Page 63 of Dustwalker

Perhaps she was brimming with anger because Ronin had departed while she slept without saying goodbye.

He didn’t want to dwell on regrets. And though everything within him railed against the possibility, if he was never to see Lara again, he wanted to remember her saying she would wait for him. Wanted to remember smile on her lips and the look in her eyes, which had conveyed the truth.

She would actually miss him.

His plan had been to scavenge until just before dawn on the third day to maximize his time here. He knew there was more to find, knew treasures lay hidden in the hundreds of thousands of square feet he’d not yet searched within these buildings.

Lara is alone.

But traveling during midday, especially at known scavenging spots like this, was dangerous. It would leave him exposed. In the open Dust, effective hiding places were difficult to come by. The decaying buildings of Fort Collins, however, provided ample cover for would-be ambushers. And there was no guarantee that Ronin hadn’t been spotted by the hill dwellers.

The safest course of action would’ve been to shelter in one of the buildings, wait out the daylight, and leave under cover of darkness.

Sensors pulsed on his cheek, and he scratched it absently. Would six or seven more hours make a difference? Undoubtedly. But what was more important—the effect on his haul, or the effect on Lara?

For all the years he’d been awake, this was a new experience, an unexplored dilemma. He’d never had anyone waiting for him, had never had companionship. His interactions had been limited to passingconversation, negotiations over trades, the rare peaceful encounter in the wastes, and the even rarer night with a female.

He cinched the top of his bag, closed the flap, and slung it over his shoulders. As he stood, he slipped his right arm through the strap of his rifle. His hand settled on the grip, thumb sliding to the indentation worn over decades of use. Glancing down, he performed an inventory of his hand tools, ensuring they were all in place.

The trees would provide some cover while he made his way out of town. Once he was clear of them, he’d be back in the Dust, visible from kilometers away.

But at least he’d have the same field of view.

With dusk drawing near, the lights of Cheyenne were already on as Ronin approached from the eastern railway, which crossed the path connecting the bot district and the human slums. He’d followed the north road out of Fort Collins. Varying his route helped reduce the chance of ambushes on the return trip.

The railyard had only been partially cleared in all its years of disuse. Hulking train cars, many of which had been stripped down to their frames, lay silent amidst the dunes that had gathered around them. A few were jumbled heaps of twisted, scorched metal, covered in rust and grime.

Movement from just off the path ahead caught his attention. He enhanced his optics, zooming in on the source—a murder of crows picking at a carcass. Their ragged caws drifted to him on the westward wind.

The birds’ meal became more apparent as Ronin neared. His steps slowed. The crows continued their calls, jerking their heads aside to stare at him with black eyes and bits of flesh dangling from their beaks.

He surged forward, startling the creatures into scattering. They regrouped on a nearby train car to watch him.

Time lost meaning as he stared at what the birds had been feeding upon. Ronin was so still that some of the crows returned, warily hopping closer until he waved his arm to scare them off again.

It was the corpse of a human woman. She was naked, and where her skin hadn’t been torn apart by hungry corvids, it was dark with bruises. His first thought was that Warlord had found Lara, but he rejected itimmediately. This woman’s skin was a darker shade, and her blood-matted hair was black.

A synth lay on the ground near her, his head face-down over her crotch. His detached arms and legs were strewn around him with tendrils of wire and tubing jutting from the jagged openings. Warlord’s symbol was upon his back in red paint that had run before drying.

The synth’s penis had been removed and shoved into the woman’s mouth. Crows had pecked out her eyes, but her collapsed cheekbone, dislocated jaw, and extensive bruising indicated that she’d been severely beaten before she was dumped here.

She was a little taller than Lara, with full hips and breasts. Dark hair, tan skin…

Ronin’s processors slowed as realization hit him, stronger than any storm winds he’d endured in the wastes.

The woman’s arms were spread to either side, palms up. Slowly, he knelt beside her, gently took hold of her left wrist, and turned her hand over.

A jagged scar ran from the first knuckle of her pinky to the base of her thumb.

As delicately as he could, he set her hand back down. His processors kicked into overdrive, moving fast enough that anyone nearby might have heard them whirring.

He’d fulfilled one of Lara’s conditions. That meant one less thing for him to ask about around town, one less thing to draw Warlord’s attention.

He stood and looked over his shoulder at the crows. They remained close, cawing and flapping their wings as they fought over whatever bits of meat they still possessed.

They’d desecrated the body of Lara’s sister. Damaged it beyond what it had already suffered.

Ronin looked down again. No…notit.Her. This was Tabitha.