Chapter 15 · Rust and Relic - Chapter 15: What the Furnace Kept

"You're not thinking straight."

Liv didn't look up. She was sitting against the furnace wall, her legs pulled in tight, the iron plates stacked in her lap like they were the only thing keeping her lungs working. The shard's light made her knuckles look carved from bone.

"I'm thinking fine," she said.

"You want to walk back to the coast. With those. While every clan within three days knows we're here."

"I didn't say walk."

"Then what?"

She turned the top plate over. The inscription caught the light. "I said I'm not leaving them."

I crouched in front of her. My knee hit stone and I felt it all the way up my spine. "Liv. Listen to me."

"I'm done listening."

"If you stay here holding your mother's plates, you die. If you run with them, you die slower. That's the math."

Her head snapped up. "Don't you talk about math. Don't you dare stand there and reduce this to your—"

"To what? Logic? Yeah. I will. Because one of us has to stay alive long enough to figure out what the hell we're doing."

She stood. The plates stayed against her chest, cradled in one arm now.