—
They were marched out of camp in twos, Andy taking the lead, Violet in the back, the other two armed men roaming up and down the line to shout in the ear of anyone who flagged with exhaustion, or to send a warning poke with the business end of their rifles into the lower back of anyone who—what? Seemed to be thinking of escape? Edie was pretty sure that escape, at this point, was on no one’s mind. Not if the person had any sense. It was pitch-black out—even the stars were obscured now behind a scrim of cloud cover—and they were heading in the opposite direction of the road they’d come in on. Unarmed, unStamped, wrists bound, they’d be completely helpless away from the company of their guards.
Jesse, beside her, huffed with exertion and affront. “I can’t believe this,” he muttered. “I mean, how stupid can they be? I have people. I’ll be missed. This will be all over the news.”
“Not for another three weeks,” Edie said tiredly. It was amazing the effect that an extreme situation—a little out-of-zone travel, a bit of hostage-taking—could have on a relationship. Jesse’s presence was intolerable right now—his voice, reedy with terror and steeled by entitlement; his rank fear-sweat; the way he kept veering into her, as if he had a flat left tire. She took some perverse pleasure in reminding him, “No one’s expecting to hear from us for three more weeks.”
There was nothing for a full moment but the sound of their breathing and the rustling of their boots through the leafy groundcover. Jesse bumped into her shoulder again, and Edie pulled roughly away from him, exhaling with a frustrated whoosh of breath.
“Shit,” Jesse said.
Hours passed. Andy and his men gulped from canteens, their headlamps tilting up toward the sky, spotlighting the canopy of limbs, then dropping down to blind a parched, covetous, staring traveler. Edie learned to stop looking. She retreated within herself and half-closed her eyes. The lamps became a guiding blur. She was in a locomotive of shuffling bodies. The muscles in her calves and shoulders burned—her right shoulder, bearing the weight of the collapsed tent, was a half-numb misery—and her heels erupted with blisters in her stiff new boots. The line stopped three times at the sound of shrieking. The first time it was Tia, who’d tripped and fallen flat on her face, unable to catch herself with her wrists still zip-tied. Violet dragged her roughly to her feet. Sometime later, a Stamp was administered. Another bite was, Andy declared, not a tick. Edie talked herself out of sounding the alarm at various itches, trusting that Andy hadn’t been lying about the unmistakable nature of the miner tick bite, even if he lied about everything else.
He had told her to leave, though, hadn’t he? He had told her to leave, and she’d said something virtuous about wanting to take care of Jesse. Jesse, who was muttering curses under his breath with every step, just loudly enough to touch Edie’s weary ears and no one else’s. The weight of their gear was hanging around her neck, but still he muttered.
She was taking care of him, all right. Good God, it was almost funny.
Sometime during the never-ending march, the light started to change. A soft grayness crept in, defining the shoulders of the person in front of her. Feingold. Fifteen or twenty minutes later, she could read the label on the back of Wes’s microsuit:
SECONDSKINS
“WHEN SECONDS MATTER”
MADE IN INDONESIA
“OK, stop,” Andy called, the first loud noise in hours, startling most of them out of dazes. Edie nearly ran into Wes.
“Listen up,” Andy said. “There’s a firebreak up ahead and two vehicles. I want you in them in five minutes. Go where we point. Find a place to park yourself. There are more asses than seats, so get ready to get friendly with each other and put your crap wherever you can fit it. Questions?”
They all blinked dry, swollen eyes and tried not to attract this new Andy’s notice.
“Great,” Andy said. “Fantastic. If I’d have known that all it would take to shut you whiney fuckers up was a four-hour hike, I’d have done it a lot sooner.”
This was bad, but Edie couldn’t help but feeling a bit of hope at the thought of sitting down. Even if she had to ride the whole way in Jesse’s lap. Because vehicles meant they were leaving the woods. They were going somewhere with fuel. Roads. Roofs. Right?