Page 112 of Gunslinger Girl
CHAPTER 38
Pity woke to an ebon haze, followed by the slow resolution of sensations: the jerking, heaving feeling of vehicular movement… odors of exhaust and tobacco. She blinked. One side of her vision glowed faintly, and after several moments a silhouette resolved before her.
“Where—” The thick, croaking sound surprised her. “Where am I?”
“Getting your voice back, huh?”
Siena.
“That’s a start.”
Pity still couldn’t move her limbs, but with some effort she turned her head to her right. The glow she saw was the horizon, a narrow strip of vermilion just beginning to chase the night away.
Dawn?
Panic gripped her as she fought to orient herself. Cessation was gone. They were in the desert. As she struggled to formulate why, the vehicle they were in slowed and stopped. Siena turned off the engine and flicked on a light in the ceiling, casting everything in pallid yellow.
“Where are we?” Pity demanded, her mouth tacky. “Why did you—”
“Relax, kid. You may be talking again, but it’ll be a little while before the rest of your body follows suit.” Siena pulled out an ugly hand-rolled cigarette and placed it between her lips. But when she lit it, its scent was as fine as any of the cigars Pity had smelled in Casimir. “Thirsty? It’s dry as old bones out here.”
Pity nodded, a movement that seemed easier than a minute ago.
Siena pulled out a canteen and lifted it to Pity’s lips. The water was warm and faintly metallic, but she swallowed several mouthfuls, letting it run over her parched lips.
“Where’s Cessation?” she said when she was done. Twin poisons of fear and anger coursed through her veins as her memories regathered. Santino. It made her ill to think about it. The big, friendly man who had saved her life on the plains and carried her to Dr. Starr when she was shot—a traitor. And if Santino could turn coat, who else might have? “We need to go back. Now. It’s a matter of life or death.”
“Always is.” Siena sniffed. “But we’re gonna have a little chat first, and it seemed smart to do that somewhere no one would interrupt us. You wanna tell me what was going on with those Tin Men?”
Pity narrowed her eyes. “You wanna tell me why you stopped them?”
“Okay, I’ll give first,” Siena said. “I saw you get into the elevator. Something was off, that was easy enough to figure. Good thing I’ve been keeping an eye on you.”
“On me?” A shiver ran through her as her old fear surfaced. “Did my father send you?”
Siena snorted in a way that might have been a laugh. “No, but maybe your momma did.”
“What?” Pity would have jolted straight up had she been able to. Instead, her arms jerked weakly in her lap. “My mother?”
“Uh-huh. ’Cause that’s who I thought I was seeing that day I rolled in and you were there: Joanna Jones, in the flesh. ’Cept you were younger than I ever knew her.” Siena reached out and took one of the guns from Pity’s belt. She rubbed the pad of her thumb over the inlay on the grips. “Beautiful as the first time I saw them, though they’ve lost a bit of that new shine.” When she saw Pity’s confusion, an amused smile deepened the lines around her mouth. “Geez, girl, didn’t your momma ever tell you where she got these?”
“She said some of the Patriots gave them to her, after the war.”
“Close. Though she lied about the ‘after’ part. She must have stashed them somewhere safe before she got caught. Joanna was always smart like that. Everyone in our squad had their special weapons, our good luck charms, we used to call them. Had myself a pretty shotgun, though it’s been gone a few years now.”
“Your squad?”
“Joanna didn’t tell you a damn thing, did she? The Reapers.”
Pity’s heart thumped against her ribs. Finn’s dumb story. “No. My mother said she guarded supply depots.”
“There are a lot of dead folks that would attest differently, were they able.”
“But…” Another piece of what Pity thought she knew shifted out of alignment. “Why didn’t she tell me? And why didn’t you say anything sooner?”
Siena returned the gun to its holster. “There’s one answer for both those questions,” she said, “which is that going around bragging that you were a Reaper is a good way to find a noose around your neck, or worse. There’s still a high bounty on them. Hell, that job’s been offered to me a few times.” She flicked ash onto the floor. “Truth is, I’m probably the only person who could find any of the Reapers still left on this earth.” Her voice turned nostalgic. “That’s how we ran things, you see. One person in command, and that one the only link between us and the Patriot command. If the one fell, our next in command would make him or herself known. Otherwise, no one knew us from any other group of guerrillas that ran with the Patriots.”
“My mother—”
