The Lofties (The Echelon Book 2) by Ramona Finn (no david read aloud .txt) 📕

in a frown. “You should ditch that, though. They might be able to track it, or—”

“That’s why I’m turning it off.” I pressed the power button, holding it for a five-count so it switched all the way off. “I can’t just get rid of it. Ona might try to call me, or Reyland, or—”

“I get it.” Lock slowed to a brisk walk, scowling at my feet. “Where are your shoes?”

“I don’t know. They came off somewhere. Turn around.”

Lock did, and I shimmied out of my pantyhose, leaving them crumpled in the dirt. My dress was a mess, crusted with red rust and plastered to my skin. I ripped out the petticoats and tossed those as well.

“Ona should be okay,” said Lock. “She wasn’t part of our plan, so they won’t hold it against her. And they’ll want her as a hostage, in case they need—”

“Don’t.” I swallowed back acid, got my panic under control. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to snap. I just don’t—let’s not go there. Once I start speculating, I won’t be able to stop.”

“I get it.” Lock glanced over his shoulder. “Want my boots? You can have ‘em.”

“What, those boats?” I snorted. “They’d just slow me down.”

Lock shrugged, loose and dopey, and we struck out across the exper. We stuck to the rough, avoiding the tracks, but still the searchlights came for us, sending us diving for cover again and again. One buggy swung close enough to spray us with dirt. Another stopped nearly on top of us. We braced for a fight, certain we’d been spotted, only to choke on horrified laughter at the splash of urine in the sand.

“If that comes down here—”

I elbowed Lock hard. He nudged me back.

“Pssss.”

I buried my face in my sleeve, shaking with a mix of hysteria and mirth. Time stretched like taffy, and still it went on, Lock snuffling into my back as I gasped for breath. At last, I heard a deep sigh, and the sound of pants being zipped. Boots crunched on gravel, and the Decemites peeled out, highbeams jouncing through the night.

“He got my leg,” groaned Lock. I rolled my eyes.

“You’re just wet from the reservoir. Quit your whining.”

“Easy for you to say. That reservoir wasn’t warm.”

I ignored him and jogged on. I could see the gorge up ahead, a black slash across the exper. Just east of there, we’d find help, Lita and Derrick, maybe Ben. He’d know what to do, or Jetha would. I pushed myself faster, scrambling down the slope. Lock kept pace with me, then overtook me, nimble as a goat. He raced to the bottom and I slid down, and we streaked across the riverbed, splashing through the thin fall trickle.

“Never thought I’d be back this way.” Lock reached down to help me up the far side. “I swear, a hundred baths later, I still get paranoid. Like I’ll lift up my arms and still smell like trash.”

“Right now, you smell like duckweed.”

“So do you.” He found a root hanging down and heaved himself up the cliff face, smirking down as I struggled to follow. “There used to be a bridge here, till Samson cut it down.”

“Why’d he go and do that?”

“To keep the Outsiders on their side.” Lock laughed without humor. “‘Course, they come across anyway. They just take the long road.”

I lowered my head, panting, and scrabbled up a crumbling scree. Dirt streamed between my toes, and I kicked for purchase, pedaling at the cliffside till I belly-flopped over the top. Lock had found a steep path and was nearly out of sight. I set out in pursuit and caught him at the top.

“I don’t see their dome,” he said. “Could be they’ve moved on.”

“We have to check anyway. It’s hours to the base.”

Lock nodded, but I could see the doubt in his eyes. I could feel it as well, churning in my guts. Maybe they had moved on, found themselves a better spot. Somewhere past the gorge, closer to the vents. Or they could’ve packed up for winter, headed wherever they went for the dry season. Upriver, Ben had said, wherever that was.

“Myla.” Lock stopped dead, and I stopped with him.

“What?”

“Right there.” He pointed down the incline, past a black fall of rocks. At first, I saw nothing. Then the clouds parted, and I saw moonlight on glass, glittering daggers of it twinkling in the sand.

“The projector.” I took a reluctant step forward. They hadn’t moved on, at least not by choice. The camp lay in ruins, trampled to dust. A half-buried tent flapped listlessly in the breeze. I found their generator gutted in a spill of copper wire. A pot stood, cold and empty, in a circle of ash. I’d dined from that pot the night I’d met Ben.

Lock bent and plucked something from the dirt, something black and formless that seemed to drip between his fingers. He stared at it briefly, then dropped it in the sand. “What... what’d they do?”

I came up behind him, and my heart plunged like a stone. Lock had found a mask, melted to drippings. A pile of them lay at his feet, all cracked and formless and stinking of lighter fluid.

“Wait here,” said Lock. I trailed after him anyway, past the scattered firepit, out toward the latrines. A thick stench hung in the air, garbage and bleach, and something rotten underneath. My eyes stung and watered, and I shielded them with my sleeve. I didn’t see Lock when he dropped to one knee. I nearly tripped over him, and at first I thought I’d hurt him, as he loosed a broken sound.

“Sorry. I didn’t—”

“Don’t look.” He waved me back, but I’d seen it, the crumpled bundle at my feet. I reeled back, gutpunched, Ben’s name on my lips. I bit it back, swallowed it, as though speaking it would make it true.

“Who—?”

Lock touched the corpse between the shoulder blades and pulled back fingers flaked with brown.

“He was running away,” he said. “They shot him in the back.”

“Who is he?”

Lock turned him