Page 84 of Dustwalker

If they don’t come for me first.

“Damn it.” Lara sighed and walked to the bed, sitting on the edge. She lowered her face into her hands. For however long he’d be gone, she’d sit here, jumping at every sound, her mind racing through all the things that could go wrong. But her worries always came back to Ronin.

If something happened to him, she’d never know. And that thought was sickening.

“When are you leaving?” she asked quietly.

“As soon as I get dressed.”

Lara’s lower lip trembled. Her eyes burned, but damn it, she wouldn’t let even one more tear fall.

“Fine.” Dropping her hands, she rose and strode toward the door.

Ronin caught her arm as she passed, spinning her to face him. “We will not part like this, Lara Brooks.”

She kept her face averted, not wanting to meet his gaze, not when he was doing this again. “Why not?”

“Because it’s all either of us will think about while we’re apart.”

“Just like all I thought about last time was you not saying goodbye?”

“A mistake I don’t intend to repeat.”

The sting of tears intensified, but the tension left Lara’s body. Ronin drew her against his chest in a warm embrace and rested his cheek atop her head as he stroked his fingers through her hair. The rest of Lara’s anger faded, leaving a wretched ache in her heart. She wrapped her arms around him and squeezed as the tears she’d desperately tried to keep at bay slid down her cheeks.

“I don’t want you to go,” she whispered.

“Bots always mean what they say. Iwillbe back. Very soon.”

“I’ll hold you to it. If you’re not back in a few days, I’m gonna come looking.”

“I know you will.” Ronin pressed his lips to her forehead. “I expect nothing less.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Because Colorado had been far more densely populated than Wyoming before the Blackout, the lands south of Cheyenne made for more lucrative scavenging. But that was a longer journey, and Lara’s urgency had seeped into Ronin, making him hyperaware of time’s passage.

They needed to get out of Cheyenne as soon as possible. They couldn’t afford a delay of three or four days.

So he strode west. There were places sleeping in these hills that he hadn’t scavenged. The risk of returning empty-handed was higher, but this was the quickest route back to Lara.

Twenty-nine kilometers outside of town, he spotted a line of wood fence posts atop a hill, nearly lost amidst the scrub grass and dirt. As he climbed, his guidance system pushed him to turn east. To return to Lara.

She was waiting for him in Cheyenne, trapped in the territory of the bots who’d killed her sister. She’d begged him to take her away from that place, and he’d forced her not only to stay, but to stayalone.

All because he wanted her to keep the ring.

They both knew it would’ve traded for enough credits to acquire any supplies they needed for their journey and more, especially combined with his last haul. Logic dictated that they should’ve taken it to the market the moment she suggested selling it. They could’ve left town together immediately afterward, without the agony of waiting, without suffering through uncertainty.

It was an object only as valuable as the materials that made it—or it should’ve been. Her description of how humans used such rings and what they symbolized might’ve been enough to convince him, but the inscription on the inside of the band had truly made up his mind.

Yours Until the End of Time.

Simple words. Like the ring itself, they shouldn’t have held any deeper meaning. But Ronin had known he had to give it to her once he’d read them.

He crested the hill, stopped beside one of the posts, and tapped it with the toe of his boot. The rotted wood broke with a dullsnap, partly disintegrating. The inhabitants of the old world had been fond of boundaries. Their reward was the boundless Dust.

Ronin swept his optics over the area ahead. The ground ran down into a small valley, likely carved over millennia by a long-dried stream, before rising into another hill. The land continued like that for kilometers—peaks and valleys, steadily higher, steadily rockier. Sediment had gathered at the base of this valley over decades of countless storms, from which rose a surprisingly intact shingle roof.