Page 158 of Scavenger's Oath

It feels like a dream… or a memory. A nightmare I thought I left buried in the dirt.

Three men jump from the bed of the truck before I can even find my feet.

A primal scream rips out of me as I clamber up, trying to run before I’m even standing.

But one hand clamps tight on my ankle, pulling my feet out from under me. I fight desperately, fingers raking in the dirt. My heel finds a shin, my nails scrape someone’s wrist, but it’s not enough.

It’s too late. They’re too fast, too practiced.

Arms slam around my ribcage, pinning my arms to my ribs so tight I can’t breathe. Another grabs my other leg and before I know it, the sky spins and I’m in the bed of the pickup truck.

The bed is hot against my skin, tasting like dust and metal.

The door to the station explodes open, Phoenix and Zane barrelling out. For a second, I think someone will tear them off me.

“PHOENIX!” I scream, the taste of blood coating my throat, the fear of losing them bearing down.

Phoenix tackles one of the guys before he can climb back in the truck. Myles tears out of the front door, shotgun in hand. But the truck’s already screeching down the street, tyres spitting gravel.

I thrash against their hold, my scream turning to a sob.

Zane runs after the truck, screaming my name, something tortured on his face.

Myles raises his gun. But I see his hesitation—he doesn’t want to risk hitting me.

The driver jerks the wheel sideways. The back-end swinging wide, my head bouncing off the lip of the bed as the truck lurches. My vision blurs, the world narrowing.

As I’m fighting for consciousness, they force me flat against the rusted metal, kneeling on my arms with a rough efficiency that makes my bones scream.

A hand shoves my face sideways and a cold blade presses against my throat.

Everything goes quiet. Everything except the roar of the engine and my thundering heart.

Then they laugh. A breathless kind of laughter as if they’ve just got away with shoplifting.

Their small cruel smiles say everything. I knowthese men. The way they think. What makes them laugh.

The one with the knife to my throat, Billy, would laugh and whisper threats in my ear before every punishment. The other one, Jeb, used to laugh when I cried.

I know them all too well.

No one says a word. They know they don’t need to make threats. And that’s far worse than any threats.

Time dissolves into steady jolts of hot metal under me.

After being pinned to the rattling bed of the pickup for what I’m sure is hours, my arms are dead, my body sore. But when the broken windmill comes into view, I’d gladly take another hour.

As dust from the dirt road fills my nostrils, my heart sinks. I think of them, the men who’d given me air, who’d killed to protect me. To protect our fragile patch of sun. Who had made me believe something new could take root.

It feels like I left this shanty farm a lifetime ago, I half-expected everything would be different. But it’s exactly the same.

The leaning shed. The shitty slanted roof of the main house that always leaked when it rained. The old barn where they’d keep us when we were being punished. Even the sagging porch I scrubbed blood off a dozen times.

The barn door groans in the wind the same way it did the night they dragged Kate’s body out. The creaking itches under my skin, turning my stomach.

My breath stops and I tremble so hard I can’t hold still. My teeth chatter and my fingers go numb.

“No…” I whisper, but it barely makes it past my lips. “Please… no…”