Ignition Point by Kate Corcino Page A

to find out.”
    “We won’t be able to go back,” Ghost interrupted her reverie. His voice whispered across the short distance to her. “Damar and I.” He referred to the boy, his brother, whom the Scavs had taken.
    “To the city?” Caught up in her own thoughts, Lena didn’t understand what he was saying.
    “Home. We won’t be able to go back home. The Scavengers’ people will retrace their route. They’d strike us again, finish what this group started.”
    Lena blinked, pushed away her own questions, and focused on Ghost’s dilemma. She nodded agreement. “You’ll have to go somewhere else. You can stay with me until you get your bearings.” She was slightly amused that they were both speaking as if it was a sure thing their plan would work and they’d all survive the night. “But not permanently. My Native neighbors wouldn’t take kindly to another tribe moving into the area.”
    She caught the faint movement of his head as he shook it in the half-light.
    “I won’t bring any more trouble on you than I have already. We’ll go when this is done.”
    “Where?” Lena half-expected him not to answer. She wasn’t sure she would if their roles were reversed, the fact that she’d saved his life once already notwithstanding.
    A ghost of a smile flitted across his face. “Texas, maybe.”
    Lena rolled her eyes. “Fine, then. Don’t tell me,” she said, but she chuckled to take the sting from her words.
    He tilted his head at her.
    “Texas is dead,” Lena pointed out. “Everyone knows that.”
    Ghost shrugged. “When the Scavengers first came to our area, started with their little raids, sizing us up, I heard our elders discussing another place, a safe zone deep inside Texas, past the slag. But they couldn’t agree on whether to go. They talked too long. We’ll try to find it.”
    “You’re going to try to find a place that you’re not sure exists?”
    A smile spread across his face, his teeth pale against his black beard and sun-darkened skin. “Try, yes. And hope that where there’s one safe place, there’ll be more.”
    Lena opened her mouth to protest, but then snapped it closed. Who was she to talk him out of his plan? She couldn’t imagine going back to the place where everyone she had loved had been slaughtered. She knew what Scavengers did. She’d come across the remains of villages in the south before, after a strike by Scavengers. It wasn’t just the wound to his side that Ghost had survived.
    She couldn’t offer any alternative. She couldn’t even offer them a safe place with her. Instead, she nodded. “I hope there is, for both of you.”
    Ghost leaned his head back, tracking the stars above with his eyes. When he found the one he was looking for, he kissed the first two fingers of his left hand, then tapped himself on forehead, chin, chest.
    Lena followed his eyes. Orion. She couldn’t help but feel it boded well that she hunted with a man who revered the Hunter. Of course, it hadn’t helped his people much. Still, he was here. Somehow he’d been led to her. She nodded. “Are you ready, then?”
    “Yes.” His eyes gleamed in the dark.
    They rose together, moving across the desert, using the starlight to navigate. They went at a steady pace, careful but sure-footed as they closed on their prey. They found the Scavs before half the night was gone. The dual fires of the Scavenger camp winked at Lena as she and Ghost moved through the arroyos. Once they had moved close enough to clearly see the tents, wagons, and cages spread across the desert, they stopped to crouch to either side of a crooked, bare cottonwood.
    Lena knew Ghost was looking for the same thing she was—the silhouettes of the guards as they moved in front of the fire. They remained in place behind the dead tree, watching the camp. They noted the dark shadows of the two men as they made their circuits. Lena timed their paths and intervals.
    At this distance, she couldn’t smell the smoke of the fire or