Scarlett Hopper's Arc

Chapter 20 of 33

Marcus drove the last nail and stepped back from the steel. He wiped his hands on his overalls and reached into the crate by the shed. He pulled out four black radios with coiled cords and small earpieces. "From the store," he said. "Charged them last night." He passed one to Scarlett, one to John, one to Maranda. He kept the fourth. Scarlett clipped hers to her vest and fit the earpiece. She keyed the button. "Say something." Marcus's voice hit her ear a half-second later. "Something." John keyed his. "Check." Static, then clear. Maranda held hers in her palm and studied it before she pressed the button. "I hear you." "Channel one," Marcus said. "Don't touch the dial. If it breaks, we're deaf." Scarlett looked at each of them in turn. "Callouts short. Position, direction, count. No chatter. If someone stops answering, someone else calls it out. Nobody goes to look." "Nobody goes to look," John repeated. Maranda knelt at the gate. She opened a small cloth pouch and poured a line of red powder across the dirt inside the threshold. She set a knot of black hair and bone at each corner post. She whispered over each one and did not translate. "What are they?" Marcus asked. "Traps," Maranda said. "They step over, the spirits pull at their feet. Slows them. Not much. Enough." She walked the fence line and laid another knot at the shed corner where Marcus would stand. She pressed her palm flat to the steel plate at the gate and closed her eyes. When she stood back, the plate looked the same. Scarlett didn't ask. Duke pushed at her leg. She knelt and took his face in both hands. He showed her the ridge — empty road, then movement. Close. "You go," she said. "Cellar. Behind the tuber crates. Stay there until I come get you." He pushed a last image at her — her own face, whole — and ran for the house. Scarlett pulled a revolver from the crate and checked the cylinder. She handed a second pistol to Maranda, who took it without a word and slid it into the pocket of her dress. John already had his. Marcus racked a slide and set the weapon on the sandbag ledge. "Positions," Scarlett said into the radio, low. "Marcus, shed. John, with me at the gate. Maranda, back door of the house. Eyes on the wall behind us." "Copy," three voices said in her ear. John touched her elbow before he crossed to the gate. He didn't speak. He didn't need to. A crow screamed from the roofline. Then another. Then all of them at once, harsh and long, the call she had paid for. "Split rock," Scarlett said into the radio. "They're crossing. Hold." She raised her pistol and set it on the sandbag. The line went live in her ear, four breaths, one channel, one plan.