Chapter 6: Narrows

We hit the Narrows at a dead run, three trucks in a line, and the orchard was already burning.

The peach trees stood in rows along the riverbank, their leaves curling black in the heat.

Twelve Tax riders circled the camp on bikes, throwing bottles of burning fuel into the rows.

Sixty people ran between the trees with buckets.

An old man with a white beard stood in front of the grain silo with a shotgun.

He shouted at the riders to come closer so he could see their faces.

"Tova, left flank," I said. "Hallie, with the wounded. Bria, stay in the truck."

"Absolutely not," Bria said, already out of it.

I jumped down into the dust and walked straight into the line of fire.

A rider spotted me and swung his bike around.

He was twenty feet away when I put out my hand.

The wall hit him.

Bike and rider flipped backward in a cartwheel of chrome, and the screaming started.

I kept walking.

I felt the blue light rise in my chest and spread across the ground in a wide invisible sheet.

Every burning bottle that flew at the orchard stopped in the air and fell harmlessly into the dirt.

Behind me the farmers had stopped running.

They were staring.

"Keep your buckets moving," Hallie shouted. "Fire's still fire."

They moved.

I took the riders in order.

The engine of the first bike seized solid, and I felt the rider's hands slip off the grips.

The second bike's gas tank split open and soaked its owner.

Sparks from the hot exhaust lit the fuel.

He rolled screaming in the dirt, and I put out the flames with a push of air before they killed him.

I had no wish to kill anyone that day.

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