1 Chapter 1

She had been travelling with Boone, going back and forth from Novac to REPCONN to settle the dispute with the neighboring ghouls. During one excursion, they stopped at NCR Ranger Station Charlie only to discover it completely sacked, all the NCR rangers killed.

Boone reacted indifferently, claiming he knew none of the victims. She stared in shock. The holotape and Legion casualties left behind were answer enough to identify the assailants. Boone started dragging the bodies outside. They couldn't burn them or risk alerting the Legion of their location, but she suspected the rangers received a more respectful burial than the legionnaires.

When Boone returned from disposing the corpses, she was replaying the holotape for the third time.

"This wasn't just an attack," she told him. "This was an execution."

"Are you surprised after Nipton?" Boone grunted.

She looked away without responding. She remembered the smoldering pile that used to be Nipton. She had reached the town just after it had happened. The leader of the Frumentarii merely glanced at her from a distance before continuing on his way. The message was clear. The Legion was dangerous, and everyone needed to know it.

"We'll stay here for the night," Boone decided.

"Are you sure that's safe?" she asked him dubiously. "What if they return?"

"It's unlikely that they will. It's much more probable that we would just run into them on the road back to Novac. I'd rather bunker down here than face them in the dark."

So it was decided, although she wasn't completely convinced of his reassuring words. They looked for food among the ruins of the station and shared a meal of canned beans and beer over the campfire.

As usual, the Mojave turned chilly once the sun disappeared, and she pulled her shawl tighter around her shoulders. It was one of the few things she had possessed Before the Bullet, before she had lost her memory when she was shot in the head. She had no idea of the shawl's personal significance. It was black with pink and white specks, and it was starting to go threadbare. She suspected it must have been special to her in some way and so she clung to it desperately, as if it might reveal some shred of information about her past.

"So, Boulder City?" said Boone. He rarely spoke in completely sentences.

Her cheeks were warm with the beer. Alcohol was not her typical beverage of choice, but it could not be denied that it was more abundantly available than water. "Boulder City," she simply affirmed.

Manny Vargas had recently divulged that the Great Khans and Checkered Jacket—the man who shot her—were on their way to Boulder City after leaving Novac. She pursued them, chasing for answers. Perhaps as well as a small amount of revenge.

"Will you stay in Novac?" she asked him.

Boone looked at her over his sunglasses. His eyes looked misty from the campfire. His voice remained stoic. "Doubt it. There's nothing left for me in Novac." Boone had had his own serving of revenge, and she knew he was referring to the abduction of his wife. Another reason to hate the Legion. She had never told him that Carla had been pregnant, a truth she had discovered from the Legion receipt papers. She feared that the truth would be too painful for him.

"You could come with me," she offered in a small voice.

"To Boulder City?" He scoffed, but it sounded more like a grunt.

"I have a feeling that my journey won't stop at Boulder City."

He grunted again. "Nothing better to do anyway."

She looked away, hating how he made it sound like a chore.

But Boone was a man in pain, and his drinking didn't stop with his first beer. Soon, his cheeks were just as red as hers. He inched closer to her on the bench, even as she kicked the campfire out.

"I'm sorry," he slurred. She smelled the beer on his breath.

"You don't have to be sorry," she said. "I get it."

"No, it's no reason to be an ass to you."

She said nothing. Boone talked a lot more when he was drunk.

"Truth is, you remind me a lot of her."

She had never met Carla, so she had no insight to determine if the comparison was a good or bad one. Most of Novac was under the impression that Carla was a selfish bitch. She wanted to at least give the dead the benefit of the doubt.

"She was determined. Hell of an understatement. But despite her tough attitude, she always had this innocence of the wasteland. Sheltered, whatever. It's almost as if she didn't belong in such a brutal world."

She touched the raised scars hidden in her hairline, understanding more than most what a brutal world the Mojave Wasteland was.

"And like her, you don't let the darkness extinguish your spirit."

In an uncharacteristically tender moment, Boone reached out to cradle her cheek. She turned her face into his palm, relishing the heat.

And then he moved in to reach her lips, and she did not think she would have turned him away.

But she did, pulling out of his grasp. "Your wife," was her only explanation.

Boone's tenderness instantly faded. The grim lines returned to his face. "Carla is dead."

"How can you be so sure? I wouldn't want you to give up so easily on me."

Boone's silence was tense. She reached to touch his face.

But the moment was gone. He got to his feet. "I'll take the first watch." And then he disappeared.

With little else to do, she chose a gutted-out camper with the cleanest-looking mattress for the night. The beer sent her to sleep quickly with dreams of burnt clothes and hazy desert. No recurring dream tonight with forgotten, whispered promises in a distant cave.

She didn't know how long it had been. The stiffness in her neck suggested hours, but suddenly her face was scraping against the ground as someone dragged her feet.

She struggled against them, but others were there to restrain her. She was bound and tied in no time.

She was turned on her back, allowing her to see her red-clad captors.

Legion.