The Bradley slows again and executes an abrupt turn into the service garage. The grease monkeys instantly surround it, hoping something is wrong, itching to work on its engine again. They love the machine. There are so few of them left operating on American soil.
The hydraulic ramp drops and Sarge emerges, holding Wendy in his arms.
Smoke drifts in the air, reeking of cordite. On the other side of the garage, a squad of recruits practices firing M16 rifles at paper targets set up in front of a wall of sandbags. The loud firing quickly tapers to respectful silence as they catch sight of the Bradley’s commander carrying the beautiful sleeping woman into his quarters.
Todd enters FEMAville’s military compound, marveling at the barbed wire and chaos, asking around where he can find the man commanding the Bradley.
They laid in the shack on their backs staring up at the ceiling, sweaty and naked and panting. For the first time in his life, he felt truly accepted. She had seen him naked and he had come inside her and now they were bonded and he would love her until the day he died. His body continued to shudder with the aftershocks of the incredible explosion of pleasure. The shack was filled with her unique musky smell. She lit up the remainder of her joint and chattered about her iPod and Blackberry and Facebook and how she wanted to exist again. Todd nodded, barely listening, studying the curves of her body and feeling strangely envious of her effortless beauty. He was already sad that she would have to leave and he might never have her again. He was suddenly starving. Moments later, she asked him if he wanted to do it again, and immediately went down on him, making him come again in her mouth. After the third time, he passed out.
When he woke, Erin was gone, and so was his stash of electronics. His capital.
Suddenly, he had nothing.
She left him an enigmatic note that read simply, Sorry. You are very cute.
He thought about his options all morning. He could try to find her and get his stock back or he could forget about it. Confronting her would be problematic. To put it mildly. Todd is terrible at confrontation, plus he believes he might be in love with her. He can feel the agony of wanting to see her again slowly overtake the anger he feels at her robbing him blind.
Screw this, he told himself. I know a cop. I’ll get her to help me. The cops will get my stuff back, and I’ll forgive Erin and we’ll be together again.
He knows he will never have her, that he was used. But he cannot stop himself from hoping.
By the time he reaches the military compound—where he believes he will find Sarge, who in turn will be able to tell him where Wendy is—he has replayed the events of the previous night dozens of time in his mind. He has imagined many conversations they are yet to have. The angry one where he asks her why she used and hurt him, forces her to take a hard look at herself, and makes her cry over her misdeeds. The calm one where he gazes upon her coldly and tells her he forgives her and pities her, and then wishes her a nice life. The happy, highly improbable one where she brings his stuff back and they fall into each other’s arms.
The steady crackle of gunfire at the perimeter of the camp intensifies, reminding him that his personal problems are insignificant compared to the ever-present threat facing the people here.
The garage is filled with soldiers sitting on the hard cement floor writing letters, reading books and making coffee on Coleman stoves. Chickens cluck in a series of cages against the far wall, next to neatly stacked cordwood. Todd smells cordite and coffee and chickenshit. The soldiers are being oddly quiet, frequently glancing at the office in the corner where Sarge has made his home. He treads carefully among them, ignoring their hostile stares, still muttering to himself as he knocks on Sarge’s door. No answer. He pounds angrily.
The door opens and Sarge steps into the entry wearing his camo pants and a T-shirt, glaring at him, his expression instantly softening with recognition.
“Hey, Kid,” he says. “Good to see you.”
Todd flushes at hearing his old nickname.
The soldier thrusts out his hand, and Todd shakes it.
“You too, Sarge.”
“What brings you out this way?”
“I got some bad news. Can I talk to you for a minute?”
“Come on in, then. I have some bad news, too, Kid.”
Todd stops in surprise at the sight of Paul and Ethan standing over a cot where Wendy sleeps fitfully, softly moaning.
Wendy wakes up with a massive headache and an overwhelming sense of dread. The small room is filled with men staring at her. Sarge presses a cool, damp cloth against her forehead and looks at her with an odd mixture of love and fear. Paul, Ethan and Todd are here, and so is Ray and all of the cops of Unit 12 except for Jonesy and his dad, their faces lighting up at seeing her awake. Ethan looks like somebody punched his lights out, grinning with a black eye. Somebody is asking her how she is feeling and she struggles to concentrate on the voice. Her mind has been swimming in and out of consciousness and she wants to wake up. She is not even sure she is awake now. If this is a dream, it is a good one; she feels happy having Sarge close and strangely safe being with the other survivors. Odd that she should spend the two worst weeks of her life with this group of people and suddenly feel so bonded to them. They are her people. She remembers how, at the hospital, she began to think of them as a tribe.
She wonders if she is dying.
Sarge is asking her if she needs anything. Does she need water?
After she drinks, she asks them how she got here. Her voice sounds funny and she thinks there might be something wrong with her ear. The men glance at each other, avoiding her eyes. The truth is she remembers nothing. Whatever happened to her was so bad that they cannot bear to say it out loud. Ray sits on an ammo crate next to her bed and tells her that she and Jonesy were attacked. Jonesy has a concussion and is in bad shape. She got banged up pretty good but physically she is fine. Wendy takes this in and wonders why she cannot rise from the cot. She feels oddly feverish. She cannot shake the feeling that she is dying.
You should see the other guys, Ray says with a grin, nodding with respect. You really did a number on them. We caught two of them. We know who the third guy is and we’ll have him in the bag soon. You don’t worry about them, Wendy. We’ll take care of it. They deserve to die for what they did and we’re going to take care of it.
Ray places her badge on the pillow next to her head.
We found this at the scene, he tells her.
Her head is pounding. She feels confused. Her dreams were filled with nightmares, and now she is wondering if some of them were real.
Ray asks if she has a problem with them taking care of things the Defiance way.
Wendy surprises herself by saying clearly, “Do it.”
She leans over the side of the bed and vomits onto the floor at Sarge’s feet. Moments later, she is plummeting into a nauseating darkness lit briefly only by a few tiny sparks.
The Unit 12 boys, smiling like wolves, leave the room in single file to deliver justice to the men who attacked their people. They nod to Ray, who is staying behind to look after Wendy, as they pass by with their black shirts and bullet-proof vests and guns.