Quaranteam-Northwest: Part 19

Major Chaos

Based on a post by Break The Bar. Listen to the ► Podcast at Explicit Novels.

Once I was inside, I let out a deep breath and closed my eyes while she couldn't see me. I wanted to tell her I could get her a dose right now. I wanted to tell her I would love her just like I did when we were teenagers, and we could pick up where we left off. For all that Erica was judgmental of her, I knew they would get along after things got settled. They were similar in a lot of ways, but different in other important ones.

I wanted to tell, but I knew what it would mean for me to offer it to her right now. It would mean, in her eyes, that I was giving up on the rest of the people in need. It would look like I was just trying to scoop her up like the hand of God and deus ex machina her survival.

I needed to trust Miriam and hope that she could shake something loose. That was the only way I could do what Kara would want and what she needed.

And even if I did offer, and even if she said yes, and even if she chose me and not to save a man from the community, that choice would haunt her. Maybe I should have let it be hers to make anyway, but I couldn't put that on her. I would carry it.

I pulled away slowly and saw Kara give a little wave and head back into her house, the door shutting behind her.

"Fuck!" I shouted in the closed cab of my car. I pounded the steering wheel with my fist.

I followed the dirt path down around a dozen more properties before it let out onto a road, and I started tracking back towards the main street and the exit from the Rez. Already frustrated and feeling a tightness in my chest; the muscles, not my heart; I tried to block out the horrible little things that dotted the homes and shops. There wasn't anything I could do, and I hated feeling that way.

Unfortunately, blocking things out wasn't helpful when it came to avoiding trouble. I made a turn that should have brought me one road over from the main drag and I slammed on the brakes as I came within ten yards of a crowd. It was maybe thirty people and they looked.... Crazy. They were hooting and cheering, and a lot of them looked like they were dressed in the ceremonial garb that was usually kept for festivals and cultural events. The few men in the crowd were bare-chested, and everyone had daubs of paint on their faces and bare skin. It took me a moment to realize it was supposed to be war paint. Plenty of them turned at my approach, but many of them were still focused as a few people were putting more paint on a man who was on his knees in the front yard of a house. He was a little gaunt, and his bare chest was heaving as painted hands were slapped on his chest and back. His face already held streaks of blue and red, and he was wearing a feathered war headdress.

"What the fuck?" I muttered.

I grabbed the microphone from my dash and brought it to my lips, my eyes narrowing as I looked at the assembled crowd. They were all dead people walking, congregating during an outbreak. I triggered the mic. "For your own and public safety, disperse immediately," I said, my voice echoing out from the speakers built into the light bar of the truck.

Then Feather turned from painting the man on his knees, snarling at my vehicle as she narrowed her eyes. "A false warrior of the white devil!" she cried, pointing at me accusingly with a hand dripping with red paint. "You have no authority here, pig! The earth rises up to send you back across the seas, and we shall inherit her protection once more."

Well, now I knew where the crazy was coming from. She'd always been particularly nasty at any protest over the years, but this was something else.

"You are all risking your lives by congregating like this," I said into the mic. "The virus is contagious for two weeks with almost no symptoms before two days of brutal death. Many of you are likely carriers and causing the deaths of your friends and neighbors."

"He speaks with the false promises that destroyed our ancestors!" Feather shouted. "Drive him out!"

A brick came flying out of the crowd and panged off the hood of my truck heavily. Then I noticed other people in the crowd raising things that they'd been carrying. Some had rocks and bricks and sticks. Others had bows and arrows, and hatchets, and I spotted at least one shotgun.

"Fuck this," I grunted, dropping the mic and slamming the truck into reverse, turning in my seat to look out the back as best I could as I peeled away. More rocks and bricks came flying my way, and I jerked when someone shot a fucking arrow at my truck and it glanced off the windshield with a sharp crack, leaving a jagged scar across it. I rounded the corner before anyone took a shot with a firearm, burning it back to the next intersection and then putting it into drive and speeding down the street. I whipped by abandoned cars, circling around the insane mob, and found myself in an area that I remembered. It took me another minute of fast driving before I reached the barricade.

I slowed to go around it then, muttering to myself, I threw the truck in reverse again and backed up into the car that had been moved. I pushed it back into place, then drove off.

It wouldn't stop anyone determined, but it was something.

I thumbed open my phone, keeping one eye on the road, and called Kara.

"Harri?" she asked, surprised since I'd just left.

"Yeah, I'm out," I said. "But I figured out the ringleader of your 'people going insane during a quarantine' problem. It's Feather."

There was a moment of silence. "Shit," she sighed. "Did she see it was you?"

"I don't think so," I said. "But if she asks around, people might be able to pinpoint that I was in your area just by my truck. They shot fucking arrows at me. Are you safe, or should I try and find a way to get you ladies out?"

"We should be fine," Kara said. "Feather is... she's always been a lot, and all of this must have pushed her over the edge. She might threaten us, but I don't think she'll actually try to attack us."

"That's a pretty thin line, Kara," I said.

"I know, but I can talk her down," she said.

"Tell me if something changes."

"I will," she said. "Be safe."

"Be safer," I countered.

The drive away from the Rez was way less full of anxiety and much more frustrating. People could be real tea-bags.

Showering at the compound was an unpleasant affair as I stretched and saw the bruising on my side, along with the aggravation to my leg. My headache, thankfully, had faded and the other bruises weren't so bad that I couldn't play them off. I also hadn't gotten a broken nose, which I'd left two of the bikers with, so that was a good thing.

Adding the trip to the Rez onto my timeline, not to mention the black market, had me a little worried about the frozen and dairy items in the truck, so I washed myself as fast as I could before wiping down the inside of my truck in case I'd pulled anything in on my clothes. Once that was done, I headed over to the Falls to make the delivery.

"What happened?" Erica asked me as soon as she saw me in the parking lot. Several of the ladies were there to help carry in the groceries. "And don't tell me it was nothing, Harrison Black."

Erica, apparently, was getting used to her Matriarchal role. I hadn't heard my last name said like that since my Mom had passed, but I'd definitely heard it throughout my childhood when she had a bone to pick with my father.

"A couple of things," I said.

"Well, you can start with the arrow sticking out of the side of your truck."

"What?" I asked, rounding the truck with a frown. Right there, stuck in the passenger side door, was an arrow. "Fuck me."

I told her about the drop off at the Rez, all of it, as we sat outside on the grass next to the parking lot and she held my hand and looked into my eyes. She was frowning and nodding as I told her how frustrated I was with the whole thing.

"You did what you could reasonably do, babe," she said when I was through. "Other than going all caveman and throwing all three of those ladies over your shoulder and carrying them out by force."

"You know,”

"I know," she stopped me. "I know. Now tell me what else happened."

Erica could read me as easily as Kara did. I had a moment where I could have chosen to play it off, but looking at my fiancée I knew that was the wrong choice. I could also tell that she had something she was holding back. So I told her about the black market but downplayed the fight and how I got out of it. She narrowed her eyes slightly and I could tell she was stopping herself from either criticizing my recklessness, or calling me on the downplaying. Probably both.

"Well, at least people are getting food," she said. "The news said that shortages are going to get worse. We might end up needing that black market sooner than later."

"Doubtful," I said. "We can eat with the construction workers if we need to, and between Vanessa and Miriam we can probably syphon off resources for here."

"Still, it's good to know it's there for now," she said.

"So what do you have to tell me?" I asked.

She frowned, but blushed, which was a weird combination on Erica. "Well, I figured out why I've been freaking out so much lately when things have gone wrong."

"Okay," I said dubiously. "Why is that?"

"My hormones are way out of whack," she said. "I'm told that comes with being pregnant."

"That; I,” my eyebrows raised as my brain took the extra second to click on what she was saying. "Really?"

"Yes, really," she grinned. "I grabbed a bunch of tests a little while ago because Kyla and I are both trying, and I took one last night and one this morning and they were both positive."

I tackled her, softly, to the grass and kissed her as she laughed and hugged me.

I was going to be a father. I was going to have kids with the most wonderful woman.

"You'll be an amazing mom," I said in between kisses all over her face.

"And you'll be an amazing,”

"Guys!" Josie called, jogging through the parking lot towards us.

"Little busy, hon," Erica called to her.

"No, you need to come inside," Josie said as she got closer. I sat up from leaning over Erica at the tone of Josie's voice.

"What is it?" I asked. "Something happened."

"It's all over the news," Josie said. "It's; I don't know what's going to happen now."

The President of the United States collapsed and fell into a coma shortly before 3:30 PM on July 7th. We watched the next hour on the big TV in the rec room of the Falls with all the ladies. As the reports went on we switched from channel to channel. Faces we'd never seen on major stations were covering the events. No one was contradicting the other stations, though plenty of different narratives were spinning out of it.

I made eye contact with Leo when they announced that, with President Trump in a coma and unresponsive, Vice President Pence was going to be temporarily sworn in under the 25th Amendment. Leo was a lot more liberal than I was and had been staunchly disgusted by Trump, as had Erica. I had been a lot more... forgiving wasn't the word, but I respected the Office and I respected the democratic process. He was the President, and while he was something of a garbage fire when it came to his personal life, he was still duly elected. The fact that it was two equally shit choices between him and his opponent hadn't helped matters.

Leo, and Erica, both thought Pence was even worse than Trump because of his religious dogma. I didn't have a care either way on that, having grown up without religion really affecting me at all. He seemed a lot less turbulent at least, so maybe he'd be a steady hand at the head of our country when it needed steady badly.

The Vice President of the United States collapsed at 4:15 PM as he was stepping up to take his oath and assume the mantle of President.

After that was some chaos. Many of the ladies were frightened, and some were vindictively pleased if they were in the anti-Trump camp. I comforted people as I could, trying to assure them things would be fine even if I didn't know what came next.

In the middle of all that, as the commentators on the news were pointing out the line of succession put the Speaker of the House as next up, I felt my phone buzzing in my pocket. I stepped away from the rec room and pulled it out, seeing it was a text.

Grierson: Have a job opening if you're interested. Super stressful but great benefits. Comes with a big house and staff. Interested?

I raised my eyebrows high at the gallows humor. I also had no fucking idea how I had his contact in my phone. Before I could even reply, I got another text.

Grierson: Too soon?

I snorted and shook my head, smirking. It was a historical tragedy in the making and Agent Grierson, big shot in the shadowy OGA world, was texting me quips. I was a military man, and I understood gallows humor well, so I sent him back a crying-laughing emoji as I shook my head again. Then I sent another message. You're probably a little busy, but I could use a favor.

Nothing came back within a couple of minutes, so I headed back in. There was no telling what kind of shit he was dealing with at the moment.

Speaker Pelosi was sworn in, and I couldn't help but scoff a little. She was the US's first Female President, even if it was starting out as temporary, but that didn't matter so much to me as the fact that she'd seemed so damned out of touch and made that stupid Late Night show bit where she showed off an entire freezer full of expensive ice cream while the country was in lockdown and people were already dealing with food scarcity.

Politicians, as I'd pretty much always believed, were fucked no matter what side they were on.

Things started to calm down, and I found my hand in Ivy's as she smiled and pulled me towards the door. She, along with Dani, had the least care for the happenings of American politics in the short term, and I'd already sat with Ivy through multiple sessions of her cursing in French at the computer screen as Trudeau up in Canada seemed to put his foot in his mouth as often as Trump had. Dani often had few good things to say about the leadership back in Australia, either.

We had a new President.

I had more pressing concerns.

I celebrated again, more thoroughly, with Erica alone in her room. We were both a little giddy about the idea of being parents, but we decided to keep it just between us for the time being. Not long, we both wanted to tell the others and especially not make it seem like we were hiding it from them, but with us all being split on where we were living and the investigation and the stuff on the Rez it didn't feel like the right time. Erica also assured me she could do all the early research we needed to do in terms of finding a doctor and getting her set up properly for what came next.

Keeping it from Kyla was especially hard for me when we had our time together, though she was distracted from reading me by my latest injuries and what had happened on the Rez. She, more than the others, had the least experience with Kara and the tribe in terms of the legal and protest issues since she'd joined us later than that.

"Why didn't you just offer it to them, Harrison?" she asked me with a sigh, softly shaking her head. "She wouldn't have said no."

"I don't think she would to save herself over others," I told her. "And if she did, she would regret it."

"Sometimes I forget how long you were alone," she said, looking at me intently as she lay next to me in her bed. I wanted to ask her what she meant by that, but she kissed me and soon she was fucking me and I was entranced by her as she rode me with languid grace, staring her love down into my eyes.

Vanessa, once I was back on the site and she came home after work, was just as upset with me for the biker incident as Erica and Kyla had been. The fact that the story of a fistfight with some bikers also seemed to turn her on, she swore, was not a reason to do it again. She also needed a good amount of quiet time between the two of us, cuddling as she decompressed. Her father and a lot of the male crew on site were Trump supporters or at least 'old school' Republicans, so the events of the day had brought on a lot of friction among the crews, the upper staff, and the Imprinted ladies who leaned more Democrat since most were from the city.

Politics, it seemed, often wasn't that important to most people until it was thrust right up in their faces. Surprise, surprise.

Agent Grierson didn't text me back again until later that night, and when I asked if he could help with the Rez issue he told me he wasn't in a position to shake loose anything, especially when similar situations were happening all across the country. It had been a long shot anyway, but I still felt a little more defeated at the possibility getting cut off.

The next few days, thank God, calmed down and I didn't get shot at or find myself in any more fistfights. Most of my time was spent piecing together a timeline for the whereabouts of the recently deceased Poole brothers and their unidentified fellow raider. With all my other leads played out, and the serial number for the pistol not looking like it would lead me anywhere without showing up with warrants at every firearms dealer in the State (which could still end up being a dud), the receipts were my only real clue.

Creating the timeline was fairly simple, though it wasn't exactly comprehensive. There were days between them pretty frequently, and they jumped up and down the state. I tried mapping them out with pins and running a thread to track the timing, but I wasn't able to get a clear picture of a home base area. They were definitely more active in the northwest of the state, but weren't limited to it. There were even a couple of trips up into Washington State, though not particularly far based solely on their fast food stops.

In between that work, and starting to call up the fast food locations to ask for any security camera footage they had for the dates and times on the receipts, life seemed to settle into a little routine.

Vanessa was working hard. The second bunkhouse was getting filled up since the renovations were finished to make it Partner-friendly, which brought even more unskilled (in the trades) hands and mouths to the site. She was doing her best to divvy out what jobs she could if they made sense; they had a full-time medical response team with the nurses, and she proved to me that their cafeteria was putting out some pretty impressive food now that several ladies who had been in a Culinary Arts college program before being offered a spot in the testing program were on site. The offices got filled out more as well; accounts needed to be managed, and shipping and receiving had records to streamline and organize. Brent had almost too much of an office staff and could pick and choose the most experienced potential staffers for any role.

The rest of the ladies were getting crash courses in site safety, and then crash courses starting trades apprenticeships. With the third bunkhouse going up as planned, and in record time, I had a feeling Vanessa could put 'Trade School Headmistress' on her resume sooner than later, she'd be managing so many students at once.

Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately for my feelings towards Miriam, none of the women coming onto site were newly imprinted; they'd been partnered up back in the aftermath of the outbreak on the site, and had been living with their partners in hotels and motels since then. That meant that Miriam wasn't ignoring my request for help, but it also meant she still didn't have the vaccine doses that would be needed.

In between my murderboarding and the occasional trips around the site, ostensibly to check on security but mostly to stay up to date on how the roads were working out, I found myself on the phone a lot. I spoke with Erica a few times a day, usually a couple for only a few minutes, but for at least an hour each afternoon. The initial excitement about our future child was still there, but all of the other little worries and anxieties were starting to set in, and we had a lot to talk about.

I also got daily calls from Kara as she updated me that she and the ladies were safe, and of what they could tell was going on, on the Rez without leaving the house. Things had gotten worse; people were still dying, but there were less of them wandering the streets. They'd had a couple of people come by begging for help, but it was obvious they were on their last legs. She'd risked a bit of time outside to splash some bloody handprints off of the front windows of her house with a bucket from a distance.

We also talked. Not about big things, but just reminiscing about high school. Telling each other stories we remembered of the people we'd been back then. Of the silly adventures we'd had, and how important they'd seemed back then. I told her about running into Mary and her kids and helping her out. She told me how she'd been invited to Stacey Duncan's wedding almost a decade ago; the two had hated each other in high school, so the invite had been out of nowhere. She'd gone, more out of curiosity than anything, and Stacey had acted like they'd been the best of friends.

She told me about college, and how she thought I would have loved it, and asked me about the military. I told her my funny stories, and promised to tell her some of the harder ones when we could hug each other.

Gerty asked to talk to me on the third day as well just so she could interact with someone else for a bit. We traded stories about Kara that had her laughing and yelling in the background. Then Gerty walked away from the others and asked me about how things really looked outside the Rez. I didn't hold back, respecting that she'd been a Rez cop, and told her about the looters and the black market and the deaths. She admitted she was worried, and I did my best to console her as she broke down a little on the phone with me, not wanting to show anything but a smiling face to Tanaya and Kara. Once we were back onto happier, lighter things I told her that I'd be happy to talk to her again any time she wanted, and that one of these days I'd need her to give me some Policing tips. That got me a laugh, which was warm and rich.

The afternoon of that third day, frustrated with the murder board and receipt trail, I got dressed up, borrowed the unmarked truck from the site motor pool again and drove down to the Golden Beaver. Nothing useful came out of it beyond having a reason to fuck my girls, at least for the short term, but I needed to maintain my 'cover' and put in time with the sovereign citizens if I was going to have a chance at using them to leapfrog up the unofficial cell structure their loose organization used. There were fewer people there this time, and I wondered if the virus was catching up with them.

If it did before I made contact with whatever their militant arm was, they would be a literal dead end.

I couldn't help myself and texted that one to Grierson with almost no context, but he seemed to appreciate the pun when he replied almost ten hours later.

It was on the fourth day, still relatively early in the morning, that I picked up a call from Erica.

"Hello, wifey," I said, already smiling as I stood up from where I'd been sitting and sorting through emails.

"Hey, Harri," Erica said, the tone in her voice immediately making my smile slip.

"What's wrong?" I asked. Immediately my mind was jumping to worst-case scenarios, and now there was only really one; something was wrong with the baby.

"It's not an emergency," Erica said quickly, hearing my immediate tenseness. "You just need to come out here, sooner than later."

"Okay, I'm on my way," I said, starting to cover up my murder board with the tarp I used to keep any rain off of it. With so little room in the RVs, I'd set it up by epoxying some corkboard to the side of one of the shipping containers that formed our compound walls. Vanessa had helped me hook up the tarp with some rope so I could cover it without much effort. It was janky but it worked, and I figured once the investigation was complete we could use it for more entertaining activities. "What's up?"

"Josie just got word she lost a friend, and she's taking it really hard," Erica said. "Everyone is trying to comfort her, but it's not helping. I think she needs a calming male presence."

"Erica," I said. "I don't think,”

"I'm not asking you to fuck her, babe," Erica said. "Just be there for a friend."

"Okay," I agreed.

It didn't take me long to get there, and Kyla met me in the parking lot with a quick kiss. She gave me the fast rundown; Josie hadn't been able to get ahold of an old friend for a while now, and she got a call from another friend confirming he had passed from the virus a few weeks ago. Josie had broken down, and no one had been able to get through to her as she locked herself in her room. That had been early in the morning, and it was already the middle of the afternoon, and the ladies were getting worried.

"I think Josie isn't used to being vulnerable," Kyla said quietly, and I could tell she was speaking more from her training as a spy as she analyzed the situation. "At least with women. Based on her background, and her mannerisms, she's friendly and joking with other women but doesn't let them in. I would bet there was bullying and mean-girl shit in her background, and falling into a male-dominated sport like wrestling was a comfort."

"Have I mentioned lately how much you amaze me?" I asked Kyla, which brought out a smile. I hugged her and kissed the top of her head.

Inside, several women said hello and asked me quick questions in passing, but everyone seemed to know why I was there. Ivy, when she saw me, leapt into my arms for a big public kiss before sending me in the direction of the stairs. Leo stopped me briefly, looking frustrated that he wasn't able to help. We hugged each other tightly, the silent message that we were glad that we were safe passing between us. I wasn't sure what I would do if I lost him, or if I'd be in any better a state than Josie sounded like she was in.

At the top of the stairs, I almost collided with Spencer as she was rushing to head down in the opposite direction. She flushed immediately, but her smile was big as she gave me a hug and; since I was a couple of steps lower than her; she took the opportunity to give me a kiss on the cheek. After an assurance that I wouldn't leave without checking in on her before I left again, she shooed me up into the hall.

Abi and Erica were talking quietly in the doorway to Erica and Ivy's room, clearly keeping an eye and an ear on Josie's room one door down the hall. Erica immediately stepped into my arms, hugging me tightly and kissing me. "Thanks for being quick," she said.

"Of course," I said.

Then Abi surprised me by hugging me as well. We'd had little hugs before, but this one was a full-armed one. It felt a little strange, being hugged like that by a woman who was an inch taller than me. Her grip was strong, but I still felt all the physical markers of hugging a woman. "Thank you," she said as we hugged.

"You alright?" I asked as I hugged her back, matching her firmness.

She nodded. "We've all been receiving bad news here or there, and helping each other through it. Focusing on workouts was also helping, that's why all the ladies have been so dedicated even if the world is falling apart. Your family has helped since they arrived, and the classes have been good for mental health."

"I'm glad," I said. "I wish I could do more."

She smiled sadly, pulling back from me and shaking her head, then glancing at Erica with a little smirk.

"What?" I asked.

"She said you would feel that way," Abi sighed. Then she surprised me again by giving me a peck on the lips. It was friendly, not romantic. "You do more than enough, Harrison."

I just sighed, and she hugged me again before pulling away. "So what's the latest?"

"She's still locked in her room, and tells people to leave her alone," Erica said. "She's isolating herself, and that's not good right now."

"Alright," I said, keeping in mind what Kyla had said. "I'll see what I can do."

I went to Josie's door and waited one beat before I knocked firmly.

"Go away," Josie called from inside.

"Open the door, Joss," I said firmly. "It's me."

There wasn't an answer.

"I'm coming through this door whether you open it or not," I said.

There was movement on the other side of the door, and then it opened. Josie looked a little pitiful. Her eyes were red and puffy, and her cheeks were streaked with tears. Her hair was wild, and she was just wearing a basic bra and panties.

I stepped into the doorway and wrapped my arms around her, and she immediately started sobbing as she buried her face in my chest and clung to me. Shifting us a little, I let the door close behind me, and I just held her there in the dark as she cried. After a few minutes like that, when her tears softened, I hefted her up and held her with one hand on her ass and one on her back as she wrapped her limbs around me, clinging so tight it was almost painful. I walked us deeper into the room and found her bed, kicking off my boots before laying us both down on it and encouraging her to shift until I was spooned behind her and she was hugging my arms to her stomach and chest.

She cried again, burying her face in the pillow as I held her.

For a woman with such a ready smile, flirt or joke, I was shocked at how deep her sorrow could reach.

"He was my person," Josie finally said, panting a little as her body tried to come back from the exertion of her sobbing.

"Boyfriend?" I asked.

She shook her head. "Not since high school. Not really. He was my best friend. We tried dating a couple of times, but it was always awkward and we ended up friends who fooled around once in a while if we got extra tipsy and horny. But I loved him. We met at wrestling camp the summer before our junior years. After high school we went to the same wrestling school, and we worked the same promotions. He was the only person in my life from back home who got it, who understood why I did it."

"He sounds like he was really special," I said softly.

"He was," Josie sobbed softly. "Chris was... he was a light. No matter what was happening, or where we went, I knew he was on my side. We didn't work as a couple, but that didn't mean I didn't need him or love him."

"I'm sorry," I said, hugging her tighter.

"God, I'm such a mess," she said, wiping at her face. "I'm being such a little bitch."

"Shush," I shushed her. "Say that again and I'll pile drive you into this mattress."

She snorted and gave one little chuckle, and then we let the silence and the darkness in her bedroom settle as I held her.

She told me more about Chris. About her earliest years of wrestling, and the two of them struggling to make ends meet after high school as they tried to find a way to break into the business. She told me about the little things he liked, his favorite foods and how he would make cinnamon buns on his cheat days. She showed me pictures of them on her phone, both casual and professional. Clips of him wrestling. Clips of him when he'd done a six-month stint being her ring-side 'manager.' Even clips of when they had an in-ring feud at one small promotion and he slammed her through a table with a frog splash from the top turnbuckle, followed by her smashing him with a barbed-wire-covered baseball bat.

"You loved him," I assured her. "He knew it."

"But I should have done more..." she gasped pitifully.

I comforted her, trying not to consider how much those words haunted me. And how much I didn't want them to haunt me in the future.

It must have been two hours since I'd gotten to the Falls that Josie sat up, taking a deep breath and rolling her shoulders and then her neck. She turned in the dark and laid back down, but this time she was cuddling against me. "Erica said blowjobs don't count," she whispered as her hands started to feel around my belt.

"Joss," I said quietly, stopping her hands with mine and pulling them away. "I can't tell you how much it would thrill me to fool around with you, or even more, but we can be close without being sexual. The first time we do something... alone, like this, I don't want it to be because of something like this. I don't want you to have any regrets."

She pressed her forehead to my chest, breathing deeply. And then her stomach grumbled loudly, making both of us chuckle.

"Hungry?" I asked.

"I didn't even eat breakfast," she said, then took another long breath and shifted up the bed a bit. "Can I at least kiss you?"

"I think that would be Okay," I said.

We kissed, tenderly, in the dark for a few minutes before her stomach grumbled again. That made me smile and I sat up, manhandling her a little as I got her on her back and I leaned over to kiss her bare stomach. Her abs were firm against my lips, and a part of me wanted to just do it. To give Josie what she wanted, and take what I wanted. But I didn't, and I blew a raspberry instead, making her chuckle some more.

"Come on, babe," I said. "Let's get some food. I'm sure the ladies would be interested to hear about Chris and maybe watch some of his matches with you. They were worried as hell."

Josie sniffed and wiped under her eyes, then kissed me again as she sat up. "Thanks, Harrison," she said quietly.

"Whatever you need," I said, rubbing her arm comfortingly.

She got herself cleaned up and dressed in some comfy sweats before we headed down to get dinner, and soon she was getting passed from hug to hug until she was sat down in the cafeteria and Ivy and Spencer planted Macho in her lap, who brought a little smile to Josie's face as he wiggled half his body he wagged his tail so hard.

The smile wasn't much, but it was enough. Surrounded by friends, surrounded by support and love, we could make it through.

Watching my family, and Leo's, mixed with the ladies of Valkyrie Falls as dinner was about to be served was heartwarming. After the tough day that Josie had gone through, finding out about the death of her best friend, and knowing that all of the women both in and out of my family were going through similar things, it was good to see them rallying together. That was really the only way we were all going to get through the shitstorm that was the pandemic.

"Did it go Okay?" Erica asked me, sliding in to lean against me as I stood back at the edge of the cafeteria and watched as the ladies doted on both Josie and Macho. The fit blonde was holding him against her chest and smiling in a way I didn't think anyone but a puppy could make happen.

"Yeah. She just needed to feel safe," I said.

"You're good at doing that," Erica smiled. "I texted after an hour went by but you didn't respond. I just wanted to make sure she hadn't choked you out or something with one of her wrestling moves."

I snorted and shook my head. "No, nothing like that. I didn't get the text though." I patted my pockets and realized I didn't have my phone. "I must have left it in the truck. Hold on, I should get it in case there's an emergency."

"If there was, Vanessa or Miriam would reach out to me next," Erica said. "And I haven't heard anything."

"Mary or Kara might try me though," I reminded her. "Or my sister. Or the Staties."

"Go," Erica said with a little smile and a roll of her eyes. "My hero-husband."

The sun wasn't setting yet, but the trees outside the retreat center cast deep, cool shadows across the parking lot that late in the day. The air outside had that crispness that told me we were probably going to get a good rain in the next day or so, and I figured I should probably move my murder board inside when I got back to the compound. The tarp contraption could handle the light drizzle that would appear at any moment in the Pacific Northwest, but I doubted it could take a full storm.

I found my phone in the cup holder of the center dash right where I'd left it; seeing Kyla waiting for me when I pulled in had made me forgetful. With a sigh, I picked it up and felt it vibrate with the notification of a waiting message. I opened it as I started to walk back to the cafeteria, checking the first message.

'Harri, we're hearing multiple gunshots.'

"Fuck," I grunted, thumbing the call button. It rang as I stood stock still, every muscle in my body tensed as my chest felt like it was trying to squeeze my heart while my heart was trying to batter out of my rib cage.

It rang, and rang.

No answer.

I broke into a run.

"Kyla!" I shouted from the entryway into the cafeteria. The tone in my voice had my gorgeous girlfriend immediately looking up and around rapidly, scanning for danger, as she got up from her seat at one of the tables. The big room had gone quiet. "Erica, is your car open?" I asked.

"It should be," she said. "What's,”

I didn't have time to answer her as I sprinted back towards the parking lot. Erica's car was parked about halfway down, one row over from my truck, and I yanked open the driver door and thumbed the trunk open, then rounded the back and started pulling out the firearms that were stored there. When the girls had moved into the Falls, Sara and Abi had Okay'd a few handguns to be kept inside the building, secured in Kyla's room, but had asked that the rest of the gear be kept in Erica's car. It wasn't ideal, especially if something had happened at the Falls, but it was better than nothing.

"Keys," Kyla called to me and I turned and tossed my truck keys to her. She didn't ask any questions yet; she didn't need to. She knew something bad was happening.

"Harri, what's going on?" Erica asked as she jogged out to me. A bunch of the ladies were following but holding back near the building courtyard and watching.

"Kara started hearing gunshots two hours ago," I said. "And they've been getting closer to her." I slung the two MP5s that Miriam had gifted to me over my shoulders, scooping up the loaded mags that went with them, and then picked up the wooden box that held the four flash grenades and two smoke grenades that Miriam had sworn she would kill me over if I used them without proper need.

"Fuck," Erica said, her face going a little white. I knew she was feeling guilty that she'd downplayed me not having my phone. And calling me to help with Josie in the first place. If I hadn't been here, I could have been that much closer when Kara had first texted. "Harri,”

I turned and kissed her. It shocked her, and she didn't have much time to respond. I didn't have a hand free to pull her to me tightly like I wanted. "I love you," I said. "I'll be careful." Then I turned and jogged towards my truck where Kyla already had the tailgate open and the safe compartment under the bed unlocked as she was pulling on her bulletproof vest. I'd swapped out the lighter ones for the heavy ones after the Raider incident.

"Ivy!" I called, and she came running for me. I set down the crate of grenades and the mags I was carrying and turned in time for her to leap into my arms. She kissed me fiercely. "I love you, and we'll be careful," I promised her just like I had Erica. "I need you to do me a favor and keep everyone calm, Okay? It's trouble on the Rez, not near here. Can you do that for me, mon coeur?"

"I will, mon amour," she promised, holding my face in both hands for a moment and then kissing me again briefly. "Now go and rescue her."

"It's,”

"It's about her," Kyla broke in. "You would do this for anyone, dear, but you wouldn't be running on pure adrenaline if it wasn't for her."

I had to swallow hard as I started putting my own bulletproof vest on. When I was finished Erica had joined us and she pulled the side Velcro extra tight. "You kiss me like that and don't even let me say anything?" she demanded.

"Sorry, babe," I said. "I'm in a bit of a rush."

"Then get your ass moving, cowboy," she said, moving past me and opening the driver's door for me. Kyla and I slammed the tailgate shut and piled into the front along with our M4s and MP5s. It was a bit much and we had to do some shifting, but I wanted as much firepower as I might need.

"Erica," I said through the open window after I turned over the truck engine. "Ivy is going to handle calming everyone down. I need you to be a lot quieter and get Dani and Leo to keep an armed watch. Nothing should happen anywhere near here, but I'll be able to focus more if I know you three are being vigilant."

"It's done," Erica nodded. "Now go."

I reversed the truck out of my parking spot and turned towards the driveway, already thumbing the remote to open the gate.

"What do we know?" Kyla asked me. I handed her my phone and she quickly unlocked it, grimacing as she started scanning through the messages. "First heard shots two hours ago. Semi-regular timing. A few outbursts. An hour ago they realized the shots were getting closer. She tried calling a few times after that." Kyla stopped and swallowed. "Did you read all of these?"

"Just the first couple," I grimaced. I yanked the steering wheel hard and the rear tires spat gravel as I veered onto the highway. I flipped the lights but not the sirens and pressed the gas to the floor.

"Thirty minutes ago she said they left the house to investigate and found a convoy of trucks one street over. Men were going door to door, no uniforms and not from the Rez. The gunshots were coming from inside the homes. The men were; Fuck, Harri. The men were carrying out valuables and supplies, along with women and children."

I had to force myself to suck in a breath.

"Call them again," I said.

Kyla tried but there wasn't an answer. She went back to the texts. "They went back to the house but weren't sure if they should try to fortify it or if they should try to run and hide. That was the last message."

I punched the center of the steering wheel hard enough to hurt my knuckles, and the bleat of a honk wasn't nearly as satisfying a sound as I wanted to make.

"Call Miriam," I said.

The truck speaker system rang twice before she picked up. "Hey, Harri. Can I call you back in,”

"I need a heavy QRF immediately to the High Hills Chinook reserve. I am en route and have actionable intelligence that the domestic terror group who struck Valhalla Hills is on-site and actively engaged in acts of ethnic cleansing including executions and kidnapping of an unknown number of civilians focusing on females and minors."

"I,” Miriam stuttered, clearly caught off guard. Not that I could blame her, but I'd worded it as best I could to give her as much impetus to act as possible. "Clear out," she ordered someone in whatever room she was in using the sort of harsh tone that demanded immediate action. Then she was shouting, though it was muffled and I had to guess she'd pressed her phone to her chest for a moment before it cleared up again. "Repeat actionable intelligence," she said, her voice heavy.

"Eyes-on report as of,” I glanced at Kyla.

"Twenty-three minutes ago," Kyla filled in.

"I am en route with one additional operator, but a witness reports a 'convoy' of civilian vehicles in use. Unknown number of hostiles, but positive presence of small arms in use."

There was a long moment of silence over the phone, and then Captain Bloomberg was speaking instead of Miriam. "Who is your eyewitness?" she asked.

"Kara Swiftwater, a former member of the Reserve Leadership Council. And Gertrude Swiftwater, a former member of the Reserve Police Department," I said.

"Are you sure,”

"Yes, I'm fucking sure!" I growled. "This isn't a stunt."

"You're asking us to deploy the Air Force on US soil, Harri," Laura said tightly.

"Women and children getting rounded up, and the sick being shot in their homes," I said, trying to keep from shouting. "They witnessed it."

"Why is the report over twenty minutes old?"

"Because I forgot my fucking phone in my fucking truck and missed their texts and calls while I was trying to comfort a woman who had lost her best friend today," I broke, shouting. "And now I'm another... fifteen minutes out at least from reaching them." I was driving like a fucking maniac. If the road had been slick, or there had been any traffic whatsoever, there likely would have been an accident.

There was a long minute of silence and I had a feeling we'd been put on mute. Kyla reached over and put a hand on my arm, squeezing it as I gripped the steering wheel tightly. She didn't tell me to calm down, didn't ask me to slow down. She just let me know she was there.

"Harri, I'm sending you the off-duty Airmen from the site security detail," Miriam cut back in. "I can't get anything else to you faster than that. The next best I can get you is scrambling a unit of the National Guard. I'll have an ETA on them ASAP, but they'll be coming in behind you and I need to know if I should call them off. If this intel is off we can't have the National Guard storming a reserve, Duo Halo outbreak or not. It'll be all our fucking heads if that happens."

"Understood," I grunted. I knew what she was saying was true. Even if this was fake, and the National Guard rolled up and Feather's crazy cult was still alive and opened fire on them and everyone died, there would be no covering it up. Someone, somewhere, would find out purely from the mobilization.

But it wasn't fake. Kara would go to almost any length to try and help her people, but this wasn't a false flag report. The fact that there was a big part of me that wanted to pull up in front of her house and see her smirking, knowing she'd pulled one over on the US military and forced their hand, didn't help.

"Do I have permission to track your phone to give my soldiers your live location?" Miriam asked.

"I figured you already were tracking me," I said, managing a slight smirk through my currently permanent grimace.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Miriam said. "Oh, look, the tracking kicked in really fast."

"What sort of ETA on the Airmen?"

"They'll be... seven to eight minutes behind you," Miriam said, and I could tell she was communicating with Captain Bloomberg off the phone as well.

"How many?" Kara asked.

"Seven. One military jeep, one civilian panel van," Miriam said.

"Alright. I need the phone back," I said. "See if I can get a hold of my asset."

"Be careful," Miriam said. "And Godspeed."

Kyla hung up for me. "Everyone tells you to be careful," she said. "No one ever tells me to be careful."

"It's because I'm a bigger target, hon," I said.

She smirked and tried calling Kara again but it rang through to her voicemail.

"Keep trying," I said, and she did.

We whipped past landmarks at reckless speeds. "Five minutes out," I said.

Kyla texted that to Miriam, who would forward it to her team. Then, without asking me, she fiddled with my phone a bit and then music started blaring from the speakers of the truck.

The chaos of a fast guitar. A guttural shout. The kick in of fast rhythm guitar and smashing drums. Another scream, isolated, and then thick and almost operatic vocals over a speeding rhythm.

She'd picked perfectly. Not trying to calm down my adrenaline, and nothing too on the nose. The song transitioned into almost a groove, then picked up again quickly. The organized chaos of the song was a match to how I was feeling. To the spiking of my emotions, but bringing me back to that central groove that let me think clearly. It was the same way a firefight was going to go. Moments of extreme violence interspersed with strange, almost uncomfortable calm.

I drove through the song, and it descended into its final driving beat that had me bobbing my head lightly as I glared out the front window. The final beat cut off into silence.

"God, I love you," I said.

"I've got another one," Kyla said.

I shook my head. "We're here."

The cars that had been blocking the entrance and exits of the barricade looked like they had been smashed aside and we drove right through. I flicked off the overhead lights, not wanting to warn anyone that we were coming.

The smart thing to do would be to get out and hoof it on foot. It would give us more forewarning as we came up on anyone, and if there was a caravan worth of people we'd probably hear them. But in the last few weeks, I'd been making choices based on need, not what was smart. Speed and violence had been serving me a lot better than trying to be sneaky and smart. Every time I was cautious, someone got hurt. Oftentimes it was me.

Every time I went with my gut, shock and awe worked wonders.

I rolled down my window, trying to hear anything, as I jumped the truck over the low grass berm that separated the main road into the reserve from the residential area, saving us a minute of driving around to the main entrance and skipping the small 'downtown' near the burned-down community center. Kyla checked her MP5, racking the slide, and then rolled down her window to listen as well.

My head was on a swivel as we sped past roads. I was looking for signs of the caravan. The number of bodies around had grown over the past four days, dotted here and there, and the abandoned vehicles made it hard to be sure sometimes of what I was looking at. Still, I wasn't seeing anything like the caravan, or worse.

I bypassed Kara's street, riding the cross-street down to the end to try and find the fucking trucks, but I didn't hear anything. No gunshots, no engines, no shouting. No screams. I pulled us back around and peeled onto Kara's street before realizing that I didn't know what her house looked like from out front. I had to mentally count about how many lots in she was and pulled up in front of a house that looked right.

Kyla and I burst out of the truck. She had her MP5 up and scanning while I defaulted to the M4 as I checked back behind us. I could hear my heart in my ears and feel the sweat on my brow. No movement. There were a couple of bodies two lots over, one next to the other, and I grit my teeth.

I looked at Kara's house and saw that the front door was kicked in. "Going in," I said quietly to Kyla. I could hear her following me with quick, sure steps as I approached the gaping open front door. "Kara," I called. "It's Harri. Gerty, Tanaya, friendly-friendly-friendly. I'm coming in."

The inside of the house was ransacked. I could see bits of Kara's life spread out in shattered fragments of physical memories. Colors she favored, keepsakes I could see her collecting. A picture of her and her parents on the wall, askew but unbroken.

No blood, no bodies in the front room. "Clear," I said, pushing in further. "Hold the door."

It was the wrong tactic for clearing a building, but we needed to keep eyes outside and on our truck. I checked the side room, then into the back hall. Two bedrooms and a bathroom. All empty. Ransacked and looted quickly. Muddy boots marking the flooring and carpet. Scrapes on the walls from gear carelessly bumping against the paint.

"Nothing," I called to Kyla, coming back out to her.

My girlfriend was grimacing but stoic, scanning the street around us. She tossed me my phone. "Call her again," she said.

I did, and at first got confused as nothing came out of my phone, but then I heard the ringing in the truck; it was still connected to the system. I snarled and thumbed that off, and then I heard the ringtone coming from the front yard. It was the hard chorus from the middle of Say It Ain't So, with Rivers Cuomo singing his heart out.

It was one of those songs that Kara and I had sung a hundred times in my old beater car, the windows down as we just drove.

I stepped out of the house feeling like my soul had left my body, following the sound of the chorus as it restarted with those familiar chords. 'Say it ain't so, your drug is a heartbreaker.' I found the phone in the grass near the scruffy front garden, the screen cracked and one corner dug into the dirt like someone had tossed it hard. 'Say it ain't so, my love is a life-taker.'

It wasn't a happy song, but damn was it a good one to sing our hearts out to at the top of our lungs. And I knew she'd set that as my ringtone on her phone for the same memories that it was pulling out of me now.

My jaw hurt, I was gritting my teeth so hard. I bent over and picked up the phone, hanging up mine as it went silent.

"She might have ditched it in a hurry," Kyla said. "If it was making noise and she was on the run."

I shook my head. Not denying her, just knowing it was unlikely.

"We're too late," I said, my voice thick.

"Maybe not," Kyla said. "Let me run the lights and siren, see if anyone comes out."

I nodded and took a deep breath. Kyla went to the truck and got into the driver's seat, hitting the lights and then the siren. She let it run for about thirty seconds as we both watched either end of the street as far as we could around the hilly curves and then she cut it off by turning on the loudspeaker mic. "This is the police," she said evenly. "We are here to help. If you can hear my voice, come out of your homes. This is the police, we are here to help."

She let the siren ring again, then repeated herself.

Movement, five doors down and across the street, had me snapping my attention in that direction but I managed not to raise my rifle.

A kid, maybe five years old, came out of a house and started walking over. His hair was a mess and his face was streaked with grime and tracks from tears. Kyla cut off the siren when I waved to her and she stepped out, her eyes going wide as she saw the kid as well.

"Hey, kiddo," I said, dropping to one knee as he got closer, shifting my firearms to hang from their shoulder straps behind me. "We're here to help."

"Do you have any food I can have?" he asked. "I'm really hungry. My parents went away."

My whole body ached, thinking of what had likely happened.

"We'll get you something," I said, glancing at Kyla. She grimaced and went to try and find something in the truck. "Have you been hiding?"

The little guy nodded. "It was scary."

"Did you see what happened?"

He shrugged.

Kyla came out of the truck with a half-full water bottle and a Slim Jim that I'd stashed in the center console back when we'd been doing the welfare visits for the Staties. I'd forgotten it was in there. "Here you go, honey," she said, peeling the dried meat stick out of its wrapper and offering it to him. "Just little bites, don't try and gobble it all at once. And take sips of water."

He tore off a chunk with his teeth and started chewing.

"What's your name?" I asked.

"Virgil," he said.

"Alright, Virgil. My name is Harri, and this is Kyla. We heard there were bad men here. Did you see where they went?"

The kid shook his head. "They drove away."

I wanted to ask 'which way' but that would have been useless. "Did you see them with some women and other kids?"

"Yeah, they were crying and screaming," Virgil said. "That's why I stayed hidden inside."

"Did they drive away with the women and other kids?" I asked.

He nodded.

"Okay, just stay here, buddy," I said, standing up. "Chow down, it'll help you feel better." It would, in fact, likely make him feel worse with all that salt if we didn't get him something else to eat as well at some point, but that was a later issue. I pulled out my phone and called Miriam.

"Status?"

"Site seems clear. We missed them. I have a kid here who witnessed women and children being driven away, and there is plenty of evidence of forceful entry into the residences. I have little doubt that if I check a couple I'll find executions."

"My Airmen will be with you in two minutes," Miriam said. "Handle recon. I'll call off the National Guard."

"Don't," I said. "This whole place needs to be searched for survivors. There might be more kids and they've been spooked and isolated for weeks, getting traumatized; we need to search for anyone who might have hidden from the raid. Your men will need the manpower."

"My men? What are you going to be doing?" Miriam asked.

"Remember when you said you could find me some special backup?" I asked. "Well, I need the meanest motherfuckers you've got on speed dial, Miriam. Unknown numbers of civilian hostages taken by an unknown number of backwoods militia."

"You don't know where they are, Harri," she said. "Unless you've come up with a new lead out there."

"Yeah, about that," I said. "This just went from a criminal investigation to a hostage rescue, so I'm less concerned about slow and steady detective work and am ready to start kicking doors. And faces. I promise they'll deserve it."

"What the hell are you going to do?" Miriam asked.

"Is Captain Bloomberg listening?"

"Not anymore," she said after a moment. I wondered if the blonde Captain had stepped out, or just pretended to plug her ears.

"I'm going to go see if I can make a deal with a biker gang," I said. "Enemy-of-my-Enemy situation. And if that doesn't come up with anything, I'm going to start shoving my rifle barrel up Sovereign Citizen asses until I hit prostates and they sing."

There was a long moment of silence again.

"Do what you need to," Miriam said. "Every living official in the state is focused on the cities. No one seems to care what's happening out in the rural areas."

A jeep and a panel van turned onto the street and came towards us.

"Your guys are here," I said. "What I do next doesn't land on you, Miriam. It's on me. Don't stick your neck out. Just let me know if you find anyone who can help."

"Fuck you, Black," she said. "I've got rank on you, I'll do what I want and take the heat."

"I'm serious, Miriam," I said. "You need to be where you are. I'm not,” I stopped, looking at Kyla as she tended to Virgil while watching me out of the side of her eye. "I'm not responsible for an entire State's worth of people," I corrected myself. "But I know I'm important to the people who really matter to me. And if something does happen, they'll need your support."

"Harri," she sighed. "You know... you know they might all be dead in a week anyways."

I swallowed the cloying feeling. "I know," I said. "But I can't just stop."

"I'll find you shooters," she promised. "Good luck."

"Thanks," I said. "And Miriam?"

"Yeah?"

"If you still have them, set aside some of those discretionary doses," I said. "If I'm going to save a bunch of women, I'd really rather them not die of the fucking plague right after."

"I'll have them ready," Miriam promised.

We hung up. Kyla was discussing with the Airmen, who fanned out in two teams and started checking the nearby houses. She said something quietly to Virgil, who nodded as he sat on the curb, and then came over to me. "You could have toned down the swearing in front of the kid," She said.

I opened my mouth in surprise, then clicked it shut when I saw the look on her face. She was teasing me, trying to lighten my mood just a little.

"What's next?" she asked.

"We wait for the National Guard to get here, and then we're going to go bang some drums," I said. "If we're lucky we won't be shot at before I can ask some pointed questions."

Kyla gave me a look.

"What?" I asked.

"We'll find her," she said. "Alive."

"You can't know that," I said.

"We will," she said with a little smile. "This isn't that kind of day."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"I'm pregnant," Kyla said, wrapping her fingers around the shoulder straps of my bulletproof vest and tugging softly like she was trying to wake me up. "I tested twice, earlier today and while you were with Josie. You're going to be a father, and our firstborn will not be overshadowed by this."

I went down to one knee, my eyes squeezed shut. "Fuck," I groaned, hugging Kyla to me as I pressed my face to her vest-covered stomach. "How could you let me bring you here?"

"Because I couldn't let you come alone," she said, weaving her fingers in my hair.

I stood up and kissed her, feeling our vests and the firearms dangling from shoulder straps clacking together lightly as I poured my everything into her lips. She did the same, and I didn't even care that the Airmen were coming out and looking at us as they moved from house to house.

When we pulled away I was crying, and Kyla's eyes watered at seeing me crying.

"Stop," she said, wiping at my cheeks. "Now isn't the time."

"Happy tears," I assured her. "And stress relief." I fumbled for my phone, bringing it up and hitting the Speed Dial. "There's something Erica and I need to tell you though."

It was almost 10 PM and I had no idea if they would still be at the Black Market, but I wasn't going to wait until a polite hour to contact the Guns of Thunder.

The National Guard had taken almost thirty minutes to show up at the Rez, and in that time the Airmen and I had found another two women and a ten-year-old girl who had been hiding in the neighborhood. They'd heard Kyla's calls but had been too scared to come out until they actually saw our uniforms. The ten-year-old joined Virgil under Kyla's care, and I interviewed the women quickly along with the Airman Sergeant who was leading the security team. She couldn't tell us much more than we'd already found out, but a better corroborating witness than a terrified and half-starved child would help in the long run.

One thing she was able to tell us was that the men who had come had all been wearing gas masks. Mostly old military surplus, though from her descriptions some must have been construction-grade masks with filters and homemade hoods.

That was just great. Kidnapper militia assholes who were taking the pandemic seriously.

Totally excellent news.

Once the Guard actually arrived, Kyla and I handed off the kids to a female Lieutenant whose day job had been social work before quarantine demanded that she be isolated with her Troop and Battalion. The woman was in her mid-thirties and struck me as a Mom figure immediately, so I'd felt confident that she'd keep the kids safe and look after them. The Airmen had handed over command of the operation but volunteered to stick around and keep searching; finding the ladies and girl, and the corpses we'd been discovering in the houses and doublewides, had been upsetting at first but then had steeled them.

"This is the place?" Kyla asked me.

"This is the place," I said as I pulled up in front of the old lumber depot, the truck taking the potholes in the old dirt road easily. The sun was down but the lights from the nearby grocery store parking lot put a ghostly white glow on everything like the night couldn't properly settle. I'd almost forgotten that feeling; it was urban and unnatural, and I'd been living out in the sticks long enough that it felt weird even with the constantly running construction site a hundred yards from the RVs.

"What's our approach?" Kyla asked.

"Will you stay in the truck if I ask?"

"The last time you came here you got into a brawl," Kyla said flatly.

"Exactly," I said. "You're,”

"Coming with you," she said, opening her door. "I just need to know how many guns I'm carrying in."

"Fuck it," I said, getting out as well and hauling my MP5 with me but leaving the M4 in the cab. Kyla did the same.

Walking up to their 'front entrance,' with its empty parking lot, the place looked abandoned. Except the dull yellow security light illuminating the space wouldn't have been on if it was, or if they had moved after my encounter with them.

I could have slipped down the side of the building to check if their bikes were parked in that little hidden lot they used near the office entrance.

I could have knocked politely, too.

My fist hammered against the metal door loudly and continuously, the boom of it echoing inside loud enough that we could hear it outside. With my other hand I held my badge up in the vague direction of the security camera I knew was up in the overhang of the roof. That left me with no hands on my weapon, but Kyla had sidestepped appropriately and had hers held loosely and ready to respond.

"What the fuck do you want, pig?" called a voice from inside.

"Open the fucking door," I shouted back.

"Fuck off," the voice yelled. "Get a fucking warrant."

"Open the fucking door or I start spraying bullets into this building right fucking now," I yelled, my voice booming with every ounce of command I could channel. I could practically feel the ghosts of my boot camp Drill Sergeants inhabiting me with that one.

"Give me one reason I shouldn't start shooting first!"

"Because if that happens I'll feed you your own fucking testicles, Chuck," I growled, guessing at who it was. "I will shoot your dick off, cut those little niblets you call nuts off of you with your own knife, batter them in a nice panko breading, deep fry them, and then serve them to you on a bed of fucking rat poison. Open the fucking door and get me your boss!"

There were more voices from deeper in the building, and then quiet for almost a full minute.

"Why are you here, Sheriff?" came a new voice, much more calm, through the door. It was the boss.

"I need information, and I think you have it, and it's about your enemies," I said firmly but no longer shouting.

"We handle our own business," the boss said. "We don't trade information, we are not rats. Leave now, or we will open fire."

I grit my teeth and could hear him backing one step away from the door. "You said you care about this country," I called. "Once a Marine, always a Marine. You care about people not getting hurt unless they put themselves in the crossfire. Well, I'm chasing a bunch of degenerate backwoods murderers and kidnappers who killed at least fifty people earlier today in their own homes and made off with an unknown number of women and children. Tell me that isn't worth a conversation."

I glanced at Kyla, who was grimacing but nodded. It was the only card we had short of breaking out a shotgun and shooting the lock off the door.

The sound of the lock turning was like a Christmas bell in that moment. The door opened about half a foot as the Biker boss looked at me, his eyebrows furrowed as his gaiter covered the bottom half of his face. "We would have heard about something like that," he said.

"It was on the Rez," I said. "I was the first up there, and the National Guard has taken over the scene now and are trying to help find survivors. I'm hunting the missing people."

His eyes, hard and cold, flicked over me and I knew he was taking in the legitimate overkill among the equipment I was currently wearing for a Sheriff. I had mags strapped all over me, flashbang grenades readily accessible, and an SMG hanging from a shoulder strap. Not to mention my sidearm.

He opened the door further and looked Kyla up and down appraisingly as well. "Come in," he said.

I entered and Kyla followed. He stopped us just inside with a hand out and I found myself looking at a miniature gunline.

To be continued, Based on a post by Break The Bar for Literotica