They Left Me to Burn, Now I Own the Last Water

My family sold my water for eleven thousand dollars. Then they drove me forty miles into the desert to die.

"Get out, June."

My mother didn't even turn around. She just unlocked the doors of the Tahoe and kept both hands on the wheel.

Outside, the Saguaro Stop gas station shimmered in the heat. Dead pumps. Broken windows. A sign that said COLD DRINKS with the C shot out.

The dashboard read 121 degrees.

"This isn't the relief camp," I said.

"No," said Tessa from the passenger seat. "It isn't."

My sister turned around slowly. She was smiling. She'd had that smile since we were kids, the one she used right before she broke something of mine and cried to Mom that I did it.

"Mom," I said. "Where is the camp?"

"There is no camp for you." Diane finally looked at me in the mirror. Her eyes were flat. "Out."

I didn't move. My heart was pounding so hard I could hear it.

Three days ago, the taps in Phoenix ran dry at noon. Zero Day, the news called it. By sunset, a gallon of water cost four hundred dollars on the street.

And I had three thousand gallons buried under our garage.

Two years of my savings. Two years of everyone laughing at me. Doomsday June, they called me at the Water Authority, right before they fired me for saying the reservoir numbers were fake.

The numbers were fake.

I was right.

And last night, while I slept, my family pumped my cistern dry and sold every drop.

"You sold it," I said. My voice shook. "All of it."

"Eleven thousand dollars." Tessa held up a fat envelope and fanned herself with it. "Not bad for a hole in the ground."

"That water was for us. For this family."

"This family?" Tessa laughed. "Oh, June. You still don't get it."

She reached under the collar of her white sundress and pulled out a necklace.

A small silver locket. Oval. Worn smooth at the edges.

My locket.

The one I had worn since I was five years old. The one that went missing from my room a month ago.

"Give that back."

"Why would I?" She turned it in the sunlight so it flashed in my eyes. "It's mine now. Everything's mine now."

She leaned closer.

"Do you know what's inside this? A tiny little key. And do you know who's been looking for the girl who owned it?"

I stared at her.

"The Ashcrofts," she whispered. "As in Ashcroft Water. As in the family that owns the last full reservoir in Arizona. Their granddaughter was kidnapped nineteen years ago. She was five. She had a silver locket."

The air in the car went cold. Even at 121 degrees.

"You were never ours, you know," Diane said quietly. "Ray brought you home. I fed you. That's all."

"No." The word scraped out of me. "No, that's not..."

"Ashcroft," Tessa said, tapping the locket against her lips. "That's my name now."

I lunged across the seat.

I got two fingers on the chain before Diane twisted around and slapped me so hard my head hit the window.

My ear rang. I tasted blood.

"Get her out," Diane snapped.

Tessa was already out of the car. She yanked my door open, grabbed my hair, and dragged me onto the burning concrete.

My palms hit the ground. The pavement was so hot it hissed against my skin.

"Wait," I gasped. "Please. Just give me one bottle. One."

Tessa crouched in front of me. She took a bottle of water from her bag. Cold. Sweating. Beautiful.

She twisted off the cap.

And she poured it out on the ground next to my hand.

I watched it soak into the dust. Gone in two seconds.

"Oops," she said.

Then Diane got out too. She was holding my ledger. My notebook. Three years of water readings and pump math and every calculation I had ever made.

"You and your little numbers," she said. "Nobody ever listened to them."

She threw it into the dirt.

"Nobody will listen now either."

They got back in the Tahoe.

"Mom!" I screamed. "Mom, I'll die out here!"

Diane rolled the window down two inches.

"That's the idea."

The tires spun. Gravel hit my face. And the silver Tahoe shrank into the heat until it was just a flash on the horizon.

Then nothing.

Silence. The tick of cooling metal. A hot wind that felt like an open oven.

I crawled to my ledger and pulled it against my chest. My hands were already blistering.

Forty miles to Phoenix. No water. No phone. No shade except a dead gas station with half its roof gone.

I did the math, because I always do the math.

At 121 degrees, with no water, a woman my size has maybe six hours before her body starts shutting down.

Maybe less.

I got to my feet. My legs shook.

I was not going to die here. I was not going to let Tessa walk into that family's house wearing my locket and my name while I dried up on Highway 87.

I would get out of this desert.

And then I would take it all back.

That was when I heard the engines.

Low. Heavy. Getting closer.

I turned.

Three black trucks were coming down the highway straight toward me, kicking up a wall of dust. On every door was the same logo.

A blue drop of water.

The Ashcroft logo.

And the men hanging out of the windows were holding rifles.