Tom Isbell - The Capture

“Fine,” I said. Truth was, I had no great desire to be the leader, and it was irrelevant to me who got us to Camp Liberty to free those Less Thans—just as long as we did it.

Dozer tried to hide his surprise. It was obvious he expected a fight. “It’s not my decision,” he said, trying to sound humble. “It’s the others.”

“I understand.”

“They trust me.”

“Okay.”

“They know I’ll be a good leader.”

The only response I could have made would have been sarcastic, so I kept my mouth shut. When it was clear I wasn’t going to say anything else, Dozer raised his torch high in the air like he was summoning the gods above.

“Listen up,” he shouted, so that all could hear. “I’m leading this group from now on. I’m in charge. But I won’t be telling you what to do. My hope is that we can make decisions as a group.”

He shot me a meaningful look, as if to say Cat would still be here if we’d followed that policy before. Although I didn’t expect anyone to challenge Dozer and his lackeys, I hoped someone would speak up on my behalf. But no one said a word. Not a single person. Not Flush. Not Twitch.

Not Hope.

I lay back down to sleep, knowing no nightmare could be worse than this reality. Dozer began to walk away.

“Just remember,” I muttered beneath my breath. “‘Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.’”

Dozer stopped in his tracks. “What’s that?” he snapped.

Me and my Shakespeare. I regretted speaking as soon as the words left my mouth. “Nothing.”

He lowered the torch until the heat licked my cheeks. “No, what’d you just say?”

“Nothing.”

There was an almost gleeful expression on Dozer’s face as he looked to his friends. “He said something. You heard him: he said something.” Angela and Lacey nodded like a couple of puppets.

Dozer returned his stare to me. “What’d you say?”

“Nothing,” I repeated, angry that I’d fallen into Dozer’s trap.

“We can’t have that, Book. The worst thing we can have is insurrection.”

“ Insurrection? You’ve been talking trash for weeks. You’ve been openly mocking my decisions ever since we left Camp Liberty. You freaked out in the Brown Forest and nearly killed Four Fingers. And you’re accusing me of insurrection?”

“That’s it!” he barked. “I have no choice but to place you under house arrest.”

I thought for a second he was joking. “What’re you talking about?”

Dozer turned to Red. “Take his knife away.”

Before I knew it, Red walked to my side and ripped my knife from its sheath—all because I’d quoted a line from Henry IV .

I appealed silently to the others. Red. Flush. Hope. All averted their eyes, not wishing to meet my stare. Only Argos bristled, emitting a low growl in the back of his throat. Angela and Lacey reached for their daggers.

“No, boy,” I said. I knew if he went after Dozer, they’d knife him in a second and fry him up for breakfast. Argos sat, the growl still vibrating his neck.

Dozer smiled that hyena grin of his and then turned to the others. “If anyone dares arm this Less Than, we’ll have no choice but to consider it an act of treason, and they’ll face similar consequences.” He sounded like some medieval king meting out punishment to a peasant. “Now everyone back to sleep. We’re moving out tomorrow.”

“Which way are we going?” I asked, careful not to add O powerful leader at the end of the sentence.

“Due south,” he answered.

“South?” I wasn’t sure I’d heard correctly. “We’re already way too south as it is, and Camp Liberty is to the northwest.”

“And we’re heading south .”

“Then how can we save the Less Thans?”

“We’re not saving any Less Thans. We’re saving ourselves.”

Dozer was daring me—or anyone—to contradict him. No one did.

As he and his minions disappeared into the black, I was consumed by a gnawing anger. Not just that we were abandoning the Less Thans, but that not one person had uttered a peep in my defense. Fine—if they wanted Dozer to be their leader, they could have him.

I’d get to Camp Liberty on my own. I was damned if I was going to let some power-hungry, lie-spewing, sour-breathed, barrel-chested bully stop me. Even if no one else believed in me, I still did.

One way or the other, I was going to make this happen.

THE SUN CLEARS THE eastern hills long before Dozer even stirs. Hope waits impatiently. When they eventually break camp and begin marching south, the sun beats down from its noontime position. They’ve already missed the coolest portion of the day.

But Dozer is in charge. And he isn’t going to tell them what to do.

As for the decision to march south, he seems convinced they will eventually march out of the Western Federation into some other territory that will take them in. He has no evidence to support his thinking, and when anyone asks him about it, his face twists into a tight snarl. For someone who is supposedly interested in what others have to say, he seems remarkably un interested.

The land before them is prairie flat: endless horizons of waving grass and undulating hills. No lake or stream or creek in sight. No water anywhere.

Still, Dozer is in charge. And he isn’t going to tell them what to do.

Hope adjusts her pace until she’s walking side by side with Book.

“What’re you going to do now?” she asks. They haven’t spoken since the river.

Book shrugs.

“You still planning on getting to Camp Liberty?”

He shrugs again.

“Do you still hope to free those Less Thans?”

“I don’t know, Hope. If I free them, I’m afraid I might accidentally kill them, just like Cat.”

Hope recoils at his words. “I didn’t say that.”

“You didn’t need to.”

They march silently through the grass, the blades making swishing sounds against their legs. Hope carries the spear in her hand like a walking stick.

“Look,” she finally says, “I’m sorry I didn’t stand up to Dozer last night, but—”

“Save it.”

She drifts back into line, angry that he’s too stubborn to listen to reason, that if she had tried to come to his defense last night, it only would have made things worse. But Book doesn’t want to hear that.

The prairie stretches forever with no end in sight. Sweat bubbles from their faces. Lips split and bleed. If they don’t find water soon, they’ll never make it to another territory.

They set up camp that night as lightning flickers on the far horizon. Four Fingers begins to cry. “Storm!” he whimpers, his body jerking and spasming.

“Will somebody shut that moron up?” Dozer shouts. When no one does, he grabs his walking stick and whacks Four Fingers on the legs. “Shut up, I said!”

He wallops him a second time for good measure.

Four Fingers whimpers in pain.

Once Dozer returns to his bed, Book moves to Four Fingers’s side. “It’s just heat lightning, Four,” he whispers. “Not a storm at all. Just heat lightning.” It’s a good hour before Four Fingers falls asleep.

The next day they march beneath an enormous dome of sky, no one uttering a word. Even the normally talkative Flush, guiding his blind friend Twitch, doesn’t say a word.

That night, Hope and her fellow Sisters dig in the ground, scratching at the earth with knives and fingernails. Several feet down a brown ooze seeps up, and they scoop heaping globs of the slimy mud and strain it through a T-shirt. A murky liquid drips into a pot, which is then placed over a fire and boiled. They drink it before it cools. Hot, gritty mud water is better than none at all. They fill every canteen to the brim.