Sophie Littlefield - Horizon

But as he looked deeply into her eyes, whatever he was about to say died on his lips. Somehow, he understood-not the specifics, but the shape of her fear.

“Okay,” he said. “Okay. Then leave her with Sammi. Tell her I said she should watch Ruthie until we get back. She’s just inside the hall. I’ll go grab my gun and meet you right back here in a few minutes.”

“But-someone else, can’t you get someone else?”

“Cass!” His voice exploded, so loud and desperate that people turned to stare at him. “There isn’t anyone else. I don’t know who can handle a boat and I’m not willing to take chances right now. If we don’t act fast, those things might get bold and try to swarm… And…who else is going to shoot with me?”

Dor was a rogue, a renegade, and he knew it, knew how he had squandered the others’ trust to pursue his own hell-bent pastimes. In that moment Cass finally understood how ill suited he was to New Eden, how much he must hate the collaborative government, the council with its endless deliberations, the constant hedging and search for concordance-it must have been torture for Dor to try to find his place here. No wonder he left the islands when he could, no wonder he took the brute-force jobs that left his mind free to stew and boil.

Dana, Harris, Neal-none of them liked Dor, none of them had ever asked him to serve on a committee or take part in a planning session. They were content for him to do the menial labor that kept him occupied and uninvolved.

It was true. None of them would shoot with Dor-because none of them would take direction from him.

“Go,” Dor said, and then he bent in close and brushed his lips against hers-once, and then a second time. He lingered, and it was not so much a kiss as a demand, a promise, an acknowledging of the need they never spoke of, and his mouth on hers was hot and hard and bruising.

Cass broke away and rushed toward the hall, pushing the stroller in front of her. It jounced over a root and Ruthie woke and began to wail, and Cass pulled her from the stroller, abandoning the thing in the middle of the yard, and ran the rest of the way.

She was putting her daughter in danger once again, trusting her to someone else’s care once again. What kind of mother set her child aside to go on a suicide mission? Cass-Cass was that kind of mother. She’d risked Ruthie for the bottle, she’d risked her for a moment’s pleasure in the sun, for stolen moments of desperate passion, and now she was risking her to plunge headlong into a mission that was bound to get her and Dor killed, a mission no one was asking her to undertake, on behalf of a community of people who hated her. If by some miracle she saved anyone, they would never thank her.

But she had no choice. Because if she did nothing, again, then she didn’t deserve to be anyone’s mother, anyone’s guardian. Not in these times. Not in what the world had become.

INSIDE THE HALL she blinked and paused, her eyes adjusting to the dim interior. There-near the window, all of them, clustered on the long couches. The boys in the front, the girls huddled behind them.

“Sammi!”

Cass called her name, already running toward her. When the girl turned Cass saw not the hatred she expected, not the bitterness and rejection-but pure terror. It was written on all of their young faces, and Cass knew that they had seen: the swimming, and the upending of the canoe, Parker going down and the Beater and Glynnis’s two killing shots.

“Please, I need you to take care of Ruthie,” she said, out of breath. “Just for a little while. Your dad and me, we have to help.” She kissed Ruthie-both cheeks, her forehead, her eyelids.

“Mama,” Ruthie whimpered.

“Mama needs to go help Dor. You stay with Sammi and be a good girl, hear? And I’ll be right back, I promise. I promise.”

“Should we come?” one of the boys said-Kalyan, the reckless one. “Do they need us?”

“Right now they need you to stay here,” she said, as calmly as she could. “Someone will come. Soon. To tell you what’s going on.”

Sammi held her hands out for Ruthie, who snuggled into her arms as Cass turned away and ran.

She passed the stroller in the yard, pitched sideways with one wheel lodged in a divot in the earth. She’s fine, she’s fine she’s fine she’s fine, she told herself. Sammi would keep her safe. Sammi might hate Cass, but no one could hate Ruthie, no one could hate her beautiful baby girl. Ruthie was innocent, Ruthie had never hurt anyone, it was just her terrible bad luck to be born into this world, this time. And no matter if Sammi told everyone in the world that Cass had suffered the fever and somehow gotten better, she knew now that the girl would never reveal that Ruthie had, too.

The crowd near the shore had grown-it looked like every Edenite was there. Cass scanned the crowd and found Dor near the front. He held the Glock against his leg, and in his other hand was a gun Cass didn’t recognize, a small steel semiauto.

She hadn’t fired a gun since coming to the Delta. The last time had been during their escape from the Rebuilders, and her last kill had been a citizen, not a Beater, something only Dor and Sammi and the girls they’d rescued from Colima knew, something she had hoped to put behind her and never, ever let Ruthie find out.

But already her fingertips thrummed and twitched to touch the cold steel, her palm was ready to wrap around the grip. I am a killer, Cass thought, and the thought made her neither happy nor sad. Only ready.

Dor was standing near the edge, talking to Neal, who had made it back to the shore. Someone had given him a blanket and he was standing wrapped in it and shivering, his lips blue. The overturned canoe hadn’t traveled far downstream, and Cass saw the reason for this small stroke of luck-it had snagged on a tree that had fallen on the opposite bank, but the current tugged at it and there was no telling how long it would hold.

There were other boats-half a dozen skiffs and aluminum rowboats, all stored on the other side of the island. In typical New Eden fashion, they were secured and cleaned and well maintained and hardly ever used. Everyone used the one-lane bridge-well tended and even better guarded-if they wanted to get to the mainland. Besides, there was little sport to be had from floating downstream or fighting the current on the way back.

Glynnis and John preferred the canoes to the other craft for their maneuverability, and the two of them had been able to handle the mostly unnecessary duty of shore patrol by themselves. When they weren’t working, the canoes were simply stored on the grassy banks. Having two had seemed like a great backup plan, but the second had never been needed until now.

A woman took Neal’s arm and led him away, talking to him softly.

“I need someone to swim out and get the canoe,” Dor said, his deep voice carrying over the crowd. “We’ll need both of them.”

Everyone stared at him, making way for Cass to pass, and she joined him at his side. She began strapping on the hip holster he’d brought.

There was murmuring, and then voices-angry voices-began to be heard.

“Why don’t you swim out?”

“Someone’s gone for the rowboats.”

“How’d you get those weapons?”

“I said, I need someone to swim out. Whoever goes will be too cold and exhausted to also paddle effectively after,” Dor yelled, silencing them. “Before we lose more people-look out there. Do you see? They’re still coming. ”

Cass turned, along with the crowd-it was true. The Beaters had to number close to a hundred now, their milling and jostling making it hard to count. The sun had sunk nearly to the horizon, illuminating them from behind, outlining their ghastly silhouettes. Glynnis and John were upstream, picking off a clump that had ventured ankle-deep into the water. All along the shoreline now, dead Beaters bobbed, gently bumping up against the bank. In several places the mud was red with blood.