Chapter 3
When they began to herd slaves from his little group into a vehicle, one captured from the caravan, Sawyer waited until he was the only person left outside. He eyed the Scavs – two of them, and one of them was that Dayne. Good or bad, he didn’t know, didn’t care.
He’d ask, they could only say no. He figured the Scavs were a warrior race who’d appreciate a man’s need for freedom. They didn’t seem as likely to swat you as the grounders, who’d always been nervous of any hint of rebellion.
“I’d like to travel up there.” He indicated the roof of the gray vehicle. “I’ve been stuck inside one of these for many months, off and on. Chain me up there if you want but I need to feel the breeze against my skin.”
Dayne looked at the roof then at him again, blond eyebrows waggling. “Up there? We’re traveling through the night. If I chain you and you fall, you’ll get dragged, die maybe. Getting pulled through the dirt will grind away flesh. Not pretty.”
Night was indeed coming. The trees were casting long, blue shadows. They mightn’t have owls here, but there were other birds and these gorgeous bugs with translucent wings that shone like glass. They were night dwellers, and once, he’d seen them drifting across the double moons.
Beautiful. A light show of fragile opalescence sifted by moonlight. It’d made his chest ache for home, for Earth.
Need hooked at him, to breathe free air.
“I’ll take that chance.” He cleared his throat, held up his wrists. “I’ll want some help to get up there.”
“Bold. You are bold.” Dayne studied him. “I like that.”
“Mind telling me where we’re going?”
“To the base that used to belong to a Scav commander called Osta. Near a town called Traggo. It’s ours now.”
“Fun place?”
“Sure.” Dayne smiled. The man was full of smiles. He cocked his head and looked down the length of his strong nose at Sawyer, aiming as if it might’ve been a gunsight. “Might not be fun for you. Take care up there.” He raised his eyebrows toward the roof.
“Will do.”
“Wait.” Dayne jogged away for a minute then returned with a faded red blanket in hand. “Off the back of a jagg so it’ll smell but...” He shrugged and tossed it to Sawyer.
“Thanks.” The kindness baffled him.
Just a man being nice to a stranger. It shouldn’t be so astounding. This world was screwing with his normals. Sawyer squashed his fist around the scratchy cloth. If someone offered him a cup of coffee he’d likely want to shoot them.
They boosted him to the roof then attached him with a two-yard chain to a heavy fixture on the side of the squarish vehicle. No one could shake that loose. If he fell, he truly would be dragged.
Fuck that. Worth it for the ride.
The engines started; they rattled onward. He’d never before noticed the faint, bluish steam rising from the engine compartments, never really become familiar with the shapes of the leaves where they blanketed the sky from view. He craned his neck to study them. Broader than most on Earth. Even so, he could imagine himself back there. Home.
This was the last vehicle in the line and it followed the road same as those in front, jarring him when it hit bumps and ruts. After this were only three riders on jaggs. He’d seen one run earlier. Or gallop, perhaps it should be termed? The things could go faster than any horse. Maybe faster than any vehicle he’d seen used.
The Mekkers probably had ground or flying craft that could surpass anything the Scavs or grounders possessed, speedwise. They were top of the tech tree on this world. How had these Scav bastards survived when their enemy was the Mekkers?
Night had fallen but no moons showed. Through the trees to the right, a yellowish glow suffused the undersides of clouds. Big, vast black sky and a faraway glow like a city. That’d be a Mekker swathe. Why did they move? Why not settle down, beat up the locals, feed off them? There must be some deeper reason he’d not encountered yet.
He was getting ahead of himself. First step – get free. Second? Her. Miss Ari Smartass Jiggle-tits. He’d never been a man to cruise past an enticing puzzle that was so female and cute.
Though she wasn’t sweet – more like ferocious – and she definitely looked as cute and attractive as dog poop when she turned on her charm.
Puzzling but then he liked puzzles. He also liked the idea of messing with her after she’d played that castration card. God, would he like to mess with her. How the fuck dare she threaten him.
Rubik’s cubes and Monopoly, Cards against Humanity, Twister, football, playing hide and seek with the neighbor’s kids when he was little.
Sometimes he made lists in his head of stuff from Earth he should remember; because he was forgetting things he should know. Needed to hang onto those. He wasn’t just the man he’d become here; he was Sawyer, special forces soldier who’d survived Afghanistan and Iraq, with a sister he loved and parents who must wonder what’d become of him and his sister, Fern.
Back then, he’d wondered at the crap the world threw at you. Didn’t matter how good you were, or how bad, nothing mattered when people were trying to kill you. You lived or you died in a puddle of blood and shit. Pieces of your pulverized body were stepped on when everyone else ran for cover. He’d seen that happen – lain prone beneath a leafless tree with the guts of a friend tangled in the branches and dripping vile stuff on him. Horns weren’t the sign of the Devil; IEDs were.
He’d gone home and thought he might drag himself up from the muck, given time.
Mind full of pain but he had friends, and the streets had people doing their average life things, kids playing in playgrounds, comedy on TV...Fern’s wedding.
The night before her wedding...then here.
They’d likely executed her, and all because she’d done what he’d taught her to do – stand up for herself.
His morals were possibly cold and dead.
However.
Sawyer lay back, sighing despite the cold.
When things were good you took advantage.
Who cared about cold when you could lie here with rivets poking into your back and watch the stars twinkle.
God. Stars.
Stars up there.
Starry, starry night... Which song was that from? All those songs he’d never hear again.
Still...here, now, nothing beat this.
He had a chance. He might’ve doomed himself by being so forward, by almost lying about Zarr’s directive, but this was better than being subservient. He’d done enough of that. The slave him was getting buried. Time to roar, to bust out and stand tall, time to fight for his future.
He hadn’t seen stars except through barred windows for such a long time.
His eyes ached. He let the tears flow. No one could see.
There were times even a man got to cry.
Cry it out. Then...when things were raining fire and brimstone, he could do what he had to do to win. He knew what the rules for that would be: Fuck up everyone on this dirty, grimy, misbegotten planet that was likely shat from the asshole of a black sun.