for rescuing you. He has received his paycheck, so it makes a great deal of sense he’d set this up. He’s a great many things, but he has no business out in the East that I’m aware of, and it would be a huge waste of his time to take you out East himself when he can toss the bounty over to me. I can respect that. Plus, I’m a woman. You’re more likely to cooperate with me at this stage. Of course, he’s assuming I have medical training of some sort because of my gender, which is ridiculous, but I happen to have field training, so he wasn’t wrong.”
Having met Sandro, I bet he knew a lot more about Anna than he wanted her to know about. “I’m not even going to attempt to complain at this point. In the East, I’m a lot less likely to die of infection than in the Alley.”
“Yes. I suspect that is the primary factor in his decision to transfer you to my custody. This isn’t precisely abnormal. Bounty hunters will work together when the need is great enough. None of us get a paycheck if you die, and he’s not the killing kind. Don’t get me wrong, he will—and has. But he prefers to use violence as a last resort.”
“Unless a perverted dick is putting his hands on a little girl.”
Anna nodded. “He doesn’t have any patience for that, no. His response was more violent than I expected out of him, but he made his point. Everyone knows now. I suspect for as long as he’s hanging around Tulsa, the lechers will be careful to keep their hands to themselves.”
“Makes me wish I was a poet and could do that, too.”
“Same. So, will you cooperate?”
I considered my situation, which involved a train headed to the East, a woman who could break me over her knee if she wanted, and the reality of having been shot in a place where gunshot wounds tended to equal a slow, agonized death. “I’d rather you have the money than Carlos.”
“Yeah. You broke his nose. He’s pretty pissed about that, but he grudgingly respects your resourcefulness. You rearranged his face with your stick.”
“He hit me first.”
“Yes, he did mention he’d attempted to slow you down. Ironically, he hadn’t meant to hit you in the head. Moretti claims he gave you a pretty nasty concussion. I thought those two would get into a row about it, but Carlos said it was an accident, and Moretti left it at that.”
“He’s just upset he got to be the poor bastard to get the blood out of my hair.”
“Blood can be quite challenging to get out of hair, especially in thicker, wavy hair like yours. Does it curl much when it’s wet and humid?”
“It can. It has a mind of its own. Some days, I expect it to rise up and wage war against me. I braid it if I think it’s going to get bad.”
“He combed the blood out of your hair?”
“He did. I doubt I could lift my arms that much to do it right now. Even shrugging hurts like hell. Any upward motion makes my ribs hurt like a bitch. The bullet cracked two of them.”
“Well, as I have no interest in upsetting a poet who can likely blast my head off when provoked, I’ll do my best to get you to the auction without inflicting any additional discomfort on you. I can’t prevent you from going onto the auction block. I hope you understand this is a job I need to do.”
“We all need money. I get that.”
“Well, yes. You’ve spent how long scavenging in the Alley?”
“Longer than I care to think about. Will you stay in the East with this bounty?”
“I’m thinking I’ll try to get into Asylum. I’m skilled, and with the money from your bounty, I can afford the application fees and the cost of living for a few years. I won’t be placed anywhere fancy, but everyone needs people like me, and I’m good at my job.”
She was. “Would you reconsider? The storms are only going to get worse.”
“The Alley is my home. I’m not a quadrant master, and while I don’t struggle as much as others do crossing the boundary, I can’t manifest in the East.”
I understood that. The first time I’d crossed the boundary, I’d assumed I’d be like her. Most were—or never learned to control their new brand of magic and avoided using it. “What are you in the East,