“Probably.”

The pressure in her bladder suddenly surged. For a moment it felt like she was going to wet her pants. But she’d already humiliated herself in front of Franny enough for one day. Gritting her teeth, she said, “Oh, joy. I can’t wait.”

Franny pulled out his phone. “I’ll let Billy Ray know you’re on board.”

Marcus, Vasel, the Handsmith, and a joker named Bulat had gone ahead of the caravan to plan. They stood over a map laid out on the road, the edges of it pinned with stones to keep it from blowing away in the dry morning breeze. Before them, a crossroads. One track of parched pavement bisected a smaller dirt road, running over a flat stretch of scrubland that stretched all the way to the horizon in both directions. The dirt road was a continuation of the one they’d followed here. It meandered into a stand of hills and veered out of sight.

Vasel jabbed at the map with a finger and said something in Russian. The Handsmith and Bulat exchanged wary glances. Bulat, one of the village elders, was a thin man with a weatherworn face, black mustache, and hair. He wore a long Kazakh jacket and a hat that to Marcus looked like some variation on a sailor’s cap. Glanced at in the right moment, he looked like a nat. But that’s only if you didn’t notice the small, lizard-like head that moved under the thin membrane of his skin. The head appeared and disappeared. It shifted from cheek to cheek, down the neck to his chest, up to protrude from his temple. It snapped flies out of the air whenever they got close enough.

Bulat said something that the Handsmith grunted agreement with. Vasel let flow with a string of words. The two men suffered his rant in silence, heads down. Clearly frustrated with them, Vasel turned to Marcus. Gruffly, he spoke English. “This way. To the A-2. Then M-32. Is the best way.”

“To the highway?” Marcus asked. “You saw what it was like coming out of Talas. We get on the highway, going slow, most of us jokers and all the crazy shit that’s been going on … That’s asking for trouble.”

Vasel scoffed. “Trouble I can handle. This snail’s pace I cannot. We can’t keep moving like this.” He gestured down the road they’d traveled on, disgust in the flick of his fingers.

“I should never have agreed to this,” Vasel said. “These jokers…”

“Don’t forget why you agreed,” Marcus said. “And anyway, they saved Olena, and they took us in more than once. You claim to love your daughter; if so, you owe every person in that village.”

“Person? I hardly see a person among them.” As the procession of jokers neared them, Vasel leaned in to Marcus and said, “And fuck you, black mamba. I know more about my daughter than you ever will. She is my blood. Don’t forget it.”