Woozy, dry-mouthed, and in general, grouchy. True sat under a patch of northern lights the shimmered through a broken ceiling. Big Valdivia's caravan was camped in an old warehouse, uncomfortably close to the docks. Fires sprinkled the concrete floor, tended by the more nocturnal caravan travellers. The fires shed warmth and cozy light into the cool night combatting the cold concrete that sapped True's body heat. It was almost kind of comfortable, except for the dull throb in their side, and all the people.

Radio had yet to return. They regretted not wandering off with it. There were too many people ere who stared at True too long out of the corners of their eyes. At least they had their pack back. They held it in their lap, they had waited for the caravan civilians to drift off to bed to shield the process of examining its eviscerated innards from prying eyes. It felt unbalanced in their hands, they would have known someone had dug around in it, even if Suni hadn't admitted to it.

Biting down the ripple of discomfort with a reminder that they'd left Valdivia with no choice, they unsnapped the top of the pack. The handgun winked at them from on top of everything else they owned. They popped the magazine, eyeballed it. One bullet of the five they had started with remained. If they held still, they could feel the ghost of the kickback buzzing the spaces between their joints. Tight, pressurized vibrations. Different from the resounding clang that came with striking with their shovel.

Clicking the magazine back into place, they zipped the gun into a side pocket. In reach but not staining the rest of their things with its oil.

With the efficiency of familiarity, they emptied the rest of the pack. Inventories. Tucked everything into its proper spot.

All stuff accounted for, except food. And the salve. There would be a market here tomorrow though. Albeit a regular market, not an After Market but there were bound to be a few merchants who were willing to deal with a scavenger.

Laying their head on their pack a final out-of-place lump prodded them. They reached up and dug it out of the shallow topmost pocket. It came with a crinkle, ancient newspaper folded neatly around a hard object.

A flat tin fell loose of the paper wrapping and smacked onto their forehead, writing on the lid. An annoyed grimace painted their face, they twisted it open, peering in at what appeared to be a balm. A tiny purple flower had been pressed into the cream surface, reminiscent of the flowers Radio had fastened to its poncho.

That did not belong in their pack.

They resealed the tin and tilted it to catch the light of the fire and reveal the words scratched onto the lid.

Balm: self-heal flower, tallow. Cuts, scrapes, bruises.

They recognized Radio's writing from the sand and narrowed their eyes at it. They would ask Radio about it, whenever it poked its head up again.

As if summoned by their thoughts, Radio's shape blotted out the shifting green lights over their head. It wobbled there, as if watching them, then shuffled off. True propped themself up on an elbow to watch it but it didn't go far. Crunching down in a tight little ball right on the border between one shovel-length away, and the edge of the ring of light cast by the nearest fire. It ignored True, and True was inclined to ignore it, too, in favour of going to sleep. Or brooding some more. Until a glimmer of firelight caught the damp tracks on it cheeks.

Well, shit, that looked like a problem.

They sat up slow, in part not to startle it and in part because, ow.

"Where are you hurt?" they whispered, narrowing their eyes at the lump of black rags as if they'd be able to infrared-vision through the dark and the fabric. Radio shook its head, scrubbing its face.

"Bull," True said. What were they gonna need? Stitches they could manage, dental floss would work fine. But they were out of bandages, bandage substitute, any of that.

Hissing, Radio crooked its pointer fingers at its neck, tilting its head back to show a sliver of throat skin. Green-yellow chain marks ringed the delicate skin there. It touched one, and a shudder went through it. Conveniently, True had a fresh pot of self-heal for that. Scooting closer, they held out the open tin to show Radio.

They'd dipped a finger in before it had a chance to finish shaking its head.

"I'll be gentle," they grumped, dabbing a blob on the first mark. Radio flinched, hard. It caught True's hand in a death grip and hid behind the moth-eaten curtain of its poncho.

"Cut that out," they scolded. They'd seen it walk off a bone-crunching body slam, and this was where it drew the line?

After a long pause, it loosened its grasp. Without the tension of its death grip holding its muscles taut, it began to tremble.

True bit their tongue, gave Radio a second, closer look. They couldn't make out much under the bunches of loose fabric and dancing shadows. Lifting the curtain, they caught it drawing its thumb over the tight, compressed line of its lips again and again, a bloodless afterimage chasing the path like a comet tail. The fire reflected off its glassy, distant eyes.

Not the bruises. Different kind of hurt. One True wasn't so good with. Hesitantly, they put an arm around it, felt it shivering. It's heart thrumming. They couldn't think of any comforting words, so they didn't try to speak, just held on for a while.

Eventually, the shivering calmed, and Radio began to droop face-first towards the floor. Rolling their eyes, True tugged it—gently, so it didn't wake up—to lean on them.

Dumb, now how were they supposed to sleep?

***

They woke up in the grey of the early morning with Radio's hair imprinted on their cheek. Radio snored quietly, sound asleep. And True's bladder demanded o be relieved right now. Ugh. At least that meant things were working in there, right?

Easing Radio to the ground, they snuck away to find a private hole in the dirt. Outside, birds trilled annoying ditties to see who could pester the sun over the horizon. A crude rain-damaged sign cordoned off the designated toilet area. Tall nettles had taken over the outer warehouse walls and provided decent cover to do business. A civilian lurked at the corner of the building, half-hidden by the greenery.

True moved away but kept an eye on the lank grey-streaked back of the civilian's head. Did they know civilians who came out as far as Vancouver? Probably. They tried to work out the math but it fried their tired brain.

They finished up and slipped back inside. Daylight creeped ever closer, brightening the crumbled warehouse. A patch of weak almost-light from the broken ceiling shone on an empty square of concrete. They slowed, gaze flickering over the sleeping civilians. Glanced up at the abandoned rafters. Radio was gone.

It could have been nothing. Radio could have woken up, retreated to somewhere quieter, gone to relieve itself like they had, gone in search of them. There were a hundred reasonable, normal answers for the empty spot.

So, why did their stomach feel like a sinking anchor?

Biting a line into the soft inside of their cheek, they found their answer on a closer sweep of the patch. Their bag had been disrupted. A corner of the threadbare inner lining of the side pocket poked out the zipper. Their heart lurched up to meet their thyroid. They grabbed the first fire watch within reach.

"The person I was sleeping with, where did it go?" They regretted their phrasing as it left their mouth. Regretted it more when the fire watch cocked an eyebrow at them.

"Get your mind out of the gutter," they grumbled, already dropping the fire watch in favour of scanning the warehouse floor. Sleeping lumps, the beginning stretches of the market, and Big Valdivia with her staff. But no Radio.

Valdivia waved. Cal with her as they strode in True's direction.

"I know who you mean, they went of with the new guy," the fire watch said, pointing, and True took off. Winding as fast as they could around the sleeping bodies. They heard Valdivia call their name and ignored her, ducking through a gap in the warehouse wall.

Nettles, trampled grass, a chain link fence with no links left. And there, at the end of the street; Radio, Jonesy, and Galya's gun in the narrow space between them. That greasy thieving snake.

"Gallows!" Big Valdivia spoiled whatever element of surprise True might have had. As their name rang out over the cool morning mist, Jonesy's mock-gentle mouth tensed into a gritted frown. He goaded Radio into a run, dragging it behind a long overgrown fence. True bolted after them. Big Valdivia made quick time stepping in front of them, Cal stuck on her tail.

"Wait, now," she started to say.

"He took Radio," they said. Jonesy didn't have that much of a head start, and they were pretty sure of his destination. The ocean cast up a salty breeze, a thin sliver of the water visible from the end of a long stretch of street corners, collapsing fences, and shipping yards butted up on the backs of each other. They had a straight shot from here to the water's edge. If only Valdivia would get her hand off their shoulder.

They knocked her away, right in time to hear her say, "it's a shadow dweller."

Damn.

Recoil took them out of her reach. Her arm lingered in the dead air they left. They saw her gears turning, the edge of her lip indented where she bit the inner corner. She saw them, too, the hard set of their eyes over the mask Radio Silent had given them.

"You knew." Disappointment dripped off her quiet accusation. Valdivia's knuckles creaked around her staff, the indent at the corner of her mouth flattening. "That thing isn't your friend, it's a dangerous cannibal."

"Thing," they snorted, a sharp stab in their side buried under a hot rush of rage. They shoved past her, and Cal shifted out of their path, perturbed feral cat energy bunched in his shoulders.

"Fuck—Gallows—you can't come back here with a dweller," Valdivia shouted at them. They tossed a fast, loose middle finger in her direction and veered oceanward, sweat dripping onto their tongue. Shit, getting shot had crushed their stamina.

A thin haze of rain had coated everything in the time it took True to spill out on the ocean end of the frantic yard sprint. Sweating, shivering, their side a crater of magma. A reedy body squeezed through the broken boards of the last fence. Coming back, not running away. Jonesy lurched when he spied True, clothes snagging on the splintered wood.

True ripped him from the hole by his grimy shirt collar, knee finding the old injury on his leg. He yelped, eyes bulging.

Crack.

Jonesy's teeth left dents on their knuckles.

Red, red, red. There really was something to that old saying, seeing red. Jonesy, dirt. The thud of a body hitting packed earth. True drove him down, knee right up with his chin and shin following the length of his breastbone. He sputtered and gasped. Hands empty of the gun and Radio nowhere to be seen. True reeled back in search of a second body. The pull lit every one of their stitches on fire and they bit their tongue hard to keep a scream down.

They heaved forward again. Steel toe gently pushing Jonesy's groany, writhing body into the dirt. He squeaked like a spent toy.

They crouched low, too close to Jonesy's tomato face. What remained of their nose crinkled in disgust as his panicked breathing skittered over them, slimy, just like the rest of him. They pulled their mask down, giving him full view of their scar because they knew, for all his kindness, their face horrified him.

"Once chance, Jonesy."

His swelling red eyes tracked toward the ocean. At a second glance, they caught what they'd missed before; they were right back at the pier.

There was Otsana.

There was Radio.

There was a knife.

All swaying on the world's worst tightrope. True left a crack in Jonesy's ribcage and scrambled out the fence. They stopped to pry a rotted board free, rusted nails jutted from the end. An impromptu weapon, since they'd left their shovel with their pack.

Sagged on one of the foremost bridge legs was a putrid lump that True had mistaken for a split garbage bag, it hadn't been there yesterday, and it wasn't until they were almost on top of it that they recognized the stumps sticking out from the lower half as feet.

A decrepit corpse swayed in the fog, lashed upright to the bridge. From the knees down it looked like a savage animal had used its legs as chew toys, stripping away clothing and flesh until what remained were lumps of pink and white and greasy grey-green. A fat white maggot squirmed out of a hole in the wet membranous sole of a foot that had been scraped down to muscle and tendon. It hit the ground and burst like a boil under True's boot. Blood, black with age, clumped over the stumpy cauliflower remains of the head, and the skin that showed through its torn clothes was purple with bloat.

Otsana had lost her fucking mind.

A dozen too-short too-long strides and they set foot on the bridge, felt the damp wood give and their stomach hit the dirt. Funny, they hadn't realized it could drop any lower than it already had. The bridge groaned and listed leftward, and every molecule in their body froze. Their feet stuck like pikes had been driven through them into the planks.

"Scared?" Otsana jeered, voice sharp and jagged. If they'd looked up at her they would have seen hatred curling her lip, lighting her obsidian eyes like chips of still-hot volcanic rock. She was nothing but hate and hurt bound in basalt skin. There was nothing she would not have done to scorch them.

But they weren't watching her, they were watching Radio. Its wrists and elbows had been winched together with zip ties, but it jabbed its fingers, trying to sign.

Otsana's knife curved a hair, drawing a thin line of blood from Radio's throat. Radio winced, pulling the knife farther across its skin.

"Don't." The plea jolted out of them, perhaps surprising True more than anyone else.

Otsana's laugh set their hair on end. "I hope you suffer like I do." She sliced the knife into Radio.

The next second stretched into a dozen. Every muscle, every ligament in the hand that held the knife tightened. Blood spilled over the blade.

True smashed the steel toe of their shoe into the bridge support, shaking the corpse and sending a shudder through the planks. The bridge swayed, shifting Otsana's balance just so, for an instant. Seizing the sliver of chance, Radio slammed its head into her face.

The Radio-Otsana tangle stumbled on the damp planks. Otsana clinging to Radio, clawing for a better grip while her weight pitched them both too hard whichever way she tilted, ruining their traction. It slipped. True lurched onto the bridge, petrifying fear of heights abandoned for a fleeting instant.

With a sharp jab and a surprised grunt from Otsana, Radio broke free. Eyes wide, it threw its arms up, reaching. No, pointing. It should have kicked Otsana, it should have turned so it could see her coming. True grabbed its outstretched arms to pull it from her, but her blade vanished between folds of black cloth.

True had known Radio could laugh.

Now they knew Radio could scream.