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just don’t trust her. What makes her different from the guys that took her car? We don’t know shit about her!”
    Dusty opened his mouth to respond, but glanced at Jessie briefly before doing so. Jessie beat him to the punch.
    “ What do you want to know about me?” she asked. “We don’t have to be friends. I don’t expect an invitation to Christmas dinner. But I’m all you’ve got.”
    “ And that way you get a nice happy reward,” Tanya said, pointing out what seemed obvious to her.
    “ Fine!” Jessie snapped, rubbing the back of her neck in irritation. “Maybe that’s it! Maybe you’re just a fucking paycheck. At least that means I need to get you back safe and sound, don’t it? Either way, trust me or not, you get back okay and you never have to be bothered by me again.”
    The moment of silence stretched out, tense and awkward. Jessie stared at Tanya, then occasionally glanced over at Dustin. He would look away quickly though, embarrassed by the argument. Finally the former gymnast relented, either seeing Jessie’s point or giving in to her brother’s obvious, if unspoken, request.
    “ So where are we going? We can’t walk without food or water for that long.”
    “ I know a guy, we can be there before the day is over,” Jessie said, hating her only option but knowing she had to take it.
    “ Thought you said everybody wants something,” Tanya pointed out. “What’s he going to want?”
    “ He’ll probably want to shoot me,” she admitted. “But he’ll help. He helped me before and got nothing for it.”
    “ Why not head to Vegas? That’s closer – or even Lake Havasu?” Dustin asked, thinking hard about geography and momentarily distracting himself from his pain.
    “ Vegas was a shit-hole full of people aching to bleed you dry before. Imagine what it’s like now,” Jessie said. “Besides, I heard they had one of the first and biggest dirty bombs.”
    “ What about Lake Havasu?” Tanya asked, remembering seeing it from the window of the airplane as the flew overhead. “That place used to be nice, didn’t it?”
    Jessie thought it over and shrugged. She had partied there a few times before the bombs, it was a great place. “Okay, maybe. This guy I know, he’s closer though. If he won’t help us we can head there.”
    “ Okay, you got us,” Tanya told her. “Lead the way.”
    Jessie smiled, then pointed to the North and East. “Let’s go, we’ll have to help Dusty up like before.”
    She made her way to a niche in the wall of the wash and climbed up. She sat down on the edge and waited for Dustin to get in place. He worked his way up, grunting along the way, and grabbed onto Jessie’s hands while Tanya pushed from behind. He made it up, coming into close contact with Jessie again and enjoying it in spite of the pain he felt. Jessie just smiled encouragingly at him and made sure he was all right before offering Tanya her hand. Tanya ignored it, easily climbing up the wall on her own with muscles that were trained to bounce and jump.
    They set out, Jessie leading with her gun then slipping it back into her pants so that she could help Dustin. He moved a little quicker that way, and clearly enjoyed the close contact with the starlet pretending to be a courier.
    “ How…did…you….get hurt?” he asked between steps that made him wince and drove the breath from him.
    Tanya walked beside them, watching carefully and listening intently. Jessie knew what she was doing and found it annoying and touching, how she was so worried about her brother.
    “ It was… a long time ago,” Jessie said. “I was in the Army, back when the world just started turning to shit. I was in Iran in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
    “ What happened?” Tanya asked, sparing Dustin the breath and effort.
    Jessie almost shrugged, but didn’t want to hurt the kid clinging to her. “Wrong place; wrong time. I got hurt. Got me fixed up, sent home, and out of the Army. End of