This Savage Song (Monsters of Verity #1)(71)

Kate followed his gaze. “What?” she drawled. “You’ve never seen stars before?”

“No,” he said softly. “Not like this.” The sky was on fire. He wondered if Ilsa had ever seen stars—not the black icons across her skin, but the real things, which were so strange and perfect. One streaked across the sky, trailing light.

“I read somewhere,” said Kate, “that people are made of stardust.”

He dragged his eyes from the sky. “Really?”

“Maybe that’s what you’re made of. Just like us.”

And despite everything, August smiled.

It was such a hard-won smile, but it was worth it.

And then, all of a sudden, it was gone, and August shuddered, bracing himself against the car. Something like a chill went through him, a tremor that seemed to run from his limbs to his core.

Her hands hovered in the air around him, helpless. “What’s wrong?”

“I’ll . . . I’ll be okay,” he said.

“Bullshit.”

In response, he tugged aside his collar and she saw the edge of light, not bright but burning against his chest like the lit end of a cigarette. It drew a single line, the ember red darkening to black. A new tally. A new day.

“How many is that?”

He was still shaking, but when he looked up, there was something in his eyes, a kind of grim triumph. “Four hundred and twenty-three.”

Just then, truck lights cut through the darkness, coming from the direction of V-City.

Kate waved the HUV, and to her relief, the truck slowed and hauled itself onto the shoulder. It was a semi, obviously reinforced for the trek through the Waste, its grill and flanks framed by grates with iron striping, its windows coated to make them bulletproof. There were several scores along its sides, and they probably weren’t from Corsai. The monsters targeted humans. The humans targeted supplies.

Kate tucked the ornate silver pendant under her shirt and stepped up onto the truck’s footboard as the passenger window inched down.

“What the hell are you kids doing out here?” asked the driver. He was middle-aged and had the cropped, weathered look of someone who’d spent too much of his life on edge.

“Car trouble,” she said, flashing her best smile. “Can you give us a lift?”

He looked past her to August, and Kate tried to see him as the driver would, just a lanky teen boy with an instrument case slung over his shoulder. “Where you going?”

Kate nodded at the road heading away from V-City. She dug up the name of the easternmost subcity. “Louisville.”

He shook his head. “That’s on the other side of the Waste,” he said. “You’re better off trying to catch a lift back toward the capital.”

“We saw a town or something a little ways back,” she said, filling her voice with naiveté. “You think we should head there?”

The man grimaced. “You try to get inside a fort at night, the only thing you’re gonna get is shot.” He ran a hand through his short hair. “Dammit.” He wasn’t wearing a medallion. Kate swallowed, then tugged her pendant over her head.

The weight of the silver was solid, reassuring. She didn’t want to get rid of it, but she couldn’t stay here on the side of the road, either. She held it up for the driver to see. “Look, we don’t want to cause trouble. We haven’t got much cash, but if you can at least give us a lift in the right direction, I’ll give you this.”

The driver’s eyes went wide, and Kate knew she had him. After all, a Harker medallion was safety, and safety was a luxury, a commodity more valuable—and more expensive—than a truck, a house, a life.

The man’s fingers closed around the silver. “Get in.”

Kate climbed into the front seat, and August slid onto a bench that looked like it also functioned as a cot. He knitted his fingers and bowed his head. Kate wasn’t an idiot. Something was obviously wrong. But every time she asked he just got mad, as if she was making it worse. He looked ill. Did monsters get ill? Or did they only get hungry? How long had it been since he’d eaten?

“Look,” said the driver. “I’m not in the smuggling business, okay? I’m a trucker. I only go as far as the subcities, so if you’re looking for a way through the border, I can’t help you.”

“It’s fine,” said Kate. “We’re not trying to cross.”

“Then what the hell are you doing out here in the dark?”

And it was weird, but Kate almost told him the truth. It seemed to bubble up, out of her mind and out her mouth, the words rising so fast she had to bite her tongue to stop them. What had August said, about Sunai and truth? She shot him a look, but he was sitting hunched forward, elbows on knees, staring at the ground.

“It was a dare,” she said. “We were with some friends.”

“There was a concert tonight,” added August from the back seat. “At the edge of the green.”

“Yeah,” chimed in Kate. “Our friends bet us twenty bucks we wouldn’t drive into the Waste when it was over. Forty if we brought something back from the subcity on the other side. Stupid me,” she added. “I didn’t check the tank.”

The driver shook his head. “Kids these days,” he said, guiding the semi back onto the road. “You got too much time and too little sense.” His sleeves were rolled up, and his right forearm bore several nasty scars. Corsai marks. “I’ll take you as far as the next truck stop. It’s about as safe as it gets out here. After that, you find your own way back into the green.”