Krayter

Chapter One-2

A CLATTER WOKE HER from a dream of fire and blood. She felt a burr buried deep in her hand, but when she squeezed it into a fist, there was nothing there. Penny sucked in a ragged breath and sat up, shaking her arm to wake it up. The clock told her it was just after midnight and thankfully her head no longer pounded.

The door downstairs clanged shut and the sound propelled Penny out of bed. It was too late for the girls to be out, and if it wasn’t her sisters making noise, she needed to be doubly worried. She grabbed her blaster from where she kept it stored in the locked drawer beside her bed. Boots slipped easily over the soft fabric of her pajamas and a thick sweater finished the ensemble. She didn’t look intimidating, but once Nicole or Resa got a look at her face, they’d be cowed.

Big sister powers came in handy.

Penny moved swiftly and silently down the stairs, careful to step over the fourth step down so she didn’t make the old wood groan. She paused on the ground floor and listened. But after a second, it was obvious that she was alone in the cabin. She grabbed a flashlight attachment and affixed it to the blaster. There was no reason for both of her hands to be full if this wasn’t her sisters getting into trouble.

Cicadas buzzed all around, the night louder now than it had been at dusk. But the hair on the back of Penny’s neck stood on edge and she just knew that something was wrong. She took off in the direction of the gorge. The main road was well patrolled at night and no one would have come up that way. If anyone wanted to cause mischief, they’d need to be sneaky. The only thing out this way was an old shed on the edge of the property that she’d claimed. It looked abandoned, but Penny stored an old speeder bike and some other things in there.

At this late hour there was no one outside. Penny quickly abandoned thoughts of stealth and took off at a run towards the shed. She thought she saw a flickering light in one of the windows and suspected that her sisters were doing things that they shouldn’t be. Resa was only twelve, but Nicole had long ago learned how to rebel and Resa was an eager pupil. They’d probably purloined some w**d or cigarettes from one of the other settlers in the compound.

Penny wasn’t their warden but she considered it her duty to catch them when they broke the rules. Not to turn them in, or to punish them that much, but to teach them how to disobey better. Kurt had a temper and with the wrong word it could fall on his daughters.

As she got closer to the shed, she was sure that she saw a light from inside. Penny stuck her blaster into the pocket of her sweater and pushed the door open, expecting to see Nicole and Resa. They’d lit an old gas lantern and left it sitting on the floor where one careless kick could set the wooden structure ablaze.

Resa jumped out from behind the door holding a thick plank of wood and screaming as she swung it wildly. Penny dodged and lifted up both of her hands, trying to stay out of the danger zone. “What the hell?” she demanded. “Resa, it’s me. Calm down. Put that down before you hurt yourself.”

The plank clattered to the ground and Resa looked up, eyes wide and panicked. She was in that awkward stage between kid and teenager. She’d taken to wearing makeup recently and mascara ran down her cheeks as if she’d been crying. But her dark hair was wet too and there were still splotches of water on her dark clothes. It hadn’t rained in a week, so Resa should have been dry as a bone.

“You didn’t go swimming in the river, did you?” Smoking was one thing, but swimming in the river at night was suicide. If the current didn’t get you, the falls would.

“It’s not that! I’m not dumb.” Her teeth practically chattered and the room was chilly. The shed had no insulation and it was cold, especially for a girl barely hitting five feet and only slightly drier than soaking wet.

“If you weren’t in the river, how did you get wet?” Penny asked, calling on a well of patience that she hadn’t gotten from either of her parents.

Resa bit her lip and looked down, tracing her foot in the dust on the ground. “I wasn’t swimming.”

“I’ll lock you in your room for the next month if you tell me you were in the river.” How could her sister be so stupid? Sure, she was a kid, but she was normally smarter than this.

A high-pitched yelp followed by a low groan came from beyond the door to the back of the shed. Penny’s head whipped around, looking for the source of the noise. Resa kicked the chair in front of her and knocked over an old box of tools that had been sitting on it, trying to draw Penny’s attention back to herself.

“What was that?” Penny asked, stepping closer to the door. The shed was split into two parts, the small anteroom where she and Resa now stood, and the larger chamber that housed the bike and could fit bigger vehicles. “Is Nicole making you stand lookout?” she asked. She took another step towards the door.

“No, don’t!” Resa lunged forward and grabbed her arm, trying to pull her back. “You can’t, she’ll kill me.”

“I’m bigger, I’ll kill her first,” Penny promised, yanking her arm away.

“It’s—it’s not—I—” Resa stuttered and dogged Penny’s steps, trying to keep hold. But a twelve year old was no match for a woman twice her age.

Still, Penny could remember being sixteen. She looked back at Resa. “Who’s in there with her?” As long as Nicole was with one of the kids from her class and not one of the adults, Penny might be able to let this go. And if it was one of the adults back there, Nicole wasn’t the one who’d be in deep s**t.

Though Penny was ready to show mercy, Resa somehow became more bashful. “It’s... well... I don’t know his name.” Resa was lying. She knew something and she didn’t want Penny to know.

Too bad.

Penny jerked back around and grabbed the door. Unfortunately for Nicole, it didn’t lock. Penny was already flinching, prepared to see her younger sister in a state of undress with one of the boys or girls from the Settlement. So what she saw instead took several moments for her to process, and when she did, her stomach dropped and her eyes widened as shock cascaded over her.

Shit. s**t s**t s**t.