I’m not going to die, Charity told herself. After all, her father’s vision said the matches saved her. They had. Sort of. Although, technically, Zia had saved her. Had Charity messed upthe prediction? That could happen, and once you didn’t follow the prediction’s instructions, all bets were off. Maybe those men were only pretending to be dead to fool her.
She reached them, and, yeah, judging from the damage, they weren’t pretending. She pried the rifle from the first man’s hand, then went to the second man and grabbed his. The guns felt lighter than she expected for something so deadly.
She turned to run back along the side of the tent. Zia was no longer peering around the corner. Milo had taken her place, and his expression showed his worry. His eyes suddenly focused on something behind her.
“Drop!” he yelled.
Charity dove, hoping that smacking two rifles into the dirt wouldn’t cause them to discharge. She also wondered in a detached sort of way if Milo had simply been telling her to drop the weapons. If that was the case, they might laugh about her reaction someday. Well, not really. She was never going to laugh about this day.
Milo fired and bullets whizzed over her head. Someone behind her screamed, and she heard the thud of a body hitting the ground.
Was it safe to move? Should she stay down? The sound of distant shouting echoed through the tents.
Milo waved for her to get up. Her trembling limbs had other ideas. Peeling herself off the ground took forever. She kept her gaze on Milo. He was watching the area and would tell her if more raiders appeared.
She sprinted, breathless, to her brother. Zia stood at the truck, searching the front seat, most likely looking for a key. “I can’t find anything,” she called to Milo.
“We’ll have to search the dead men,” he called back.
Charity winced at the thought. She didn’t want to look at their charred bodies let alone rummage around for a key. Thestink of burnt flesh hadn’t dissipated. “Can you hotwire the truck?” she asked.
“Maybe,” he said. “Unless it has anti-theft tech.”
Slavers had probably disabled that sort of thing when they first stole the truck. She wouldn’t let herself consider the possibility that a slaver had purchased the truck from the government like a respectable citizen.
While Milo checked the truck’s security system, Zia searched one of the burned men. Charity kneeled by the bearded raider and dug around in his front pockets. Nothing. She rolled him over and noticed blood on her hands. No time to wipe it off now. The only thing his back pockets held was a can of chewing tobacco.
They needed the key, had to get out of here quickly. She couldn’t have come this far just to be recaptured. The slavers would do horrible things to them for killing so many of their people.
Charity should’ve been the one to throw the matches. Everything would’ve worked out if she’d been the one to throw the matches.
“I can hot wire it,” Milo said.
Yes. Charity picked up the rifles and bolted away from the dead man.
She was nearly to the truck when a panicked voice behind her called out, “Don’t shoot!”
Charity spun, rifles lifted. A teenage boy in a shock collar stood in the row between the tents, slowly approaching with raised hands. Curly brown hair topped his head in wild disarray. His eyes were wide. “The other slavers fled,” he yelled. “You heard that truck pull out of here, right? That was the last two. It’s only us captives left now. None of us have weapons.”
Charity hadn’t considered this possibility—that the slavers would cut and run. Maybe she shouldn’t have been surprised.The slavers knew her group was armed and had already managed to kill several of their number.
She relaxed, but Milo kept his rifle trained on the kid. “How do we know the raiders didn’t send you here so we’d lower our guard?”
The teenage boy stopped, and his shoulders gave the briefest of shrugs. “You can search the tents if you want. I just…” he stumbled over his words. “I need to get back to my family in Topeka. My name is Callum Newman. If you could take me someplace where I can contact my parents, they’ll figure out a way to get me home.”
Milo’s eyes narrowed. His gun remained raised.
“He’s telling the truth,” Charity said.
Zia’s eyes were equally narrow. “How do you know?”
Charity dropped her voice to a whisper. “Dad told us we’d be bringing something else back, and we’d know it when we saw it.” She waved a hand in the boy’s direction. “I see it.”
Apparently, Milo did too. He sighed and lowered his rifle.
3
Milo had been telling the truth about the bullet only hitting the side of his hand. The wound was still deep enough that it needed to be seen by a doctor, or at least by Charity’s mother, who’d been a nurse once. But Milo wasn’t about to leave without taking some of the slavers’ booty.