Chapter One
The Ambush
Lina
We were three wagons short of the Colorado line when the horizon went wrong.
From the driver’s bench, I watched two riders appear where there shouldn’t be riders at all—out of a fold of tawny foothills, sun at their backs, hats pulled low, as if they’d grown straight out of the chaparral. Their horses walked like they owned the road. The lead man’s coat flapped open to show a gun belt he wasn’t bothering to hide.
“Traders?” Ben called from the second wagon.
“Maybe,” I lied, and felt the little courier tag beneath my collarbone pulse its steady thump. The tag always felt hotter when I was afraid—as if my own heartbeat had moved outside my body.
The riders reined up in the track and raised a hand. Polite, like they knew the choreography. The surrounding country was all knee-high grass and scattered boulders, the Front Range mountains lifting blue and cold beyond. Nothing moved except a hawk hanging on a single point of sky.
I flicked the safety strap off the pulse pistol under the seat. “Morning,” I said, because that’s what you say when the world pretends at civility.
“Morning.” The lead rider’s smile was lazy and wrong. “Road ahead is washed out. Bad footing for wagons. My crew can guide you around a side trail—small fee, just to keep your stock safe.”
Ben climbed down. I wanted to shout at him to stay put, but the script had him already in motion. “Appreciate the warning,” he said. “We’ve got schedules.”
“That so?” The rider’s smile didn’t reach his eyes. “Schedules and cargo. Which we can help with. Step down now, ma’am,” he added to me, as friendly as poison.
I didn’t move. He was close enough that I could see the nicks on his gun’s grip, the tally marks someone had carved there. The second rider shifted to show the shotgun across his lap.
Behind us, Hale whispered, “Lina?” and I could hear the prayer hiding in my name.
The hawk folded its wings and dropped like a stone.
“Side trail’s north,” the second rider said. “We’ll lead.”
I breathed out through my teeth, buying seconds. “What’s the fee?”
“Everything,” the lead man said pleasantly, and brought the gun up.
I didn’t think. The pulse pistol leapt into my hand—but the shotgun’s muzzle flared first. Ben spun, a red comet’s tail where his shoulder used to be.
The world telescoped—shouting, hooves, the wagons lurching as reins went wild.
I fired at the shotgun man and missed by a bad inch. He kicked sideways and came down swinging; my shot burned a divot in the road and took a sliver out of his stirrup.
“Down!” I yelled to Hale, but he was already falling.
The lead man fired into the air, and that was the signal.
Men spilled out of the grass and rocks like ants from a kicked nest—half a dozen, then more, masks tied at their necks, blades and clubs, and two more guns.
They didn’t rush the cargo.
They rushed me.
I kicked out of the bench, hit gravel, rolled, and came up under the wagon’s belly with my pistol stuttering. One man dropped. Another howled and kept coming anyway. A hand seized my boot and dragged. I twisted and kicked him in the jaw so hard my toes went numb.
Something struck the wagon’s axle. The old wood screamed. Hale’s breath made wet sounds. The lead man laughed like this was a dance he’d rehearsed.
“We know what you carry. Pretty little tags and pretty little maps. You’re worth more than flour and salt.”
My hand went instinctively to my collar. Courier tags weren’t just ID—they held routes and access codes; the kind of information raiders killed for.
