nausea was kicking up and the heat was unbearable. She pulled off the cloak Hunter had given her, just to feel the breeze on her skin.
“S-so why’d they send you after me?” she finally asked.
Hunter lowered her rifle, slung it over her back once more.
“Because the Polluted—Daedalus—will eventually realize their error. They sent their cyborg tracker after Lemonfresh’s friend. The half-life.”
“Her name is Evie,” Lemon muttered, feeling stung.
Hunter nodded. “Daedalus believed she was the Gifted one. Once they understand Lemonfresh is the threat, they will set hounds to her heels.”
“Hold up,” Lemon said, blinking hard. “I’m no threat to anyone.”
“Lemonfresh can destroy the Polluted’s machines. All they have, all they are, runs on electrical current. And she is current’s bane.”
Lemon rubbed at her aching temples. Ezekiel had already told her as much—he’d said a weapon that could fry electronic tech with a wave of her hand could win the war between the long-feuding CorpStates of BioMaas Incorporated and Daedalus Technologies. Daedalus obviously agreed, which was why they’d set the Preacher on Eve’s tail.
And once they’ve figured out I’m the devia—
Without warning, Lemon rolled up onto her knees, vomiting all over her cloak. She groaned, holding her belly as it spasmed again. Running on empty, she dry-heaved anyway, cherry bob hanging in her eyes.
“Is she well?” Hunter asked.
“Is sh-she k-kidding?” Lemon moaned.
Hunter knelt beside the girl, concern shining in those golden eyes. She pressed a palm to Lemon’s brow, gently wiped the sweat off her freckled cheeks. Lemon felt a couple of deathbees crawling over her face, but she was feeling entirely too pukey to panic. Hunter leaned close, peered into Lemon’s eyes, inhaled deeply along her skin.
“She went to the glass land,” she declared. “Or the dead spire.”
“Babel?” Lemon winced. “Y-yeah, I might’ve … dropped in for a quick drink.”
Hunter scowled. “The death is in her. The sickness from its sundered heart.”
“… Radiation?”
Lemon’s stomach sank as Hunter nodded. She knew she’d sucked up a few rads when Gabriel tore her suit, but she didn’t realize she’d been dosed enough to get sick. Still, there was no fooling the churn in her gut, the fever burning on her skin. Apparently she’d worn a dose hard enough to hurt her.
Maybe worse?
“Am … am I gonna die?”
“We do not know. They could treat her in CityHive. But it is far.”
Fear crawled up her throat, cinching it tight. Lemon had seen firsthand what radsick could do to a person. Back when she was a sprog, a kid named Chuffs had scavved a leaky reactor out of an old war logika out in the Scrap, not knowing it was still hot. He’d been bleeding out of everywhere he possibly could’ve when he died.
“Can’t you radio them to come get us or s-something?” she asked.
Hunter’s face soured. “We do not use the tech of the oldflesh. We have sent word on the wind”—she motioned to her bees—“but it will take time to fly.”
Lemon swallowed hard.
“Time I don’t have?”
“We are not experts. We stay away from deadplaces. We do not sicken.”
Lemon clenched her teeth, trying to keep on her streetface. Her braveface. But after all she’d been through, cashing her chips out here in the wastes from a dose of radsick didn’t exactly strike her as exactly fair. She was only fifteen or sixteen years old. If she hadn’t got wrapped up in all this lifelike crap, Daedalus, BioMaas, she wouldn’t even be here. And now she was gonna get ghosted for it?
“This,” she declared, “is a little far from fizzytown.”
Hunter stood slowly, looking to the horizon.
“… Town,” she repeated.
Lemon tilted her head. “What?”
The BioMaas operative nodded.
“West. Near ocean. A settlement, carved from the deadworld. New Bethlehem. Old Gnosis city, now ruled by others. We have not ventured there since Gnosis fell. Very dangerous. But wealthy. They would have medicine.”
Lemon had never heard of the place, but that came as no surprise—she’d never left Dregs till a few days ago. The “very dangerous” part didn’t sound like a fistful of fun. But when you’re looking down the barrel at your own funeral, even doing something stupid sounds better than doing nothing at all.
The sickly feeling was swelling in her middle, stretching toward her bones. As Hunter reached down to help her up, she had to beg off for a minute to pull herself together. The operative busied herself with Mai’a instead, giving the horsething a drink from the flask, strapping her strange rifle to its flank. Lemon stashed her cutter back in her belt, finally pulled herself up onto her feet with a groan.
“Her cloak,” Hunter said, nodding.
Lemon eyed the garment. “Um, I’m not sure what the fashion is in CityHive, but I’d rather not wear my own vomit, if it’s all the same to you.”
Hunter took off her own cloak, wrapped it about Lemon’s shoulders. Again, Lemon was struck by the feeling of protectiveness, of Hunter’s concern for her well-being. It made her feel pulled every which way—angry that she’d been jacked from her friends, but glad she was in the hands of someone who actually seemed to give a speck whether she lived or died.
Lemonfresh is important.
She is needed.
Lemon offered her wrists to Hunter, but the woman shook her head. Truth was, the pair both knew Lemon had nowhere to run now. With Hunter’s help, the girl scrambled up onto Mai’a’s neck.
“Hold on,” the woman said, climbing up behind. “We ride swift.”
The horsething sprang into a gallop, the salt flats swallowed up under its smooth strides. Lemon could see mountains ahead, the beginning of a long, shattered road. She held on for dear life, fighting the churn in her belly, the fear slowly growing beside it.
Behind them, the wind picked up on the salt flats, the dust and grit scouring their tracks from the barren earth. It picked up Lemon’s abandoned cloak, vomit stains and all, sent it tumbling. Away from the place where the girl had crouched a moment before, knife in hand.
Carving two words into the sun-parched earth.
A message for the friends she hoped were following.
An arrow pointing west.
A warning.
New Bethlehem.
“What the hell happened here?”
In the ruins of a forgotten city, a would-be boy knelt on the broken earth. The corpse beside him was fly-blown, bloated beneath a furious sun. It was dressed in a bloodstained jersey, an old-style knight’s helmet stitched on its back. Loaded pistols were still holstered at the body’s waist, untouched.
“Never