Ellen's Arc

Chapter 34 of 45

The wagon slid off the salt and stopped hard by the dry well. Ellen jumped down. She reached the ledger's hiding spot first, a flat stone she had wedged into the well's dead mouth. She pried it loose. The book was still there, dry and safe. But the god was close now. Blue hair moved against the gray sky, steady, patient, coming across the flats without haste. She held the ledger and had no plan to stop what walked toward her. Then a second shape rose from behind the well's low wall. A man in gray armor, a helmet with a flat black visor, a rifle already up and aimed at her chest. Ellen froze. She had never seen him, but she knew the look of a hunter who had found his mark. He had been waiting here. Waiting for her. "Ella," he said. Not a question. He tipped the rifle toward the wagon. "Down off the bed. Hands where I see them." "That's not my name." Her mouth was dry. "You've got the wrong woman." "Ella. Crew of six women." His voice stayed flat. "Trail led here. Food, water, shelter. People always need those." He had tracked her by the simple things. He did not care what she had done. "You're worth credits. That's all I need to know." Ellen looked past him. Nyx had stopped walking. The god stood twenty paces off, white eyes fixed not on her but on the book in her hands. Nyx wanted the ledger. The bounty hunter wanted her body. Two hunters, one prize each. She made her choice fast. She lifted the ledger high, so both could see it. "You want me alive," she told the armored man. "But that thing behind you wants this book. And it will not care if you're standing between them." Din Djarin's helmet turned. He saw Nyx. His rifle shifted, just an inch, toward the god. That inch was the whole moment. Ellen threw the ledger. It spun through the air and landed at Nyx's feet in the salt. The god bent and lifted it. Nyx opened the book, read the names of corrupt men written inside, and something like interest crossed that pale face. The god had what it came for. It turned and walked back across the flats, already losing interest in her, in the hunter, in the well. The rifle came back to Ellen. But she was already moving. She dropped behind the well's stone wall as the shot cracked over her head. She heard boots. She did not run for the wagon. She grabbed the loose horse rein and swung up bareback, kicking hard across the crust where the beast's legs should have broken. They held for six strides. Long enough. Behind her, Din Djarin did not fire again. He watched her go, marking the direction. The trail was not cold. He would follow. Ellen rode for the hotel. She had lost the ledger and gained a hunter who never quit.