Marta Mitchell's Arc

Chapter 6 of 7

Marta worked the chain for an hour before she found the weak pin in the bed frame. She twisted it until her fingers bled and the bar slid free. She slipped the loop off her ankle and crossed to the shed door. The bar outside had been set wrong. She pushed her shoulder against the wood until the bracket gave. Outside, the heavy man's mark stood in the yard: a stone pillar carved with warnings, a chain bolted into the rock. Beside it sat a crate. Her map lay on top, the old man's watch beside it, both placed like trophies. A weathered board leaned against the crate with her name scratched into the wood. She took the map and the watch and pushed them into her shirt. Then she walked. She had gone only a few meters past the sand-block walls when she saw him. Finn came up the track toward the prison, limping hard, wiping his face with the back of his hand. Tears cut clean lines through the dust on his cheeks. He did not see the shooter behind the dune. The first shot hit his already-broken ankle and he buckled. The second was a dart in the side of his neck. He went down without a sound. Marta dropped flat. The shooter walked out into the open, rifle low, watching Finn's body. She drew the knife she had taken from the old man's house and crawled behind him through the sand. When he stopped to reload she rose and drove the blade into his back, high, between the ribs. He fell forward. She did not look at his face. She ran to Finn. The bullet sat shallow in the meat above the ankle bone. She pried it out with the knife tip, wrapped the wound with a strip torn from her sleeve, and pulled the dart from his neck. Then she dragged him by the arms, heels furrowing the sand, until she found a low overhang of rock and rolled him under it. She shook him. She said his name. He did not wake. She sat with her back against the stone and pulled him against her so his head would not loll. An hour went by. She did not mean to sleep. She woke because he moved. Her cheek was on his shoulder. He was looking at her. "Why were you crying," she said. "My dad died," he said. Quiet. Flat. "I'm sorry." She paused. "What happened to your ankle." "Boulder rolled on it." She helped him stand. He put one arm across her shoulders and leaned. They started south, slow, his weight heavy on her side. The map was against her ribs. The watch ticked through her shirt. Ahead, between two low rises, she heard voices and the wet snort of a quillwing on a lead. The scavengers had found the trail.