Her father’s tears had yet to dry on Lenith’s sleeve as she lopped toward the courtyard. Swaths of blood mingled under the blackened arches of Rugerbin’s welcoming sign. (‘Welcome! Enjoy our shops! … Mind the blood!’) Usvild’s life mate lay face down. One leg remained attached by the thinnest of sinewy strings. Intestinal streamers littered the walkway.

The towers of smoke had thickened since the initial explosions.

Fopaz slowed down with every new corpse. A boy with an irreparable hole in his stomach. The two lovers strewn on the pavement, in pieces. One of the Halibred men, riddled with seeping holes.

Lenith retched her breakfast.

At the courtyard, behind a curtain of bound and knelt men and women, another Fury lounged in the grass. The name on her helmet read ‘Countdown’ when the smoky dawn hit just right. Propping into a squat, Countdown gestured for Lenith to come closer.

As though Lenith had a choice.

“Bring her to me.” Spoken like a caring mother. “Where’s Herielt?”

“Dead.”

One of the captives blubbered in brief, agonized surprise.

Countdown stood. “And his daughter still lives. Why?”

“Place her in Reintegration with the rest.” Fopaz relinquished her hold. Lenith was able to breathe, and the Fury continued. “She’s obedient. Herielt knew the risks of raising a pihnt.”

Lenith had retreated inward. Yes, Herielt had taught her well. She appeared drained to the Furies. Within, violence roiled. She felt so much pain. No wounds to show or limbs to relocate; only internal torture ruined her.

“Ignacious Heln was aggressive. I incapacitated him without issue,” Fopaz said. “Try as he might, not even Herielt Thaymen can teach a dwindler how to fight.”

“Arjel, retrieve him.”

An Enieyu with spiraling, white horns hurried off the patio, toward the forest.­

Countdown brought Lenith close. She cupped the young woman’s colorless cheeks in rough, gloved hands.

Lenith expected pain.

Instead, the Fury leaned down and pressed her helmet to Lenith’s forehead. The stones were cold and abrasive, digging into scalp. The dark, deep nothingness mollified her.

“Your father was a terrible man. One of many murderers out here in the Gray. Yours are not good people.” Countdown wiped mud from Lenith’s chin. “Learn and agree to this, Lenith Thaymen, or the bullet is yours.”

The bullet is mine then.

Fopaz brought Lenith’s wrists together. She bound them with a thick wire that cut into flesh. Lenith’s jaw jutted forward in protest, refusing to make a sound.

Countdown released her cheeks with a pat. Then she spoke orders beyond Lenith’s full comprehension.

“Alert Dehkie we’re returning with two prisoners of interest. Inform Iscleption to prep for an additional five, wounded.”

“The convoy has room for six,” an Enieyu called from across the cooking pit.

Fopaz crept around, planted a sidearm to the back of a knelt, bleeding man’s head, and pulled the trigger. The deafening flash of light and thunderclap split the man’s forehead. Blood and gray matter splattered the patio.

“Four wounded, then. Alert Ilius to provide support in escorting the prisoners from Rugerbin and the leftovers we snatched from Amidaj Camp upon arrival. Ask Poralaget Imsofan to spare three Ilius to assist. No more. No less.”

Countdown’s hidden, violating attention pulled away to assess Iggy, as the Enieyu known as Arjel dragged him into view. The dwindler wept in silence, leant over the killed man’s blood.

“Are you grieving over Herielt? Me, too, Ignacious. It’s always sad when a hunt ends, but eighteen years is too long for a beast to run.” Countdown bowed Iggy’s head with the heel of her boot, closer to the crimson pool. “But an end can lead to greater ventures. Your bouts of sobriety, for instance. They always lead to glorious, unhindered binges. Why do you tremble? Shocked? How could I know? How? Do you feel betrayed yet?”

Hooking her toe against the dwindler’s neck, Countdown brought him back from the brink. “Your mind must race, seeking out answers. No one has joined your paltry camp in years.”

She turned to face Fopaz standing tall and Lenith down on the ground. “It feels like Hidden Ash, doesn’t it? Fire in the sky. Us, gathered. A Knowledge Bank burning. I can never forget the smell of history ablaze. We had the classic helmets back then, didn’t we, subPor Fopaz? Imagine if you hadn’t ran then, Thaymen. Imagine it. Don’t look glum. History’s a circle where nothing happens once. You should’ve seen this coming. Your father warranted death.”

Lenith realized she had stopped crying at some point. Sorrow fled. Numbness flooded and froze her veins, though she figured that too would thaw. She hoped it would, at least.

Fopaz squeezed the wire restraints. The pain cut deeper, silenced behind Lenith’s gritting teeth.

At the far end of Rugerbin’s parking lot were three dark, armored vehicles. The one with Intruder scrawled across the flank had transited the soldiers. Armor plating and artillery reserves weighed down the black chassis.

The Chimayri soldiers siphoned prisoners into the other two, still weighted by plated armor, but hollow with benches and manacles. White runes marked the vehicles as Collector 12 and 85.

Lenith went to 85.

Mounted turrets whirred on the flat-nosed hood, scanning the forest for ambush or reprisal. The friction orbs that held the Collectors high had crushed a few of the other, defunct vehicles on the way in.

Fopaz shoved Lenith into the control of Arjel at the prison chamber. He was an imposing, rigid machine like most of the soldiers who donned the horns.

Familiar faces lined the prison chamber. Collars pinned their necks to the walls. Knees zippered together in the narrow aisle between full benches. At the end, a sheet of tinted glass separated the driver’s cabin.

After cutting her bindings, Fopaz took a hold of Lenith’s calf. “Listen to what they say. You’ll survive.”

Arjel took it from there, dropping Lenith at the end of the left bench. He grabbed her by the hair and snapped a collar over her neck. Thick, sturdy locks clunked into place.

The stench of sweat and shit snuck its way in. Gagging, Lenith tried to massage her puffy and bruising wrists.

“Don’t try moving too much, girl,” Arjel said. “The collar will tighten. Click—click—click—dead.”

Lenith was glad to be on the end, if she was glad for anything. Her mind searched in desperation for any bright spots left to hold onto. She turned her knees outward to avoid the cramped misery.

Next came Iggy. Arjel manipulated his defiant and ample girth with deft hands. He left the rotund man’s hands bound, plopping him down across from Lenith.

The last bright spot dimmed.

The collar strained. Arjel pushed harder, listening for the lock. Iggy’s neck fat was getting in the way. He heaved and grunted and, at last, the bolt snapped into place. Iggy wore a collar two sizes too small.

“You’re… gonna leave the—leave the back open? I’ll get out,” Iggy said. His words slurred. A blue bruise swelled his cheek. Blood soaked his face.

“No, you won’t.” Arjel smacked the bruise for good measure. He rammed through the blockade of legs and took the last seat on the left, at the front of the chamber. His legs propped on the empty spot across from him. He turned away from the prisoners.

Iggy writhed against his constraints. He wheezed like an old man after a long walk. Lenith felt cruel satisfaction. His struggles brought her back from the brink. The collar clicked and Iggy rasped. His neck protruded and reddened over the tightening mechanism.

“Stop,” Lenith said, halfhearted. “You’re going to kill yourself.”

“Shut it,” Iggy spat.

Trying to kick Lenith, he missed and struck an unconscious man sitting next to her. The man groused.

Lenith banged the toe of her shoe into Iggy’s shin. “No, you stupid dwindler. You’re the only fucking reason we’re here.”

All the while, Iggy had not stopped weeping. Even as he spoke, it tortured him. “What’d I tell ya about keeping your mouth shut?”

“Do you think I care what you say?” Lenith asked. Her heel slammed against his toes. “I hate you, Iggy. My dad should’ve never taken you in again.”

“I would tell you both to shut up,” Arjel said.” But I love drama. So, please, continue.”

Under his whispered command, Collector 85 shivered with life. The rusted, inferior vehicles folded under its weight. Scraps flicked out from under the friction orbs, cascading out in a heavy rain. The vehicular graveyard fell away to vegetation, bowing like whitecaps. The Furies followed on cerbikes—lithe vehicles incapable of falling, quiet with power.

The Chimayri convoy broke away from nature’s tangles. Friction orbs shifted onto a flat, black pavement that seemed to stretch through infinity, and led them into the depths of Bayona Cherished Forest.

Lenith whispered a goodbye to the mall, and everything it entailed.

The oblong lights of the cerbikes blinked on, illuminating the prisoners. Like the rest, Fopaz moved in silence. Front and rear friction orbs hummed over the street. Your— Their frames contoured to split the wind. Tapered vents ran above the front orb’s well. Your dad—

Countdown had gone ahead. Fopaz led the rest of the pack, weaving her bike in and out of the Collector’s dust. She acted like a child with a new toy. Closing the gap, bumping the cerbike’s helm against the lowered hatch, and then falling back to repeat the process.

The cerbike was more so an extension of the Fury, rather than—Dammit, Lenith. Your dad is dead.

“Nothing remains,” she whispered.

“What?” Iggy asked.

“Nothing.”

A branch scraped against the roof. Lenith’s spine stiffened. She shot forward. The collar clicked. The steel embrace tightened.

Once the safest means of travel, the Chimayri ripped most roads to pieces and left the rest to disuse. Maintained streets were rarer than a peaceful night’s rest in the Gray Area. A time had come and passed where streets framed suburban sprawls and the cities punctuating their ends.

Exrails rose in their stead, connecting cities near and far. Rails stretched across the horizon on seemingly indestructible pylons. No one dared to go near their shadows. A path traveled by Chimayri was a graveyard for anyone else.

Tree trunks sprinkled the spaces between decaying homes and storefronts. Between light and darkness, Lenith witnessed the beauty of slender-leaved cupping trees, cradling their white blossoms at the forest’s edge.

Spiral lace forked out over the street. Its vines were the color of cream. They thrived under this protective canopy.

All the memories Lenith kept sacred of her father—from tossing snow at each other in the yard to his inevitable death—and what were they all? Things meant to fade with time. The memories would turn to shells, left to sink in the mud. The thought of never creating a new moment to share broke her. She bawled.

“Lenith,” Iggy said.

Lenith ignored him altogether, hands pressed to her raised head. She hardly registered his voice. He said it again. She dropped her hands. Deep shadows cut over half of his face. His big, droopy nose stuck out like a mountain surrounded by crimson rivers.

“I’m sorry, Lenith. I’m not a good guy, never will be. I fucked up a lot. But—”

“You fucked up more than a lot, Iggy,” she said.

Fopaz swerved aside. Her light vanished.

“I know.” Iggy bowed his head. “I wanted to say I regret it all. I need ya to know.”

“Why’d they let you live, Iggy?”

“Why they let anyone live?”