Sylvia Ellis stood exposed at the boundary fence, her shirt darkened by the milk that leaked with every breath. Quentin Eldridge put himself between her and the rival truck, then named what his protection would cost. It was possession, and she both feared and craved the shape of it. She did not walk away.

His slow draws from her full breasts became the rhythm that anchored them both in the wasteland, each pull binding her need to his control. He carried ghosts, and the scar on his arm was the only one he would name. She wondered if she could surrender the last of her self-protection before everything else was taken.