“Okay.” He nodded, agreeing. “Blown tire. Some conscientious drivers. We can probably count them out as Loyalists.”
She nodded back. “Unless they count ‘Leave No Trace’ amongst their anti-government principals.”
Leo shook his head. “Doubt it. They sound like the kind who’d just throw stuff out their windows and expect someone else to clean it up.”
“Doubt they’d listen to Smokey the Bear.”
They shared a look and a smile before Leo added one last comment. “They’d be more likely to cause a forest fire than prevent one.”
“Selfish bastards.” She managed a short laugh. “We should move on and look for another disturbance. Until we hear news from the others, we’ve got more territory to search.”
“Okay.” He gestured back toward the motorcycle and when she started to walk, he fell in beside her.
Leo strapped on his helmet and swung his leg over the bike. Once he was settled, he looked at her and gestured behind him for her to get on.
When she did, he turned his head and spoke over his shoulder, hating the unsettled feeling in his gut. “Cygny?”
She startled a little.
They were both still unused to her name. Him saying it. Her, hearing it in his voice.
“We can make this work.”
* * *
“We can make this work.”
Cygny kept hearing the words in her head. On repeat.
She knew what he meant.
Work.
They could work together.
And she was good with that.
Mostly.
They’d finished searching their area and reported back to camp through their radios. Several more turnouts along the way, similar or identical wheelbases. Still no sign of Leslie or her bike. The repeated movements could have had simple, innocent causes, but given what, or rather who, they were looking for, it was better to be cautious instead of optimistic.
Careful kept them on their toes.
Listening in to what some of the others had found, Cygny shook her head. Beck and Roman had found similar areas like they had, but they’d seen something else.
Areas where someone had sifted through the dirt, probably looking for something. Roman relayed in that the marks had likely been made by someone picking up their cigarette butts.
Leo nodded and spoke quietly. He didn’t have his microphone on. “Makes sense. Police the area like soldiers do with their brass.”
Cygny waited for Roman to finish and spoke into the com.
“We found a couple of places where the gravel on the shoulder had been disturbed, too,” she explained. “I tried to figure out what they might be looking for and dummy me never thought of cigarettes.”
The conversation continued but as they spoke, Cygny felt Leo’s hand wrap around her forearm. Turning off her microphone, she turned to look at him.
She wasn’t sure what to expect, but what she saw was a shock none-the-less.
Concern.
“What was that?”
She was trying to keep an ear on the conversation and gave Leo a half-shrug. “What was what?”
He gestured to the device in her ear. “What you said just now. What you called yourself.”
Shocked, Cygny cocked her head to the side and thought through her words. “What? When I called myself a dummy?”
His eyes widened as he looked at her. “Exactly.”