Chapter 14: Rumor
The lockdown made the camp feel smaller than its size should have allowed...
Dozens of people crammed inside a reinforced perimeter had a way of turning idle time into friction, and Lucas felt the edges of that friction find him by midmorning, when a man he didn’t recognize brought himself in his path near the water line.
"You’re the one who made a scene last night," the man said. Broad, sunburned and older than Lucas by maybe a decade. "Asking for your own tent. Like the rest of us weren’t good enough to sleep near."
"It wasn’t about anyone not being good enough," Lucas said. "It was a personal thing. I handled it wrong, I get that."
"Personal thing." The man’s mouth curled, unimpressed. "You know how many people in this camp have ’personal things’ they’d like accommodated? We don’t get separate tents because we asked nice. You’re not special."
"Never said I was."
A few nearby heads had started to turn, drawn by the rising edge in the man’s voice, and Lucas felt the old, familiar calculation settle into his chest. An awareness of how quickly a small disagreement could turn into a much larger problem in a place where the guards already had his name flagged.
"Walking in here with your little group, acting like the rules don’t apply to you. Maybe you ought to learn your place before you make more trouble for the rest of us."
Lucas held the man’s gaze for a long moment, every instinct in him wanting to push back but he let it go instead.
"You’re right," he said. "I’ll be more careful."
The man blinked, clearly having expected more resistance"...Good"
He walked off, muttering something to a companion that Lucas didn’t bother straining to hear.
He Lucas exhaled slowly, watching him go.
’Not worth it,’ he told himself, even as something in his chest sat sour and unresolved. One more mark against him and the guards would start looking for reasons instead of just noticing them.
He found an empty stretch of ground near the perimeter’s edge and sat alone, letting the tension out one slow breath at a time.
"You looked like you wanted to hit him."
Lucas glanced up to find a girl he didn’t recognize settling onto the ground a short distance away, uninvited but not unwelcome, watching him with the tired, careful curiosity.
She had brown hair, deep hazel eyes and an indifferent expression on her face. She looked... Beautiful to say the least...
"Wanted to," Lucas admitted. "Didn’t seem worth what it’d cost me."
"Smart." She extended a hand. "I’m Lora," she said, "dagger ability."
"Lucas." He replied taking the hand. He didn’t talk about his ability.... Mostly because he didn’t need to.
"I know. Word travels." A faint, humorless smile. "The tent thing. Everyone’s talking about it, one way or another."
"Wonderful." He rubbed a hand over his face. "Guess I’m the camp’s new favorite gossip."
"Could be worse things to be famous for." Lora drew her knees up, wrapping her arms around them.
For a moment neither of them said anything, just sat with the particular quiet of two strangers who’d both clearly been through more than they were saying.
"I got here two days before you did. Wasn’t planning to stop, honestly. Just needed somewhere that wasn’t actively trying to kill me for more than five minutes."
"What happened?"
"Companions, three of them." She said it plainly, though Lucas recognized the specific flatness of someone who’d already cried the feeling out and had nothing left but the facts.
"We got separated during a fight. I don’t know if they made it. Came here because it was the first safe-looking thing I found, and I haven’t had the nerve to leave since."
"I’m sorry."
"Everyone’s sorry. Doesn’t change anything." She said it without bitterness, just tired honesty, and Lucas understood the sentiment more than he probably should have.
They sat in that shared, unspoken understanding for a while before Lora spoke again, her tone shifting.
"You hear the rumors going around? About a bigger Faction?"
"Some.... Heard there’s a hierarchy. Bigger groups get priority at the Gateway."
"That’s the boring version." Lora glanced sideways at him. "There’s one Faction, further out. Past a few camps I haven’t seen myself. It had apparently grown faster than anyone else. People keep joining it. Word is the leaders are... different. Smarter than most. Strong enough that nobody’s tried to challenge them yet."
Lucas blinked. "’Leaders?’"
"That’s what I heard." Lora shrugged, like the detail wasn’t especially significant to her. "Two of them running it together, apparently. One male, one female."
Lucas didn’t answer right away.
’Mark. Eleanor.’ Those were the names that came to mind.
The thought arrived whole and immediate...too fast to talk himself out o and he had to consciously keep his expression from shifting too visibly while his mind raced through the impossible, desperate reality of it...
A growing Faction, two capable leaders, a male and a female, exactly the kind of thing Mark and Eleanor could build if they’d survived the drop together, if Eleanor’s overwhelming elemental power and Mark’s steady tank instincts had found each other.
It was thin. Very thin...
"You okay?" Lora was watching him now, head tilted slightly.
"Fine. Just...thinking." He kept his voice careful, casual, even as his pulse had picked up considerably. "Any idea where this Faction actually is? Direction, distance, anything?"
"Not exactly. Somewhere past the eastern camps, is all I heard. People talk about it more than they know about it, if that makes sense. Rumors travel faster than facts out here."
"Yeah," Lucas simply added.
They talked a while longer, nothing too serious...
Lucas was grateful for Lora’s company, grateful enough that when she finally rose to go check on the water rationing line, he thanked her properly and he meant it.
***
He found Iris, Bertram, and Callum near the edge of camp not long after, gathered in the thin shade of a supply tent, and something in his face must have given him away before he even opened his mouth, because Iris was on her feet almost immediately.
"What happened?"
"Nothing happened. Well—" Lucas exhaled, trying to organize the thought into something that sounded less insane out loud than it did in his own head.
"I talked to someone. She mentioned a Faction, further east. Growing fast and run by two leaders a man and a woman."
Bertram’s brow furrowed. "And that means something to you."
"It might... It’s thin, I know it’s thin, but—" Lucas shook his head, forcing the words out plainly instead of dancing around them.
"My friends. The ones I got separated from during the drop. One of them’s a woman with skills strong enough to make people notice. The other’s the kind of guy people naturally follow." He looked at each of them in turn. "It could be nothing, It’s probably is... But I have to find out."
Silence settled over the small group for a moment, and Lucas watched something pass between Iris and Bertram that he couldn’t quite read.
"So you’re leaving," Iris said finally. Not a question.
"We’re leaving," he said, "I’ll need help out there and you three are the only people I can trust right now." He glanced at the tent in the middle. "Colt wants everyone locked down for three days. I can’t wait three days on a rumor that might not even be real by the time I get there."
"We’d be leaving," Bertram said. "Past a perimeter Colt’s got guards actively reinforcing."
"I know."
"Through territory none of us have scouted," Iris added. "With beasts somewhere out there we’ve still never actually explained."
"I know that too." Lucas held her gaze, steady, the same way he had back at the fire the very first time. "I’m not asking any of you to come with me. This is mine to chase but I’ll need all the help I can get."
Nobody spoke for a long moment. The camp went on around them, guards at the perimeter, the low murmur of dozens of people waiting out a lockdown none of them had chosen while the four of them sat with the sudden, uncomfortable shape of a decision none of them had seen
coming an hour ago.
"When are we leaving," Iris asked finally.
"Tonight," Lucas said. "Before I lose my nerve."
Comments