UnSouled

“Don’t you dare accept their spin! I know you’re smarter than that. What we did was a liberation! We freed nearly four hundred Unwinds and added more than a hundred storks to our number.”

“And in the process more than twenty kids died—plus, we still don’t have an accurate count of how many were tranq’d and got left behind.”

“It couldn’t be helped!”

He looks farther down the low-roofed tu

“We’re at war,” he reminds her. “There are always casualties in war.” He steels his eye contact, trying to make her look away, but she doesn’t. But she also doesn’t argue. He reaches out, putting a comforting hand on her shoulder, which she doesn’t shake off.

“The thing to remember, Bam, is that our plan worked.”

Now she finally looks away from him, signaling her acquiescence. “That valley was pretty isolated,” she says. “It was a long road out for those kids who went ru

He moves his hand from her shoulder to her cheek and smiles. “Which means half of them got away. The glass is half-full, Bam. That’s what we need to remind everyone. You’re my second in command, and I need you to focus on the positive instead of the negative. Do you think you can do that?”

Bam hesitates; then her shoulders slump at his gentle touch, and she gives him a reluctant nod, as he’d known she would.

“Good. That’s what I like about you, Bam. You take me to task, as you should, but in the end, you always see reason.”

She turns to go, but before she leaves, she tosses him one more question. “Where do you see this ending, Starkey?”

He smiles at her even more broadly than before. “I don’t see it ending. That’s the beauty of it!”

40 • Bam

Bam moves through the tu

A kid in tears, mourning the death of a friend.

A terrified new arrival, calmed by an older stork.

A hapless fourteen-year-old “medic” trying to suture a leg wound using dental floss.

She sees scenes of hope and despair around her and doesn’t know which to give more credence.

She passes one kid sharing his ration of food with another, while beside them a young girl teaches an even younger girl how to use one of the automatic rifles they confiscated from Cold Springs.

And then there’s the boy who was forced to shoot the harvest camp director, sitting alone, staring off into nowhere. Bam would comfort him, but she’s not the comforting type.

“Starkey’s proud of all of you and happy with our victory today,” she tells them. “We took the battle to the enemy, and we made history!”

She primes them, but she holds back, because she knows she mustn’t steal Starkey’s thunder. She’s Bam the Baptist, preparing the way for the Savior of Storks.

“He’ll be gathering everyone before di

When she’s done priming the masses for Starkey, she turns down a side passageway that should be familiar, but she bumps her head for the umpteenth time on a jutting piece of stone. So many of these tu

This is the storage room, where food and supplies are kept. This is also where Hayden is currently stationed, with an armed guard at all times who is there for both his protection and to make sure he stays on his best behavior.

“He’s a flight risk, but we can’t make him look like a prisoner,” Starkey had said. “We’re not the Juvenile Authority.”

Of course, Hayden is a prisoner—but God forbid they make him look like one.

It was Bam’s suggestion that he be put in charge of food distribution. First because it was what he did when he first arrived at the Graveyard, so he had experience. Second because the kid who had been doing it was killed today.

She finds him taking inventory of their ca

The guard asks if he can go to the bathroom, which is quite a hike from this spot in the mine, and she lets him go. “I’ll watch Hayden until you get back.” He offers her his Uzi, but she refuses it.

Hayden has a pad and jots down notes about their food supply.

“You have way too much chili,” he says, pointing to a stack of gallon-sized cans. “And it’s not like you can disguise it to be anything but chili.”

Bam crosses her arms. “I knew you’d already be complaining. In case you forgot, we just set you free. You should be grateful.”

“I am. In fact, I’m ecstatic. But incarceration at a harvest camp must have left me a little brain damaged because suddenly I’m putting larger concerns ahead of my own.”

“Like having too much chili?”

He doesn’t respond to that—he just moves around the room continuing his inventory. Bam glances off, wondering when the guard will be back. She came here because she considers it her job to keep an eye on Hayden, but she doesn’t like him—never did. Hayden’s the kind of guy who gets in your head, but only goes there to amuse himself.

He looks up from his inventory pad, catching Bam’s gaze. He holds it—longer than a glance, but shorter than a look. Then his attention is back on his pad again. But not really.

“You realize he’s going to get you all killed, don’t you?”

Bam is caught off guard—not by Hayden’s comment, but by how it infuriates her. She feels her cheeks flushing in outrage. She must not allow him to put thoughts into her head. Especially when those thoughts are already there.

“Say one more thing about Starkey, and the next sound you hear will be your head cracking like an egg at the bottom of the nearest mine shaft.”

Hayden just smirks. “That’s clever, Bam. I had never counted you among the clever!”

She scowls, not sure whether to take that as a compliment or an insult. “Just keep your mouth shut and do what you’re told, unless you want to be treated like a prisoner.”

“I’ll make a deal with you,” Hayden says. “I won’t say a thing to anyone else, but I get to speak my mind with you. Fair enough?”

“Absolutely not! And if you try, I’ll rip your lousy tongue out and sell it to the highest bidder.”

He guffaws at that. “Point for Bam! You truly do excel in disturbing imagery. Someday I may want to study under you.”

She shoves him—not hard enough to knock him down, but enough to push him back and off balance. “What makes you think I’d want to hear anything that comes out of your mouth? And what makes you think you know better than Starkey? He’s doing amazing things! Do you have any idea how many kids we saved today?”