“No one would say anything to the swanks.”

“Don’t kid yourself,” Richard muttered. “They’d sell their mothers for a chance to pull a Lucky Strike.”

“Give it time,” Nailer whispered. “Give it a little time and we’ll be even richer.”

All he could think of was how badly he wanted to get away from his father with his twitchy eyes and fast, high smile, the face of a man deep in his slide.

Richard’s eyes went to the girl again. “If she wasn’t so pretty, I would have bled her out already. She draws too much attention.” He shook his head. “I don’t like it.”

Nailer said, “Maybe we can get her people to pay for her without knowing who sold her. She’s still secret, right?”

Nailer’s dad grinned. “Just my crew.” He studied Blue Eyes and Moby and Tool. “Maybe too many, though. Secrets don’t keep when someone’s throwing cash around.” He glanced at the girl. “Keep an eye on her for another day; we’ll see what turns up.” He stood and Nailer struggled to his feet as well, but his father pressed him back. “You stay here. Rest. Sadna’s asking questions about where you and Pima went. I’m playing dumb, you know? Don’t want anyone else knowing what’s going on. Make sure they don’t make any trouble.”

“Sadna’s looking for us?” Nailer tried to keep the hope from his voice.

“She heard a rumor maybe we found Pima.” He shrugged. “She’s got no cash, though. And no one talks without Red Chinese in their hands.” He turned and nodded to Tool and Blue Eyes and Moby. “Keep ’em tight.”

The three of them nodded, Blue Eyes smiling, Moby swigging from his bottle, Tool impassive. Richard disappeared into the vines and night screech of the jungle, a pale skeleton of a man fading into the blackness.

When Richard was gone, Moby grinned and took another swig from his bottle. “You’re running out of time, girlie,” he said. “Your people don’t show up quick, maybe I’ll take you for my own. You look like you’d make a nice little pet.”

“Shut up,” Tool rumbled.

Moby glared at him but closed his mouth. Tool glanced at Blue Eyes. “You watching first?” Blue Eyes nodded. Tool pushed Moby a little ways away, both of them bedding down in the nearby bushes. Soon a snore marked where Tool lay, and Moby’s voice, complaining still, was barely audible through the ferns. Mosquitoes swarmed around them. Nita slapped miserably at the bloodsuckers. Everyone else ignored them.

Blue Eyes came over and put a chain cuff around Pima’s wrist, then turned to Nailer.

“You going to give me trouble?”

“What?” Nailer gave her a look of incredulity. “You going to tell my dad you put a cuff on me? I’m the one who came up with this Lucky Strike.”

Blue Eyes hesitated. She seemed tempted to chain him as well, but also uncertain, not entirely sure if he was a captive or an ally. He stared back at her, challenging. Nailer knew what she was seeing, a skinny ribbed boy just out of a fever and crazy Richard Lopez behind him. It wasn’t worth it.

Sure enough, Blue Eyes gave up on the idea. She sat down on a rock and picked up a machete, started sharpening it. Pima and Lucky Girl stared at him, their eyes full of meaning. The fire burned lower. He didn’t like his father’s hints. The man was on the verge of decision and anything could tip him.

Nailer stretched out on the ground beside Pima. “How’s your fingers?”

She smiled and held up her hand. “Pretty good. Glad he didn’t decide to teach me five lessons.”

“Hurt much now?”

“Not as much as the money we lost.” Her voice was brave, but he thought the fingers must hurt awfully. The splint looked ragged. She followed the direction of his gaze. “Maybe we can break ’em again and get ’em to grow straight.”

“Yeah.” He looked over at Lucky Girl. “How you doing? Anything broke on you?”

“Shut up!” Moby yelled from the bushes. “I’m trying to sleep.”

Nailer lowered his voice. “Your people coming soon?”

Lucky Girl hesitated. Her eyes flicked fearfully from him to Pima and then to Blue Eyes a little ways away. “Yeah. They’re coming.”

Pima looked at her. “Yeah? That right? Patel?” She drew out the name. “They really coming, or you just full of lies? Someone from your crew could be down on the beach right now, some blood buyer from your clan, if you’re really a Patel, but you’re not saying anything. What’s with that?”

Again the skitter eyes of fear. Lucky Girl pushed her black hair off her face and stared at Pima defiantly. “What if they aren’t coming?” she whispered fiercely. “What you gonna do then?”

Her voice had taken on some of the hard edge of Pima and Nailer’s own inflections. Nailer would have laughed if she hadn’t seemed so fearful. She was lying. He’d seen enough liars in his life to know. Everyone was always lying to him. Lying about how much they’d worked, about how much quota they’d filled, about whether they were afraid, about whether they were living fat or starving. Lucky Girl was lying.

“They aren’t coming.” He stated it as fact. “You’ve got no one looking for you. I don’t think you’re even a Patel.”

Lucky Girl glanced at him fearfully. Her gaze went again to Blue Eyes, obsessively sharpening her machete. Pima tugged her earrings thoughtfully, cocking her head. “That right, girl? You’re worth nothing?”

Nailer was surprised to see that Lucky Girl was on the verge of tears. Even Sloth hadn’t cried when she’d been kicked down the beach with knife slashes through her crew tattoos, but here this soft girl was on the verge of crying because she’d been caught in a lie. “Where are your people?” he asked.

She hesitated. “North. Above the Drowned Cities. And I am Patel. But they won’t know where to look for me.” She paused. “I’m not supposed to be here at all. We threw away our GPS beacons weeks ago, trying to get away.”

“From who?”

She hesitated, then finally said, “My own people.”

Nailer and Pima exchanged puzzled looks.

Nita explained quietly. “My father has enemies within our company. When we got caught in the storm, they were pursuing us. Everywhere we went, they anticipated us. If they catch me they will use me as leverage.”

“So no one’s coming looking for you?”

“No one you would want to meet.” She shook her head. “When our ship wrecked, two other ships were pursuing us, but they turned back from the storm.”

“So that’s why you were sailing into a city killer? You were running?”

“It was either that or surrender.” She shook her head. “It wasn’t a choice we could make.”

“So no one’s coming for you.” Nailer couldn’t help repeating it, trying to get his head around this new fact. “You jerked us around this whole time.”

“I didn’t want you to take my fingers.”

Pima let out her breath in a slow hiss. “You should have given yourself up to whoever was chasing you. Nailer’s dad is worse than anything they could do to you.”

Lucky Girl shook her head. “No. Your people… they have an excuse. The ones who hunted me…” She shook her head again. “They are worse.”

“So you wrecked a whole ship and tried to drown yourself just so they couldn’t catch you?” Nailer asked. “Killed your whole crew so you could stay free?”

She glanced over. “They were…” She shook her head. “Pyce’s people would have killed them all anyway. He wouldn’t have wanted witnesses.”

Pima grinned. “Damn, the swanks and the rust rats are all the same at the end of the day. Everyone’s looking to get a little blood on their hands.”

“Yes.” Nita nodded seriously. “Just the same.”

Nailer considered the situation. Without someone to buy Nita back, she was worth nothing. Without strong friends or allies on the beach, she was just meat. No one would even blink if she went under the knives of the Harvesters. Blue Eyes could hand her over to her cult, and no one would think twice about protecting her.

Pima looked Nita over. “Hard life here, for a swank like you. You won’t survive unless you get yourself a protector, and there’s not much percentage in sheltering something like you.”