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A childish smirk played at the edges of his lips. “We don’t barter food here. We’re pretty stingy folks.” He shrugged.

“I’m pretty sure I can be persuasive.” I crossed my arms over my chest, cocking a brow.

Tilting his head back, the kid looked at me down the bridge of his nose, “What are we talking here?”

“Enough to make up for the food you sell me, plus some.”

“I need to see the evidence,” he said, skepticism lacing his voice.

I rolled my eyes. “Seriously?”

“Yeah,” his voice cracked, showing his age for the first time.

I suppressed a smile and reached into my pocket, retrieving the diamond earrings.

The boy’s eyes widened and his jaw gaped open. “Yeah,” he muttered. “That should do.”

“Great,” I said, shoving the earrings back into my pocket. I glanced at the kid. His eyes were unfocused on an abandoned car on the corner. “Lead the way—”

“Dash.” The kid snapped out of his daze with a shake of his head. “The name’s Dash.”

“Okay, Dash. Take me to your leader.”

“Hope you don’t need to phone home,” Dash said, quoting the movieE.T. as he walked ahead of me.

I smiled at the cheesy quip. “Nope. No worries there.”

“Good because our ham radio signals are pretty weak here,” he said without so much as a glance over his shoulder.

I tucked away that piece of information as my suspicions heightened. Rebel militias used ham radios. Not exclusively, as there were some non-militant humans that could have acquired them prior to Devolution Day.

Was I overlooking this scrawny teen?

“So, Dash,” I said, “where exactly are we going?” I looked around as we turned left down an abandoned street. More foregone businesses loomed in our periphery, their ghosts wailing as we passed. Signs were missing letters. Glass doors and windows were shattered from long-ago looters. Dangling from metal frames were scraps of awnings that swayed in the late October breeze.

Dash smirked at me over his shoulder. “You’ll see.”

We weaved through vehicles that were bound to the road. A Honda Civic sat smashed into the back of a semi-truck. Peeking inside, I spotteda clothed skeleton whose baseball cap was blood-stained. He remained hunched forward with his face pressed into a deflated airbag.

“That’s comforting,” I retorted in sarcasm as I strolled past.

Dash chuckled. “Relax. It’ll be fine,” he said with a wave of his hand.

I said nothing as I took in the wreckage that would forever be immortalized until either nature consumed it or it was rebuilt.

We walked in silence. The quiet forced its weight on my shoulders as the ghost town demanded my attention.

A crash shattered the somber atmosphere behind an abandoned farm supply store. We halted our movements, glancing at one another.

I watched as Dash transformed from an innocent kid to a vigilant young man as his back went rigid and shoulders tensed. I raised an eyebrow at his poised hands hovering above his waistband. With keen awareness, his eyes shifted as he scanned the surrounding area.

It was possible that the movement was simply a survival skill that humans had adapted over the past five years. Or…he was part of a human militia that would burn the world down in celebration if they got my head—both concerned me.

A louder crash blasted through the eerie street.

I snatched a pair of regular daggers from my weapons belt designed for human enemies. With my bracelet on, I couldn’t detect what we were facing. The chances were high of it being a straggling human who’d gotten separated from a clan.

Dark clouds wiped away the harsh morning sunlight, casting an angry shadow over us. Dash and I glanced at one another in warning before shifting our attention to the blackening sky.