The Way of the Cicadas by Audrey Henley

Author:Audrey Henley
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Monodon Books
Published: 2023-02-28T00:41:24+00:00

20

Selah

Selah stood with Niko in an open space between the trailers in Mercury, just watching all the real, living, breathing people. There were so many of them! It was like the cafeteria at lunch-hour rush, except filled with people she didn’t know.

Selah couldn’t decide if she hated it or loved it. Eventually, she and Niko were herded into a group by curious Mercurians with questions.

Niko took the lead in answering, careful to veer around the topic of where they were from. But everyone there already knew Niko’s tricks. They dodged him, trying to get an answer out of the new girl.

But then the rumble of a car carried to them from a mile away. Everyone turned their heads from Selah to the south, watching the dust cloud grow larger as the car approached. At first, she thought it must be an enemy. Everyone stood there, watching.

“Oh my god, he’s back!” a woman shouted. She grinned and ran up to the truck as it came to a stop at the edge of the square. When the driver’s side door opened, she clapped her hands to her mouth and squealed.

It was a burly guy who looked to be in his twenties. He wore sunglasses and a paramilitary vest. He had a shotgun on his back, and Selah had a feeling that unlike Niko’s, it was actually loaded. He looked like some character from a superhero cartoon that Selah watched as a kid.

On the other side, a scrawny middle-aged man in plain attire exited the vehicle with far less fanfare.

“What did you get me?” the woman asked.

“You?” the superhero said. “There was barely enough to meet our quota. I didn’t bring home anything for us.”

Selah couldn’t quite hear him. What did he mean by “quota”? She hoped he might say it again, but the whispers among the crowd grew into shouts.

“All right,” said the guy from the other side of the truck. “I need help unloading this crap.”

Mercurians lined up to help. Whatever they had brought back was hidden from view in crates or covered in tarps.

“Hey, Niko,” Selah hissed. “What is this stuff for?”

Niko’s face darkened. “I’m wondering the same thing,” he said. “Come with me.”

Together they walked back to Kat’s trailer. Inside, Artemis was snuggled in her sleeping bag, reading a book. Kat, meanwhile, was frantically looking through every drawer.

“Kat, there’s a bunch of weird guys out there unloading stuff,” Selah said.

“Yeah, I heard the car,” Kat said bitterly.

“What’s going on?” Niko asked.

Kat whipped around and brought her face an inch from his. “Maybe if you visited once in a while, you’d know,” she said. “Thugs have been strong-arming us for supplies for months. Guess you don’t have that problem, living out in the middle of nowhere.”

Niko paused. “We did have a group like that visit us once. But that was a year ago. They haven’t bothered us again.”

“Oh, they’ll bother you again,” Kat said. “They’re relentless. They seem desperate for something lately. Been poking around our homes and asking for weird shit like test tubes and glycerin.

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