“Nathan.”
“Nathan?” She shrugged. “You don’t look so good.”
“Yeah, well, I’ve been shot about nine times. That should do it.”
Elle shook her head.
“How’d that happen?” she asked.
“Omega,” he replied, wincing again. “They’ve got a nasty bite.”
“Yeah, I’ve seen it.” Elle took a step closer. The dog lowered his head, growling softly. “Hey, your dog looks like he wants to eat me.”
“He probably does.” Nathan waved his hand. “Down, Bravo. Relax.”
The dog pulled back a little, taking a defensive stance between Nathan and Elle. Nathan’s clothes were soaked in blood. His hands were slick in the stuff. It ran down his arms and pooled on the floor.
“I can help you,” Elle stated. “You can’t do this yourself.”
Nathan took several great, heaving breaths and dropped his arms.
“I could,” he said, cracking a tired smiled. “But I’d probably screw it up.”
“You can trust me,” Elle replied.
She heard the tinny irony in her voice. Trust. What a false word.
“Really,” Elle said. “I promise I won’t hurt you if you don’t hurt me.” Bravo growled. “And if your dog doesn’t eat me.”
Nathan laughed, then stopped.
“Okay,” he rasped. “It’s a deal.”
Elle dropped to one knee and rummaged through her pack. She pulled out her medical kit and walked to Nathan, kneeling next to his trembling form. He was wearing an armor-plated vest, but that hadn’t saved him from the onslaught that had wounded him.
“What happened?” Elle asked again.
She pulled the Velcro apart on the vest. Nathan gritted his teeth. She undid the straps as best she could and pulled the vest over his head. There were bloody bullet holes in his shirt, two near his left armpit and one near his right.
“You weren’t shot nine times,” Elle said, forcing a grin. “Just three.”
“Yeah. But there was… an explosion.” He exhaled. “Sent me flying.”
“Are you with the militias?” Elle asked.
“Technically, yes,” he replied. “I was on a routine patrol with my men. Bravo and I were checking out an abandoned FEMA camp about forty or so miles from here. We came under heavy fire. I lost all my men. Bravo and I escaped…” He laughed harshly. “We’re as good as dead now.”
“You’re going to be fine,” Elle lied.
She pulled back the layers of his jacket and shirt. Pieces of glass and twisted metal had burrowed deep into his chest, embedded in his skin. The bullets were still inside him. She bit her lip — she had no way to remove the shrapnel, no tools with which she could pull the bullets out.
Just do your best, she told herself. That’s all you can do, anyway.
Elle took a cloth from her backpack and poured some water on it, swabbing the open wounds, cleaning them with alcohol. Nathan swore under his breath.
“So it was Omega?” Elle asked, attempting to distract him from the pain.
“Omega mercenaries,” Nathan corrected, huffing. “Hired hit men. Those suckers are dangerous. They come in from all over the world, and they’re brutal as hell. They don’t fight like we do.”
Elle nodded. She understood that. In Los Angeles, the Klan was a warring faction of uncivilized anarchists, thirsty for blood and desperate for survival. The apocalyptic environment drove them to archaic measures. They had no sense of right or wrong, no code of conduct. There was no such thing as fighting fair.
Brutality ruled everything, especially war.
“Are you sure they were mercenaries?” Elle asked.
“Pretty sure, why?”
“I’m tracking a bunch of Slavers into the mountains,” she answered. “They took my friends. They disguise themselves as rogue militias and pick up civilians. Sell them into slavery, I guess.”
“We’ve heard of the Slavers,” Nathan replied, groaning as Elle swabbed antiseptic over the deeper wounds. It was several minutes before he could talk again. The dog, Bravo, stood there the whole time, watching Elle with dark, intelligent eyes.
“The real militias and the National Guard have had more to worry about than them,” he said at last. “One of these days we’ll take our men up there and wipe them out.”
“Sooner rather than later would be good,” Elle remarked.
“So they took your friends?”
“Killed one. Took three.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Welcome to the apocalypse.”
She finished cleaning the wounds, wrapping some of the worse ones in bandages. There was nothing else that she could do. He couldn’t move and there was no one else to help.
“I’ve done what I can,” she replied. “You should just stay here and rest.”
“It’s not like I can leave.” Nathan looked at Elle. “Thank you.”
Elle shrugged.
She took a water bottle from her pack and offered it to Nathan. He drank.
“So,” Elle said, sighing. “Did you become a soldier before or after Day Zero?”
“Day Zero?”
“The EMP. The invasion.”
“Ah.” Nathan coughed. “Before. I was a Marine. Overseas.” He barely managed to lift his shoulders. “Seemed the like the right thing to keep on fighting after everything went to hell here at home.”
“The whole world’s gone to hell,” Elle said, nonchalant.
“Nah, not all of it. There are people like me.” Nathan offered a broken smile. “We still believe that we can fight this thing. We keep hell from taking too much of a hold.”
“Maybe.” Elle raised an eyebrow. “How did you end up here?”
“Walked as far as I could,” he replied. “Finally collapsed in this house.”
“At least you made it to shelter.”
“Just in time to die,” Nathan said.
“You’re not going to die,” Elle replied automatically. “You’re going to be fine and—”
“Elle.” Nathan held up his hand. “I’m dying.”
Elle said nothing.
Nathan nodded at Bravo.
“This is Bravo,” he said. “But you already knew that. He’s my buddy, my brother.” He held out his hand, barely able to raise it without crumpling with pain. Bravo softly nuzzled his fingers. “Bravo is a Grade-A bomb dog. He’s been on one tour in Iraq, been trained by the best in the world. He knows his stuff.”
There was a long silence. Nathan struggled to take deep breaths. Elle guessed that one of his lungs had collapsed, judging by the way the shrapnel had hit his ribcage, digging into his side.
“Bravo is loyal to a fault,” Nathan continued. His eyes became clouded with tears. “He would die for his brothers and sisters.”
“I know,” Elle whispered. “I can see it in his eyes.”
Nathan nodded.
“Have you ever seen a bomb dog in action, Elle?” he asked quietly.
“No.”
“Let me show you.” Nathan flicked his wrist forward. “Bravo, search.” It was a stern but familiar command to the dog. He dutifully sniffed the room, as if knowing that he was doing this to comfort his dying master rather than actually looking for explosives.
He returned to Nathan’s outstretched hand.
“Usually this is the part where I hand him his favorite toy,” he said. “But I lost it when the mercenaries attacked us. Bravo likes to be rewarded at the end of a good job.” He coughed, spitting up blood. Elle hurried to wipe it up with the rag. Nathan pushed her arm away. “Forget it,” he heaved. “I’m a mess anyway.”
Elle returned to her spot on the floor.
“If Bravo ever finds explosives or something that he thinks is a potential threat,” Nathan explained, “you’ll know by the way he’ll go rigid. He’ll freeze, sit still. He’ll stare at the spot until you’ve checked it out. He’s got a highly trained nose.”