Page 21 of Dustwalker

Ronin led Lara along the road to the market. He knew she was following by the sound of her footfalls on the wet gravel, the squelching when she put weight on her damaged boot, and the curses she muttered every time she stepped in a particularly deep puddle.

Despite that evidence, part of him wanted to look back just to make sure she was there.

Lara’s acceptance of his offer was logical. It provided her security, stability, and comfort she’d probably never known. With her added stipulation that he assist in the search for her missing sister, she stood only to gain from the arrangement.

It was a strange turn. In his experience, humans were rarely rational in their decisions.

Their roles, clearly, were reversed in this case. There had been no logic behind his offer. Only curiosity, an inexplicable need to know what set her apart from everyone else.

“So, where are we going?” Lara asked.

“You already know.” Ronin turned his head to the right, where the lights of the bot district shone in contrast to the dark gray sky.

“I know we’re goingthere. But where in there is your…residence? And who the hell uses words like that, anyway?”

“I do,” he replied, glancing at her over his shoulder, “and my residence is in the northwest corner of the district. Not far from the market.”

There was something refreshing about conversing with her. Though no two runs in the Dust were ever the same, they were predictable in their own ways—the same prevalent dangers, the same volatile weather, the same reminders of a lost world. And, always, the taunting sense that he was on the verge of discerning his true programming.

But he couldn’t predict what Lara would say or do. He could learn the signs of a coming outburst, perhaps, but it was impossible to know what would come out of her mouth. Back in the shack, she’d been a few hundredths of a second away from slapping him across the face. It had sent a strange, not unpleasant pulse through him.

“So, uh…we gonna run into any, uh…any gearheads?”

The trepidation in her tone made Ronin frown.

“Gearheads?” He searched his memory for the term. If he’d known it, it had been lost in the Blackout, like so much else. Was it just another slur for his kind? “Of course there will be bots.”

“Not just bots.Them.”

“You’ll have to be more specific, Lara Brooks.”

She muttered, voice too low for him to make out.

“What?” He slowed and twisted to look at her. Her brows were low, her lips closed tight.

“Warlord’s cronies!” she spat. “The ones with his mark.”

A skull, fashioned in the shape of a gear. Understanding clicked into place. Now, he had another thing to call Warlord’s bots. Had anyone ever called them gearheads directly? They’d likely be just as confused as Ronin had been.

“Yes. Most of the bots in Cheyenne don’t wear his symbol, but he always keeps the ones that do guarding the wall.”

Lara frowned and stared at the ground in front of her. She hooked her thumb under the strap of her bag and adjusted its position on her shoulder.

“What’s wrong?” he asked. Human expressions could be so telling, but Ronin wasn’t well-versed enough to distinguish their many nuances.

“Nothing.”

Her posture belied her answer—the rigidity of her bent arms, her shuffling walk, the downward tilt of her head.

“Speak plainly, Lara Brooks. Are you concerned about Warlord’s gearheads?”

“Damn it,” she said, swinging her foot to kick a rock aside. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

The rock clattered away, bouncing over the gravel before hitting an exposed railroad tie with a hollowthunk.

Ronin halted and turned to face her. Lara nearly walked into him before stopping herself. She tipped her head back to look up at him, squinting against the rain. Moisture clung to the dark lashes framing her bright blue eyes. Thick strands of her red hair had worked free of her braid and clung to her pale face.

“Should I expect trouble?” he asked.