Kes wiped the sweat from her forehead as she sat down against a rock in the shade and looked at the empty looking expanse of sand before her. –A person used to be there…– She thought to herself, knowing Anara could hear her. Her wife was silent though, simply sending her feelings of love and support. Kes fairly wrapped herself in those feelings and closed her eyes.

They’d just finished burying him, right next to where she’d killed him. They couldn’t afford to waste energy and perspiration moving him. Tresit was sitting next to Artem, looking off into the desert, lost in thought. Kes took a few deep breaths and then stood, going over to him. ”We have to get going.” She told him. The longer they stayed out here, the more of their strength that time and the sun would steal. They had some water with them, Tresit was carrying it in the canteen. Artem and Lingen had had supplies on them too that they’d been able to appropriate, some dried food and two canteens… a lot more than she and Tresit had had available to bring with them. Still, it would be exhausting work, dragging Artem all the way home. It would leave her and Tresit depleted, and possibly with not enough supplies left to really let them rest long enough to fully recover.

They might end up having to camp overnight  in the desert if they couldn’t make good enough time with the extra weight. As dark as it got, there was no traveling at night out here. She’d left her flashlight back at the house. She hadn’t thought she’d need it and, as a rule, it didn’t pay to carry extra weight that you didn’t essentially need. It cost energy and slowed you down if you needed to run – perhaps only a little, but that little could easily be the difference between escape or capture, even death.

While they slept, it was even possible Artem might wake and somehow get free and kill them in their sleep. She supposed he might see that as fitting, given how his father had been killed… At the house, they could bind him more securely. Kes had the rope she’d used for climbing – it was made with a metallic alloy core and it was more than strong enough to make sure Artem couldn’t get out of it, even if he could somehow get ahold of a knife.