Chapter?17 (Anna’s?POV)

  Gray dawn leaked through a lattice of tarp?patches above my head, painting the inside of my rented cubicle in sickly light. The sleeping bag glued to me like a layer of wet leather; when I peeled it away, a cold sheet of sweat broke loose and ran down my ribs. My thigh pulsed beneath its crusted bandage—an angry, molten heartbeat that reminded me I was still alive and still paying for it. At least the antibiotics hadn’t killed me overnight, and the fever hadn’t spiked. Small victories.

  I shoved aside the hanging canvas flap and stepped into the main corridor of the strip?mall outpost. The smell hit harder than any roamer could—wood?smoke, chamber pots, rancid cooking grease, unwashed bodies. I added my own ripe stench to the mix: hair matted with grease, shirt clinging damply, skin filmed in grime so thick it felt like armor. Bath, I warned myself. Find water or lose whatever sanity is left rattling in your skull.

  A pair of scavengers leaned against a support post, eyes sliding over me with that oily hunger I’d come to recognize. One whispered “fresh meat” to the other. I met their gaze, let my grip tighten on the length of steel pipe in my hand, and bared my teeth in something that wasn’t quite a smile. They looked away. The guards by the entrance barely glanced at the ragged rent tag on my wrist before waving me through; people came and went here like flies on carrion, and no one cared why.

  Outside, the air was still foul but lighter—threaded with a faint river breeze instead of stale sweat. The sun had clawed its way above the skyline, sending sheets of white glare down the asphalt canyon. The Iron?Elbow gym loomed a block away: its once?vibrant sign a chalky ghost, heavy bags swaying on rusted chains behind spider?webbed windows. Part of me wanted to scavenge inside for tape or disinfectant, but the morning heat already pressed on my shoulders, and my leg reminded me with every throb that energy was a finite resource.

  Beyond the gym, the neighborhood thinned. The tight row of storefronts gave way to a ragged procession of brownstones—windows boarded, stoops broken, ivy strangling wrought?iron railings. Farther still rose the rooftops of small cottages, the kind university staff used to brag about in holiday newsletters. Now their chimneys leaned at drunk angles, shingles curled like dead leaves. Rumor said scavenger bands avoided this patch—too far from the real loot downtown, too many blind corners for ferals. That was perfect. Fewer eyes, fewer guns.

  I hitched my pack higher, wincing as the strap tugged my wound, and started north. Left?drag, right?drag—a rhythm as old as pain. My steel bar served as both cane and threat. Weeds cracked through the sidewalk, brushing my calves with cold dew that left streaks on my filthy pants. The moisture felt almost decadent against skin baked by weeks of city grime.

  Past the gym a mural caught my eye—two fighters locked in a clinch, muscles once painted in bright primaries now flaking under graffiti tags. A rusted fountain sat beneath it. I bent, twisted the valve. Nothing but a groan of air and a dribble of brown sludge. Figures. I spat grit from my teeth and moved on.

  Block by block, the city’s noise dissolved. No gunshots, no Empire patrol shouts, only the creak of empty windows and the distant caw of crows. It felt wrong—too quiet, like a trap—but I drank in the silence. A corner bodega lay half?collapsed, shelves stripped bare except for rat?gnawed candy wrappers. A shopping cart on its side spun one wheel lazily in the breeze.

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  Then, at the mouth of a cul?de?sac, the first row of cottages emerged. Their yards were full jungles now—grass waist?high, fences sagging beneath kudzu. But the houses themselves still stood: peeling paint, yes, but roofs intact, windows unbroken behind curtains of ivy. Hope fluttered in my chest, treacherous and bright. A faucet, maybe. A tub. A bucket of water. I would have sold my last pearl for ten minutes of soap.

  I paused at a warped picket fence, wiped sweat from my brow, and listened. Leaves rustled, nothing more. Good. Steel bar ready, I slipped through a gap in the boards, limp more pronounced on the uneven ground. My eyes tracked exits automatically—broken gate to the east, side alley to the west, a porch that might collapse if I needed a quick fallback.

  That’s when I saw it: an old cottage farther down the lane, more decrepit than the rest, shingles shedding like scabs. And leaning against the cracked curb in front of it, half?buried in weeds, was a rust?speckled bicycle. One tire flat, the other holding a stubborn breath of air; chain orange with rust, but intact. My pulse skipped. Even half?broken, two wheels beat a wounded leg any day.

  I limped closer, scanning windows for movement. Silence. The bike’s handlebars were bent, but I could straighten them. I yanked it free of the weeds, tested the pedals—they ground but moved. The rear wheel wobbled yet spun. Good enough. I lowered myself gingerly onto the seat, set my good foot on the pedal, and pushed. The chain protested with a squeal, but the bicycle lurched forward.

  It felt strange to ride again—the breeze in my hair, the world sliding by faster than a limp allowed. Every bump rattled my wound, but I clenched my jaw and pedaled up the lane. Cottages slipped past: a yellow one with half its porch collapsed, a blue one where roses—yes, actual roses—climbed a shattered trellis. Their petals looked almost obscene in their softness against the ruin.

  At the cul?de?sac’s end I stopped, turned in my seat, and let my gaze roam north. Beyond a stand of overgrown maples the land dipped toward another cluster of homes. Somewhere past that lay the river and—if rumor maps were right—the northern scavenger trails that skirted Empire territory. Too far for my leg today. I’d push it and end up bleeding again. Better to recon, then double back.

  I rolled on, bike creaking, steering one?handed while the other held the steel bar across my lap. A few blocks north I spotted fresh tracks—boot prints in dust, maybe scavenger patrols. Farther on, a line of chalk arrows on a fence pointed west. Not today, I decided, heart hammering at the thought of another faction. I had pearls to guard, a wound to mend, a bath to hunt.

  I turned the bike around and coasted back toward the Iron?Elbow. The breeze cooled sweat on my scalp; for a moment, despite the ruins, I felt almost free. Sunlight flickered through maple branches overhead, dappling cracked pavement with shifting gold. I passed the Ivy cottage again, noting a rain barrel half?full beside the porch. Remember that. Water was water, even if it needed boiling.

  As I approached the gym’s block, the city’s hush fractured—voices carried on the wind, distant but tense. Scavenger sentries on the strip?mall roof, maybe, or Empire scouts skirting the perimeter. Either way, lingering outside the outpost with a bike would draw attention. I dismounted, rolled the bicycle behind a trash?strewn hedge, and draped a tarp of ivy over it. Tomorrow, if my leg held, I could ride north again—better supplied, maybe cleaner.

  The steel bar tapped the sidewalk as I limped back toward the outpost gates, sweat cooling to a chill on my skin. Behind me the cottages settled into silence, wind rustling uncut grass. They weren’t safe, not really, but they whispered possibilities: water, shelter, distance from the outpost’s leering eyes.

  Tomorrow, I promised my aching body as the guards waved me inside. Bath first. Then maybe those cottages for real. The day’s small victory—one rusty bicycle hidden in the weeds—felt like a plan, fragile but mine.