Page 1 of Bones
PROLOGUE
The midday sun beat down on the desert sand. A young girl covered in dirt and dried blood lay where she’d fallen, too exhausted to get up. Above, a lone hawk circled. Two scrawny vultures had landed, stretching their fleshy necks to get a better look at her. One of them squawked, but she didn’t move. The hawk circled again, then dove. The scavengers hopped sideways, letting out indignant screeches, and she pushed herself up. At her movement, the hawk changed course, soaring back into the sky. The vultures hadn’t moved, still eyeing her hopefully. She glared at them.
“Fuck off,” her voice cracked. “I ain’t dead yet.”
The huge birds stared with glittering beady eyes. A flash of anger filled her, and she bared her teeth and growled, swiping in their direction like an angry cat. The vultures took off in a flurry of noise and dust.
Now alone, she struggled to her feet. Her chapped lips stung, and her throat burned with thirst. She started trudging again, not in any particular direction. Just one foot in front of the other. Her stomach cramped. The last thing she’d eaten had been a couple small eggs she’d stolen from a nest two days ago.
The sun had moved halfway across the sky when a dust cloud appeared in the distance. She stopped walking, swaying as her legs trembled. Running was pointless; her pursuer could track anything. She took a deep breath and clenched her fists at her sides, steeling herself against seeing his face.
The ramshackle bikes skidded to a stop, and she squinted through the dust to see three strangers. For a moment, she felt lightheaded with a strange mix of relief and disappointment. It wasn’t him. The two on the sides revved their snarling engines as they looked her over in a way that made her feel cold. One was young, still a boy, and the other was a giant man. The man leered at her, flashing the crude chunk of gold he had in place of a tooth. But she paid attention to the one in the middle. Faded tattoos crawled up his neck, and he eyed her with a calculating gaze. The other two kept looking at him as though waiting for instruction.
For a moment, she hesitated. She could try to run. She could cry and scream. She could even try to fight. But her brother had taught her too well for that. He’d trained her to survive.
“You’re small, but you’re clever.”She could hear Wolf’s voice in her head.“Folks see a kid and assume they’re the smarter one. An’ maybe they are, but anytime somebody underestimates you, you can use that.”
So she squared her bony little shoulders, stepped forward, and said, “I’m lookin’ for work. I’m…I’m a healer, and I’m lookin’ for work.”
The man on the left snorted with laughter, slapping his leg, but the one in the middle just raised a single brow.
“That so?” he finally said in a lazy, dangerous sort of voice.
She clenched her ragged shirt at her sides to keep her hands from shaking. “Yeah. That’s so.”
“Just when you think you seen it all.” The one on the left snorted again, his voice loud. He swung a leg over and kicked a wobbly kickstand down, his eyes on her. “C’mon, boss, we could use a little fun. How ’bout?—”
A gunshot cracked across the dry, barren ground. She jerked backward, biting her tongue hard, but she didn’t scream. The man who had dismounted glanced down at his bleeding shoulder in shock.
“The fuck—” he choked.
“Tell you what,” the leader said, holstering his pistol, “I’ve been dreadful bored. So here’s your chance. You fix Grip here, an’ you’re hired.”
“Juck—” wheezed Grip, clutching his shoulder. He went down on one knee, his eyes rolling between her and the man who’d shot him.
The third biker laughed with a sneer, and she knew they expected her to fail. She stood quietly for a second, but then she moved forward.
“Juck!” Grip sputtered. “Juck, boss, I didn’t mean to—” He glanced at the young biker. “Vulture…help me, man?—”
Both Juck and Vulture ignored him. Out of the corner of her eye, she could tell Juck’s gaze had locked on her as she walked straight up to the bleeding man, reached out her skinny little arms, and placed her hands on his shoulder.
“The hell—” Grip got out, but then he sucked in a startled gasp.
Nothing happened. At least, she knew that’s what it looked like, but a second later, the bullet pushed itself out of Grip’s shoulder like a worm coming out of the dirt. She spared a glance at Juck to see shock and excitement creeping across his face. The bullet dropped to the sand in an almost silent thud, and she let go, staggering backward but somehow remaining on her feet. She tried to hide the way her entire body shook with chills by clasping her trembling hands in front of her. In the silence, Grip stared open-mouthed at her, his beefy hand gingerly touching the fresh pink scar where the bullet hole had been.
She looked at Juck, and Juck smiled. She held his eyes, unsure if she should feel relieved or not that she wasn’t going to die today.
“You’re hired,” Juck said, his voice soft. “Come here, girl.”
She didn’t hesitate this time. She left Grip where he sat still gaping and went straight up to Juck’s bike. She lifted her freckled face and studied him as he studied her. He looked to be in his late forties, hair and beard beginning to grey. He had ruddy, wrinkled skin from the desert sun and a pleasant enough expression, but something about him set her on edge, something dark.
“Look at those eyes,” Juck said. “Never seen eyes that green before.”
Her stomach twisted, and she fought the urge to shift on her feet. The third biker, Vulture, studied her from behind Juck. He looked a little younger than Wolf, maybe sixteen or seventeen. His dark blond hair curled at the ends, and his face was handsome, but he stared down at her, his nose wrinkled in disgust.
“Gods, she’s all bones,” Vulture mocked.
He wasn’t wrong, but her face reddened. She’d been skinny before, but two weeks in the desert with practically no food had reduced her to almost nothing.
