CHAPTER 38

Pity woke to an ebon haze, followed by the slow resolution of sensations: the jerking, heaving feeling of vehicular movement… odors of exhaust and tobacco. She blinked. One side of her vision glowed faintly, and after several moments a silhouette resolved before her.

“Where—” The thick, croaking sound surprised her. “Where am I?”

“Getting your voice back, huh?”

Siena.

“That’s a start.”

Pity still couldn’t move her limbs, but with some effort she turned her head to her right. The glow she saw was the horizon, a narrow strip of vermilion just beginning to chase the night away.

Dawn?

Panic gripped her as she fought to orient herself. Cessation was gone. They were in the desert. As she struggled to formulate why, the vehicle they were in slowed and stopped. Siena turned off the engine and flicked on a light in the ceiling, casting everything in pallid yellow.

“Where are we?” Pity demanded, her mouth tacky. “Why did you—”

“Relax, kid. You may be talking again, but it’ll be a little while before the rest of your body follows suit.” Siena pulled out an ugly hand-rolled cigarette and placed it between her lips. But when she lit it, its scent was as fine as any of the cigars Pity had smelled in Casimir. “Thirsty? It’s dry as old bones out here.”

Pity nodded, a movement that seemed easier than a minute ago.

Siena pulled out a canteen and lifted it to Pity’s lips. The water was warm and faintly metallic, but she swallowed several mouthfuls, letting it run over her parched lips.

“Where’s Cessation?” she said when she was done. Twin poisons of fear and anger coursed through her veins as her memories regathered. Santino. It made her ill to think about it. The big, friendly man who had saved her life on the plains and carried her to Dr. Starr when she was shot—a traitor. And if Santino could turn coat, who else might have? “We need to go back. Now. It’s a matter of life or death.”

“Always is.” Siena sniffed. “But we’re gonna have a little chat first, and it seemed smart to do that somewhere no one would interrupt us. You wanna tell me what was going on with those Tin Men?”

Pity narrowed her eyes. “You wanna tell me why you stopped them?”

“Okay, I’ll give first,” Siena said. “I saw you get into the elevator. Something was off, that was easy enough to figure. Good thing I’ve been keeping an eye on you.”

“On me?” A shiver ran through her as her old fear surfaced. “Did my father send you?”

Siena snorted in a way that might have been a laugh. “No, but maybe your momma did.”

“What?” Pity would have jolted straight up had she been able to. Instead, her arms jerked weakly in her lap. “My mother?”

“Uh-huh. ’Cause that’s who I thought I was seeing that day I rolled in and you were there: Joanna Jones, in the flesh. ’Cept you were younger than I ever knew her.” Siena reached out and took one of the guns from Pity’s belt. She rubbed the pad of her thumb over the inlay on the grips. “Beautiful as the first time I saw them, though they’ve lost a bit of that new shine.” When she saw Pity’s confusion, an amused smile deepened the lines around her mouth. “Geez, girl, didn’t your momma ever tell you where she got these?”

“She said some of the Patriots gave them to her, after the war.”

“Close. Though she lied about the ‘after’ part. She must have stashed them somewhere safe before she got caught. Joanna was always smart like that. Everyone in our squad had their special weapons, our good luck charms, we used to call them. Had myself a pretty shotgun, though it’s been gone a few years now.”

“Your squad?”

“Joanna didn’t tell you a damn thing, did she? The Reapers.”

Pity’s heart thumped against her ribs. Finn’s dumb story. “No. My mother said she guarded supply depots.”

“There are a lot of dead folks that would attest differently, were they able.”

“But…” Another piece of what Pity thought she knew shifted out of alignment. “Why didn’t she tell me? And why didn’t you say anything sooner?”

Siena returned the gun to its holster. “There’s one answer for both those questions,” she said, “which is that going around bragging that you were a Reaper is a good way to find a noose around your neck, or worse. There’s still a high bounty on them. Hell, that job’s been offered to me a few times.” She flicked ash onto the floor. “Truth is, I’m probably the only person who could find any of the Reapers still left on this earth.” Her voice turned nostalgic. “That’s how we ran things, you see. One person in command, and that one the only link between us and the Patriot command. If the one fell, our next in command would make him or herself known. Otherwise, no one knew us from any other group of guerrillas that ran with the Patriots.”

“My mother—”

“Joined up a few years before the end of the war,” Siena said. “She was the most natural sniper I had ever seen, as good as anyone with twice her years. But we were on different missions when the turn came. I heard she got captured but not what happened after.”

It wasn’t a question, but Pity knew Siena wanted an answer. “She was in a prisoner camp for a while. But CONA couldn’t execute or jail everyone, so she bargained herself into a spot on an agricultural commune, with a marriage and the promise of children.”

“And?”

“And the marriage was hell, but she had three kids anyway and spent the rest of her years walking the wall and drinking herself toward a fall and a broken neck.”

A fog of silence fell.

Finally, Siena spoke again. “That’s a poor end for a woman like Joanna Jones.”

Pity nodded in agreement, not trusting her voice for the tightness in her throat. With concentration, she found that she could now raise her right arm. Weak as an old woman, she wiped at her eyes. As she did, Siena opened the door and stepped out into the desert, pacing off into the receding darkness.

“Hey! Come back!”

But Siena ignored her. Abandoned, Pity assessed her surroundings, angling her half numb body as best she could. There was a good-sized space in the rear of the vehicle. She saw a cot, a supply of tins and water, and an arsenal that rivaled that of a small commune. There were nonlethal instruments as well—flash grenades, shock sticks—and a variety of restraints. She smelled gun oil and steel and, underneath, the gut-quivering perfume of old fear.

A Reaper.

Pity fit the piece of information into the memory of her mother, the missing bullet in the chamber. She remembered her mother’s eyes, so caring sometimes, so haunted at others. By how many dead men? No, it was never ghosts that had haunted her mother—it was the cage she had found herself in.

A poor end…

She shook the thought away. There was nothing she could do for her mother, and if they didn’t move soon, it would be the same for Max and Casimir.

Agonizing minutes passed before Siena returned. “It’s been my experience,” she said, climbing back into her seat, “that folks who have fallen afoul of Selene’s Tin Men aren’t typically in a rush to return to Casimir. You want to tell me exactly what’s going on?”

With Santino’s betrayal as fresh as a new wound, Pity’s tongue twisted with the urge to stay silent. There was no one in Casimir she could trust now—only herself and Max. “No.”

“Okay, let me try that another way. Where’s your boyfriend? The real one, not the one you’ve been pretending with.”

Though she thought her surprise spent, Pity felt the breath go out of her again. “How—” She shook her head. “Take me back to Casimir. Now.”

“You’re in no position to make demands. Where is he?”

“Nowhere you can get to him.”

The bounty hunter chuckled. “You might be surprised. I’m not going to ask again. That young man is a very large payday, and even Joanna Jones’s daughter won’t be keeping me from it.”

“Too late,” Pity snapped. “He’s already been sold away. Or at least he was until Selene took him captive.”

“Shit.” The amusement fled from Siena’s face. “So Selene found out Sheridan was planning to snatch a treasure out from beneath her nose?”

“You know about Sheridan?”

“Of course,” said Siena. “He hired me to help get the boy safely back to his parents.”

“You’re helping him?” Pity fought the stiffness in her limbs, pushing herself up with the power of rage. “Betraying Olivia and everyone in Casimir for money? Don’t you care about what’s going to happen to them?”

Siena blinked at her. “What are you talking about? Sheridan’s paying me for control and transport—that’s it.”

Pity deflated at the honest confusion in Siena’s face. She fell back in her seat, exhausted. You were ready to betray them all, too, she reminded herself. Maybe her reason was better than greed, but that wouldn’t matter to the folks caught in the crossfire.

“He contacted me while I was after Daneko,” Siena continued. “Said to let him know when I was headed back to Cessation, that he had a sensitive retrieval job for me there. Didn’t much care to tread on Selene’s toes, but the price was right. I was supposed to keep an eye on the boy and be ready to move when Sheridan was.” She paused. “Suddenly that doesn’t sound like the wisest deal I’ve ever made. How sideways is this, kid?”

“Very.” Pity closed her eyes. Siena Bond, another one of Sheridan’s pawns. Drawing the lines was getting easier: while Daneko and Casimir’s traitors solidified their control of Cessation, Sheridan and Siena would finish the trade with Drakos-Pryce. “Those Tin Men weren’t Selene’s, not anymore. I was trying to warn her when they got me.”

She let the story spill out of her, revealing the truth behind the botched assassination and Sheridan’s new plans, and praying that Siena would see the urgency of the situation. She was a part of Casimir, too, in her own way.

When Pity was done, Siena reached behind the seat and brought out a bottle of bourbon. She took a long swallow, then offered it over. “Want a draw?”

Pity shook her head. “Were you listening to what I just said?”

“I heard you.” Siena took another sip. “I never thought I’d be around to see the day when Selene’s ship sinks, but it sounds like she’s got some rats on board, all right. Big ones, too.”

“But we can stop everything if we go back now!” Beyond the windshield, the horizon was a steadily growing blaze.

“Oh, I’m going back,” said Siena. “But what happens to Casimir isn’t my concern. I’ve got a job to finish. Your boyfriend is still worth a lot of currency. Though I think I won’t be splitting it with Sheridan anymore. I’m not partial to being used like that.”

Pity gritted her teeth. “To hell with you, then!”

Siena’s lips thinned sourly. “Well, you got your mother’s mouth, that’s for sure. Look, if you want to play the hero and try to save Selene, that’s fine by me. But I’m collecting my bounty one way or another. From what you’re saying, I need to get Max out of Casimir quick. You can go along with that or not.”

Frustration gripped Pity with more force than the fading paralytic had. This doesn’t change anything. You were going to get Max away from Sheridan; you’ll find a way to get him away from Siena, too. But doubt rose in her like the growing dawn. “You’ll never get him out in time, not now.”

“Oh, I think I might.” Siena lit another cigarette, exhaling a milky cloud that glowed with the dawn. “But I don’t think you’re gonna be keen on how.”