Flanked

over his pants to clean away the dust. A shudder rippled through him as he extended the knife, handle out, toward Joe, whose face remained expressionless.
Joe released the fly, which buzzed away unharmed. He sank to his knees beside Devin and replaced the knife in the sheath, holding his hand between the weapon and Devin’s thigh. When the knife was seated, he rested his forehead against Devin and took deep breaths.
“Look, we weren’t trying to cause problems.” Peter took a step forward, his little whiny baby voice grating on Flix’s nerves. “It really was an accident. Isn’t there a watering station before too long where we can —”
Flix grabbed his shirt and pulled him back. Life in the north must be awfully cushy if water was abundant. “Shut up, Petey.”
Joe kept his head pressed to Devin’s thigh and fixed everyone else in his gaze. “This isn’t a dome, Peter. It isn’t even New America. There’s no watering station.”
An idea popped into Flix’s head. His maps. “Hey, what if I found us a source of water?” He scanned the underpass for their sack of stolen goods and found it lying open on the ground. As he headed for it, Joe stopped him with a hand on his shoulder — Flix only flinched a little — and directed him to a new, smaller pack made out of clothes. Flix pulled out a large Texas highways map and spread it open on the ground.
“Marc, run up and tell me what the highway marker nearest us says.”
“We’re north of Troy,” Joe said. “I saw the marker last night.”
Flix followed the route they’d taken from Austin and found Troy. A lake sat off to the west, but it would take them an hour to walk there and an hour to walk back, maybe longer since Devin needed to be guided wherever they went. Could they afford to waste two hours getting no farther from Austin and Mr. Boggs? “Okay. There’s a lake to the west, but it’s pretty out of the way. We’d lose a couple of hours. If we can hold out for a bit, I see another smaller lake north of us. Maybe six or ten miles.”
Joe leaned over Flix’s shoulder. He smelled like men should smell. “Will it have water? Lots of places have dried up.”
“No telling. It’s pretty tiny.” Flix slumped. He’d thought it could work, but he understood Joe’s reluctance. So much about the world outside Austin was a mystery.
“I read that rich people like to live on lakes,” Devin said. “Even if the lake is dry, we may still find water.”
Joe nodded. “Plus, it’s rural. There may be wells.” He seemed to be talking himself into the idea. He murmured, “You think that’s what we should do?”
Flix started to respond but stopped when he realized the question was meant only for Devin. Joe had his head tilted up to his giant lover like he and Devin were the only people in the world.
Almost imperceptibly, Devin nodded.
The invisible wall that had gone up around Joe and Devin dissolved. Joe said, “Everyone pack up. We leave now.”
Flix folded away his map and began rolling up his sleeping bag. He’d follow Joe anywhere.
***
Peter hobbled down a lane in some dumpdown town and tried not to let the prostitutes see him cry.
They blamed him. Condemnation shone in their eyes. So not fair. He hadn’t meant to make Marcus spill the water, hadn’t known it would be hard to get more. Now they were stuck heading kilometers out of the way, into this scraped-together town with its shoddy, small ranch houses and dead grass everywhere.
Peter walked next to Marcus and watched Flix sashay up to Joe and attempt to flirt. Flix’s fingers lightly brushed Mr. Fake-White’s arm.
Disgusting. Peter averted his eyes.
They passed a brick building where a tattered flag whipped in the stiff breeze. The flag reminded Peter of the New American flag, but this one had more little white stars and the maple leaf was missing. The stripes looked like they might be the same. He never would have imagined he’d miss saying Allegiance in school, or even going to school, for that matter, but he’d give just about anything to be there right now, sitting in Mrs. Dogbreath’s class, reciting the stupid Oath and listening to her drone on about the Articles of Incorporation with her grainy old lady’s traintone voice until his eyes drooped and he tuned her all the way out.
Just about anything? He’d give it all. The only parts of his life that really mattered had already been taken away.
He tried to keep the memories out of his head during the day. Dad on the floor next to the bed, slick red blood spreading over Momma’s new carpet. Momma, her sleepdress torn, still alive, still fighting, until the big man in black did something to her neck and threw her to the ground. Limp. Lifeless.
Peter’s throat tightened.
He shoved at Marcus, hard enough to get his attention but not hard enough to tweak him off too much. He was rewarded with a rougher shove back.
“Knock it off, jerko,” Marcus snapped. “You got us in enough trouble as it is.”
“You spat on me!” Peter’s voice cracked, and he wasn’t sure if he should blame puberty or the sticky dryness of his mouth.
Marcus’s blunt brown fingers clenched, and his voice dropped low. “You called my brother ugly things.”
Peter lifted his chin. “I called him what he is.” If these streetwhores wanted to pretend being plastic — a homosexual — was fine, that was their business, but Peter wasn’t buying in to their depravity. “The law states —”
Flix spun around. “Fuck your laws. And shut up, both of you. You’re wasting hydration.”
“Dumb fucks,” the big white guy, Devin, added.
Fake-White glanced over his shoulder and sighed. “Flix is right. Less talking, more walking.”
End of argument. Peter had been dumped at this hellpit three days ago. But already, he had learned; what Joe said to do, everyone did.
Peter remembered how his persecutor, that horrible businessman Boggs, had paraded him through the prostitutes’ hovel. The hot,