The Rule of One (The Rule of One #1)(36)

That will do nothing for her. He’ll cut your throat first.

The brute comes up for air. “Hey, Carlos, this girl kinda looks like that bitch the Guard is after.”

Mira attempts to keep her head low, but his dirty fingers grab her chin, forcing her to expose her full face.

No . . . no . . . no . . . no . . . no . . .

My protest bubbles hopelessly into my throat—it’s me, not her!—when I’m shoved roughly to the teenage boy. The back of my head collides painfully with the binoculars he has raised to his face, stolen from Mira’s bag. He doesn’t hesitate to wrap his arms around me, but his grip lacks the eagerness shared by his cohorts.

Carlos scrutinizes Mira’s grimy, sunburnt face. Her lips tremble uncontrollably above the blade at her throat as the man carefully takes in the black eyeliner smudged across her cheeks, the cropped blonde hair, and the wrong-colored eyes.

“I’m not that girl,” Mira says, her voice soft but firm.

With alarming speed, Carlos serves a brutal punch to her stomach. “I didn’t say you could speak,” he growls.

Mira bowls over, painfully gasping for air.

“It’s not her,” he says, certain. “Let’s go.” He turns away, dismissing Mira.

“Can we still keep her?” Mira’s captor asks. “I think mine likes me.”

“No!” Mira and I scream in unison. I battle hard against the teenager’s arms.

Mira’s captor turns to the teenager with a sadistic grin, taking joy in our cries. The boy hangs his head, refusing to join in. I drive my head up, forcing the teen to meet my eyes. Help us, they plead, but I can see in one glance he’s just as helpless as I was in the city square watching that woman get tasered over bottled water. He won’t save us.

“You can have her. But don’t expect me to feed her,” Carlos says, placing my rucksack on his shoulders. “We’re done here. Leave the others.”

The brute grabs hold of Mira and turns to follow his ringleader, ripping my sister away from me.

“Mira!”

Unleashing a deep, savage roar, Mira fights, thrashing and kicking, to get back to me. We’re dragged farther and farther apart, our screams becoming violent cries as we continue to wildly claw out for each other. But she’s slipping away from me. My heart breaks free from its ribbed cage inside my chest and flees to her side, where it belongs.

I’ll find you again. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.

Without warning the sharp blast of a gunshot cuts through the air, and everything goes still.

Then the wailing of the child and the ringing echo of the bullet overwhelm me, and I clasp my hands to my ears, disoriented. From the corner of my eye, I see Carlos drop hard to the ground, the moment prolonged and distant. He clutches his upper back, dark crimson coating his frenzied hands, trying to stop the bleeding, his throat producing horrifying noises in his great effort to breathe.

Oh God, he’s going to die.

Lost in a haze of shock, I look from his hemorrhaging body to the gun still raised in Lucía’s steady hands.

She turns her concentration to the leaderless gang of bandits and aims her cocked pistol at each of them, daring them to move. Fear spreads clear and contagious across their faces. Her assailant backs slowly away in disbelief, both hands clutching his bleeding nose. The teenager loosens his grasp on me, and I rip his arms from my body. But the brute doesn’t let go of Mira.

He glares at Lucía, calculating if he should charge. She points the gun at his head, the tip of her index finger tightening on the trigger. The man backs down, reluctantly releasing his grip on Mira. She bursts free of him, stumbling to the ground.

I rush to my sister, falling into the dirt by her side, lost in a whirlwind of dust and emotion. I lock my arms around her, tight enough to bruise. My mind frantic, I grab her hand and she grabs mine. We lift each other up and scramble behind Lucía, behind the power of the gun.

“No nos sigan,” Lucía warns, backing away from the men. Do not follow.

Together the three of us disappear into the night.





MIRA

My feet are a hundred pounds each. I watch them as they rise and fall, one after the other, two leaden boots dragging me across the dead grasslands of their own volition. I wonder idly what keeps them going.

My mind is full of air. The strong Panhandle winds have finally made their way inside me, and I am hollow. Numb. I no longer feel the stab of pain from my poorly healed ankle, no longer feel the fiery sear from the cold-hearted sun.

But those hands.

I can still feel those hands.

And the gun.

I will always feel the echo of the gunshot that saved me from the void.

Twenty-one miles. Ava keeps shouting out the new distance every few hours, trying to give me something to walk toward. Trying to make me believe she still knows where we’re going.

Lost in fear, we were too shaken to remember our rucksacks. By the time we realized our error, it was too late to go back. Too dangerous. Now we have no map. No compass. Only the highways and farm roads to orient us and lend us any clues we’re headed in the right vicinity. Ava studied the map every night, her tireless eyes poring over every small town, neighborhood, and scrap of terrain. I wonder if she’s recreated the map in her mind. If she sees our precise position and imagines we’re tracking the exact inked line Father drew for us to follow all the way up to the edge of Texas in Dalhart. Or did she just look up at the night sky, turn her body northwest, and hope all roads really do lead to Rome?