“That’s not going to work on her.” Fazim spoke up. “If you really want to frighten her, you need her cripple.”
Anger rushed in, pushing out my fear. I lunged at him so fast that the grip holding me slipped. I got my hands on his throat, but arms wrenched me off him before I could do much damage. Someone slapped me again. When my vision cleared, Tamid was kneeling on the sand in the circle of lamps. His bad leg was sprawled out crookedly, and a gun rested against the back of his neck.
I hated Fazim, but I hated myself more. Tamid had warned me I’d get in trouble. I just hadn’t figured on getting anyone in trouble with me.
“Now,” the commander said in his fine accent. “Would you care to tell us whether or not you were with our friend from the east in Deadshot?”
I swallowed angry words that rose up automatically. Mouthing off wasn’t worth Tamid’s life. “I wasn’t with him.” I spoke through clenched teeth. “We were both there.”
“And where is he now?”
“I don’t know.” I thought he would hit me again. But the commander just pursed his mouth like he was disappointed in a bad student. He moved around to Tamid. I was suddenly afraid again.
“What happened to your leg?”
“Leave him alone!”
Tamid and the commander both ignored me. “It was twisted when I was born,” Tamid answered cautiously. We had an audience of about two dozen soldiers and a few hundred Last County folks. All of them were watching us with a mix of horror and fascination.
“Well, then.” The commander circled behind Tamid. “It’s hardly much good to you, is it?”
The bullet went straight through his knee. I screamed so loud, I couldn’t even hear Tamid’s cry as he crumpled to the ground. A single shriek pierced through the sudden uproar. Tamid’s mother. Two soldiers were holding her back.
“What do you think, Bandit?” Commander Naguib cried to me over the noise from the crowd. “A man with one leg might as well have none for all the good he is.” He aimed his gun at Tamid’s good leg.
“No!” The cry ripped through me.
“Then tell me the truth. And tell me fast. Where is he?”
“I don’t know!”
Tamid’s mother screamed.
“No! No! I don’t! He was here. He came here. Then he left.”
“When?” The commander came at me full stride, the simmering rage that lived under the cool face rising up again.
“Dusk. A few hours ago.”
“Where did he go?”
“I don’t know!” I cried out. The gun smashed across my head. Blood erupted across my vision. I saw a burst of red and light before it cleared and I could see the lanterns swinging above my head again.
“Where is he?” the commander asked.
“I don’t know,” I repeated, because the truth was all I had now, as weak as it was.
“I will shoot him again, and this time it might not be in the leg.”
“I’m not lying! He didn’t tell me. Why would he tell me?” I was shouting now.
“Which way did he go?”
“I don’t know!”
“Lying is a sin, you know.” The gun pressed against my cheek, hot metal in my face.
And then the world exploded into noise and light.
? ? ?
RINGING.
Everything was ringing.
My first thought was that someone had been shot.
Tamid?
I was facedown on the ground. I pushed myself to my elbows.
In the dark all I could see was fire where I knew a cliff of black brick was supposed to be.
The entire weapons factory was ablaze.
Sound rushed back in. Screaming came first. The folks of Dustwalk had flung themselves to the ground in prayer, or just covered their heads; some staggered to their feet, others just stared. Commander Naguib was already shouting instructions, Tamid and I forgotten. Soldiers were leaping onto their horses, riding full tilt toward the blaze.
Tamid.
He was crumpled on the sand, not moving, but as I called his name he looked up at me. At the same moment I heard his name again. His mother was cowering and weeping in the sand, trying to crawl toward him.
Then I heard the unmistakable scream of a Buraqi. The desert horse was barreling down the street toward us. On its back was Jin, riding straight toward me. Guns swiveled uncertainly in Jin’s direction. He fired a shot and a soldier went down.
I turned back to where Tamid was crumpled.
The Buraqi was almost on top of me.
I had seconds to decide. My legs were trapped, my gut tugging me recklessly toward Tamid. To near certain death. My heart tugging me to Jin and escape and the unknown.
Jin leaned over the horse, reaching down. A gunshot went off at my feet.
It wasn’t a decision. More than a want.
It was an instinct. A need. Staying alive.
Jin’s hand came into reach. I clasped it tight and swung my body as Jin pulled me up behind him. I saw Aunt Farrah’s ashen face. I saw Tamid crumpled in the sand. I saw Commander Naguib, reloading his weapon. Defenseless. Young.
It would be a clean shot. And Jin was armed. One shot and the commander would be dead. Jin knew it, too; I felt it in the tension of his shoulders. Instead he pulled the horse around, lowering his gun, and my hands twisted into Jin’s shirt a second before the Buraqi burst into the speed of a beast of wind and sand.
seven
“Tell me you drink.”
I woke to rough cloth against my face and the smell of gunpowder in my nose. I’d dozed off with my head against Jin’s back as we rode. His words vibrated through his shoulder blades and into my skull, jangling loosely until I put them together.
“You’ve seen where I grew up.” My voice sounded scratchy. When I opened my eyes all I could see was the weave of his shirt, but I could already tell we weren’t anywhere near Dustwalk. The air tasted different, of cooler mornings and grit instead of heat and dust and gunpowder. “Of course I drink.” My body ached and my chest felt like something was clattering around it. God knew I could use a drink or five right about now.
Sometime while we rode I’d wound my arms around Jin’s waist to hang on. I let him go and wiped the sweat of my palms onto my own shirt as Jin slid from the saddle. I tried to line up my thoughts along with my spine as I forced myself straight.
Wherever we were, it looked like most desert towns. Slapped together wooden houses and dusty ground. Only it was rockier than Dustwalk, and the horizon loomed close and high around us in the predawn haze. We must’ve gone up into the mountains.
I squinted up at a swinging signpost with a picture of a crudely drawn blue man with closed eyes. The lettering announced it as the Drunk Djinni. I knew that story, but I couldn’t remember it just now.
The town was dead quiet.