Page 58 of Shattered Stars

I nearly drop my fork in alarm.

“No,” I say stiffly, forcing my attention back onto the chunks of unidentifiable food.

We share a room. Two single-wire cots laid out side by side. The enforcer doesn’t undress, simply lies out in his boots, arms crossed over his chest, and closes his eyes.

I do the same, peering at him through the darkness, the electricity still dancing on my skin, imagining if that electricity dances across his lips every time he kisses her, dances though his soul when he fucks her.

I screw up my eyes. The monster is strangely quiet. No longer prowling, no longer busting to break loose. I hardly understand it. My mother said being with her was the way to solve this problem. But maybe, for once, I am right. Maybe getting the hell away from her was always the answer.

We drive nonstop again the next day. Although now the towns vanish, replaced by dirty villages, even those becoming fewer and further between the nearer we travel towards the border. By the time the sun is setting again, there’s no sign of civilization, and the enforcer turns us off the main road, and under the cover of trees.

“We’ll bed down here tonight,” he tells me, already sweeping away the debris of the forest floor with his booted foot. “You go fetch kindling for a fire.”

When I return half an hour later, my arms full of sticks, he’s swept a considerable space, two sleeping bags laid out on the ground and some tins of food pulled out from his rucksack.

He motions to the floor and I drop the sticks, watching as he takes some in his hands, breaking them in half and building a fire between the sleeping bags.

“Couldn’t we make a fire with our magic?” I ask.

“And signal to anyone nearby that we’re here?”

“Are we in danger?” I ask, frowning. We’re still half a day’s drive from the camp at the border where our forces are stationed.

“There are the Wolves of Night and the Princes of Death. Both of them would like to see me dead.” He pauses. “And you too, considering who your family is.”

He’s obviously not that bothered though, because he clicks his fingers, lighting the kindling with a spark and then feeding the fire sticks until it’s roaring.

He hands me a tin. “Here,” he says. “I hope you like beans.”

I shrug, rolling back the lid, and resting the tin next to the fire until the scarlet sauce inside is bubbling.

It burns my tongue when I lift the first bean to my mouth, but I don’t complain, wolfing the thing down in three mouthfuls and then scrabbling though my own bag and pulling out the energy bars I’d had the good sense to pack.

“Want one?” I ask the enforcer. He looks up from his own tin of beans, clearly lost in his thoughts. “You want an energy bar?” I ask again.

“No,” he says.

I shrug, ripping open the wrapper and taking a large bite, the thing sticking in my teeth.

The enforcer puts down his beans and holds his hands to the fire. Fall has arrived now and the nights are becoming cooler, especially out here in the West where the wind is renowned to have a freezing bite.

“Tomorrow we’ll arrive at the camp and I’ll take you straight to the commanding officer.”

I nod, waiting for him to ask me why I’m doing this. Everyone else has. Instead he asks me something completely different.

“Your brother was stationed there.”

I swallow my mouthful, the bar scratching all the way down my throat. “Yes,” I say.

“Then you know what to expect.”

“Not really. I haven’t seen him in a long time.” I take another bite, not wanting to think about it. “What should I expect?”

The enforcer looks up from the fire. “It changes you,” he says cryptically.

I frown. What the hell is that meant to mean? “How?”

“People come back changed, different. What you experience, what you see – it changes you. The conditions out there at the front are harsh.”