Dune was leaving and said that she'd be gone a while. Mad as it was to say, I was getting optimistic about being left alone.

I'd been here almost a month. I knew that because the nutter would scratch lines into the wall for each day that passed. The line which represented the day she pulled me out of the Razor Cola -Immortan rest her chrome soul- was special, stained dark with blood from her thumb. Apparently that was how she marked special occasions. If I counted the lines after the bloody smudge it added up to twenty seven. In those days when I started being alive enough to think I'd begun patching together an idea which had turned into a plan.

Those who knew me would have assumed that I'd gone off to Valhalla. Brothers who were dead and already there would be wondering where the hell I was. I didn't want to disappoint them.

Nux wouldn't be there. Filth like him don't get to ride eternal. I dismissed the way my blood pump clenched at that thought.

"Eyes are far away again. Whatcha thinkin' about Ducky?" Dune Interrupted my line of thought with her usual chatter and prying.

"About how much I hate it when you ask that."

"Jus' curious. Bandage changes before Dune goes." She grunted out, ignoring my glare.

I watched her walk across the space to fetch the rags that had been hung to dry the day before and the jug where she stored overflow from the aqua-cola catch. Dune walked with a mild gimp in her step. She couldn't extend that right leg completely. It stayed a little bent because the skin on the back of it didn't stretch right. I knew because once or twice I'd seen more of her bare flesh than I'd have cared to. War Boys aren't particularly modest either but it's different and unnerving looking at naked a woman. I never had before, at least not up close. The scars were almost chrome through.

At some point in her mediocre life she'd been torched just as bad as I had, leaving her looking like a croc skin bag all down the back. Maybe that was the only reason I was still alive, through surviving she must have had some basic knowledge of how to heal burns. Still I wondered how I had managed to fend off infection. This place couldn't even begin to compare with the Organic's sick ward.

Hateful glares and hard words didn't scare off Dune when she came at me ready to peel off the old layer and slap on the new. I tried fighting it once, but she'd easily over powered me in the state I'm in.

It was pointless and painful to fight. So, all I could do was try not to look at her face while she worked, her hands I'd watch though.

The right hand didn't have any finger nails, and every digit was always curled slightly, stiff from the tightness of the scarring. Her left hand was unremarkable and not at all damaged. I found myself hating that whole and untainted hand far less than the scarred one because it wasn't as clumsy and rough. It was soft. The fact that I almost liked to be touched with that good hand of hers confused me. Pissed me off.

As always, I'd rather be dead while she did the unwrapping. Yet, after that when her hands were full of the glop that she spread on my ugly hide- I hated Dune less.

It still hurt to be touched at all, but it was something about how the hands applied the salve. It was, I don't know, sort of soft and rust but shine too.

It made me feel things no War Boy should. It was like some dumb out-of-body thing that I couldn't help. I'd lean into the nutter with the shoulder that wasn't fried. My face always seemed to end up rested in her scar hand while the shine hand would graze over the unholy wrecked skin like a- I don't know words that work for describing it but whisper sounds close.

When this part was over I'd hate her again, even more than the last time I came up from the stupor.

While she put on the new layers I found a few words coated in a little venom. She deserved it for keeping me alive and constantly making me feel like a needy pup.

"I hope you find some lead in your face while you're gone."

She sighed as she wrapped up each finger on my left hand carefully. "Well. Dune hopes you wizz on yourself again while she's gone."

Rustbuckets, she knew what buttons to push. "Burn in hell!"

"We both already have Ducky."

What she said made me blink stupidly at the very notion. No, it hadn't been hell, it had almost been Valhalla for me. Almost. It was the failure to reach it that had been hell. I didn't care what it had been like for her to heal.

When she was finished with me she stood, wiping her hands on a rag from her back pocket and plucking her rifle from the foot of my sleep spot. Before she went she scratched at the part of my head that wasn't toasted and I jerked away from her fingers with a wince and a curse.

I hadn't shaved my head or face in weeks, not since the night before the one armed Imperator stole Joe's treasures. I hated to be reminded that the war paint was gone and that I was looking less and less like a proper War Boy by the day.

When she left I strained to hear the foot steps fade. Distantly I heard a motor sputtering and fighting her as she started it. It was an odd hum, not an engine I'd ever heard before.

She must have had two different rides. Because sometimes when she left for short trips to circle her territory I'd hear a motorcycle, not whatever I heard her leave in today.

If my ear wasn't lying to me, then I might be able to escape this hole in the dirt. I'd just have to get myself down that tunnel and onto that cycle. There was no room for doubt, because if I couldn't stay on the thing with this missing leg then I'd never make it to Valhalla.

Now that Dune was gone, ten days of careful plotting came to use. First thing I did was drink every drop she left in the jar for me. I couldn't take it with me unless it was already in my gut because Dune had the only canteen. It was a really odd feeling to drink that much in one go, I could sense it sloshing around when I moved. Seldom had I ever felt that before this place. Being shrewd and knowing the value of her crying cave was Dune's only merit. It was no wonder she was so often anxious to defend her turf.

I rolled over, biting back the urge to curse at the electricity shooting up through my spine when the ruined skin stretched under the ugly brown wrappings.

The loony devil was deadly serious about putting lead in anything that got too close. So, whenever she was gone to patrol her patch of dirt I'd find a way to pull myself over to the piles of scrap and junk that she lined the walls with. The collection was almost impressive, the fruit of years ripping off travelers and picking up the aftermath of skirmishes on the days ago by the pile, I had put together something that just might make it possible to stand and then stashed it back under the rubbish. Before fetching that I needed my pants.

Dune had pulled all of the shit out of the pockets and hidden my belongings away somewhere, then hung my pants on a rock pendant jutting out of the wall like a fist.

I could reach the pant leg that wasn't torn half off. With my right hand that was minimally bandaged I managed to curl my fingers in a fist around the ankle cuff and shake the slacks down from where they hung. After pulling them into my lap to inspect I could see that she'd altered them with a long line of stitches to close the left leg so that if I ever wore them again, my stump wouldn't hang out of it.

Something under my ribs hurt as I fisted the singed material tight in my painful fingers. I hated this. Hated it so deep and so pure that for a time I didn't even feel pain as I struggled to get them on.

The hate drove me harder. I dragged myself, scooting on my arse and palms to the scrap pile and yanking out the crutch I had made from three broken lance sticks -which she collected for no reason- and wadded rags that she hadn't been watching carefully enough for me not to steal out from under her sleep spot.

She'd kept my boot too. That was a bitch to pull on, it made the jerky of my back stretch and I swore that I could feel skin cracking. Now came the part I knew I might not be able to force myself through, tying the makeshift crutch to my stump-thigh and taking a stab at standing.

I must have sat staring for ages at the rusty thing I created and the even rustier space where the rest of my leg used to be. I pulled it into position flush against my hip and hesitated again after feeding the length of a leather belt under the crutch and the stub. I knew pain, it was my friend or had once been. If I had been able to carve the shine skin decals on my arms and underbelly with a razor blade when I was a barely more than a pup then I could do this now, own the pain. I had to. If not I'd never make it to Valhalla. Letta rip and tighten the shit up.

"VEEIGHT! Gahhfuck!"

I'd put the end of the belt through the buckle and pulled it tight in one swift move. It wasn't like cutting a piston or a flaming spark plug into your skin. It felt exactly like what it was, strapping a stick to a bloody stump and probably doing it completely wrong. I'd made the mistake of watching her change the bandages on that leg once and never made that mistake again. It was black and blue all the way to my fangin' sack and strapping something to it was just a stupid desperate idea, but here I was making stupid ideas into reality.

The aqua-cola in my guts roiled up to the back of my throat and Dunes vindictive words almost came true too. I was lucky enough not to spring a leak downstairs but I tossed up most of what she left in the jar for me.

I was laying prone, shivering in a pool of my own sick. What had I become? I shook my head and flung the thoughts away. I had to get up. Had to. So, I clawed my way over to the boulder I slept next to, dragging the thing I had strapped onto myself behind me. I needed something to help me crawl my way up because knew that I'd get nowhere trying stand straight up from the floor without something to lean into.

It was a slow ascent, weak right leg pushing me up only little by little in between full body tremors. When I was there on my fee- foot I felt an undeserved sense of pride at such a small feat. The crutch I had built was long enough that the end which I wrapped the stolen cloth around could be shoved up under my armpit, I'd intended that way so that it could bare some weight. I'd just have to pray to V8 that it could hold together long enough for me to get on that bike and head toward the canyon.

That's the plan. Get on the bike, go to the canyon and die with an engine between my legs like Joe intended. Rock Riders never hesitate to snipe off anything passing through their camp where the canyon bottle necked.

Then Valhalla.

Just have to get there. Hard part is over. Just have to get there. I leaned on the thing a little, then a lot, and finally took a clumsy step. Yes, the crutch could take my weight. I'd been worried that my hands were too ruined to make anything that wouldn't just fall to pieces.

I felt almost fully alive again, even if the walk was slow, and even if I fought dizziness and the shakes constantly. The tunnel was dark so, I took the torch Dune had left burning and held it in my teeth. Had to do it that way because my hands were busy, one kept me steady against the wall and the other gripped the shaft of the crutch.

Little by little. Step by step. On and on until I came to an unexpected obstacle. A fork in the path. Damn it. I didn't need to get lost, not fuckin' now.