“Where does he get them?”
“T18 has a storage warehouse filled when the Millers raided the surrounding areas. One of them sold mail-order civilian versions of Army MREs. Prepper food. That’s what we’ve been living on for the last month or so. Before that, we were surviving off the land.”
“Hunting?”
“Hunting, fishing, whatever it took. It’s a big river. They can’t guard every inch of it twenty-four hours a day.”
“They seem to go back and forth along it just fine in those boats.”
“That’s because we don’t attack the riverbanks if we can help it.”
“Why not?”
“Didn’t see you them?”
He was going to ask who, but he remembered the women and children along the banks washing laundry and swimming.
“Civilians,” he said.
“Yeah. We’re trying to save them, not get them killed. So we do our best to keep the fighting contained to just us and the soldiers. It’s not always ideal, but no one said this would be easy.”
Keo wanted to tell her that he had seen a little bit of what Steve had at T18, and that “this” wasn’t just not going to be easy, it was going to be downright impossible. But that would have antagonized her, and right now he needed at least one ally at his side.
Even so, Keo kept close enough to Jordan that he was within easy lunging distance of the Glock in her hip holster. If she noticed or was uncomfortable with his closeness, she didn’t say anything. He was thinking about how he was going to kill Tobias and somehow keep both him and Jordan alive when she opened a door marked “Director.”
He hadn’t taken more than a couple of steps inside when he saw a flash of movement out of the corner of his right eye. Keo turned, started lifting his hands to ward off an attack, but the man was faster and pain exploded across Keo’s face as the butt of a rifle smashed into his forehead.
The blow would have done more damage if he hadn’t seen it coming just in the nick of time and turned slightly. The result was more of a glancing blow, but it was enough to stun and stagger him.
He glimpsed a buzz cut as the man followed, pressing his attack, even as Jordan shouted, “What the fuck, Reese?”
The man ignored her and swung his weapon at Keo’s face again, but Keo managed to dodge the oncoming strike this time. The wooden stock flashed across his face for a split second before Keo grabbed the barrel with one hand, pulled his attacker off balance, then slammed his cocked elbow into the back of the man’s neck.
He heard a satisfying, pained grunt.
Keo followed his attacker-turned-victim, hoping to finish this as soon as possible (and that rifle, he could definitely use that rifle), when something rammed into the small of his back. He might have screamed; he couldn’t be entirely certain. But he definitely felt the boot stepping on the back of his left knee and dropping to the floor.
He glanced back over his shoulder just in time to see Tobias, all six-three of him hovering with an M4 clutched in both raised hands. Tobias didn’t look happy or sad, he just looked like a man doing a job.
It was the last thing Keo saw before the collapsible stock of the carbine hit him in the face and he dropped like a sack of meat.
*
“Jesus, your face looks like shit,” Jordan said. She was whispering and looked concerned as she dabbed his face with a wet…something. “That throbbing pain? That’s your forehead. It was bleeding so much even Pita thought you were going to bleed out. Lucky for you, it stopped.”
Yeah. Lucky. That’s me.
He grimaced and fought the urge to reach up to touch his forehead, where the strong odor of antibiotic ointment was coming from. Someone had been very generous with it. He guessed too much was better than not enough when you were dealing with possible infection.
His entire face hurt. At least both Tobias and Reese had aimed straight for the noggin and spared his nose. Having it broken once was enough, especially now that it had all but healed. Well, mostly, anyway.
He was lying on a cold, hard floor and staring up at a patch of moonlight spilling in through a high ceiling window. Something soft, probably cotton, was rolled up underneath his head, allowing him to turn it with minimal effort and take in his new surroundings.
He and Jordan were inside some kind of classroom, and they weren’t alone. One of the women he had seen in the cafeteria was sitting against the opposite wall next to one of the wounded men; her eyes were closed and she was stroking his forehead while he snored. Pita and her teen assistant leaned against each other in another corner; they were both asleep. Unused school desks were scattered around them, some lying on their sides.
Nightfall.
There was barely any noise inside the room except for their breathing and the light snoring around them, as if everyone just knew not to be too noisy. Maybe a survival instinct kicking in unconsciously after a year of living in a post-Purge world.
What was that Lara liked to say? “Adapt or perish.”
These people had clearly adapted. You didn’t survive this long without understanding the rules. Making a sound in the middle of the night (What time is it?) was one of those things to be avoided at all costs.
It was impossibly quiet outside. Even the birds were afraid to make any noise. He was relieved to discover that the window in the back of the room was closed tight. He and Jordan, along with everyone in the room, were sitting along the sides, with Pita and the girl underneath the window. Even if one of the ghouls had crawled up there, they wouldn’t be able to see them.
Hopefully.
Next to him, Jordan put down the balled T-shirt she had been using on his face and leaned tiredly back against the wall. It wasn’t just the day’s events pressing down on her-the ambush, the losing friends-but his arrival probably hadn’t contributed to her peace of mind. What should have been a happy reunion for both of them had instead kicked off a bloody and challenging day for her.
Mom always did say my timing sucks.
“You okay?” he asked.
She gave him a wry look. “You’re the one with the big cut on your forehead. Did you always look this ugly?”
“Kick a man while he’s down, why doncha.”
“Sorry.”
“You look tired.”
“I am tired.” She sighed and looked at the window. “They’re out there, you know.”
“I know…”
She glanced back at him. “So, are you ever going to tell me what happened to your face? I mean, before this afternoon. That scar looks pretty nasty.”
“The guy I told you about?”
“Pollard?”
“Yeah. He tried to carve my face with a knife.”
“Damn.”
“That was after he stabbed me.”
“Jesus, Keo.”
“No, just Keo.”
She tried to stop it, but the smile came through anyway. He returned it, because he couldn’t help it, either. Jordan had always been a pretty girl, even with the short hair that made her look less “girly” than he remembered. The dirt on her face that she hadn’t bothered to clean since the road, the worry lines on her forehead, and the dry skin-none of those things took away from her.
He must have been staring, because she wrinkled her nose at him and said, “What?”
“Hmm?”
“You’re staring. Again.”
“Sorry.”
“It’s okay, but at least buy me dinner first, for God’s sake.”
He chuckled, and they went back to looking at the room and the window. He expected to see them out there at any moment crawling around like spiders, but there was just the bright moonlight. Instead of being relieved, it just made him paranoid. After so many peaceful nights on the Trident, being back on land left him overly anxious.
“You didn’t know Tobias was going to do that?” he asked.
She shook her head. “I didn’t.” She sighed, then, “He’s going to kill you tomorrow.”