The heat of the day was already starting to increase, but the soldiers were still drunk and barely moving. A nailshed girl hurried through the mud of the street, barefoot, clutching torn clothing around her. She took one look at Mahlia and her gun, and steered clear.

Mahlia wondered what she herself looked like, that a girl like that would be afraid of her. She reached the water.

The man straightened at her approach, and his hand went for a gun when he saw Mahlia carrying the shotgun.

“Don’t!” She held out her hand, holding the shotgun wide. “Don’t.”

“What’s your business, castoff?”

“Me and my friend got to get downriver. We don’t got no money. But we give your boys back if you get us down.”

“Maybe I’ll just shoot you.”

“We need you. Need you to get us past the checkpoints. Tell us where they are.”

“Who are you?”

“Just a war maggot, looking to get out.”

“There’s no way out. No one gets onto the scrap ships. They won’t take your kind, or any other. Not unless you’ve got a king’s ransom stuffed down your shorts. No one goes anywhere. The armies up north, all the battle lines. There’s nowhere to go. And not for your kind, for sure. Now where’s my boys?”

“You want them to live, you go downriver, past town. Tie up just out of sight. We’ll meet you.” Mahlia turned away.

“Wait!”

“What?” Mahlia glared at him, summoning all her threat. “What? You got something to say, old man?” She tossed the shotgun to him. “Take it. We don’t want it. You either come downriver and get your boys back, or you don’t—and you don’t.”

“Maybe I gun you down right here.”

“Fates,” Mahlia said. “I’m dead already, old man. Don’t you get it? You kill me, it don’t matter. I’m just another castoff. People won’t even blink about it, will they? They’d mourn a nailshed girl more than they’d mourn me.”

She held up her arms, stretching them wide. “I got no armor. Got nothing. You want to blow me away, you do it. No one cares.” She looked at him. “But if you care about your boys, then you come downriver, and you meet us, and you get them back, all in one piece.

“Otherwise, you got my head, and you get theirs, too.”

She turned and headed back into the jungle, not looking back. Her spine prickled and sweat gushed down her ribs. Waiting for the bullet.

A gamble. Everything was a damn gamble. Betting against luck and the Fates, again and again, and again.

She kept walking, waiting for the bullet.

32

“YOU WANT ME to carry that downriver?”