“Easy,” Carlee said as she helped him up. He smelled absolutely awful, but she had no doubt she would stink just as badly in his situation.
Stefani was standing a few feet in front of them. She was tall for an Asian woman, and her dusty, dark gray combat uniform only accented that fact. Her uniform had dozens of filled pockets between pieces of body armor, just like Carlee’s did. Her signature rifle hung across her back, pressing her gray cloak against her. She was now holding a metal stump leg, which flattened out on the bottom, and a crutch in her other hand.
“What’s your name?” Carlee asked.
“Jeff Olsen.” His voice had a slight midwestern accent, but it wasn’t as thick as some she had heard. He had a kind tone, but a feisty edge was also evident.
“And you’re from here?”
“I was,” Jeff said, looking around. There was nothing left around him to be from.
“Can you raise your leg?” Stefani asked. She was holding his new metal prosthetic up to the stump of Jeff’s leg where it had been cut off midway down his left thigh.
He gritted his teeth as he forced what was left of his leg off the ground. Stefani wiggled his new leg in place and strapped it down. He bit his lip to keep himself from showing weakness, but Carlee could see how much pain he was in. She had never understood why men did that; they’d complain about minor colds and then act like nothing was wrong when bleeding out.
“There you go. And here’s this.” Stefani held out a crutch for him, but he wasn’t able to reach it.
“Just set it down,” Carlee said.
Stefani tossed it unceremoniously down to the ground and swung her gun around into her hands, and Jeff’s eyes went wide as he saw it. Carlee laughed inside at that. Stefani never left her rifle, and to people who grew up in small communities, they had never seen something so imposing or valuable in their lives. Carlee remembered well seeing such things for the first time and how it had been an adjustment to the weapons she was used to.
“We need to get going, especially if we’re bringing the gimp with us. It’s going to take us a while to make it back to the others.”
“You’re with others?” Jeff looked surprised.
“A few others, closer to the old city,” Carlee said. “I’d like you to come with us. We can help you.”
“Why?”
She didn’t blame him for being reluctant; there weren’t many people in the world who simply wanted to help people. But she wasn’t like other people.
“Because you can’t help yourself,” Carlee said.
“She’s a sucker for projects,” Stefani said. “And you are one hell of a project.”
“Tell me why, really, or I’m not going anywhere.” His voice had even more of an edge to it, almost as if he were going to try to fight them if they pushed him on it. He’d be dead before he could lay a finger on her, Stefani would make sure of that, even if he was missing two limbs.
“That’s what I was hoping to hear,” Stefani said. She continued to monitor the landscape with her gun. “Shouldn’t have wasted the effort on the fool’s new leg. But we’ll travel much faster without bringing him with us.”
“You don’t have to stay with us forever,” Carlee said. “Come get some food at least.”
“Carl, are you for real? You want to bring this kid with us? Jane isn’t going to like this.”
“He comes with us. I’ll deal with Jane,” Carlee said. Her voice was soft and direct. She didn’t give Stefani orders, but she wasn’t going to negotiate on this. He needed their help, and she was certain there was a reason they had found him.
“Of all the times to stand up to Jane, this is the fight you choose . . .” Stefani trailed off, mumbling some darker words.
Carlee pulled Jeff gently to his feet as he groaned in pain.
“Can you hold yourself up while I grab your crutch?”
“Yes,” Jeff said, but she wasn’t confident it was the truth. But he managed to do it, and he accepted the crutch from Carlee hastily a moment later.
“Tell me why—”
“Because you are the only person we’ve found who can tell us exactly what happened here,” Carlee said. She stooped down to the ground and picked something off the dirt.
“You’re helping me for that? Nothing special about it. Apostle came, stomped all over our worthless lives. End of story.”
“Which one? The size of the prints and amount of damage point to one of the original twelve.”
“Which one? How am I supposed to know which Apostle—”
“We can talk about this while we go,” Stefani said. “I don’t like the feel of this place.”
“The Apostles are gone. We should be fine. Especially with that gun of yours,” Jeff said to Stefani.
“You always choose the most intelligent people to nurse back to life,” Stefani said.
“Here,” Carlee said. She held out her hand, offering Jeff some white pills that she had pressed. “For the pain.”
He eyed them wearily but accepted the medication. Pills of any kind were worth a fortune to people like him. She held the water bottle to his lips once more before hooking it onto the side of her uniform.
“Ready to go?” she asked, and Jeff jumped. She had found him admiring her; men were strange.
“Why should I trust you?” Jeff asked.
“Because you don’t have any other choice,” Stefani said. “I’m sorry, Carlee, but if he doesn’t get moving, I’m going to shoot him.”
“Fine, I’ll come with you . . . don’t have anywhere else to go anyway,” Jeff said. He took a step forward, and his freshly pressed, custom-fitted leg worked perfectly. He moved slowly, walking next to Carlee and behind Stefani, who continued to scan for enemies.
“Are you not familiar with the history of the Apostles?” Carlee asked as soon as he was walking at a steady pace, stepping around fallen buildings and the occasional laser-sliced body.
“I know enough,” Jeff said.
“Like?”
“Like they kill people. And if you ever see one, well, then you’re screwed.”
“But you can’t identify them?”
“They’re all the same to me.”
“That is far from the truth,” Carlee said. She wasn’t sure if his arrogance in answering her questions was just a manifestation of the shock he was under or if he was simply a disagreeable person. She hoped it was the former, but she would help him either way.
“They all kill us—” Jeff stopped himself suddenly. Carlee looked to him to see if something was wrong.
“Stefani!” Jeff shouted.
A red laser shot out from a building to the side of Stefani, heading directly for her head. The air around Stefani rippled and sucked inward to where a thick pillar of metal appeared. The laser burned into the beam with a hiss as Stefani rolled forward, clutching her massive gun. Carlee pulled her pistols to her gloves as a second leech flew out from the building and started to fire another laser at Stefani. Carlee fired two particle blasts, and the leech exploded into a puff of smoke and sparks.
Jeff fell backward as he witnessed the impossible happen. Smoke floated from her pistols’ barrels as Carlee spun around, looking for more targets. There was none, and she turned her attention back to Jeff, who was trying to crawl backward, away from his rescuers.
“Jeffery doesn’t look so well,” Stefani said.
“How? . . . I mean . . .”
“That was close,” Carlee said.
“Not too close—I knew there was going to be something about. Apostles just don’t leave people alive,” Stefani said.
“We need to hurry,” Carlee said.
“That’s what I’ve been saying.”
“That was before. You just pressed in a ton of metal directly in front of a leech. If that doesn’t draw the Apostle back, then I don’t know what will,” Carlee said.
“Can we leave him? Because he can’t exactly fly on that crutch.”
“I’ll press us a transport,” Carlee said.