Chapter THREE
CHENEY WAS CURLED up in one corner of the big common room between the old leather couch and the game table, his massive form most closely resembling a giant fur ball, when Owl rolled her wheelchair through the kitchen door and crossed to the bedroom to check on Squirrel. She was aware of one pale gray eye opening as she passed, registering her presence before closing again.
Cheney saw everything. She had found the wolfish, hulking guard dog unnerving when Hawk first brought him home, but eventually she got used to having him around. All of them had by this time, even the little ones, all but Panther, who really didn’t like Cheney. It was something in Panther’s past, she believed, but he wasn’t saying what that something was.
In any case, Cheney was important enough to their safety that it didn’t matter what Panther thought. Hawk had realized that from the beginning.
Nothing got close to their underground hideout without Cheney knowing. He could hear or smell anything approaching when it was still five minutes away. Even the Freaks had learned to stay clear. Although the Ghosts had come to accept him, they were wary of him, too. Cheney was just too big and scary with all that bristling hair and those strange patchwork markings. A junkyard dog made out of thrown-away parts. But a very large junkyard dog. Only Hawk was completely unafraid of him, the two of them so close that sometimes she thought they were extensions of each other. Hawk had taken Cheney’s name from one of Owl’s history books. The name had belonged to some long-dead politician who’d been around when the seeds for the Great Wars had been planted. Owl’s book described him as a bulldog spoiling for a fight. Hawk had liked the image.
She rolled the wheelchair up the ramp Fixit had built for her and eased herself into the mostly darkened bedroom. Squirrel lay tangled in his blankets on his mattress, but he was sleeping. She glanced at Sparrow, who was reading by candlelight in the far corner, keeping watch over the little boy.
Sparrow looked up from her book, blue eyes peeking out from under a mop of straw-colored hair.
“I think he’s doing better,” she said quietly.
Owl wheeled over to where she could reach down and feel the boy’s forehead. Warm, but no longer hot. The fever was burning itself out. She exhaled softly, relief washing through her. She had been worried about him. Two days ago, the thermometer had registered his temperature at 106, dangerous for a tenyear-old. They had so few medicines to treat anything and so little knowledge of how to use them. The plagues struck without warning, and any one of them could be fatal if you lacked the necessary medicines. There were vaccines to protect against contracting most of the plagues, and Hawk had gotten a few from Tessa, but mostly the street kids had to rely on luck and strength of constitution to stay healthy.
The danger of sickness or poisoning was the primary reason that people lived in the compounds. In the compounds, you could minimize the risk of infection and exposure. But the compounds held their own dangers, as Owl had found out firsthand. In her mind, if not in Tessa’s, the dangers of living inside the compounds clearly outweighed the dangers of living outside.