The soldier talking to Lieutenant Sayle said, “We got to hurry. We got the sucker roped, but there’s no telling how long till it wakes up. Until we got it chained or something, there’s no guarantee it won’t just bust loose. It’s strong now. Stronger than when we chased it before. We don’t want it waking up.”

The soldier looked familiar to Mahlia.

The one she’d saved from the coywolv, she realized. The one she and Doctor Mahfouz had stitched up. She regretted it now. Should have let him die. Should have cut him wider open, and saved everyone the trouble. She could have finished it right there in the doctor’s squat, a month ago.

Ocho. That’s right. For knifing a bunch of other soldiers who all had guns.

Lieutenant Sayle was pissed. He kept looking from Mahlia to Ocho.

“Sir?” the sergeant pressed. “We got to make this happen now.”

Sayle nodded impatiently, then stalked over to Mahlia. “We aren’t finished, girl. We’re just getting started.”

He waved at some of his other soldiers and they all headed out, leaving Ocho and another squad behind. Mahlia closed her eyes. The pain in her hand was going away. She couldn’t tell if that was because she was bleeding out… No, she couldn’t bleed out. Not just from a finger. That would have been too damn easy. Sayle wouldn’t let her go easy.

She lay still, trying not to sob. Some of the soldier boys roped her legs and her arms behind her. The stump gave them a little trouble, so they did her arms above the elbows, almost dislocating her shoulders in the process, using some kind of sticky tape that wouldn’t slide off.

Footsteps. Mahlia opened her eyes. It was the sergeant, standing over her.

“What the hell were you thinking?” he asked.

Mahlia summoned all her will, looking up at him, hating him. “You remember me, right?”

“Oh yeah. Crazy girl who brought the coywolv down on us. Ripped up Soa and Ace and Quickdraw.”

“Saved you, though.” She stared up at him. “You remember that? I saved you.”

“Yeah, I remember.”

The soldier boy almost looked sad.

Mahlia stared up at him, willing a connection. Willing him to see her as a person. “Let me go,” she said. “Just let me and Mouse go.”

“You crazy? I let you go, I’m dead. That boy you call Mouse?” He shook his head. “He’s already dead. Never even existed. We got a soldier name of Ghost, who might look something like someone you knew a long time ago, but he ain’t that boy anymore.”

“We could run.”

“There’s nowhere to go,” Ocho said.

“What if we could get away? The half-man could do it. He could get us out.”

Ocho smiled slightly. “Now you’re just sliding.”