Daybreak by Ellen Connor Page A

vibration. An engine.
    Trucks were few and far between, even on a main trading route. His mouth twisted. Not overt. Nothing about him was. But she liked that she was getting to know his subtle tells. She knew to get off the road long before he gave the signal.
    “Stay low,” he said to Adrian.
    The younger man nodded. Pen flicked Tru a look, ready with some quip about his new protégé. But he didn’t seem to be in the mood for gibes, so she let it die unsaid. The responsibility he felt for Adrian’s safety was as clear as his eyes.
    Crouched in the dense overgrowth, Tru stayed watchful as the vehicle rumbled closer. That extra edge of determination turned him into someone Pen could trust. She forced herself to look away from his profile, although she wanted to linger on the hint of red that tinged his two-day growth of stubble.
    He’d kissed her. And she was already thinking about when he would kiss her again.
    The truck was larger than the one she’d been stuffed into. “That one’s valuable,” she whispered. “Petroleum, maybe.”
    O’Malley controlled all the fuel stores that remained. Therefore, only vehicles that belonged to him—or had been stolen from him—ran on the east coast. And once the supplies vanished for good, there would be no more. The ability to drill and refine oil had been lost in the Change, like so many technologies, some of which she barely remembered.
    Tru squinted, as if giving the scene another pass through his quick mind. “Because of the armor?”
    Nodding, Pen ignored the weird stench of the muck they were lying in, bellies to the ground. “More guards, too. Two on the roof, at least. And one of them’s a skinwalker.”
    “You can tell?”
    “Anyone with magic. Sometimes it’s an aura I can see. Colors. Other times it’s a prickle behind my ears.”
    Moving just enough to bring his hand around, he touched the spot she’d mentioned. “Here? You feel me here all the time?”
    She shot him a killer stare. He only grinned and turned his attention back to the road. Minutes passed as they waited in stillness. The noises of the swamp took the engine’s place as the truck rolled out of sight. Tru began to move, but she grabbed his arm.
    “Listen again. Wait for it.”
    Rather than arguing, which she was fully prepared to counter, he did as she said. His eyelids seemed perpetually at half-mast. Lazy and insolent. That hardly changed when he was concentrating, but the shape of his mouth did. Full lips drew in—the exact opposite of his don’t-give-a-damn smile.
    Recognition changed him again, just bordering on surprise. “Shit, you’re right.”
    “Big shipments always travel with a tail, way back. O’Malley learned the hard way that some of his drivers couldn’t be trusted. He sends guards to watch the guards.”
    “You and the others weren’t valuable enough for that yesterday?”
    “Two dozen scrawny slaves. We’re a dime a dozen compared to enough refined crude to power O’Malley’s entire fleet for a week.”
    “Fuckers.”
    Pen smiled at his indignation.
    On his other side, he hustled Adrian back into the covering foliage. Funny, but the boy stuck close to Tru, not her. The Orchid, for all the reverence people laid on her, couldn’t match the pull of a father figure. Shades of Mason all over again, which gave her hope that Tru would get them safely to North Carolina.
    She had no such confidence in her physical appeal. Conquest was conquest. He’d get what he wanted out of her and move on. Fair enough. She just didn’t want it to happen before reaching her destination.
    The truck’s tail was smaller, just an old vehicle—so old it lacked a computer chip. Those all fried during the Change. No one sped, not even in a vehicle so small. The roads and the overall lack of fuel meant driving to minimize repairs and waste.
    “We have about a minute to decide,” she said. “Take it or stay on foot.”
    “What mojo can you offer?”
    “I could distract the