Dec stood muscle-achingly still and counted from one hundred using a crooked stone on the far wall as an anchor for his eyes. He didn't stop counting until the dune bug's wheels left the rocky grind of the farm track and rejoined the bitumen whir of the freeway. Only then did he allow himself to pace the cramped space giving flex and release to his tightly strung muscles.

Where was Teegan? Was she coming back or had she fled with her nerves as Dec was tempted to do now? If the situation in the city was as bad as those two soldiers made it sound, he had to do something about it—help his sister, his mum, Tommy, anything.

He placed his hands on the stone wall and lent his weight against the limits of its bearing. The scent of urine wafted, cinching the back of his throat and welling his eyes. He felt as old and as beaten down as the stone wall itself and wondered how long it would be until someone cocked their leg and took a piss on him too. It occurred to him that this might have already happened, what with Rain's lies, Lazar's promises and Teegan's disappearing act.

The sun reached and passed its apex while he waited for the rumble of the convoy to disappear down the highway and for the next convoy to break the ensuing silence. When none came, he was left to his thoughts, which stewed with the rising heat of the day and the pore-stifling impress of the stone shelter.

He needed to get back to the city. There was no point standing around achieving nothing but a slow confidence wilt and sweaty armpits. He could leave like Teegan, try to walk the distance back to Atunda, which could take—he attempted a quick calculation in his head—seven to twenty-five hours depending on how far along the freeway he actually was. His chances of getting caught were high, but then so were his chances of getting caught here.

It seemed like a plausible plan—the best one he had given the circumstances. The only thing stopping him, then, was—

He looked down at Rain, who was still in the same position as before, arms folded across her chest, lips parted in a rosebud pout and for a second, a flicker of his old indifference returned, the indifference that had made him turn away from her when she'd been injured in the cemetery. He tried to turn away now, but found himself stopped mid-step like a bird flown into a glass window. His mind was halfway back to Atunda, but his body wouldn't budge.

Growling, he knelt beside the Northerner and passed his fingers over the pulsepoint on her neck to find it strong and steady as it had been the night before. Continuing his inspection, his eyes roved the length of her torso, stopping on her stomach where the material of her skivvy tented around the clamp.

Remembering the strange amber colour of her blood, his hands moved to peel the material away, tensing when they met the resistance of the dry clot beneath. He didn't know what he was expecting, but it certainly wasn't normal, healthy looking scabs in the colour of normal, healthy looking blood. The sight of it made him tug the skivvy back down peevishly. He must've imagined amber in the light of his own adrenaline the night before.

Pulse—check. Wounds—check. Everything seemed to be working fine and yet her consciousness remained elusive. He thought he remembered a documentary about brain injury patients waking up from comas due to repetitive cognitive stimulation or something like that—the families talking to them, singing, using physical touch. He certainly didn't want to talk to her, nor did he want to sing, which left only—

He eyed the gentle rise and fall of her chest, noting the steady uniformity of each breath and the way her hands had been placed at the apex of her collarbone as though she was clasping an invisible funeral bouquet. He imagined moving them into a less morbid pose when he noticed her right hand was still locked in the same awkward pointing gesture it had been in since her fall—all digits bent, save for the index, which stuck out like the barrel of a pistol.

Seeking to lay that finger to rest amongst the natural curve of the others, he reached out and touched her, meeting the resistance of joints fused with a whole night's inaction. Carefully applying more pressure, he turned the finger inward, curling it upon itself and tucking it beneath her thumb, inadvertently trapping his own hand in her grasp.

He froze, mind screaming to pull away, but once again, body refusing to obey. For a long, tense moment, he struggled with his conscience before relaxing into her hold and surrendering to the warm simplicity of it.

Her hands are so small, he thought. Like petals atop stems. His hands seemed so oafish next to them, so nobbly and cold, so blotched with veins he would've been embarrassed had there been someone else to view the difference besides himself. Curiosity piqued, he lifted her hand, which was heavy in its despondency, and continued his assessment down the length of her arm, noting how the contours were just as well balanced there. It was strange to think those hands, those arms had been trained to wield a knife and attack the painful pressure points in a human neck. He didn't dare ponder what else those hands were capable of in case the thought transferred itself into Rain's unconscious mind and gave her ideas.

There was a faint tan line a few inches above Rain's wrist where her PalmPod had been removed and where a series of fine filigree scars made a cross-stitch pattern along the sun-protected strip of skin. They were purposeful, almost menacing and they made him want to reach out and touch them too.

He brought his hand closer.

He shouldn't have brought his hand closer.

Quick as a viper, Rain's petal hand flung open and gripped his arm while the other shot up to take hold of his neck. Her eyes snapped open and her rosebud lips withdrew into a thin line. Close up like that, she looked as cold and as humourless as he'd always expected Northerners to look and there was something in her gaze, or rather, something missing from those cold, black eyes that thickened his blood and ran it cold.

"Hi-young," she said, or something that sounded like the greeting and the adjective combined.

Dec's hands rose instinctively to his neck in an attempt to pry her fingers away. Had her strength not been compromised from so long in a coma, he might have been in trouble. As it was, he managed to loosen her hold just enough to continue breathing. "What?" he rasped.

Rain drew herself into sitting position, using his neck and arm as leverage and repeated herself, "Hi-young?" she repeated, before letting loose on a string of jibberish that seemed to contain too many vowels to be a functional language.

Dec, faint from oxygen loss, took a moment to realise she was talking to him. "I... don't... understand," he wheezed.

Rain shook him so hard, his teeth knocked in his mouth. Her strength was returning. "Do not play dumb with me. You told me you needed this technology," she said, switching to Southern. "But you lied about why."

Technology? For a second, Dec was overwhelmed by the urge to cough, only he could do nothing but elicit a thick, choking sound. Rain's hand remained merciless on his throat. "Technology as in the trackpad?" he finally managed to rasp.

"Trackpad? Is that what you're calling it?" Rain said slowly, the word rolling like something hard and insoluble against her tongue.

If Dec had been confused before, he was totally and completely flabbergasted now. Hopeless to do anything else, he tugged the trackpad out from the back of his jeans with his free hand.

Rain snatched it from his grasp and barely taking one look at it, brought it down with the conviction of a gavel. It sliced the air, hitting the ground with a harsh, glazed crack.

"No!" Dec cried, somehow finding it in himself to struggle once more. Had the flexi glass met dirt it might have survived. But as it was, it struck the jutting corner of a rock, shattering into five perfect crystalline shards like the cut sides of a diamond.

Rain barely flinched. Instead, her now free hand rose to add more pressure to his neck, stoppering any further protest from Dec. "This isn't the time for games. You wanted me to create the patent. I did so without asking questions. But now—" She leaned forward so her breath ghosted his face, hot and threatening. "Now that I find out why you really wanted it, I can't let you have it ... I should kill you."

Her gaze was fixed on his face, drowning him in the well-deep emptiness of her coal -black eyes, so unfocused, it was as though she'd stopped seeing him altogether. For the first time since they'd met, Dec let himself believe it was all over. For once, he really did think she would kill him.

"Rain ... It's me. Dec," he said, pushing the words through his voice box in one last desperate surge of strength. The sun passed behind a cloud and flickered with his fading consciousness. "Declan Hancock." This time, it came out more like a hiss.

Rain's grip faltered at his name, and for a second, her hands seemed to shake from the effort of holding him still. Then, one-by-one, Rain's fingers came away like the joints of a retort stand loosening, until there was nothing between Dec's lungs and the oxygen they so required.

Dec heaved and clutched his neck to replace the pressure and lessen the sudden surge of blood to his head. The skin was hot and swollen. He could hear Rain's breath, quick as a panicked hare in the silence.

"Declan?" she said.

Dec raised his head to meet her gaze, noticing how her lips had lost their bunched tightness and dropped open in shock. Her eyes, well-empty before, had focused and become brighter as though the darkness in them had retreated into her skull. She leaned back against the wall, shoulders curled inward, hands clutching her neck as though she was the one that had been choked.

"Who did you think I was?" he whispered, voice so thick and bruised, he sounded like he was trying to speak through water.

Rain didn't answer. She didn't have to for the gravel crunch of approaching footsteps stilled and silenced them both. The footsteps reached the entrance of the shelter ... and stopped.