Nayeli's hands were flat on the on the table. "Yes," she said. The word came out like something falling from a height. And here's the thing about betrayal, the real kind. The kind that comes from inside.
It doesn't feel like an attack. It feels like the ground opening. Because attacks come from outside. You can see an attack coming. You can face it.
You can fight it or run from it. And either way you're moving. You're responding. Your body knows what to do. But betrayal betrayal comes from the place you thought was safe.
Nayeli's hands stayed flat on the table. She looked at them like they belonged to someone else. There was a man, she said, in our band. I called him uncle. Not blood, but close enough.
A pause. Long. The kind that has things in it. He had a family, a wife, children. He was afraid.
Another pause. I understand being afraid. Tsula was looking at her sister. Nayeli wasn't looking at anyone. He made an arrangement, she said, with Malone.
He told them the route, the timing, where we would be. Her voice stayed even, with tremendous effort. In return, his family would be left alone. Silence. Were they?
Hadley said. Nayeli looked up. I don't know, she said. We ran before I could find out. And that not knowing was its own kind of weight.
Separate from the betrayal itself. The question with no answer. The thing you carry because you have nowhere to put it down. Tsula reached across the table, put her hand over her sister's. Nayeli looked down at their hands, and then something happened in her face, just briefly, just for a moment, something that was not composure, something that was the thing underneath composure.
Something exhausted and young and afraid. Then it was gone. She straightened. So, she said, the smoke the smoke. Hadley agreed.
They're looking for us. Looks that way. They won't stop. He pushed off the wall, went to the window, looked north. Eight miles was not a long distance, not for men on horseback, not for men who'd already demonstrated they knew how to move through this territory.
"How many men does Malone travel with?" he said. "When we saw them?" "Six, maybe seven." He nodded. Slow because this was information.
And information could be worked with. Information was better than not knowing. Six or seven, said the part of his brain that did the math automatically, against one man and two women. Math like that only works one direction. Unless Unless you control what they didn't know.
He didn't tell them what he was thinking. "Not yet." He told them to stay inside. "Keep away from the windows. Don't light the lamp after dark."
He told them this in the calm, level voice he used for everything. The same voice he used to tell Rex, "The ground was solid. Hold steady. Easy now." Nayeli heard the voice and knew what it was.