End of the World, Start of My Empire novel · Chapter 16 of 24

Chapter 16: Bria

"I'm going alone," I said.

We were in the pump station control room with Bria's headset on the table between us.

The light through the window had gone the color of a bruise.

It was four hours to sundown.

"No," said Tova.

"He wants me. If I walk up the mesa with my hands open, he lets her go."

"He writes her off," Tova said, "and then he writes you off. You know what a ledger man does with a paid debt."

"Rule one," Hallie said. "Nobody carries it alone."

"That's about the cuff!"

"It's about everything. Sit down."

I sat.

I was getting used to it.

Hallie spread a sheet of paper on the table.

It was Bria's handwriting, cramped and slanted, with a pencil drawing at the top and notes crawling up the margins.

"She left this on the radio shelf yesterday," Hallie said. "She was going to show you at breakfast."

"Show me what?"

"Where Haskell's riders went when they ran.

"She followed the chatter on her rig after he left. They don't sleep in the Yard anymore.

"They sleep here."

She tapped a mark on the drawing.

"Black Mesa. There's an old microwave relay on top, with a mining depot at the foot.

"One road up, with four switchbacks and a cut where a rockslide narrowed it.

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