Chapter 12: The Ledger

I walked out of Rhonda's house at five the next morning with a bottle of water in my hand and my keys left on the table.

Her gravel road ran straight for a mile between two fences, to a cattle gate and a mailbox.

I had measured it on my phone the night before.

I had not told anyone why.

The air was cool, blue and empty.

My legs shook for the first quarter mile.

At the half, I stopped shaking.

At the cattle gate, I put my palm on the cold metal bar and stood there with my chest going up and down.

A mile.

I had done it alone, on my own feet, three days out of the ICU.

My rule was finished.

Behind me a truck engine idled and cut off.

I knew whose it was without turning around.

"You followed me," I said.

"Rhonda woke me up and said you'd gone," Brice said, climbing down. "I stayed back a hundred yards."

"I noticed."

He stood a few feet away with his hands in his pockets and looked at the gate.

"That's a mile," he said.

"That's a mile."

"Then your rule is over."

"Not yet," I said.

He lifted his eyes to mine, and the early light caught them.

"I have to do something first. I want you here when I do it."

I sat down on the culvert by the gate.

He sat beside me, close enough that our arms touched.

I closed my eyes and spoke inside my head.

I hadn't done that since the desert.

*Show me.*

Nothing came for a long moment.

Then the voice, flat and exact.

[Ledger unsealed at host's request. Contract: shield of target Lance Lyle, thirty-six months, closed by host.]

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