using our supplies—”
“Dude, chill out,” Steph says, stabbing the leather in her hands. New leather, I notice, but I don’t say anything about that. “No one’s going to let you starve. And you could always go hunting? Callie and Nadine are out there today. Between them and Penny, they’re out there every day. You could do that.”
“Callie’s just trying to get away from M’tok,” I mutter.
“And Penny? Nadine?”
“Maybe they just like to stab things?”
“Look up,” Brooke commands me, and I tilt my head back. She grabs my chin. “See the sky? See the pretty suns? There’s no storm. That means there’s plenty of time to get food from caches and make more kah. The hunters are out. They’ll get fresh meat, and it comes nicely wrapped in its own skin. You can stop stressing.”
I make a frustrated noise. “I don’t know how.”
“Just try and enjoy the weather, all right?” She tilts my head back down and starts working on my braid again, as if I’m a mannequin she’s dressing up. “I’m happy about it. I heard if it stays clear tomorrow, Ashtar and Veronica are taking Pashov and Salukh back to Croatoan. If that’s the case, it’ll be nice enough for a vacation.”
“Vacation?” I echo at the same time Steph does.
“Yup,” Brooke says smugly, twisting my hair so I’m forced to stare straight ahead at Steph. It reminds me a little of being at the salon back at home, gazing uncomfortably at my reflection in the mirror with a million foil packets perched atop my head. “When Taushen and I got together, he promised we didn’t have to stick around any place if we didn’t want to. Long as we weren’t burdening others, that is. So we wandered around for a bit before showing up here, and I’m kind of in the mood to go exploring again. My honey said that if the weather turned nice, we’d head out for a bit. Not too far, but there’s a fruit cave a few days from here and I thought that’d be a mighty nice mini-vacation.” She pats my shoulder. “We’ll even bring you guys some fruit back if you like.”
Steph sighs dramatically, pulling her needle into the air. “God, fruit sounds so nice. I could use a change from the meat-on-meat diet. New carbs sounds wonderful, doesn’t it, Hannah?”
“Mmmhmm.” I can’t stop thinking about Brooke’s words. “They let you just leave? Really? No one tries to stop you?”
Brooke chuckles. “This isn’t a prison camp, silly. No one’s going to keep you here if you don’t want to be here, but it’s a heck of a lot easier to survive in a group than alone. And Taushen likes helping out. I do, too, but I also like to see the world and get away. Kinda like a honeymoon.”
“So what kind of fruit?” Steph asks, not looking up from her sewing. “Is it like Earth stuff or completely different?”
“Pretty different. Isn’t everything here?”
“You’d be the expert on that,” Steph tells her with a wink, and both women share a mischievous chuckle.
I keep thinking about this fruit cave, though. Not its contents…but escaping. Getting away from this awful, tense camp. It just seems to get worse every day. Raahosh and R’jaal both look at me like I’m trouble. I still don’t fit in with the other women. All of the Tall Horn guys glare at me every time they see me. Shadow Cat are glaring at everyone, thanks to Bridget breaking up with A’tam. Bridget says they were never together, that it was just a hookup, but A’tam never got the memo. Combine that with the tense situation between Callie and M’tok and mine with J’shel?
This place has been pure hell.
More than anything, I want to run away. God, I would love to run away. But I know I can’t survive on my own. I’m dependent on the rest of the tribe until I figure out how to be useful. I need to figure out how to take care of myself, how to survive. Until I do, I’ve got no say over anything.
I feel so powerless, and I’m so tired of it.
I grab Brooke’s hand as she tugs another strand of my hair to weave in. “Can I go with you guys?”
“To the fruit cave?”
I turn to face her. Brooke’s got a cute face and perfect brows—I’m not sure how she does that given our situation, but they look amazing—but the most striking thing about her is the faded pink ends of her hair