Triple’s eyes never left Caledonia’s face. “I was just leaving.”
Caledonia almost protested as Triple moved to the door. She didn’t want the girl to leave her so soon. In spite of their brief argument, Triple gave Caledonia the sense of security she’d been craving. But she held her tongue and her pride and said nothing as the girl ducked beneath Sledge’s tree trunk of an arm and out of sight.
CHAPTER FOUR
“I wasn’t expecting to find you on your feet so soon. That patch is something of a miracle,” Sledge said.
In truth, Caledonia wasn’t sure how much longer she’d be on her feet. She braced her hands on her hips. “Triple says you risked a lot to get it, and I don’t mean to sound ungrateful, but why? I’m just a stranger to you.”
“The old world left us all strangers.” Sledge’s voice was as solid as he was. “And anyone who goes after the Damned Athair the way you did deserves to be treated as more than a stranger.”
He stood just inside the tent flap, plate balanced in one hand. It was piled high and steaming and it smelled beautiful. There were rows of flaky pink fish, roasted greens, and seed cake. Caledonia’s stomach made a noise like a storm.
“I thought you’d be exhausted from the tech, but if you’re not, maybe you’d like some fresh air while you eat?”
The patch had certainly left her exhausted, and a thin layer of cold sweat now covered her body, but the invitation to leave this khaki-colored wasteland was too good to pass up. She nodded, and they went outside.
The guard perch next to her tent was empty for once. Sledge led her past it and a short row of tents to a felled tree trunk that served as a bench. When they were settled, he offered her the plate, and Caledonia wasted no time on politeness. She dug in, shoveling tangy fish and savory greens into her mouth at once. Something about the nanopatch had left her ravenous, and she didn’t stop until the entire plate was clean.
“Food never lasts long around here, but you may have just set a new record,” Sledge said with humor.
Caledonia licked the sticky paste of the seed cake from her fingers, savoring its sweet flavor. With a full stomach and her body on the mend, she turned her attention to the camp around them. It was laid out with precision, each tent spaced evenly from the next. In the center, the ground had been cleared and the grass tramped down from frequent use. Beyond the camp, the woods crowded in on three sides. The fourth sloped gently upward, bearing only low, scrubby plants and patches of wiry grass. Caledonia suspected on the other side of that rise she’d find her beloved ocean.
Milling between the tents and darting in and out of the woods were dozens of people. They were not only Bullets as she’d assumed, but Bullets and Scythes. There were boys and girls here, and they weren’t polishing guns or preparing ammo, they were purifying water and weaving and cooking and laughing together.
“There are a lot of girls here,” she said, watching two young girls stoking the flames of a fire beneath a small pot of water.
Sledge followed her gaze. “Seems a normal amount to me.”
“Not for a group of defected Bullets.”
He raised an eyebrow, regarding her with a curious air. “And Bullets aren’t girls?”
“No. I mean, I’ve never seen any,” she said. “Only Scythes. And they don’t fight.”
Sledge gave a lazy shake of his head. “I promise you, Aric makes use of any willing body. Women occupy all kinds of roles in Bullet society. If girls want to fight, they fight. They’re there, even if you don’t see them.”
As if that settled the matter, he leaned back and stretched his legs out in front to bask in the late afternoon sun. It was strange for someone so large to remind Caledonia of a cat, but there was something undeniably catlike about the way Sledge moved and watched her through narrowed eyes.
After a long moment, he added, “You can ask me questions about our camp if you trust me to answer them.”
She didn’t. Not about his defenses and supplies. He would deflect any question he deemed to be a threat to his people. She knew it because she would do the same thing. She had done the same thing, only she hadn’t been so kind. When Oran defected from his Bullet ship and asked for mercy from her crew, Caledonia had ordered him thrown overboard. Even after Oran promised to help find their brothers, she’d locked him away, mistrusted every word that came out of his mouth, and only slowly, reluctantly come to trust him. Now she was in the very same position: taken in by Bullets—Blades—just when she’d needed help the most, and the first thing they’d given her after ensuring she wouldn’t die was their trust.
“What about Silt?” she asked.
Sledge’s fists tightened. “What about it?”
“You don’t use it, that’s obvious. But you did.” She gestured to the camp. “How’d you get everyone to make that choice?”
“It wasn’t easy,” Sledge answered tightly, clearly unhappy to be sharing anything that felt intimate.
“I’ve seen it.” Caledonia’s voice carried the raw weave of recent memories. “More than once.”
This seemed to smooth the waters between them, and Sledge sat up with a sigh. “Silt is something that happened to us. It is Aric’s way of exerting complete control over his people. It is force, and soon it becomes compulsion. When we break the cycle, it also happens by force, by compulsion. But after that, everything we do, we do by choice.” He paused, everything about him becoming calm and stoic. When he next spoke, it was with the kind of gravity that created a steady orbit. “Consent is our most sacred possession.”
Caledonia understood what he was unwilling to say. He’d forced some, if not all, of the people in this camp to purge the Silt from their blood, and after that, they’d chosen to stay. These Blades weren’t just rejecting what Aric had turned them into; they were rebuilding themselves, creating a version of themselves that was better than anything Aric could have promised.
“When you’re more recovered, you’ll meet them,” Sledge continued. “They’re all excited to welcome the girl who attacked a Fiveson on his own ship.”
“What happened to that ship? The Fiveson’s vessel and his fleet?” she asked.
“They stayed in the bay for a day. Searching for you or your body, no doubt.” He smiled, lifting his eyebrows conspiratorially. “Obviously, they did not find you.”
She shuddered to think what Lir would have done if his men had been the ones to recover her. His delight in seeing her again, his dark joy at the thought of killing her again had been nothing short of terrifying. To be entirely vulnerable in his hands was an unbearable thought.