Page 24 of Dustwalker

They didn’t do anything to me.

Then why had she reacted like that at mention of Ronin meeting Warlord?

Battling the impulsive urge to swing his rifle into his hands, Ronin dipped his chin in a shallow nod. “I did.”

The corners of Northside’s upper lip curled in what could only have been a grin. “He convince you to sample some local goods?”

Heat pulsed off Lara, and she shifted as though she meant to move around him. Ronin’s calculations suggested she was likely to launch into one of her outbursts.

Ronin reached back, placing a hand on her hip, and glanced at her over his shoulder. She stared at him with her jaw clenched and her eyes ablaze, but she didn’t move.

“There is an agreement in place,” he said loud enough for the gearheads to hear.

She eased back, tension draining from her body.

Volatile things, humans.

But hadn’t Ronin reacted to Warlord and his gearheads in a similar fashion?

Cobalt waved them on as he stepped aside. “Go on in with her, then.”

“Creators know I’d want something like that after being in the Dust as long as you were,” Northside said, clacking his teeth together. He didn’t move from his place before the opening.

“Why would any of them want anything to do with you?” asked Cobalt, tone flat.

Northside’s optics blazed at Lara. “This one knows why. Has that hunger in her.”

Ronin stared at Northside, optics locked. These words weren’t worth a fight, especially not while they were so close to his residence, which was less than eight hundred meters from the gate.

All he and Lara had to do was walk a bit farther.

Cobalt shook his head. “Let them through, Northside. Been a quiet night. I prefer to keep it that way.”

A staticky scoff emerged from Northside’s vocal modulator as he finally moved over to clear the way. “Send word when you’re done with her, dustwalker. I wouldn’t mind a go. Not many of them have hair like that.”

A twitch skittered over the palm of Ronin’s hand, and his fingers curled as though gripping his rifle. How many gearheads served Warlord? Ronin needed to know how many bullets to stockpile. He’d be sure to save a few extra for Northside.

He led Lara between the two bots and through the narrow opening, crossing the threshold from her world into the supposed sanctuary Warlord had established for the bots of Cheyenne.

Ahead of them, the broad street, lined by automated streetlamps that had come on in the stormy evening gloom, curved away to the southeast. Directly north lay the park, its grass and leaves glistening with moisture in the artificial orange light. It was the greenest place Ronin had encountered so close to the Dust. Yet he’d never seen anyone within save for the maintenance bots tending the vegetation.

It seemed a waste.

There were only a few brown patches in the grass, which thrived in many spots thanks to the shade of the trees ringing the park. He could just make out the water of the central pond through the trunks.

“They are not touching me,” Lara grated from behind him. “And what the hell did you andWarlordtalk about?”

Ronin stopped and turned to face her, scanning the empty street and the imposing, eclectic wall. Though no gearheads were in sight, they were all over Cheyenne, and they all reported faithfully to their leader.

He beckoned her with a hand. “This way. Shouldn’t talk about that out here.”

“I’m not moving another step.” She folded her arms across her chest. “Tell me. Why did you have a chat with that…that thing?”

She’d made her loathing of bots clear when Ronin first met her, butthis was different. Though she hadn’t raised her voice, venom dripped from her every word.

And she’d planted herself here, in the middle of the main road leading to the heart of the bot district, where gearheads were likely to walk by at any moment.

Ronin stepped close to her, meeting her gaze. Every trip into the Dust put him in danger, but he had no desire to tempt deactivation here, now. “This is notthe place to speak of these things, Lara Brooks.”