Lex Nelson's Arc

Chapter 2 of 13

Lex turned northeast, but the dog stopped her. The Malinois swung back toward the wreckage, ears up, a low growl rolling out of its chest. Lex followed the sound of its bark to a tipped wagon bed half-buried in sand. Something underneath was moving. A hand shoved out from the shadow of the broken boards. Then an arm. A woman dragged herself into the light, bracing hard against a cracked wheel with one spoke bent outward like a broken finger. Blood crusted her temple. Her eyes were clear. "You're tracking the wrong wagon," she rasped. Lex froze. "Bauer told you second wagon. He didn't know they swapped the loads at dusk. The people you want are in the lead wagon now. The second one's a decoy, running east to draw off anyone like you." Lex knelt. "Prove it." The woman fumbled inside her shirt and pulled out a leather journal, water-stained, its pages soft as cloth. She opened it to a map. Two routes were inked across the paper. One curved northeast through the salt pan. The other split east into open dune. A small star marked the lead wagon's true path, looping wide and north before turning back. "They left me because I knew," the woman said. Her head dropped against the wheel. Lex took the journal. She looked at the dog, then at the horizon where two trails now split instead of one. Northeast was a lie. She closed the book, tucked it into her coat, and started walking the new line.