FERN

Gunfire sounded in the distance, forcing my legs faster than they could go. I stumbled over roots, and tripped in holes. Tree limbs reached out to slap me backward, tearing my clothes and scratching my skin.

"Stop being bunny rabbit," Sergio grumbled, continuing on in Russian when his English got no response.

He hadn't tried to force me to stay, but he'd outright refused to let me go alone. His brother, Victor, and his cousin, Anton, stayed behind with the ship and it's cargo. His nephews had apparently already chosen to join Tex, a fact Sergio had reminded me of several times since we left the ship. It was my fault if they got killed because I showed up to distract them. Not everyone is meant to fight in every battle. Some people have to stay behind. And many other things that I ignored with an equal intensity.

Maybe not everyone was meant to fight, but I knew I was. I could feel it, all the moments of my life coming to an end. Every cataclysmic event had been shaping me, strengthening me, for this one. I was meant to follow. I was meant to help. If I didn't go, they'd fail. It was ridiculous, thinking I could be of any more use than an army of monstrous men, but I believed it. Sergio was wrong.

When the trees gave way to dead earth, I paused. Savannah was a stain in the distance, piled high with mounds upon mounds of garbage. Even the moon didn't want to look at it. It kept hiding behind the clouds, blocking its view, ashamed of what had become of its neighbor. In the distance, smoke gave crisp lines to spot lights, and rapid gunfire flashed from shadowed towers.

They were surrounded.

I sprinted forward, but only made it a few feet before Sergio snatched me back by the collar of my jacket. "See? Is good thing I come with you. Is stupid to rush in. Always better to go unnoticed." He pulled me with him as he skirted the clearing, keeping the trees beside us until we were closer to the buildings.

I followed, though I didn't want to. He was moving too slow, though I knew he wasn't. Rushing in wouldn't do anybody any good. It wouldn't help Tex, and as the shots rang up, that's all I wanted to do. Anger took a backseat, carefully filed away until he was somewhere safe and whole and ready to be beaten for his sins against me. Right then, all I could think about was how each shot might be the one that stole him. The one that shattered my existence into a million pieces and left me wholly done. Fully broken. Unable to even be the ghost I'd been before I met him.

We cut between buildings, up a large hill, then back to the trees that surrounded the prison.

Sergio brought us to a stop beside a massive oak and let me go. "Here you will a clear view. Climb up, shoot arrows, win-win, everybody is happy."

"What about you?" I was already climbing. Not because I planned to stay in the tree, but because I needed to see what was happening beyond the massive buildings and know that all wasn't already lost. I needed to see Tex and know that he was still alive.

Sergio snorted. "Old, fat men do not climb trees. I will guard the ground, catch you if you fall out."

I made it halfway before I could see over the surrounding building and into the circle of dirt inside. My heart plummeted into my stomach. Officials formed a wall. Shields and helmets and vests and all the things Tex and his men didn't have. They were armed to the teeth, organized and prepared.

None of Tex's men were visible, and the wall of hazmats seemed focused on the towers. Where was he? In a tower? Somewhere else?

"What do you see?" Sergio called.

"I think they took the towers. There's an army of Officials, but they aren't moving. I don't think they can. They've got them cornered."

"Then they are ducks sitting! Shoot, Djetka! Now is the time!" He continued in Russian, scolding encouragement that made me hurry to loose my arrows. He wasn't Daddy, but he may as well have been. I heard Daddy, driving me onward, urging me to take the shot, then the next, then again, like he had so many times in the before. Only, this wasn't the before. It wasn't even the after. It was the future being determined. It was history being made. It was a moment in time so important I could feel its significance in the air.

Time slowed, then disappeared. Arrows sunk into necks and between ribs. They punctured stomachs and lodged into eye sockets. No aim. No precision. No time. There were too many.

***

TEX

Fuck.

The line dissolved as men pushed together, shoving and clawing for guns with wide, too white eyes.

I whistled sharp, the sound high and piercing amidst the rounds of gunfire still going off outside. The boys in the towers were holding them back, but for how fucking long? "Groups!" I barked.

My men split, but the prisoners didn't cooperate. They were too panicked. The minute the gunfire started, they reverted to base survival. Every man for himself.

"Who wants to fucking die, today?" My voice boomed. It had to. Too much chaos surrounded us. We were in a fucking hole, and if I didn't dig us out, we were all gonna be buried in it. "Because the next man who snatches for a gun is gonna get shot with it!"

They slowed, most taking pause, but some too far gone to even hear me. It was enough to allow the men to gain some sort of control. They wrangled them, forming a circle to lead them out like cattle. It was the only fucking way, and that fact only pissed me off more. That's what they were now; what they'd been reduced to. Cattle. Livestock.

Fuck Josef Arongander. Fuck the Greater Good. Fuck this.

My group circled me, and I peeked through the crack in the door. Too many suits to count surrounded the facility. They formed a wall of bullet proof shields that stretched beyond my line of sight, but the shots raining down from the towers kept them from moving forward. Any progress toward the center, and my men would have three hundred and sixty degrees of easy aim, shields or no shields.

Merle and Cecil were right there with me, the same as they'd always been. They were the originals. My father's men. All that was left of the ones who'd formed this group. They'd watched me grow from little shit to big shit, and now, they'd likely watch me die. I pulled out the map the prisoner had drawn and showed it to them. "We're gonna take this entrance." I pointed, then passed the paper to Cecil and pulled two bundles of dynamite from the pack on my back. I handed one to Merle. "We've got to clear a path. There are suits lined up for a fucking mile out there."

He had his lighter out before I'd even finished speaking.

I addressed the room. "Group one, out the break in the fence! Take cover anywhere you can shoot from, but stay back! Group two, get the other barracks open! The rest stay with me. It's about to get rough."

I lit the fuse, kicked the door open and chucked it across the earth like a bowling ball. It skidded across the ground, under the shields, and in-between feet, then exploded in an almighty boom that shook the Earth. Screams erupted as dirt, blood, and bodies blew into the air.

The men moved with me as I darted forward, and Merle threw his dynamite in the direction we needed to go. Smoke and dust clogged my throat and stung my eyes. Arms, legs, and torsos fell in hard plops all around us. I covered my head and pushed forward as the next explosion almost knocked me backward. I couldn't stop. It was now. Now or never. My legs sprinted toward the carnage, ignoring the instinct to move in the opposite direction. Fire fizzled down and rose to great heights in patches.

I pulled the forty five from my jacket, then the hunting knife from my belt. A rifle hung over my shoulder, but the debris was clouded too thick to see anything beyond a few feet. I needed to fight close.

I fired three bullets into a group of suits heading our way, then stabbed a man as he materialized from the dust on my opposite side. The men did the same, firing wildly, fists and blades and bullets and bodies. Ours and theirs. My man Jason took one in the thigh, and I shot the suit who'd got him and lifted him from the ground. We were outnumbered, overrun, kicking through an ocean of blood and scrambling just to keep our heads above water. "Move forward!" I shouted. "Forward!"

Something sharp pierced my bicep, then my calf. "Son of a bitch!" I stumbled, catching myself from falling on a suit that rushed into my view. I sunk my blade into his belly, then used his body as a shield until I could regain my footing. The pain in my arm was fleeting, but the calf burned like hellfire. Perhaps that's what it was.

Merle met up with my side and supported my weight. "You're supposed to dodge those!" he snapped as he led us both toward the door. Cecil took my opposite side, and what was left of our group circled us. Ten men out of the thirty we'd started with, half of them injured. Shit. We weren't going to make it. It hadn't been enough.

I hadn't given her the note.

I imagined her face when she read that shit I gave her. When I didn't come back. That sweet scent replaced by sadness. Her eyes flooded with tears over a man who was never any fucking good for her. I didn't deserve the amount of energy it would take for her to miss me. My jaw clenched as we neared the first door, and I pulled away from Merle and Cecil, forcing myself to absorb the pain in my leg. I couldn't accept that. I couldn't do that. Not to her. I'd been a selfish son of a bitch to try and brand myself into her heart, knowing the spot would become a wound after I was gone.

Merle stepped ahead and kicked the door in, and Cecil put his hand on my shoulder as we pushed through it. A hallway greeted us, stainless steel and sterile, nothing like the dark squalor they'd forced the workers to live in. The floor inclined like a ramp, and the calm seemed too good to be true after what we'd just pushed through outside. It was empty, but I didn't trust it. Not for a minute. "Keep alert."