45 Definitely (1/2)

When I wake from my nap, I can hear them talking about me. Night has fallen and they are sitting around the fire, grilling meat. The smell wakes me from my sleep, but before I get up and go to them, I listen. Someone is not happy with me.

”She's getting worse, not better,” Pharaoh grumps.

”What do you mean?”

”Less obedient with time, more headstrong.”

”Maybe that's a good thing,” Silver says. I silently nod my head in agreement. ”If she's to be a mother, she will need to have her mind about her. She can't remain a malleable little girl forever.”

”When was she malleable?” Alexios laughs.

”That idea of hers is dangerous,” Pharaoh says. ”It's foolish. Death awaits in Dallas.”

”Maybe,” Alexios agrees. ”Likely not her death. They would take her. Our deaths, almost certainly.”

His words make me think. He's right. I can't ask them to go back to the city where their friends died. But that doesn't mean I can't go. Doesn't mean I can't do something to make a difference.

I make a big show of yawning and stretching and waking up so they have a chance to fall silent and pretend they weren't just talking about me.

”Hey, sweetheart, how are you feeling?” Silver breaks the silence, beckoning me over to him.

I slip over and let him draw me down into his lap. Sometimes I feel a little lonely with my mercenaries. They have one another to talk to, but who can I talk about them to? Nobody but myself. All my thoughts stay private in my mind and heart, as they always have.

”Sore,” I say. ”You were rough with me.”

”No rougher than you needed,” Pharaoh says. I restrain the urge to pick up Silver's drink and throw it at him. I know Pharaoh means well, but he is the most maddening man in the world.

We eat the meal they have prepared, and I think about what must be done. If it is true, if Tore's seed has taken root inside me, then I am not content to live out here in this wilderness. I know how that story goes. It is my story, and I do not want to see it repeated. It would be well if I were to have a son. He would have three men to show him the way. But what if I have a daughter? What if I, like my mother, am to pass in the bearing of my child? What then? Another girl to end up inevitably alone as the passing of time takes her fathers and makes them weak? No. I will leave my offspring a greater legacy than a remote shack surrounded by stringy predators.

I know the mercenaries will not come with me. They are thinking of our survival. I am thinking of more than that. I am thinking of what it means to give life, and what life is given in the birthing.

We are owed compensation for what we have lost. I was sold, and yet we have nothing to show for it but this dusty old shack.

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