“Let’s catch up before she leaves us behind.”
The rest of the companions followed his lead, pulling on their packs and getting ready to move out. In the years they’d been together, they’d followed him into danger countless times, and now here they were again.
“Okay, people.” Steyr Scout longblaster in hand, Ryan nodded at his friends. “Expect the unexpected. Don’t trust her for a second.” He raised an index finger emphatically. “But as long as there’s the slightest chance she can help us find Doc, don’t give her a reason to turn against us.”
“Treat crazy woman like family.” Jak grinned. “Not problem. Fit in this group.”
“I couldn’t agree more,” J.B. told him.
“Less talking, more walking,” Ryan said, and then he set out after Union at a rapid clip. He didn’t have to look back even once to know his companions were following close behind him.
That evening, Union and the companions set up camp at the base of a tall, sandy hill sheltered by an array of smaller hills.
Was it a safe location for the night? Union had no guidance to offer, but she didn’t seem worried about it. At least Krysty wasn’t convulsing on the ground from Shift-induced headaches, which was a positive sign.
The general conditions seemed positive, in fact. The night was warm but not stiflingly hot. The moon was full and shining down from a cloudless sky with abundant radiance.
Everything was quiet, calm and blissfully normal. The lava channel they’d been following had ended a few miles back, and there wasn’t a spike to be seen in any direction. If Jak hadn’t known any better, he might have believed they weren’t in the Shift at all.
As he ate a hunk of deer jerky from his pack, he felt relaxed for the first time since entering the Shift. The rest of the group seemed to be on the same wavelength—except for Ryan, who patrolled the perimeter relentlessly, and Krysty, who looked as if she expected another head blast at any moment.
Then there was Union, who seemed to be out of step with all of them. Where some people might have settled in the middle of the group, getting to know everybody, Union stood thirty yards from the farthest edge of camp, looking up at the night sky.
She didn’t look or act as if she wanted to be bothered, but Jak decided to bother her anyway. She was beautiful, and tough, and mysterious, with moods that seemed to change with the wind, and he wanted to get to know her.
Besides, he knew she had a friendly side; he’d seen it in action before. With any luck, maybe that side would come out to play, and they would have a nice talk.
Or not. When Jak sidled up to her, she looked at him for all of one second with the usual frigid disdain, then returned her gaze to the sky. She even folded her arms across her chest and turned her back to him, leaving no room for misinterpretation of her rejection of him.
That was not going to keep Jak from pressing his luck. “Stars not change in Shift.” He sank one hand into a pocket, keeping the other wrapped around the grip of his Colt Python, and stepped up beside her. “That one good thing anyway.”
Union sniffed but didn’t answer. She didn’t turn her back to him again, though.
Jak figured that was some kind of progress, so he might as well keep talking. “Where from originally?”
“Not here” was all she said.
“Better place?” Jak asked. “Or worse?”
For a moment, he thought she wouldn’t answer, but she finally did. “Just different.”
“Right.” Jak nodded and shifted his gaze to another quadrant of the sky. The stars were unusually bright that night, glittering like diamond dust scattered over black velvet. “Ever been New Mexico?”
She looked at him for a moment with a quizzical expression, then looked back up at the sky. “Have you ever been to Corpus Christi?”
“Texas?” Jak frowned. “Why? That where you from?”
“Does it matter?” Union shook her head as if she thought he was an idiot. “What do you care?”
Jak refused to let her annoy him. “It called curiosity. They not have in Corpus Christi?”
Suddenly, Union whirled to face him, and she looked upset. “I’m not from there. Will you just stop?”
Jak was taken aback by her change in attitude. “Okay.” He scratched his pale chin. “Stop what?”
“Antagonizing her!” Union snapped.
“Her?”
“Her!” Union’s eyes widened. “She doesn’t care about you. About any of you.”
Jak nodded as if he had the faintest clue what she was talking about. “What she care about, then?”
“Us.” She touched her fingers to her chest. “Just us.”
“What you mean, ‘us’?” Jak pulled his hand from his pocket and pointed a finger at her. “Only see one.”
Union took her face in her hands. As she shook her head, Jak stared at her single braid, the one that hung from her left temple. He wasn’t sure, but it looked bright white by the light of the moon, not the usual black.
“Now, wait.” Jak started to reach over to comfort her. “Not want you get upset.”
Before he could touch her shoulder, she suddenly yanked her hands from her face and lunged at him. The next thing Jak knew, Union had one hand on his .357 and the other wrapped around his throat.
“No touching!” she gritted.
Jak winced a little as she tightened her grip on his throat—not that he was in any danger whatsoever. She’d caught him off guard, and she was strong, but no match for his battle-honed fighting skills.
“Same go for you.” His voice was strained as her grip tightened again. “Stop touching or I make stop.”
She squeezed a moment more, then released him and let go of the .357. “Consider that your one and only warning! Hands off!”
“Works both ways,” Jak told her.
As Union glared, she looked to him like a changed woman. Her body language was very different—twitchy, clenched, confrontational—and her features were gnarled like a knot on an oak tree. Whatever he’d done to piss her off, he had to have hit a hot button, indeed.
“So.” Jak shrugged. “What do next?”
“Next?” Union’s glare deepened.
“Not want fight.” Jak reached out as if to shake hands, then jerked his hand away. “Whoops, forgot! No touching!”
Union’s
