The Colony Book 2: Revolution

Chapter 3-1

Chapter 3

Sinda started walking towards the dunes, with barely a glance over her shoulder to indicate we should follow. Kyer and I exchanged a look, and I shrugged. “Where are you taking us?” he called to her.

“We can’t eat here,” she said. At the top of the first dune, she stopped, hand on her hip, and waited.

I looked around the empty beach. It seemed the perfect place to put something in our bellies before we explored the rest of the city. Other than the sand fleas, I quite liked it. “But we’re right here—”

Sinda turned and flipped her hair up to expose the nape of her neck. A ragged, red scar sliced across the skin. Even from where we stood, I could see it, and I drew closer for a better look.

“What happened to you?” I asked.

“Eating on the beach,” she explained. “I don’t know what it’s like on your little island, but food is pretty scarce here, and you never know who’s watching.”

Kyer turned, trying to look in all directions at once, as I scanned the dunes. What were they hiding from us?

“I’d caught a crab,” Sinda was saying. “It wasn’t even very big, just a little thing, but I lit a fire and I guess that got somebody’s attention. When I cracked open the shell, someone sliced the back of my neck. Probably thinking I’d drop the crab and they’d get a free meal out of it.”

Kyer frowned. “Did they?”

“Hell, no!” Sinda laughed, as if she was telling us a joke and not a true story about her own survival. “I grabbed one of the pieces of wood I’d used in the fire and beat the kid down with it. Got sand in the crab, but the meat was still good.”

I didn’t even know what a crab was, but I pictured a sand flea, only a hundred times the size of the one I’d seen earlier. No matter how hungry I got, I couldn’t imagine eating something with that many legs. I shuddered.

Kyer rubbed a hand on my back, his touch warm where he pressed my sun-soaked tunic to my skin. “So where are we going again?”

Sinda waggled her eyebrows at him. “Someplace we can be alone, mister.” At the blank expression on his face, she sighed, exasperated. “That was a joke, guys.”

“About what?” I asked. “It wasn’t very funny.”

“About sex.” Sinda stormed off in a huff, and we hurried after her. “Geez, don’t you guys do it over there?”

“Adults do,” Kyer offered. “Is it very common here?”

That earned him a derisive laugh, and I caught his wrist, then dropped my hand into his to hold it as we walked. I didn’t know if Sinda was trying to act tough because we frightened her, or maybe she was showing off, but I suspected there was going to be a lot about this new world that we wouldn’t understand immediately. As we crested the dunes and got our first real look at the city beyond, my stomach clenched in fear.

What had we gotten ourselves into?