Ben holt's Arc

Chapter 2 of 4

Ben latched the shutter and turned back to the girl with the wings. They had a name between them now, and a shared enemy, and no time. He spread the folder across the counter and pointed at the receipt. "He was here three days ago. He won't stay much longer." Aria leaned over the paper. Beside it lay another sheet Ben had pulled off a post that morning, a list in heavy ink under the word Barren and seven names crossed through. She read it without blinking. "Then we go now," she said. "And I have to tell you something first. Barren Holt is my father. I've been working to take him down since I was old enough to understand what he was." Ben's hand stopped on the counter. He looked at her wings, folded tight, and at the sword on her hip. "Your father." "Yes." "And you didn't say it before." "I needed to know if you'd pull me out of that crowd anyway." She held his eyes. "You did." Ben breathed out. He had carried the name alone for ten years. Hearing it from her mouth made it heavier and lighter at once. "We can't walk," he said. "Your wings won't fold long enough. They'll spot you on any road." "Then we ride," she said. They traded the last of Ben's coin and three items from his bag for a striped horse with a mane like a brushfire and a covered wagon with a small door and a lantern hook. Aria climbed into the back and pulled the canvas shut. Ben took the reins. The horse leaned into the harness and the wheels turned. From inside the wagon Aria's voice came low through the boards. "Drive fast." Ben drove fast. The market shrank behind them. Open ground opened ahead, flat and pale under a sky going the wrong color. The storm came down before the first mile marker. Wind hit the canvas sideways. Rain turned the track to grease. Ben felt the back of the wagon drop and heard wood split under him. The horse staggered and stopped. He jumped down into the mud. The rear wheel was in three pieces around the axle. He could see the rim bent past saving. Aria pushed the canvas open a finger's width. Her wings flexed against the inside of the wagon, too big to hide on foot. "How bad," she said. "Bad," Ben said. "Walking puts you in the open. Fixing it costs us a day. He'll be three towns gone by then." Ben wiped rain off his face and made the call. "We fix it." He pulled the wax-paper bundle and a coil of wire from his bag and knelt by the broken wheel. "Stay inside. Don't open that door for anyone but me." Aria's hand closed on the edge of the canvas. "We lose him for now." "We keep you," Ben said. "We find him again." The canvas dropped. Ben bent to the axle and started to work.