Virginia's Arc

Chapter 2 of 4

Morning light cut across the yard. Virginia was on her knees by the gate, wiring a new hinge into the frame, when Mendez came out with his pack already on his shoulder. Riley followed him, rifle slung, canteen full. They were leaving. Virginia set the wire down and stood up slow. "You said you'd stay one more day," she said. "I said I'd think about it," Mendez said. He looked at the scorch marks on the wall. "We found this place mostly built. That means somebody built it, and the Vael took it. Then somebody else moved in, and the Vael took it again. We were the somebody else. I'm not going to be the third." Virginia walked past him into the yard. She stopped at the well and set her hand on the stone rim. "Water," she said. She pointed at the floodlight post by the tents, its two lamps still bolted tight to the wood. "Lights. A generator that runs, or will when I finish with it." She turned toward the tent where they had dragged the weapon after the attack. The alien gun sat on its angled stand, blue seams glowing faint even in the sun. "And that. You took it off them. It works. You told me it works." Riley shifted her weight. "Those are good things, Virginia. I'm not arguing. But a well and a gun and a light don't hold a wall. People hold a wall. There's three of us. Three people can't watch two towers and sleep and eat and fix what breaks. You know that." She said it kind, which was worse than if she had said it mean. Virginia opened her mouth and did not have an answer ready. She had been counting on the things. She had forgotten to count the hands. "Maybe I can help with that." The voice came from above. Virginia looked up. A young woman was perched on the top of the sagging wall, boots hooked over the edge, brown hair loose around her face. Stained glass wings rose behind her shoulders, blue and yellow and red where the sun hit them. She had a knife on her belt and no fear in her posture. She had been listening a while. Riley's rifle came up halfway. The woman on the wall did not move. "Elina," she said. "I lead a group. Fourteen of us. We need walls. You need people." She looked at the well, then the gun, then Virginia. "I was going to keep walking. Then I heard her list what you had." Mendez lowered his pack to the dirt. He did not put it back on. Riley let the rifle drop to her hip. Nobody said yes. Nobody had to. Virginia sat down on the well's stone rim, and her hands were shaking, and she pressed them flat against the warm stone until they stopped.