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Chapter One - Ja on top of a rolling ridge across the prairie and revise

A teen

Which is even worse

I grabat s I pan down to her outfit She’s a poster child for a surplus store She looks like she’s been living out here on the scrub for weeks instead of days

And that is not a good sign

I press the button and theon ive her a few seconds to say so But she just sits there, staring atin the wind and her face is streaked with dirt There’s a little bit of se behind her

I whistle out a shrill call and yell, "Let’s fking go!"

The wind blows ure she didn’t hear onna wave I even have a split second of relief

She flips me off, stands up, swats the dirt froht

"Fucking Merc," I mumble under o chase after her He sent me soe for him I’m a few days late because of Harper, but that assle said package He never said kid

It’s earlyoff to the east, and the frost that gathered on the short prickly plants overnight is beginning to irl

I do not owe Merc this favor My debt was clearedI can’t afford to pass up I need to get Harper’s shit straight with the Adainst a deadline and since all my friends in the Company are now officially dead, Merc is really my only option when it comes to outside help

So Iafter this little shit who thinks she can flipto a crescendo when Ion

I look down at her camp What’s left of her caht have been the little fire she had going and a few bent-over blades of grass where she ht But other than that, it’s bare