“Don’t move!” Jeff shouted. But the men sitting around the room didn’t follow orders. They jumped for their weapons, and Jeff hit the closest man with the back of his gun and kicked another in the chest, sending him flying into the wall. Stefani locked her gun on another one of them while the remaining two managed to get their weapons up.
None of them were Dane.
“Put your guns down, or we’ll waste you,” one of the boys with a sawed-off shotgun said. The short, dark-skinned man’s voice cracked as he spoke, and the gun trembled in his hands. Jeff was worried he was going to shoot them by accident.
“Calm down, kid,” Jeff said. The boy couldn’t be more than fifteen, but that didn’t mean much. Most warlord armies were made of young boys, either taken as slaves or volunteered from local communities.
“Be smart,” Stefani said. “None of you needs to die today.”
“Shut up!” the man next to the boy said. He was older and fatter, an unpleasant-looking man who had the air of wanting to fight. Jeff knew the type well, but he didn’t recognize any of them.
“You guys aren’t from around here,” Jeff said.
“You two done messed up,” the older man said. Jeff heard the click of a safety and then saw that the man he had punched now pointed a rusty handgun at him. “There are more of us.”
“Not if I kill this one,” Stefani said. The man she held at gunpoint started to pee himself and whimpered a prayer that Jeff didn’t understand.
“You don’t count too good, do ya sweetheart?” the older man said. “There would still be more of us.”
“By the time his head exploded, I would have killed the rest of you.”
The leader of the group forced a laugh, but sweat dripped down his face. He eyed Jeff’s uniform and superior weapon, then swallowed deeply.
“We are starting up a pact between us, you know, forming a new group,” the older man said. “We could use the help. We’ll be going after a few targets nearby, and you can have your shares if you—”
He didn’t finish. Stefani hit the man in front of her and spun around in front of their leader just as his gun went off. Except she wasn’t in the line of fire. The blast shot past her, missing her widely. She kicked the man violently between the legs, and he sank to his knees. She stooped with him as the others watched in horror.
“I’m sorry. We don’t like wannabe warlords very much,” Stefani said. The man groaned and held his gun up to Stefani’s forehead. She didn’t move as he pulled the trigger. The energy pistol exploded backward into the man’s face, ripping through his bone, leaving a mess behind him.
The other armed men in the room dropped their weapons.
“All of you want to be warlords?” Stefani asked.
“No! Not at all,” the boy said. “That was Josh’s idea. He was forcing the rest of us to go along. I only ran into him the other day. You have to believe me!”
“What about the rest of them?” Stefani asked, gesturing to the other three men in the room who were doing their best to hold their hands in the air.
“Aaron is cool,” he nodded to the man who was bleeding from where Jeff had hit him with the back of his gun. “The other two were Josh’s men.”
“You little—”
“Shut up,” Stefani said. She spoke softly, but the other men immediately obliged. “What is your name?”
“Ross,” the boy said. His voice cracked again with nerves, and his eyes kept dodging between Stefani and Jeff.
“Well, Ross,” Stefani said. “We’re vagrants. We’re looking for people to join our cause. If you and Aaron are interested, you can come with us. Or you can stay here with them. But they’re not going to be happy you didn’t endorse them.”
“Vagrants?” Ross’s voice cracked again as he took a step back.
“Don’t worry, kid,” Jeff said. “It’s not what you think. And you can learn to do stuff like her.”
“I . . .” Ross didn’t know what to say, which was understandable. Jeff had taken some convincing himself.
“I’m going to stay,” Aaron said.
“Bad decision, but it’s your choice,” Stefani said. “Ross?”
“I . . .”
“You won’t regret it,” Jeff said. Ross looked him in the eyes and nodded.
“OK. I’m in.” The boy looked dizzy, but he nodded his head profusely.
“All right—let’s hit the road,” Stefani said. She gestured for Ross to leave the house. Stefani swung her gun around, and despite the limited space, she quickly shot every remaining gun in the room. Every blast made the men jump as the energy burned a hole several feet into the ground.
“We’ll be around. If I see you again, I’ll put you down,” Stefani said.
Jeff followed her outside, where Ross was standing nervously.
“This way, kid.” He pointed in the direction where their fortress was parked a mile or so away. Ross nodded and followed a few steps after Stefani and Jeff.
“You’re not going to be the new guy on the team anymore, Handsome,” Stefani said. “Can you handle it?”
40 OLD UNITY
“I DON’T TRUST YOU,” SUSAN Welter said. The mayor of Old Unity had come out to meet them as requested. It was a bigger community than Townend, but it wasn’t nearly as fortified. Susan circled them on her horse.
Jeff continued to search the trees and broken houses that lined the community, using his hood to enhance his vision. Dozens of soldiers were lying in wait for them in case things got violent, and a surprising number of them were women, but so far, he hadn’t found Dane.
“I frankly don’t care if you trust us,” Carlee said. “I could level your town, but that’s not what I want to do. I want to help you because there aren’t enough of us left to fight one another anymore.”
Susan pulled up next to her guards again and squinted her eyes as she studied Carlee. Jeff admired Susan for acting so carefree while the fortress loomed in the background. She didn’t mention anything about Darwin, which meant she likely didn’t have the promised protection of the Apostle.
“We can’t spare anyone, especially for vagrants,” Susan said.
“With the supplies we’re going to leave you, I think you’ll be safer than ever before,” Carlee said. “All we ask is that you spread our message and allow anyone who wants to join us to meet us tomorrow morning, right here.”
“Who in their right mind would want to join vagrants?”
“Carlee did,” Stefani said. “Jeff did, and he grew up only a few miles from here.”
“I lost my arm and my leg, Miss Mayor,” Jeff said, taking a moment from his search for Dane to contribute to the recruitment effort. Ross was hardly enough reinforcement, no matter how quickly the young man had made himself at home. “The vagrants showed up afterward and saved my life. It’s a dangerous life doing what we do, but we are making a difference.”
“I don’t know what to think,” Susan admitted. “Are the Apostles going to come for us if we accept your guns?”
The question was for Carlee, so Jeff continued his search. It was more important to him at the moment, and truthfully, it was frustrating that the leaders of the communities weren’t jumping at the opportunity they offered. His hood indicated another person staked out by a cobbled-together wall. Jeff let the hood enhance his vision, and his breath caught in his throat.
Dane was crouched there with a scoped hunting rifle pointed in their direction. Jeff tugged on his hood even though it was unlikely Dane would recognize him at this distance.
His heart started beating deeply at seeing the face of his longtime friend who had left him for dead at the feet of an Apostle. So many boyhood memories rushed over him at once, filling him with a mix of emotions. Nostalgia battled hatred, and love fought the still-fresh wounds of betrayal. They had vowed to stay together, no matter what, but Dane had broken his promise.