UnSouled (Unwind Dystology 3)

He finds Lev outside, surveying their surroundings. There’s a lot to survey. What at night appeared to be just a lone trailer is actually the central mansion of an entire rust-bucket estate. All around the trailer is a collection of large, useless objects. Rusted cars, kitchen appliances, even a school bus so old it retains none of its original color, not a single window intact.

“You have to wonder about the person who lived here,” Lev says.

As Connor looks around the veritable junkyard, it strikes him as disturbingly familiar. “I lived in the airplane junkyard for more than a year,” he reminds Lev. “Everyone’s got issues.”

“Graveyard, not junkyard,” Lev corrects.

“There’s a difference?”

“One is about a noble end. The other is about, well . . . garbage.”

Connor looks down and kicks a rusted can. “There was nothing noble about our end at the Graveyard.”

“Give it up,” says Lev. “Your self-pity is getting old.”

But it’s not self-pity—Lev should know that. It’s about the kids who were lost. Of the more than seven hundred kids in Connor’s care, over thirty died, and about four hundred were shipped off to harvest camps to be unwound. Maybe no one could have stopped it—but it happened on Connor’s watch. He has to bear the weight of it.

Connor takes a long look at Lev, who, for the moment, seems content to examine a wheelless, hoodless, roofless Cadillac so overgrown by weeds inside and out, it looks like a planter.

“It has a kind of beauty, you know?” says Lev. “Like how sunken ships eventually become part of a coral reef.”

“How can you be so stinking cheery?” Connor asks.

Lev’s response is a toss of his overgrown blond hair and a grin that is intentionally cheerful. “Maybe because we’re alive and we’re free,” Lev says. “Maybe because I singlehandedly saved your butt from a parts pirate.”

Now Connor can’t help but grin as well. “Stop it; your self-congratulation is getting old.”

Connor can’t blame Lev for being upbeat. His mission succeeded with flying colors. He walked right into the middle of a no-way-out battle and not only found a way out, but saved Connor from Nelson, a disgraced Juvey-cop with a grudge who was hell-bent on selling Connor on the black market.

“After what you did,” Connor tells Lev, “Nelson will want your head on a stake.”

“And other parts, I’m sure. But he’s got to find me first.”

Only now does Lev’s optimism begin to rub off on Connor. Yes, their situation is dire, but for a dire situation, things could be worse. Being alive and free counts for something, and the fact that they have a destination—one that may just give them some crucial answers—adds a fair amount of hope into the mix.

Connor shifts his shoulder and the motion aggravates his wound—a reminder that it will have to be taken care of sooner rather than later. It’s a complication they don’t need. Not a single clinic or emergency room will do the work without asking questions. If he can just keep it clean and dressed until they get to Ohio, he knows Sonia will get him the care he needs.

That is, if she’s still at the antique shop.

That is, if she’s even alive.

“The last road sign before we flipped the bird said there was a town just ahead,” Connor tells Lev. “I’ll go jack a car and come back for you.”

“No,” says Lev. “I traveled across the country to find you—I’m not letting you out of my sight.”

“You’re worse than a Juvey-cop.”

“Two sets of eyes are better than one,” says Lev.

“But if one of us gets caught, the other can make it to Ohio. If we’re together, then we risk both of us getting caught.”

Lev opens his mouth to say something, but closes it again. Connor’s logic is irrefutable.

“I don’t like this at all,” Lev says.

“Neither do I, but it’s our best option.”

“And what am I supposed to do while you’re gone?”