“No, he won't,” Nerit answered and said into her mouthpiece.

“Katarina.”

“High or low,” Katarina's voice said, small and tinny and barely heard by those around Nerit.

“Low,” Nerit said after a pause. “It will be merciful. We can't save her anyway.”

On the monitor, the tall, gruff, charismatic man was jerking the girl about by her hair, making a good show. Her head jerked back and blood splattered his face. He found himself holding a very dead young woman. Her blood dripped from his startled features. With a wordless exclamation, he dropped her and stepped back in shock.

Curtis jerked his head toward Nerit. “What the fuck?”

Katie covered her face with her hands and turned away.

“It’s a better fate than the one they would have dished out,” Travis said in an agonized voice.

“We just don't kill innocent people,” Juan protested, then hesitated, before adding, “do we?”

Katie looked back at the monitor to see the leader had recovered.

“Oh, so you'll kill someone who doesn't mean shit to you, huh?

Then what about one of your own?”

Travis later thought he shouldn't have been surprised when a large burly man dragged Shane out of the back of the camper. He should have known that Shane was too mean to die at the hands of the zombies like Philip had. It shouldn't have been a shock that he would find a way to the bandits. But the once arrogant sonofabitch was dressed in a ragged dress and had makeup smeared all over his face.

He looked battered and abused with his mouth gagged and his hands tied with rope. It bothered Travis to no end to see tear marks streaking Shane's face.

Beside him, Katie put her head down, and whispered, “Oh, God.”

Shane was struggling, trying to get free. Maybe he had not told the bandits why he was out of the fort, but it didn't matter.

“I got one of your boys from a patrol right here! He's a pretty thing, don't you think?” Martin grinned and patted Shane's cheek.

“What did they do to him? What the fuck? That ain't right!”

Curtis was horrified.

“They're beasts. They don't need a reason to do what they are doing,” Nerit answered. “Katarina,” she said into her headpiece.

“Take care of it.”

Shane was struggling, reaching toward the fort with bloodied hands, screaming behind his gag. The big guy cuffed him hard and Shane staggered. He fell to his knees and his head snapped back as Katarina put him down.

Travis was surprised that he felt remorse. No one deserved what Shane had endured.

The monitors showed that the leader was startled and a bit confused by this turn of events.

“This is what you need to say now,” Nerit said to Juan. “Tell him that we have much more to lose than he does, that we have no problem fighting to the death. We have fought zombies and we can fight them.

Tell him that we will sacrifice our own to protect the fort. Tell him that we have no problem with killing him or his people. Tell him that we are relentless and cannot be intimidated. Tell him that we have contingencies on contingencies. Tell him that right now, my sniper can blow his fucking head off without blinking, that she just did it to two innocent people and that right now she's not aiming at his head, but his dick.”

Juan laughed. “I'm gonna love saying that.” And he did…with his own flair, but almost verbatim to what Nerit had said.

On the tiny black and white monitors, they watched the leader take a step back, his bravado completely faded away. Beneath all the grime, the arrogance, and the wild eyes, was a man strung out on drugs and booze and living at the edge of the abyss. For once, he was not in control and he shifted uneasily on his feet.

“Now, let's put cherry on top,” Nerit said. “Signal Jason.”

On top of city hall, a camouflage's sheet was thrown off. The teenagers and Roger quickly unfurled the long slingshot and loaded it up with a nice homemade Molotov cocktail. The kids had been practicing for weeks, so when their first shot hit the last bandit truck and sent it bursting into flames, no one was really surprised. Cheers erupted all over the fort.

Below, the bandits panicked. Through the smoke, they could be seen scrambling to get back into their trucks.

It was then that the mini-bus flew down Main Street, zombies flowing behind it. Ed was leading the zombie horde like a pied piper for the undead. Through the smoke, the bandits did not see the minivan or the zombies, until the mini-bus turned into the quickly opening gate.

The zombies, finding fresh bodies, were immediately on the bandit trucks. They ripped at Shane's body, the guy Katarina had shot in the knee, and the body of the dead girl. They lay siege to the trucks, beating on them, desperate to feast on those within.

Meanwhile, the gates closed quietly behind the mini-bus, not one zombie slipping in with it. They were too intent on the bandits.

The bandit trucks slammed into each other as they tried to escape, then finally the remaining trucks roared off, the fresher, stronger zombies running along behind them.

In the street was the burning truck, a few straggling zombies, and the dead.

***

Silence filled the eagle's nest. They knew they had won. They felt it and it was glorious. But they had gone to a place that was not quite pleasant. No one could seem to make themselves look at Nerit.

Finally, she stood, and shouldered her sniper rifle.

“That'll teach them to mess with the Amazons,” Calhoun decided.

“They're afraid now,” Nerit said. She looked at Katie and Travis, then at Juan and Curtis. They were all quiet and overwhelmed. Only Calhoun was grinning and dancing a weird jig.

Katie finally looked up. “We did the right thing.”

Nerit shrugged slightly, then said, “I need a smoke.” and walked away. She could hear the cheers of the people in the fort as she made her way to a quiet corner. Calhoun jigged away to the music in his head as Curtis sit in sad silence, his hands over his face, weeping.

Katie rested her hand on Travis’ shoulder and he kissed her forehead soothingly.

The cigarette was lit and dangling from her fingers when Katarina sat down across from her a few minutes later. In silence, Nerit offered her a cigarette. The younger woman took it. Katarina lit up and slowly exhaled.

They looked at each other and said absolutely nothing, but they exchanged something powerful in their gaze. They would always be the ones to do what was right and hard.

After two cigarettes, Katarina finally said, “I should have shot his dick off.”

They both laughed.

Chapter 19

1. Alone Time

Bill was weary, bone weary. Every muscle in his back was cramping. If it was possible, his eyes were even cramped. Rubbing his grainy eyes, he sat on top of the city hall roof. Since the hotel had opened, that roof with its gazebo, pool and nice patio furniture had become the place to hang out. The wind could be brutal up there, but the building had been angled to break down the wind. Personally, he preferred the city hall roof. He sat in a plastic chair, staring out over the fort.

He could hear sounds of the party in full swing up on the top of the hotel. The music and laughter were loud. People were ecstatic at their victory. He wished he was.

Popping open another beer, he exhaled slowly. Nearby Katarina was on patrol. She was so silent he barely noticed her. Well, he did notice her. She was pretty in a sort of rough way. Her face was very lean, her cheek bones high. Her eyes were very keen and had fine lines around them. Of course, what was truly beautiful about her was her long, thick red hair that was now always braided down her back. He had considered asking her out, but when he wasn't sure what that meant in this dead world, he just gave up. One thing for sure, she was Nerit's star pupil, and scary as hell when on the job.

He sighed.

Right now, he hated his job.

A lot of people had thought it was all over when the bandits hightailed it out of town. Of course, that wasn't the end of it, but the civvies had thought it was. While they celebrated, Bill and Curtis, with a small group of armed guards, had exited out the loading dock door and grabbed one of the surviving bandits. Actually, it had been easy to grab him since he was crying hysterically and banging on the door.

The two survivors from the vehicle that had chased Travis' team had tried to shoot their way out of town. Out of ammo and his partner being eaten by the zombies, the last man standing had run back to the fort.

It had been Clyde Otis. Bill knew him. Clyde was the youngest of a family of crooks that hung out with the Boyds. The Otis Auto Repair Shop was nefarious for underhanded dealings and the scamming of unlucky travelers who broke down in the county. But the family was also in the center of other illegal dealings that went back a century.

Though the Boyds were the main crime family in a three county spread, the Otis family was tied into it by marriage and association.

Clyde, all of twenty-two, had cried like a baby the second Bill had hauled him into the fort. He reeked of alcohol and body odor. His redrimmed eyes and haggard expression spoke of hardcore drug use.

Unfortunately for Clyde, he was on his way back down from a high and completely overwhelmed. He had not struggled one bit. As a precaution they had tied him to a chair, but all Clyde did in response was cry more. He was unshaven and pale. His pupils were dilated and his nose raw.