Numbers Ignite (10 page)

For the first time in days, I thought about Vance. He’d be busy helping his clan build a new settlement. Would they be safe this time? Would Dresden keep his promise to leave them alone? Did Vance even want me to come anymore?

I’d been wrong to hurt him. I couldn’t let him move on without hearing what I had to say. The only thing standing in the way was a few hundred kilometers.

“There’s something I’ve been wanting to ask you,” Coltrane said as we walked. “There’s this social on Friday. It’s a yearly thing for all the quadrants, a really big deal. Dale always makes this apple tarts, and they’re hot and sweet and absolutely amazing.” He paused. “Are you listening?”

I barely heard him in the heaviness of my thoughts. I had a desert to cross. These people already thought I was a criminal. If it came to it, I could always steal some supplies and leave. Nobody would be surprised.

“Amy.”

“Hmm?” I asked, trying to recall what he had said. “Oh. Apple tarts. Got it.”

Coltrane sighed.

Maybe I was going about this school thing all wrong. An idea formed in my mind. “Can we stop by Ruby’s on the way back?”

Coltrane shrugged. “Sure, why?”

Because she was an elder. Because she was kind, and she’d offered help if I ever needed it. But mostly because Ruby was the only person down here I could relate to, and I desperately needed her advice if this school idea was going to work. “Let’s see if she’s been baking.”

Coltrane grinned. “You make me proud.”

Not only did Ruby approve of my school idea, but she told me to come back in the morning with a lesson plan.

“Your students will be waiting,” she said as she handed me a pan of sweet rolls.

Ruby was true to her word. When Coltrane and I entered Ruby’s dwelling the next day, four children were seated on the center rug, two girls and two boys. Mandie was one of them, and she grinned. The other kids’ eyes widened at the sight of my forehead.

I looked up at Ruby, who hovered over the children like a proud parent. “I watch these kids each day while their parents are working. Last night I told those stubborn moms and dads that if a digit could watch them, another digit could teach them, and if they threw a fit about it, I’d be done tending forever. So here we are.”

I chuckled, picturing that in my mind. “Hello, class,” I said, setting down my supplies to sit with them on the rug. “I’m Amy. I’m so glad you came.”

“Do you really get to teach us?” Mandie asked, her knees bouncing in her excitement.

“Why are people from NORA called digits?” a girl with brown skin and black braids asked. “Oh, I’m Clara, by the way.”

“I’d guess it’s because we wear numbers,” I told her.

“What are they for?”

“Because they’re playing a game,” Mandie told her knowingly. “My mom says there’s only one winner and lots of losers.”

“Why did you leave? Is it because you lost?” Clara asked.

Coltrane cleared his throat and found a chair. I just gave them a grim smile. “I couldn’t stay there anymore. It was time to find a new life.”

“So you’re going to stay here, then?” Mandie asked. “My mom says you should go back where you came from, but I hope you don’t.”

“I—”

“Have you felt rain?” one of the boys said shyly. “My mom says she felt it once.”

“Do they have rain in South America?” Mandie asked. “Maxim says the drought is really bad here, but only here. He wants us to move. Maxim says in Europe everything’s green and they have tall, skinny houses above the ground.”

I shifted uncomfortably. “I’m not sure. Why don’t we start with reading—”

The questions kept coming. “What are NORA schools like?” “Have you ever flown in a helicopter?” “Do they have oatmeal there?” “Have you ever seen a horse?”

I looked to Ruby for help, but she shrugged and turned away, heading for her kitchen in the corner. I was on my own.

“Students,” I said sharply, and the questions cut off abruptly. “I’d love to answer your questions, but we have a lot to do today. Raise your hand if you can read.”

They looked at me blankly. Mandie raised her hand.

“Okay,” I told her. “How do you spell
run
?”

“R-E-N. But I’m serious about the horse thing. My mom showed me a picture once, and it was super big when you stand it next to a person. Horses used to pull carriages hundreds of years ago, when the women wore dresses in Europe. That’s where the Nations for Peace convention meets.”

Europe. Nations for Peace. So many strange concepts. Ruby was right—I had a lot to learn about the world outside NORA. Maybe I’d be getting more out of this than I thought.

As soon as she took a breath, I held up a hand. “I’ll turn some time over to you at the end, Mandie, and you can tell us about Europe. Until then, let’s talk about vowels.”

At some point in my life I probably knew the symptoms of a cracked rib. As clan chief, my dad required everyone to learn the basics of first aid by the time we turned fourteen. That was him, self-reliance personified. That attitude made him a great leader, and the people would do anything for him. It also made him really hard to live with.

Now, sitting cross-legged on my bedroll, there wasn’t a single position that was comfortable. So far I’d tried lying down, standing, leaning back against the bars, and slouching. Even
breathing
hurt, all the pain blending together. I straightened my arms, letting them take some of my weight, sitting up straight, and taking shallow breaths. The pain was bearable now, at least.

It was hard to tell how long ago they’d dumped me here. I vaguely remembered the swaying of a stretcher and spit slapping into my cheek just before the prison door slammed shut. When I came to in the darkness, the spit was still there, dry and crusty. It was harder than it should have been to lift my arm and wipe it off.

I resisted the urge to take a deep breath, knowing the pain would bring me nearly to unconsciousness. If I lay down now, I’d never get back up. My body would become a part of the floor. Flesh to dirt, like my father. Alive one moment, gone the next.

I sat there, the debate cycling through my head over and over, when the door opened. Edyn entered carrying a solar-powered lantern. The sudden light sent a knife through my brain. I groaned and looked away, choosing to keep my arm where it was rather than shield my sight.

“Yuck,” she said. “Your face is more colorful than an artist’s palette.”

Wanted a new look
,
I tried to say, but it came out as a groan.

She slammed a chair down in front of the bars, then plopped into it. “What in Hades were you thinking? Do you have a death wish or something?”

“I don’t—” Pain lanced through my ribs at the effort, but I pushed through. “I don’t have an obligation to most of those people. I don’t care what they think.”

“But insisting that our clan beat you up? Did it occur to you how arrogant that would sound?”

Black spots danced in my vision. Unconsciousness wasn’t far off if I kept talking. It would be a welcome relief. “Worth a try.”

“Yeah, well, here we actually have these things called laws. It’s about time you listened to me, your
lawyer
. I’m trying to save your life, remember? Or do you struggle to care about the whole death-sentence thing, too?”

“If it gets me away from your shouting, then great.”

“You say that, but I know better. You act like you don’t care about anyone but yourself. Maybe that was true two years ago.” Her voice softened. “But I thought you’d changed. Want to know what I see when I look at you?”

“Besides rugged good looks?”

“Potential.” She leaned back and crossed her legs. “Wasted potential. Mills is a coward, you know. When they took me in two years ago, he barely cared about what was happening here. He was so focused on NORA and their queen—”

“Empress.”

“Whatever. It was obsessive, how he focused all his energy on a civilization so far away. The settlers almost unseated him and put someone else in his place, it got so bad. But conveniently, these Asian dudes showed up and said their settlement had been destroyed and they needed a place to stay. Now they practically run the place for him, and nobody dares challenge him. Vance, you could be three times the man Mills is if you stopped doing stupid things.”

“What I don’t get is how he convinced so many people that I launched his blasted missile.”

Edyn frowned. “Mills holds their livelihood in his hands. He’s the person who assigns jobs and living quarters, if you haven’t noticed. His biggest supporters get the nicest homes, the structures nearest the rim. New refugees start at the bottom and work their way up as they prove themselves helpful to his plans. So, no, they won’t contradict him, even if they know he’s lying.”

“That’s why our clan is living in mosquito-infested swampland?” I spat. “Because they’re too new to be useful yet?”

“So you do care,” Edyn said. “I wondered.”

“Let me guess. You live near the rim because you’re a
lawyer.
That’s what lawyers do—use their clients’ misfortunes to lift themselves higher.”

“Everything I have, I’ve earned,” she snapped as she rose out of her chair. “Just like you deserve whatever you get.” She strode toward the door and began to push it open. “Oh, by the way, I saw your mom on my way here tonight. She was with Mills, hanging on his arm and laughing like he was the funniest man in the world. Just thought you’d want to know.”

The door slammed shut behind her.

By the third day of school, there were eight students. Many of them were the older siblings of my original students. They’d probably been sent to listen and report. I was careful to keep to the basics, as I’d promised.

On the morning of day six, Lillibeth examined my leg and then ran me through a few exercises as she did every morning. But instead of injecting it with healing boosters, she sighed. “Your leg is doing well. It will ache when you walk on it too much, but I think that may take months to go away.”

“That’s fine. Thanks for all your help. Then the only thing keeping me here is the debt, and I’m working hard on that.”

She studied my face. “Have we treated you so horribly you can’t wait to leave?”