At two hundred feet away, I could make out the black banner that flew above the encampment. At a hundred and fifty feet, I could see the shape of a flame on it. Of all the slavers, it had to be him? And I knew it was him, because no one else would dare steal another slaver’s brand.

That flame shape was burned onto every slave’s shoulder. Reputation was big to slavers. You didn’t want to be known for selling sick slaves. They came and went through most of the countries with impunity. That would disappear quickly if they sold damaged goods.

The closer we got, the farther I inched backward. By the time we were standing in front of their encampment, I was at the back of our small group. Just seeing the place made my breathing hitch, and I’d avoided looking toward the center, where the slaves would be kept.

Two slavers stepped forward on our approach, both with nasty-looking swords in their hands.

“We have business to do. Get Mathan,” Ryker informed them, an arrogance in his tone that came from having people always follow his commands—or most people, anyway.

Mathan. I edged farther to my right, partially obscuring myself behind Ryker’s back, hoping the slaver would say Mathan wasn’t available. He didn’t. He turned to do Ryker’s bidding, not questioning what he was there for. The other slaver remained and waited beside our group, a hand on his sword.

The slaver returned a few minutes later, and I saw a familiar face alongside him. The brown hair was now streaked with grey and the face was lined with wrinkles, but it was him.

Maybe he’d send his men as an escort and never even notice me. I kept my head down, praying for invisibility, and thought about latching on to Sneak.

Mathan stopped in front of our group. “Ryker, my man said you were here to do business.”

His voice was the same as I remembered. Even the gloating tone because Ryker needed something from him was classic Mathan.

Ryker tensed in front of me, his magic shooting up a couple of notches. “Why are you looking at her? You’re dealing with me.”

Without even looking up, I knew Mathan had seen me. He knew. He recognized me after all these years. Ruck moved closer to my side until I felt his arm brush mine.

I wasn’t that person anymore. It didn’t matter what he said. Except I was so tough I couldn’t even look at him?

“I’d recognize that hair anywhere.” Mathan laughed. It was a sound that haunted me in my nightmares. “She’s one of mine. You have my property.”

They were closing ranks around me, Burn on my other side and Sneak taking up the rear.

“I told you. Stop looking at her. She’s not yours.” I’d never heard Ryker’s voice go so deep and soft, as if the magic in his veins was leaking out into his voice.

I was surrounded and I still wouldn’t meet his eyes? No. I wasn’t that girl anymore. I lifted my head, staring at him.

“Yes, she is.” The slaver was so intent on me that he didn’t see Ryker’s expression changing. He didn’t feel the magic swelling because he couldn’t.

Burn did, though, because I heard him say, “Oh fuck,” under his breath.

“I looked for you for a long time. Where did you run off to?” Mathan asked, taunting me.

I wasn’t a child anymore. I wasn’t helpless. I grabbed the dagger at my side and moved toward him, and no one stopped me.

A fleeting thought came into my head, and I wondered if this would cost me my deal with Ryker. Then I moved forward anyway.

“Aw, she thinks she can hurt me.” The slaver laughed back to the men with him. He was an idiot to not notice he was the only one laughing. Mathan turned to Ryker. “You know you’re going to have to pay me for her, right?”

I didn’t make it to the slaver in time. I heard the swish of a sword and the slaver was doubling over, grasping his stomach.

We were seriously outnumbered. I couldn’t see everyone at the camp, but I saw enough that it was at least ten to one, if I didn’t count the people who had slave markings. This was about to be a bloodbath. I glanced back, looking for Burn, who had already caught up to me, ready.

Ryker took the lead, moving to meet two men who were already rushing at us. Ryker moved so fast that the first man ran straight into his sword before he saw it. Ryker pulled the sword free and swung it until it took the next man’s head clear off.

Maybe we weren’t so outnumbered. The other slavers must’ve felt the same, because the assault stopped. Both groups stood facing off for a moment, and then the slavers who had rushed to the area at the sign of trouble slowly backed away.

“Finish him,” Ryker said, pointing his bloody sword toward Mathan, who was squirming on the ground, whimpering.

I realized Ryker had left him alive intentionally for me. Mathan looked up at me. “Please, don’t do this. I wasn’t that bad to you.”

I thought back to the three years I’d been with him.

“Not that bad? You were a monster,” I whispered so only he could hear.

I moved forward, intending to thrust my dagger upward, right underneath his breastbone. It was too clean a death for him. I kicked him onto his back and held him there with a heel on his shoulder. Dagger in hand, I carved an X into his stomach, from one rib to his hipbone. There was no coming back after that.

Ryker didn’t ask me anything as we walked. No one did. It was almost worse, because the only reason they weren’t asking was because they already knew. They were probably imagining the worst, and I didn’t try and stop them. Stopping them would include speaking to them about it.

Burn fell into step beside Ryker. “Couldn’t you have done that after they smuggled us across?”

“No,” Ryker said.

“Well, we can’t enter with the slavers anymore, since none of them are going to want to help us after we left their leader bleeding to death. How are we getting close enough now?” Burn asked.

“I’ve got a problem with that,” Sneak said.

I whipped my head in Sneak’s direction. He had a problem with me killing Mathan? He knew I’d been a slave to that monster, and he had a problem with me slicing his stomach open?

Sneak continued, oblivious to me. “Your logic is way off. The slaver is definitely dead by now. No way he’s still bleeding out.”

I stopped, giving Sneak my death stare. He was right. No way Mathan was still alive after what I’d done. I should’ve been less aggressive so it took longer.

“He could still be alive,” Burn said.

“No way. Did you see the amount of blood? Were you even looking?” Sneak was getting agitated.

Their quarrel almost put a smile on my face. This was a really good argument.

“Let’s make camp,” Ryker said as we neared the perimeter of the forest again, no one knowing if we were going to continue north tomorrow.

I threw down my sack and headed toward the sound of the stream. Ryker’s eyes followed me as he stood beside Ruck, talking. I glanced over and our eyes met; the intensity in his stare was so strong that I nearly tripped as I turned and walked away.

I rinsed off for a good long while, hoping the sun would set sooner rather than later. It would be easier to sit at camp in partial darkness and not have to worry about strange looks coming my way.

I heard someone approach, but they held no magic. Ruck squatted beside me, cupping his hands in the water and taking a sip before shaking them out.

I kept my eyes trained on the ripples of water passing. “Was he asking questions?”

“Yeah.”

I dipped my hand in again, forcing the water to part around my fingers. “And?”

“And nothing. I don’t know enough myself to say much. I might’ve told him about the day we met, though.”

Might’ve? That meant he’d told him everything he knew.

I was lying on the ground, my cheek flush to the dirt. I needed to get up, needed to get farther away, but all I did was lie there. It was the first time I’d left the cave in more days than I could count, living off the small stream that ran through it and whatever bugs I could find. The opening had been so small that a grown man couldn’t have fit into it, and it had saved my life.

“You okay?”

I jerked my head toward the voice. A boy, probably close to my age, seven or so, stood there, looking up at me.

I didn’t know how to answer, so I stared at him instead.

“You hungry? I don’t have much, but I’ll share what I have.”

I nodded. It could be a trap, but there was something about his eyes, an honesty and warmth there that I hadn’t seen in such a long time. I pushed off the ground and climbed down a few steps toward him as he dug around in a sack he had strung around his back.

He held out a handful of berries. I didn’t recognize them, but I ate them anyway.

“When was the last time you ate?”

“I ate a couple of bugs a few hours ago.”

He nodded, seeming much older as he said, “Yeah, I’ve been there.” He held out his hand to me. “I’m Ruck. What’s your name?”

I opened my mouth and stalled. I didn’t want to lie, but I didn’t know if the slavers were looking for me, either.

“It’s okay. I’ll call you Bugs.”

Bugs. It worked. I shook his hand.

“I’m starting up a crew and could use some more people. You look like a good sort. Any interest?”

I looked around, debating my options, and realized I had no idea what else to do. “Okay.”

I’d been with Ruck ever since, and he’d turned out to be an even better person than I’d imagined. I knew why he’d blabbed. For some reason, he seemed to think Ryker was a good guy too.

“I’m sorry I can’t share that part of me, but it’s one of those things I don’t want to talk to anyone about,” I said. “I want it left dead, in the past.” Ruck had stopped asking me about what my life had been like years ago. He had enough of his own bad memories to understand that some stuff was better off unsaid.

“I get it.” Ruck reached down and scooped up more water into his hands, as if he were trying to figure out what else to do with himself. “He had your back, though.”

Ryker had protected his interests. Arguing was useless, though, and I was finally realizing that. It was easier to tease Ruck and fall into old habits. “He’s converted you. You’ve sold your soul for morning biscuits.”

“They serve them at lunch and dinner, too. They’re mighty tasty biscuits. It’s a fair deal.”

I let a small laugh out. Ruck could always make me smile, even when I was in the muddiest mental pit around.

Ruck glanced over his shoulder as Ryker approached. For once, I hadn’t realized he’d been approaching, and that said something.

So much for getting a moment alone at the stream. Ruck stood, patted me on the shoulder, and walked back to camp.

I flexed my fingers in the water, ignoring the numbness.

“Your skin is going to turn blue if you keep washing them.”

“I had some dirt I couldn’t get off.”

He stood behind me, his magic nearly as chaotic as mine usually was. I’d noticed that the last time someone had died. Death must be his Achilles’ heel, although there hadn’t seemed to be any hesitation when he’d killed the slavers.

I dropped my head, not wanting to look at him, and his magic seemed to flare out. “Can you reel it in a bit?”

His magic pulled back immediately, as if he had complete control and hadn’t noticed the slip.

“You don’t have the slaver’s mark,” he said, his voice calm and almost unnaturally flat.

He’d seen my back, so he knew it wasn’t there. “They thought I’d fetch a better price if I wasn’t scarred.” His magic was shooting around again. “Your magic,” I snapped, not meaning to. I was having a hard enough time today without his magic setting off mine.

He pulled it back again.

I was waiting for the next question, the one people always wondered about when they heard someone was a former slave. Had I been raped? How damaged was I? All the questions that stopped me from telling anyone about my past.

He didn’t ask a thing. He walked a couple of paces down the river, knelt, and took his sweet time rinsing his hands and clothes.

I sat back on my haunches, letting the water flow over my hands, imagining that it could wash away the bad, all the while seeing Ryker out of the corner of my eye. He didn’t talk or even look my way, and he kept his magic reined in.

When I stood, so did he.

“I’m not sure what you want, but I’m not going to spill my guts to you just so you can be entertained. Of all people, not you.”

There was a flicker of hurt and a swell of magic again, but then it was gone.

He squinted. “What’s wrong with me?” he asked, joking, making me doubt what I’d just seen a second before.

“You don’t even like me. Why would I tell you?”

“Who said I didn’t like you?” He shrugged, as if the notion was absurd.

“You’ve called me every bad thing you could think of.”

“I can like you if I want.”

“You can’t. You told me you didn’t, and that’s how you’re keeping it.”

“No. I don’t think so. I’ve changed my mind. I think you might be very likeable.”

Very likeable? He had to make me all confused before I walked into a situation that might kill me.

“I’m a thief, along with a lot of other horrible things, remember?”

He shrugged, shrugged, at the mention of the insult he’d hurled at me over and over again. If he didn’t stop shrugging this all away, I was going to push him into the river.

“I’m still the thief, the horrible person who stole food from the mouths of your people.”

His smile was gone, and not in an I hate you way. He looked like— No, it couldn’t be. If Ryker apologized, it was all over. I’d melt right here on the spot.

“I don’t know what you’re thinking right now, but you better get that out of your mind. We don’t get along, and that’s the way it’s going to be.”

Actually, that sounded like a bald lie, even to me.

He nodded. And I hated that he only nodded because I knew what he was thinking, and it was almost as bad as him saying it.

“Bugs—”

“Shhh. I don’t want to hear anything. We hate each other and that’s it.”

I turned, and he grabbed my arm, stopping me, keeping me stuck beside him. I stared off at the trees lining the river. As if that wasn’t bad enough, he slowly pulled me closer to him when I would’ve kept my arm outstretched.

“I didn’t want to like you and I went out of my way not to. I’m sorry.”

Fuck. Ryker had just apologized, and now I wanted to melt into a blubbering mess. What was wrong with me? I’d be walking around smiling at strangers soon, like the rest of the idiots.

“Let go of me.” I pushed at his chest with my free hand. He didn’t budge at first, and I pushed again, fearing he was going to do something devastating, like kiss me, because that heat was back in his eyes.

This time he loosened his hold.

I started back toward the camp, and he walked beside me.

“Tell me something: did you actually escape the slavers, or did they decide it just wasn’t worth it anymore?” he joked, releasing some of the tension that had been there a second ago.

“If you don’t shut up, I’m going to hit you again.”

“You hit me before? I must’ve missed that.”

I turned and nailed him in the arm.