Amara Bennett's Arc

Chapter 5 of 13

By dusk the camp nodded to Amara again. She had beaten the leader in the open. But that night she could not sleep. A man who had lost everything moved fast. She lay in her bunk and listened to boots pass her door, then stop, then move on. He would not wait for morning. If she stayed here, he would find her alone in the dark. She did not wait to be cornered. She rose and dressed and went to find Jin-Ho. He slept near the horse pen, one hand loose on his knife. He woke the moment her foot scraped stone. His scar caught the lantern light as he sat up. "You feel it too," he said. Not a question. He had ridden behind her once to kill her. Now he reached for his coat to guard her. "He'll come tonight," Amara said. "I won't be in my bunk when he does." Jin-Ho stood. "Then we don't hide. We wait where he'll show himself." He led her past the pen, where three worn horses shifted in the cold. Behind the camp lay the old garden, its planters cracked, its paths broken by weeds. They took the dry fountain at its center and stood in the open, backs to the stone. They did not wait long. The leader came through the dead planters with two men. He carried a knife low against his leg. He stopped when he saw Jin-Ho at her side. His plan had been a girl alone. Instead he faced his best enforcer. "Put it down," Jin-Ho said. "You draw on her, you draw on me. The whole camp knows I stand with her now. Kill us both in the dark and see how long you lead." The leader's eyes moved from Jin-Ho to Amara to his own two men. One of them stepped back. The knife shook in his fist. He had bet everything on catching her weak. Now the bet was lost, and losing it in front of witnesses cost him the last of his name. Amara did not raise her voice. "Drop it. Walk out the gate. No one stops you." She held out one hand, small and steady. "Or stay, and prove every word I said about you." He held for a long breath. Then he let the knife fall. It rang on the broken stone. He turned and pushed past his own men into the dark. His two men looked at each other, then at Amara, and lowered their heads. The threat that had hunted her all night was gone. Jin-Ho picked up the fallen knife. "He won't come back," he said. Amara watched the empty gate. She had survived the leader's last move. But she saw the two men waiting on her word, and she understood. The camp no longer had a leader. Come morning, they would look to her to be one.