The Mark of the Dragonfly Read online

  “That’s me,” Piper said cautiously. “What is it you want?”

  “Is she here?” the man asked. His voice quivered, suddenly excited. “I was on a caravan in the fields when the meteors hit. I thought everyone else died, but I was told you found a girl, that she survived. Please, may I see her?” He took a step forward and lifted his good hand as if to push the door open.

  “Whoa.” Piper set her foot against the door and rested her hand on the knife in her belt, making sure he saw the gesture. She could tell he was upset and worried, and though she felt for him, she didn’t like the idea of him pushing his way into the house. Injured or not, he was still a stranger. “It’s all right,” she said, “just calm down. Yes, she’s here, and she’s alive.”

  “Thank the goddess!” The man sighed and rubbed his good hand over his face. Piper noticed a tremble in his fingers. “Please,” he said, “I have to see her. I was so frightened.”

  Piper bit her lip and looked the man up and down again. “Okay, but give me a minute to check on her first before I let you in.”

  Piper waited for him to take a step back before she closed the door. She should have been relieved—the man had come to her, saving her the trouble of searching for him. All she had to do now was give him the girl and—hopefully—collect her reward. But Jory was right. Something about the man didn’t sit right with her. He seemed so anxious, like he was about to jump out of his skin. She told herself she was imagining things and that he was just eager to make sure that Anna was all right.

  “Anna, the man I told you about—the one who was on the caravan with you—is here. If you’re feeling up to it, he really wants to see—” She stopped. Anna wasn’t sitting by the stove anymore. She’d pressed herself into the farthest corner of the room and was staring at the door with an expression of sheer terror on her face.

  “Don’t let him in,” she said. Her voice was barely a whisper. “Don’t let in the wolf.”

  Confusion gripped Piper. “Anna, what’s wrong?” Piper crossed the room and crouched in front of the girl, taking her by the shoulders. The girl’s breath came in quick, panicked gulps. She shook her head violently from side to side.

  “No, no, no, no,” she moaned. “The wolf found me. He caught my scent. Now I’m the prey. I’m acting just like the prey, but I can’t stop!”

  “What are you talking about?” Piper demanded. The wild expression on the girl’s face frightened and confused her. “Who is he? Anna, who is he?”

  “We have to escape. Fight or flight. Always flight—it’s the only way when you compare the odds.” Whimpering, Anna struggled out of Piper’s grip and stood up. She grabbed Piper’s coat and shoved it into her hands. “Get out while we still can.”

  “I’m not going anywhere until you tell me what’s going on.” But Piper put on the coat. It was, after all, best to be prepared for anything.

  A loud, urgent knocking sounded again at the door, and the man’s voice came through the thin wood. “Listen to me. You must let me see her, my Anna.” Piper heard the impatience in his tone, but she thought now it bordered on anger.

  Anna danced in place, looking as if she might bolt for the window. “We have to run!” she insisted.

  “We’re not going anywhere,” Piper said firmly. “Look, I’ll talk to him, get him to go away until you’ve calmed down.”

  She returned to the door, shooting a quick glance over her shoulder to make sure Anna wasn’t going to try to run off. That was all she needed, to end up chasing the girl all over the scrap town. Why was she so panicked? Piper had thought she’d be relieved to see the man, that maybe it would jog her memory seeing someone she knew. She’d never expected the raw fear that shone in Anna’s eyes.

  Cautiously, Piper opened the door a few inches, wide enough to see the man fidgeting on the threshold. When he saw her, his lips pursed anxiously. “May I see her now?”

  “I think you’re going to have to come back later,” Piper said. “She says she doesn’t want to see you right now and—”

  Her voice trailed off as an expression of shock spread across the man’s face. “She’s awake?” he cried. “You spoke to her?”

  Before Piper could reply, the man was moving; he threw his hip against the door and shoved it open, pushing Piper off balance. Piper tried to push back, but he was bigger than she was, and he’d caught her by surprise. She didn’t even have time to go for her knife.

  Once he was inside the door, the man’s gaze fell on Anna. His face went paler, if that was possible, and his shocked expression melted into wonderment. “Anna. My beautiful child, you’re alive. You’re looking at me! Those lovely eyes, they see me.”

  Piper saw tears well up in his eyes. Was Anna his daughter? she wondered. They didn’t exactly look alike. The man’s transformation from shocked to affectionate was so sudden and complete, but the way he looked at Anna—the possessiveness in his expression—sent a chill up Piper’s back. He gazed at Anna rapturously, as if she were some sort of precious object. It felt wrong, very wrong.

  Glassy-eyed, the man took a tentative step toward Anna. Anna reacted immediately, pressing herself against the opposite wall. Her head whipped wildly from side to side, and her body tensed, prepared to flee.

  “Don’t be afraid, my Anna,” the man said soothingly. “You’re safe. I’m here to take you home.”

  At the mention of “home,” Anna began to tremble violently. She slid to the floor, locked her arms around her knees, and curled into a protective ball.

  Piper couldn’t stand to see her so terrified. Even when her own father had yelled at her for doing something stupid—which was fairly often—she’d never been anywhere near as afraid of him as Anna was of this man. No way was he her father.

  Before he could move any closer to Anna, Piper darted between the two of them. Being so close to the man reemphasized how much bigger than her he was. Smart, Piper, really smart, she told herself. This is the kind of crazy you save for special occasions.

  “She doesn’t want to go with you,” Piper said, fighting to keep her voice steady. “I think you should leave. The Trade Consortium’s already going to be after you for dragging a caravan out to the fields during a meteor storm. When they find out you’ve broken into my house, it’ll just make things worse.”

  “The Consortium?” the man said. “You think the Consortium will protect you?”

  Piper thought her threat might make a dent, make him come to his senses, but instead, he smiled at her like a parent listening to a boastful child. That smile shook Piper more than seeing Anna’s terrified reaction to the man. The smile emphasized his eyes—and even through the tears, the depths of the man’s eyes were cold, just like a predator’s.

  Anna was right. The wolf was in the house, and they were the prey.

  Taking a deep breath, Piper stepped forward. It was a monumental effort to move toward the threat. Her feet felt weighted down, but she had to try to get back in control of the situation somehow. “This is my house,” she said. “I won’t let you barge in here and threaten me.” The quaver in her voice betrayed her fear. She weighed the situation. She had a knife, and he had a broken arm, but he was still much bigger than both of the girls were. Escape was their best option, except Piper had no idea how they were going to get past him. There was only the one door, which he stood in front of, and they wouldn’t be able to get out a window before he caught them.

  The man’s smile disappeared. He regarded Piper with narrowed eyes. “That child is mine,” he said calmly, “and I’m taking her with me. Step aside or I will make you.”

  Time ground to a halt. Piper didn’t know whether it was fear that kept her rooted in place in front of Anna or the hope that the man wouldn’t really hurt her, that he must be bluffing.

  It only took an instant to find out that he wasn’t.

  The man lunged at Piper. Piper raised her knife, but he slapped it out of her hand. He grabbed her roughly by the shoulder and shoved her aside. Pain exploded in Piper’s
head and down her back as she hit the wall. She fell to the floor and lay there, head spinning, trying to protect herself from more blows. Distantly, she heard a scream.

  “Stop! Don’t hurt her!” It was Anna. Piper watched as the girl sprang up from the floor and grabbed the man’s bad arm. He faltered when she touched him. He turned to her, reaching for her with that same wondering, rapturous expression on his face.

  “My Anna …”

  Hearing him say her name, so softly, like a caress, gave Piper new life. She pushed herself up from the floor, ignoring the screaming pain in her head. She didn’t have her knife, so she grabbed the closest thing at hand—the pot of fish soup. Anna must have taken it off the stove while she was gone. She’d eaten almost all of it too. Glutton. That was Piper’s last thought as she brought the pot up and hit the man in the back of the head.

  He might have been able to withstand the blow if he’d been stronger, but he was injured, and the shock of seeing Anna had obviously affected him. The blow sent him to his knees and splashed the remaining fish soup all over the wall, and then the man collapsed on his stomach in the middle of the room.

  It seemed like a long time that Anna and Piper stood frozen, staring down at the man’s unconscious body. A log in the stove popped, and Piper jumped. The sound got her moving. She dropped the pot and grabbed her knife off the floor. Next, she found her satchel. Inside she still had the medicine and food packs she’d taken from the caravan. Luckily, Anna hadn’t unpacked those in her mad scavenger hunt through the house. She stuffed in her father’s letters and drawings, a few extra shirts, and her only other pair of pants that still fit. By the time she was done, the satchel was heavy and bulky. Last, she grabbed her tool belt, replaced the tools Anna had scattered all over the floor, and fastened the belt around her waist. With her satchel slung over her shoulder, she grabbed Anna by the hand.

  “You said it—fight or flight. We’re getting out of here.”

  Darkness was falling as Piper and Anna reached the edge of town. Piper went through their options in her head, discarding most as soon as she thought of them. Jory had offered his help, but he was no match for that man, and he still had Micah to care for. She didn’t trust anyone else in the town to go to for help. The Trade Consortium was supposed to protect the scrappers, but even their officials could be bought with enough coin. The man’s clothes may have been torn and bloody, but he was a stiff hip if Piper had ever seen one.

  The next scrap town on the map, Number Seventeen, was only a few miles away, but even if they could get help there, Piper knew Anna would never make it that far. The girl was already shivering in her flimsy dress, and her shoes weren’t made for hard walking, let alone running in the dark over uncertain ground.

  The 401’s whistle rang out in the night. Piper felt it reverberate through her body, and with it came a surge of hope.

  “It’s still here.” Gasping, Piper skidded to a stop and changed direction, heading for the station. “Come on, we’re getting on that train.”

  How she would accomplish that, Piper had absolutely no idea. She didn’t have nearly enough coin for one ticket, let alone two, but the train was their best hope of getting far away before the man woke up and came after them.

  Beside her, Anna stumbled and fell to her knees. Piper heard her bite back a cry of pain. “I’m all right,” she said when Piper helped her up. “You should keep going. I’m holding you back—slowest member of the herd.”

  “We’re not separating,” Piper said.

  “But it doesn’t make sense—”

  “Not much of anything makes sense around here,” Piper said impatiently, “especially today.” She gripped Anna’s hand securely and they were off again. They didn’t slow down until they got near enough to the station to slip into the shadows. Piper crouched low to the ground in hopes they wouldn’t be seen, and headed toward the back of the train, where she thought the mail-carrier cars were. Piper figured it was the best place to try sneaking on. There wouldn’t be as much traffic back there as in the passenger section, and those cars wouldn’t be as heavily guarded as the boxcars carrying the trade cargo.

  They came up alongside the last row of cars. Piper stayed crouched for a moment, listening for signs of people. Thankfully, all was quiet. Of course, even if they managed to get aboard unseen, there was still the small matter of the train’s legendary defenses. What was the penalty for a scrapper stowing away on board a train? Three lifetimes in prison or just two? Piper smiled grimly.

  “What are you … smiling about?” Anna asked, still out of breath from their run. “It doesn’t make sense … for you to be … smiling while … we’re in danger.”

  “Don’t worry about it—and stop saying that none of this makes sense!” Piper drew her knife and pointed with it to a gap between two cars. “That’s where we’ll try to get in. Lie down there by the tracks until I tell you when it’s safe to climb up.”

  Anna obeyed, crawling on her belly onto the sloping rock hill near the train tracks. As soon as Piper saw she was safely out of sight, she climbed up the metal ladder attached to the car and grabbed hold of the heavy canvas bellows that protected the vestibule between cars. She brought her knife up and, before she lost her nerve, sliced an opening in the canvas.

  A warning bell erupted from somewhere deep within the train. Piper flinched, almost dropping her knife. She figured there’d be protection on the doors, but she’d never dreamed that a little scratch would set off an alarm. “We’re in trouble,” she called down to Anna, trying to keep her voice low. “Stay there and don’t move.”

  “Come down,” Anna whispered fearfully.

  Piper shook her head. “It’s too late to turn back.” She hooked an arm around a ladder rung, gripped the knife handle in both hands, and pulled, widening the slit in the canvas until it was half the length of her body. Her heart pounded in time with the warning bell.

  “Piper, look out!”

  Piper raised her knife, prepared to fend off an attack, but there was no one there. Then she heard it, a high-pitched whine like a machine warming up. The sound was coming from a line of four pipes running alongside the car. They ended in an open vent right beside where Piper clung to the ladder. Scorch marks covered the wall of the car near the vent.

  Fire, Piper thought as panic spread through her chest. She cursed her own stupidity. She should have expected a trap like this. They were flame vents, part of the train’s defenses triggered by the alarm. It looked like the pipes were designed to shoot gouts of fire out the vents at raiders trying to board the train.

  “Stay down!” Piper yelled at Anna, forgetting to be quiet. She started to jump off the ladder to get clear of the vent, but her coat sleeve caught on one of the iron bolts that held the ladder in place. The force jolted her, and the knife slid from her hands. Her sleeve tore, the threads twisting around the protruding bolt. Piper swore and tried to pull the cloth loose, but jerking her arm only made the threads twist tighter. The whining sound grew deafening. Piper didn’t want a taste of the fire that was about to shoot out of that vent. She gave up pulling the sleeve and tried to slip out of the bulky coat. At the same time, an intense heat built at her back.

  She wasn’t going to make it. A strangled cry rose in her throat. She thrust out her hand to cover the vent, even though she knew it was futile. Nothing could hold back the fire. Piper closed her eyes and braced for the worst.

  Please, stop. Please, please don’t fire.

  Behind the mechanical whine came a roaring sound that filled Piper’s ears. Suddenly, both sounds gave way to a shuddering groan, and abruptly the pipes fell silent. Piper opened her eyes. The vents were dark. The heat was gone. She felt only the cold night air on her sweat-soaked face. Even the warning bell had stopped. The machinery must have malfunctioned.

  “Are you all right?” Anna asked.

  Piper was so relieved she felt like crying. She released a shuddering breath and reached down for Anna’s hand. “Hurry,” she said, hauling the othe
r girl up onto the car. “I don’t trust that thing to stay broken, and somebody had to have heard the warning bell. We need to find a place to hide.”

  Anna had retrieved Piper’s knife. With it, Piper freed her coat from the bolt, though she had to cut half the sleeve away to do it. She held open the canvas while Anna crawled through and then followed her inside. They went left through a door and found themselves in an empty boxcar.

  “Can we stay here?” Anna asked.

  “No, it’s too wide open,” Piper said. “Let’s go right, toward the back of the train.” She turned and went back through the vestibule to the other door. Shoving it open, she started to plow forward and realized—too late—that the car they’d entered wasn’t empty.

  Piper suddenly found herself staring into a pair of startled green eyes. She skidded to a stop and stumbled when Anna bumped into her from behind. The eyes belonged to a boy standing alone in the middle of the car. He looked to be about Piper’s age, dressed in torn overalls and a brown shirt. A bean-shaped blot of soot darkened his left cheek, and his bare feet were filthy. When he saw Piper, in an instant, the expression in his eyes shifted from surprise to anger. He broke into a run toward them.

  “You there! Stop!” he yelled.

  Piper slammed the door on him. “Go!” she screamed, and the two girls turned and ran back the other way. They passed through the empty boxcar and on into the mail car. Piper heard the boy’s footsteps pounding behind them. He was fast, fast enough to catch up before they found a place to hide. “Keep going!”

  The next car was full of cargo and food supplies for the train. Piper didn’t have time to stop and look as they tore through the car. A guard standing at the far door turned when he heard their footsteps. Piper kept running, using her momentum to throw herself at the guard. She hit the guard in the side and knocked him sprawling beside the door. Anna ran past and opened the door for them. Piper lost her balance, but the smaller girl grabbed her by the shoulder to steady her and they ran on.