In a Handful of Dust by Mindy McGinnis Page B

decent pace. They hit the next east-west road, a patchy asphalt trek that Lynn didn’t care for. They trotted through another stretch of thick grass that danced over their heads as they passed by. Behind her, Lucy could hear Joss panting for breath.
    They broke out of the pasture onto another road, this one gravel. Lynn kept them to a jog and set off to the west, glancing back to be sure they followed. Lucy nodded to her that she was fine, then jerked her head backward and lolled her tongue out to show that Joss wasn’t doing so well. The slightest eyebrow twitch from Lynn conveyed exactly what she thought of that, and Lucy could’ve sworn she picked up the pace. A splash of gray rock in the distance broke the parade of green, and Lucy called out for Lynn to stop when they reached it, feigning a limp.
    “Blister,” she panted, holding one foot in the air like a wounded animal.
    “Want me to look?” Lynn asked, her voice carrying back to Joss, who had fallen behind. Joss slowed to a walk when she saw they had stopped.
    Lucy nodded and sat on the boulder, resting her supposedly injured foot on Lynn’s knee. Lynn’s quick hands undid the laces, and she glanced over her shoulder to see if Joss was approaching.
    “You’re foot’s perfectly fine, isn’t it?”
    “Those weren’t her people back there,” Lucy said, as Lynn slipped the boot off her foot.
    “You guessed that too?” Lynn pulled off Lucy’s sweaty sock and pretended to look at the blister that didn’t exist.
    “That or they were her people and it didn’t bother her at all to see them hanging. She’s either lying or coldhearted. Whichever way, it makes up my mind as to whether I like her or not.”
    “Oh, you can like her all you want,” Lynn said, wrapping a fresh bandage around Lucy’s heel. “Just don’t trust her.”
    Lucy thought of her ash stick in Joss’ hands, the spark of interest that had flashed in her eyes. “I don’t.”
    “Good. But my guess is she didn’t ever know those dead men.”
    “Why would she lie about it?” Lucy asked as Lynn slipped the sock over her toes.
    “Remember that time you had a tick above your ear, neither one of us noticed it ’til it was big as a grape?”
    “Yeah?”
    “Joss is like that, I think. Attaches herself to whoever looks like the best bet and sucks the blood out of ’em until they wise up to her.”
    “She was left behind at Lake Wellesley,” Lucy said. “Whoever she was traveling with had her figured out.”
    “I think so too.” Lynn nodded. “And she was lucky enough to come upon our fire. Now she’ll say she might as well stick with us, as her ‘people’ are dead.”
    Lucy glanced back down the road, saw that Joss had stopped to pull a water bottle from her pack. “So what do we do?”
    “Not much we can do, really. Hopefully something looks good enough to make her want to stay in a town we come upon. Or maybe a group bigger than our own that she’d feel safer with. I’ve tried sneaking outta camp a few times at night. Woman sleeps lighter than a grasshopper. So for now, we put up with her. She’s annoying, but she’s not a threat.”
    The next words stuck in Lucy’s throat, not wanting to come out. “What if she were?”
    Lynn held out a hand and pulled Lucy from the boulder. “Then she’s dead. You might have hem-hawed on whether or not you like her, but I never did.”
    “So why’d you let her come with us in the first place?”
    Lynn took a swallow from her water bottle and put it back in her pack before answering, eyes glued to the approaching figure of Joss. “’Cause of the way she came up on us back at the lake, so quiet and still. I figured she might have something to offer other than creeping. Turns out it’s her best quality.”
    Joss was close enough to make out their conversation, so Lucy switched to another topic. “What’d you make of the field of corn?”
    Lynn looked to the horizon, and the black storm clouds assembling there.