We’re going to die. We’re all going to die.
There was a silver lining, though. If she died out here, she wouldn’t have to face Josh again. So there was that—
Silence.
She looked up, shocked by what she was hearing — or not hearing.
The shooting had stopped.
A trick? Were they moving toward her now? Maybe they wanted her alive after all. Or maybe they thought she was already dead. All she had to do was look around her at what was left of the Dodge’s interior and realize it was a miracle she wasn’t already bleeding to death from a dozen bullet holes—
Pop-pop-pop as a new round of gunfire erupted, but this time the walls of the car were unaffected. They were shooting over her.
What the hell?
She was still trying to figure out what was happening when another volley joined in, except these new ones were coming from behind her.
At first she thought some of the horsemen had somehow managed to outflank her. Those horses could probably maneuver over the deep ditches better than a car, but if that was the case, why didn’t they just run up and shoot her through the driver side window?
She was about to flip over onto her back and face her attacker when she felt a rush of wind and the door creaked open first. Gaby had no choice and scrambled up to her knees, turning the shotgun around.
A familiar voice said, “Whoa there, G.I. Jane.”
A hand grabbed her by the shirt collar and jerked her off the seats and through the open door like she weighed less than Milly. She was unceremoniously deposited onto the hot asphalt road, where she gasped for breath and looked up, then grinned at the figure crouched next to her, firing with an M4A1 rifle across the Neon’s hood.
“You’re a sight for sore eyes,” she said.
Danny didn’t take his eyes off his scope as he continued shooting, calmly pulling the trigger again and again. “We’ll talk about your terrible choice of fighting positions later, missy. Right now, grab the kids and head back to Big Willie.”
She looked over at Will, positioned behind the open door of a parked truck behind them, also firing calmly over her and at the horsemen farther up the highway.
Gaby scrambled up and opened the Dodge’s back door. Claire, her small body practically merged with the floor, looked up at her with wide eyes. “Come on,” Gaby said, and held out her hand. Claire took it and Gaby pulled her out. “Run to the truck!”
Claire glanced past her at Will.
“They’re my friends,” Gaby smiled.
Claire nodded and ran off, smartly keeping herself as low as possible.
Gaby looked back into the car and found Milly on the floor behind the front passenger seat. “Milly, come on.”
The girl hesitantly held out her hand and Gaby took it, pulling her toward the door. Milly leaped into her arms and Gaby, holding her tight, began backpedaling.
“Danny,” Gaby said.
“Right behind you,” Danny said. He fired two more shots before ejecting his magazine, making sure to catch it and put it away before slamming in a fresh one. “Go go go.”
Gaby turned around and ran, Milly clutching her so tightly she could barely breathe. She kept as low as possible while still running, which was amazingly hard with Milly’s weight pulling her down to the road.
Will said, “Hey, kid,” as she ran past him.
“Hey, Will,” Gaby said. “You look like shit.”
“Don’t tell Lara.”
“I won’t if you don’t tell her about my face.”
“Deal.” Will switched his rifle to full-auto, said, “Danny,” before firing off a single, continuous burst.
Danny ran toward them, using Will’s fire as cover. When Danny was back at the truck with her, Will switched back to semi-auto and continued firing off one round at a time again.
Gaby put Milly down behind the back bumper of the truck next to Claire. She took a moment to compose herself, her chest pounding so loudly she had difficulty hearing Milly’s sniffling. Gaby had to put one hand against the truck to steady herself before leaning back out to look up the highway.
There were four riderless horses out there now, two moving along the right side shoulder while the other two had escaped into the ditches and were grazing on sunburned grass. Their riders lay still on the road. The remaining two soldiers were fleeing up Route 13 at a fast gallop as Will fired casually after them, but by now they were already too far away to be picked off.
“What happened to your face?” Danny said to her.
“What happened to yours?” she said.
“Touché.”
Will fired a final shot, then walked back to them, reloading his rifle as he did so. “Anyone missing an arm or a leg or have holes where there shouldn’t be extra holes?”
Gaby shook her head and wiped at trickles of blood along her arms where falling glass had cut her. None of them were too deep, thankfully. “Just a couple of scratches. I’m good.”
“Yeah?” Will said, watching her carefully.
She gave him her best smile. “Good enough for now. Thanks for the rescue.”
“It’s a good thing we didn’t stop at that sushi place down the road,” Danny said. “You know how much I love roadside sushi.”
She looked at Will, then at Danny, this time more closely. They were still the same guys she knew, but in the week or so since she had last seen them, they looked beaten up, bruised, and battered. Danny, in particular, had a broken nose and cuts along his face, as far removed from the California blond surfer she was so used to. Will still looked like Will, which was to say, tired and weary, but somehow still moving around. But then, Will always did hide his wounds well.
“Man, you guys look like total crap,” she said.
“You should see the other guy,” Danny said.
“Bad?”
“Worse.”
“What could be worse than the sight of you two?”
“Dead.”
“Yeah, that’s definitely worse.”
Will had turned back up the highway. She walked over and stood next to him and looked over the roof of the Dodge. She hadn’t realized just what bad shape the vehicle was in until she got enough distance from it. All four tires were punctured and every window was broken. There had to be dozens of holes across the length of the car that she could see and probably more that she couldn’t on the other side.
My God. How did we survive that?
Will fished out a pair of binoculars from his pack and peered through them.
“The interstate,” Gaby said. “They’re guarding it, aren’t they?”
“Looks like it.”
“How many are up there?”
“A dozen,” Will said, lowering the binoculars. “Horses aren’t the only thing they’re riding around on. Looks like they have technicals, too.”
“Technicals?”
“Improvised fighting vehicles,” Danny said, walking over. “Basically, they put a machine gun on top of a truck.”
“Oh.”
“How many?” Danny asked.
“Two that I can see,” Will said.
She saw a vehicle — maybe a truck — moving up the road toward them. She could just barely register the silhouette of a man standing in the back. Then a second truck appeared and joined the first, the two of them riding side by side.
“Here they come,” Gaby said.
“Come on,” Will said. “We’re not going to survive a stand-up firefight against those.”
Danny circled the vehicle over to the driver side while Will slipped into the front passenger seat. Gaby opened the back door and was surprised to find two people already inside. A man and a woman, both in their twenties.