Tremors: A Stone Braide Chronicles Story (4 page)

He did remember why. His stomach clenched, pushing pangs of guilt and remorse up his chest to stab straight to his heart. He’d been warned repeatedly. He needed to rethink his position, but now it seemed too late.

With his eye open a sliver, he watched a girl moving closer. He wanted to sit up and smile at her, pour on the charm, but caution won out. Even though she was cute with big green eyes, he needed
to behave. This could be a trick, a test. After all, this situation mimicked his original troubles. He blinked back the last of the fog and formulated a plan.

Selah moved closer and nudged his hand with her foot. “Can you hear me? Wake up!”

Suddenly his hand shot out and wrapped tightly around her ankle. Her chest clenched, and she screamed and tried to back away. His iron grip raised her trapped ankle from the sand and jerked her toward him.

She screamed again and fell back as her hand scrambled for her kapo. Nothing. She clawed at the sand to get away. She’d been stupid to get this close.

Sand! She dug her fingers into the warm granules and slung a handful in his direction.

He dodged the spray with a hardy laugh and rose on all fours, crawling up to loom over her.

Selah gasped. She was going to die. She drew her hands to her face to protect her head from the anticipated attack as her breath came in ragged jerks. Her eyes locked in a stare with blue eyes rivaling the color of the sky on a clear, sunny day. Fear mixed with a tingling hot flash, filling her belly and rolling up to her shoulders. Her arms relaxed, then her hand darted out to slap him. He easily deflected the move, pinning her hand to the sand.

His eyes searched her face. Not hostile. Her breathing slowed to longer, deeper pulls of sea air.

Selah drank in his features—a strong chin and a straight nose with eyelashes that swept his high cheekbones every time they closed. And the mark. It was visible beneath shaggy blond hair that reached almost to his shoulders. Strong muscular shoulders that strained at the wet shirt fabric. A shiver rolled down her arms, tingling her fingertips.

She jerked her hand from under his and rammed her palms into his shoulders. “Get off me, you sea slug.”

The Lander fell to the side and came up on his elbows with a grin. “Who are you?”

Selah stood and brushed the sand from the seat of her coarse linen pants. “Since you arrived on my property, I think I’m the one
who gets to ask the questions.” She reached up and shook the sand from her ponytail.

The young man’s eyes danced with amusement. “You don’t look old enough to own land.”

Selah jutted out her chin. “How old do you think I am?” This wasn’t the demeanor she’d expected. Confusion gnawed at her. Was this a ploy to knock her off guard and attack her? What would she use to defend herself? How was she going to detain him now that she’d found him? She wanted to kick herself for the lack of planning. Maybe Father was right. She wasn’t ready to be a hunter.

“About seventeen.” He smiled and sat up, wrapping his arms around his knees as he drew them to his chest.

Her smile deflated. He’d guessed correctly. “Well, what’s your name?” She knew the drill. He wouldn’t remember much, and she would wind up with the upper hand.

He glanced off to the right, as though trying to remember something hidden. “Bodhi Locke . . . My name is Bodhi Locke.”

Selah raised an eyebrow. He seemed very confident. She forgot her fear. “What else do you remember?”

He smiled. “I remember that I asked who you are, and you haven’t answered.”

“So you’re a smart mouth too.” She relaxed, drawn to his eyes. So blue. He seemed friendly, not at all like she’d been told, and close to her age, not an adult like her parents. “My name is Selah Rishon Chavez.”

“That’s a big name for a little girl.” He flashed a grin, then raised a hand to his head and grimaced.

She recognized the superior attitude. He acted as bad as her brothers, so she refused to give him any more ammunition by responding to the taunt.

“Did you get hurt in the wreck?” Selah leaned over, pushed his hand away, and examined his scalp for cuts.

“No. Don’t think so.” Bodhi looked past her to the broken boat and then out to sea. “Is that how I got here?”

“Yes. Do you remember the trip?” Selah didn’t find any cuts or bruises. She sat down on the sand a few feet in front of him.

He shook his head. “Last thing I remember? Being escorted to the launch.”

“Do you remember where that was?” A rumble swelled from within her. Selah rubbed at her chest to quell the sudden disturbance.

Hearty laughter and a revving Sand Run echoed across the grassy dunes. SRs were single- or double-passenger four-wheelers with tall, fat tires for negotiating the beach. They were normally the main mode of transportation for inland people from Ness Borough to the West who were allied with Dominion. But if these boys were from Waterside, they didn’t belong and were trespassing on this beach. Either way, her right to claim the Lander was being threatened.

Selah scrambled to her feet and pulled Bodhi up. She reached over and tousled his hair across his face, obscuring the mark.

His hand shot up to stop her.

She slapped his hand away. “Stop! Follow me.” She dragged him by the shirtsleeve.

Bodhi stumbled along, trying to keep up with her. His flat leather-type shoes couldn’t gain traction, but his longer stride closed the distance.

Selah ran toward a disjointed rubble pile of rusted metal and broken cement populated with exposed rebar. She pulled to a stop, delicately ran her hands along the ragged metal edge, and ripped back the fake tin cover over the opening. Determination flashed through her like gas poured on a fire. She was not going to lose her first catch to her brothers or anyone else.

Selah looked back to see if they were visible. No one crested the ridge. She pushed Bodhi inside.

“Hey.” He stumbled to a stop and turned. “What’s this?” He glanced around at the exposed jagged metal edges and sharp objects in the dark, cavernous space and recoiled toward the opening.

She pulled in a long suck of air, trying to catch her breath, and pointed a finger at him. “Shut up and stay quiet. I’ll tell you when it’s safe to come out.”

Selah slammed the cover against the opening and turned to move away from the pile. Her secret place among the ancient ruins had never been discovered by any boys in the Borough, so confidence helped to calm her welling jitters. She’d keep him hidden until tomorrow and hope the mark remained. He would be her first catch, and she wasn’t sharing the honor.

Stooping to the sand, she feigned interest in a mutated starfish carcass lying among a clump of seaweed. Actually, it was interesting.
She didn’t often see them in this condition and she was sure her father hadn’t either, or he might rethink the eating-from-the-sea thing.

From the corner of her eye she watched as two boys spilled over the hill, about three feet to the right side of the pit where she’d crouched with her little brother. With a great screaming whine of its powerful engine, the Sand Run shot over the dune. The huge bulbous tires threw copious amounts of sand on the two running participants as it hit the beach and spun circles around them. Her brothers were not part of this group.

The Sand Run gunned its engine and approached. Selah feared it might run her over, but she held her ground and casually looked up. The boy on the four-wheeler wore ragged cutoff pants and carried a long bow slung across his back. He stopped short of her, released the handle bars, and dismounted.

“Hey, girl, what’re you doing on this beach?” The taller of the boys, the one with a razor-smooth head, strolled over to her and used his long walking staff to kick sand on her hand and the starfish.

Selah glared at them, rose slowly from her crouched position, and shook the sand from her hand. She recognized them now. “I could ask you the same question. My family lives in this Borough. This is our beach.” She jutted out her chin. “So what are you doing on
my
beach?”

Her heartbeat continued its upward tick. These boys were from Waterside Borough to the south, where the sea encroached on buildings. Waterside had no beachfront property to speak of, so their only claim to fame grew from their oil-drilling platform and their partnership with Ness Borough, which owned the remnants of the ancient refinery and vulcanizing operation that afforded their clans petrol and tires for such extravagances as Sand Runs.

The other two flanked her like guards, one on either side. “Rude girl. You know who you’re talking to?” The ragged-pants boy shoved her shoulder.

She lurched forward two steps but caught herself and swung around to face him. In doing so, she glanced beyond his shoulder. She saw an eye staring at her from the hiding place. After spending many hours hiding from her brothers, she knew Bodhi had full view of the happening. She frowned, wishing he’d retreat from the hole. He didn’t.

“You’d better hope my brothers don’t show up or they’ll pound
you into a sand stain.” Maybe if she mentioned that they were due any moment . . . Or maybe draw their attention to something farther down the beach. Anything to get them away from the hiding spot.

Razor Head leaned forward on his wooden staff. He appeared to be in his midtwenties. He eyed her up and down. “Who’re your brothers?”

“The Chavez boys,” she answered, glaring at him. “Raza and Cleon.” Her only weapon was sitting in the sand next to her clam bucket, too far away to be helpful. Maybe she could move them away from Bodhi and closer to her kapo at the same time.

The other boy, who had a missing front tooth, reached out his hand as if to touch her shoulder. “Wouldn’t you like to come to the Side? We don’t have girls cute like you.”

Selah flinched and slapped his hand away before it made contact.

“Wait,” Ragged Pants said. “If the Chavez boys are her brothers, she’s Selah, promised in marriage to Jericho Kingston.”

Missing Tooth’s face contorted in rage as he grabbed her by the wrist. “Don’t care if she’s going to marry our clan leader’s son. All females should know their place and it’s not slapping me.”

The bones of her wrist ground together under the viselike pressure. A whimper escaped her lips, as much for the physical pain as for the mental pain of her father selling her hand in marriage for an endless supply of petrol that uniting her clan with these barbarians would bring.

She struggled, but resistance was as useless as Mother trying to get Father to relent on the nuptials. Her other hand pried at his fingers, unable to create an opening. She sucked the moisture from her mouth and spat at him.

He backhanded her across the face.

Tiny stars burst into her vision, dancing in front of her eyes. Selah tasted copper. Her tongue ran to the inside of her cheek, feeling the gouge her teeth had cut. She ran the back of her free hand across her mouth and came away with blood. The tin cover to the hiding spot began to move.

Her free hand darted out, fingers splayed. “No, stop!” she shouted, looking at the boy holding her wrist but addressing Bodhi. She shook her head to get a look at the tin without being noticed. It rested flat against the hole.

Ragged Pants stuck out his bow and whacked Missing Tooth across
the wrist, forcing him to let go of her arm. “Didn’t you hear her, stupid? Her brothers are the Chavezes.”

Selah used the opportunity to back away from the other two.

“So what? They aren’t marrying Kingston.” Missing Tooth stepped behind her to stop her retreat.

“They killed Remo and Zimmer for fishing their beach,” Razor Head said. He eyed Selah up and down with a long, slow look.

It felt like he was groping her. She winced and wrapped her arms across her chest to ward off his look and to hold back the thunder growing around her heart. What was this new feeling? She was ticked off, but she didn’t fear him.

She knew her brothers often defended their territory, but she didn’t know they’d killed anyone. One more reason she felt excluded when it came to her father and brothers. But she would change things. She would show her father she could equal his precious boys.

“I didn’t know it was in this direction. Thought the Chavez boys were north of us,” Missing Tooth said.

Ragged Pants shook his head. “This is north of us. When’re you going to learn directions?”

Selah’s confidence took an upswing. She was brighter than at least one of them. Could she lead them up the beach to protect her catch?

Maybe if she ran. She moved to the right but had a split-second hesitation as her feet gained traction and her toes dug into the sand. Her right leg stretched out for the sprint. Then the walking staff swung out in front of her, cracking into her left shin and sweeping her foot from under her.

Selah crashed chest first into the beach. The air rushed from her lungs. The sand that felt like cotton when walking on it turned to cement when crashing into it. She tried to cry out, but her remaining air expelled as a weak grunt. She fought to inhale. Her arms flailed, but the weight of a body pressed her deeper into the sand.

Bang!

Selah recognized the sound. The tin cover.

“Get off me!” She gasped for air. She thrashed about, trying to dislodge whichever boy was pinning her. A punch to the back of the head forced a whimper from her as her face was ground into the sand.