“Out here, not too many homeless types wanna share with someone that ain’t from their camp. One thing you learn: a woman has to be firm and direct with her words and her actions. You did right, not giving an inch. Last thing a female can do, or you’ll end up raped, dead, or both. Can’t turn a blind eye to another’s ways. They’s types out here that don’t have a care in the world for how they treat you to get what they want. Out here, there’s no consequences for their actions.”

On the bus, eyes judge. Heads shake and turn away. Bodies maneuver to avoid being touched by Anne and her new people. She experiences being looked at as though she were something not quite human, some unknown species.

Getting off the bus, they walk back to the encampment. Breaking off the road, heading through the woods, following their trails back to the jungle, they arrive carrying new supplies.

Dredd sits on a threadbare, sunken couch, surrounded by several young girls. “You bear gifts,” he says grandly.

“We do,” Cinnamon tells him.

“What a haul. Must’ve been one of those days when the traffic is thick and hearts are bleeding, feeling guilt for their privileged ways of living.”

“People were generous,” Anne says.

“I see that.” Dredd’s grin undresses her, and he says, “Come on, then. Let me see the fruits you have gleaned and gathered.”

Everyone starts laying down their plastic sacks filled with loot before Dredd. Emptying their backpacks of what they gathered in town. Dredd starts sorting and digging through the clothing, holding things up as if mentally trying them on. He pulls a bright green Granny Smith apple from a sack and bites into it, chewing and sucking the juice from it.

“This is amazing. Really fresh.”

All eyes in the encampment watch and wait to see what supplies Anne and the others have gathered on their foray into the city.

Anne feels a revulsion simmering inside her. After she and the others stood and earned and picked through everything that Dredd now consumes and appropriates, it is far from fair or equal. As if sensing Anne’s disgust, Cinnamon tugs at her elbow, pulls her attention away. Shifting her head, she nods for Anne to follow her away from the lunacy of Dredd’s dictatorship.

They wander into the sleeping area. No one is around. It’s dead quiet. Cinnamon digs into her backpack. “Found a little something in a barber shop’s trash.”

“What is it?” Anne asks.

“New identity.” Cinnamon holds up a pair of battery-powered hair trimmers. “You wanna change your look?”

“I don’t want to be a skinhead.”

“You really think I would waste that beautiful face by turning you into a Nazi?”

“No,” she says. “But what’s your idea?”