Shadow Walker

A New Day

Dec stood muscle-achingly still and counted from one hundred using a crooked stone on the far wall as an anchor for his eyes. He didn't stop counting until the dune bug's wheels left the rocky grind of the farm track and rejoined the bitumen whir of the freeway. Only then did he allow himself to pace the cramped space giving flex and release to his tightly strung muscles.

Where was Teegan? Was she coming back or had she fled with her nerves as Dec was tempted to do now? If the situation in the city was as bad as those two soldiers made it sound, he had to do something about it—help his sister, his mum, Tommy, anything.

He placed his hands on the stone wall and lent his weight against the limits of its bearing. The scent of urine wafted, cinching the back of his throat and welling his eyes. He felt as old and as beaten down as the stone wall itself and wondered how long it would be until someone cocked their leg and took a piss on him too. It occurred to him that this might have already happened, what with Rain's lies, Lazar's promises and Teegan's disappearing act.

The sun reached and passed its apex while he waited for the rumble of the convoy to disappear down the highway and for the next convoy to break the ensuing silence. When none came, he was left to his thoughts, which stewed with the rising heat of the day and the pore-stifling impress of the stone shelter.

He needed to get back to the city. There was no point standing around achieving nothing but a slow confidence wilt and sweaty armpits. He could leave like Teegan, try to walk the distance back to Atunda, which could take—he attempted a quick calculation in his head—seven to twenty-five hours depending on how far along the freeway he actually was. His chances of getting caught were high, but then so were his chances of getting caught here.

It seemed like a plausible plan—the best one he had given the circumstances. The only thing stopping him, then, was—

He looked down at Rain, who was still in the same position as before, arms folded across her chest, lips parted in a rosebud pout and for a second, a flicker of his old indifference returned, the indifference that had made him turn away from her when she'd been injured in the cemetery. He tried to turn away now, but found himself stopped mid-step like a bird flown into a glass window. His mind was halfway back to Atunda, but his body wouldn't budge.

Growling, he knelt beside the Northerner and passed his fingers over the pulsepoint on her neck to find it strong and steady as it had been the night before. Continuing his inspection, his eyes roved the length of her torso, stopping on her stomach where the material of her skivvy tented around the clamp.

Remembering the strange amber colour of her blood, his hands moved to peel the material away, tensing when they met the resistance of the dry clot beneath. He didn't know what he was expecting, but it certainly wasn't normal, healthy looking scabs in the colour of normal, healthy looking blood. The sight of it made him tug the skivvy back down peevishly. He must've imagined amber in the light of his own adrenaline the night before.

Pulse—check. Wounds—check. Everything seemed to be working fine and yet her consciousness remained elusive. He thought he remembered a documentary about brain injury patients waking up from comas due to repetitive cognitive stimulation or something like that—the families talking to them, singing, using physical touch. He certainly didn't want to talk to her, nor did he want to sing, which left only—

He eyed the gentle rise and fall of her chest, noting the steady uniformity of each breath and the way her hands had been placed at the apex of her collarbone as though she was clasping an invisible funeral bouquet. He imagined moving them into a less morbid pose when he noticed her right hand was still locked in the same awkward pointing gesture it had been in since her fall—all digits bent, save for the index, which stuck out like the barrel of a pistol.