The Survivors

March 29th

1

“You forget who I am!” José snarled, hand dipping toward his belt. “Never talk to me that way!”

Dean peered up from the muddy ground. A thin layer of grit was blocking most of the sun; without that glare, Dean had a perfect shot. “Whoever did this might still be around. Listen to my brother, Josey, and shut up, or maybe your body will join the one by the burnt jeep. It is one of your hombres, yes?”

The school had blackened jeeps, fly-ridden corpses, puddles of drying blood, and the front of the brick building appeared as though a bomb had gone off.

José picked it out through his binoculars, storing the insults. One day, he would be in charge, and these hermanos would be muerto.

Dean sensed the thought. He snorted. “You’d better bring help, Josey.” Dean mounted his solid black horse awkwardly; he silently cursed the wound that had healed but left nerve damage and prevented the smooth control he used to have.

At the second intentional slur of his name, José considered pushing things now.

Dean was ready. “Don’t miss.”

The long moment lingered between them.

Dillan distracted his brother. They needed Cesar. Killing his reckless cousin wouldn’t help. He stood up from his perusal of the hard ground. “Fresh tracks. Not ours.”

José pretended to watch mutated ants climb out of a high hill of dirt, but both brothers knew he was a coiled snake, waiting for the right moment to strike. If he could conquer his carelessness, José might gain the deadly air Cesar carried, but for now, they weren’t impressed.

“Our men were overpowered?” José lit a thick cigar with hands that didn’t shake. He wanted to fight; he adored fighting.

Dean realized his brother had been right to stop him. José might be harder than I estimated. “They had help. Casings are from 9mms.”

“Safe Haven.”

Dean slid his coat aside to finger the rifle on his pommel. “It has to be them.”

“They’re the only group we know of that are organized enough to do this. Go tell Cesar to make camp here.” Dillan pointed. “Last call said he was three hours out.” The slavers were finishing up in Wellington. A dozen refugees had barricaded themselves in a basement. Rick had been sent in to open the door.

The twins rode off in a cloud of dust purposely kicked up to insult him further.

José spun away to do as ordered, hand holding his sombrero as the wind gusted. When I’m in charge, those two are dead and I’ll do it myself!

2

“Who has done this?!”

The dozen men in the gymnasium stared at the filthy, bloody floor and the bodies of their men instead of Cesar’s red face.

They were glad when José hurried in. José was Cesar’s right hand man. The scarred guerrilla had been the only one to speak his mind when choosing time had come, but all the men knew the Kelly twins, when they were here, were really second. Everyone else was behind them.

“It was Safe Haven. The twins are tracking. I will get us ready to attack.”

“I want them dead!” Cesar stomped down a long, dim hall that should be full of bound slaves, but held only cobwebs.

José hurried to catch up, staring at the gold handled pistols in his cousin’s crisscrossed gun belts. Is this the moment?

“No.”

“But now, while they don’t–”

“No.” Cesar lowered his voice. “They have a powerful weapon. We will send in el traidor to take care of it.”

“What kind of–”

Cesar scowled, shaking his kinked curls. Will the young never learn? “Not here!” He used his deformed hand to open an office door

The two men stopped, coming face to face with a tall, blonde woman wearing a long, unbuttoned trench coat. They saw stunning blue eyes full of hatred, and then she darted between them. Even limping, she was halfway down the hall before they reacted.

The two men gave chase, words a mix of English and Spanish.

“Apurarse! Stop her!”

“Grab that puta!”

Samantha made it out through a side door.

A sea of male faces spun her way at the echo. A loose slave was fair game.

Terror ran through Sam, making her shiver. She dropped to her knees, heart thudding in her chest as they all rushed toward her. She was in deep shit, even worse than when the chopper had gone down, worse than when the wolves attacked. Help me, please!

The door opened behind her a second later.

Sam cried out as she was jerked backward by her thick braid, landing on her ass in the dirt.

Cesar gave José a nod.

The evil man swung a knee over each shoulder, pinning her arms as he opened his filthy pants.

Cesar knelt beside them, puffing on a fat cigar to get it red-hot. Then he moved it toward the bare skin now showing from her struggles.

Sam had time to notice the man was missing two fingers on his left hand...then he ground the cigar against her hip.

José thrust into her screaming mouth, gagging her as he pushed in as far as he could. With a hand on Cesar’s stocky knee as his brace, his free paw roamed her body. “Bite me, you die!”

“I have questions.” Cesar stated as José thrust in and out of her mouth, forcing her to breathe through her nose. “You will answer.”

José stiffened, hips bucking forward.

Cesar’s face filled with delight as he slammed his deformed hand over her nose and watched her choke.

José pulled out, feverish at her purple face. Maybe I’ll do it again and not stop.

Sam rolled over, gasping, straining for even a thread of air as tears streamed over her cheeks.

“Each of my men waits for a turn; they will get it if you tell a single lie.” Cesar’s eyes narrowed as she continued to cough and gag. “Why were you left behind? You have disease?”

“Not left! I got here...too late. Saw...them leaving.” She stayed on the ground, coughing it up. She cringed when the short, stocky leader jerked her to her feet.

“Tell me!”

“Two...jeeps, three vans? Like SWAT, solid black.”

“How many men?”

Sam shook her head, trembling. “They were leaving when I...came up 210. I only saw them go.”

“She lies!” José exclaimed, advancing toward her with an expression that said her mouth hadn’t been enough.

“They left her because she is diseased! I claim her.”

Cesar hated how fast fire blazed in her eyes

“They did not leave me! They would have loved to have me, but the dumbass driver never looked back!”

Cesar jerked her arm. “Why, puta? What makes you so especial?”

Sam stepped through destiny’s open door. “I’m a storm tracker. Who doesn’t need that now?”

Cesar hid his pleasure. He gave José a nod as he shoved her, tripping her so she hit the dirt. “My tent first. Show her what I expect tonight. Mañana, she does rounds of el los soldados.”

Samantha’s heart clenched with fear like she’d never known, unable to believe he found no value in her. Escape!

Sam began to plan, ignoring the hand crawling inside her torn shirt. She had gotten out a call and been answered, but the radio had gone dead before she could ask if they would come get her. She couldn’t count on it. She had to save herself, again. She hadn’t wanted to wait in the middle of a battle scene, but the rest of this neighborhood had looked just as bad or worse. Now, she wished she’d taken shelter anywhere but here.

Samantha looked around, searching for anything that could help. Crooked tents with Mexican flags and slogans were going up; the smoky breeze carried odors of feces, rot, blood, and death. Screams echoed from the other side of the big camp… It only took a moment to understand these men were evil.

A piercing scream echoed, making her jump.

Samantha stopped struggling as the man led her through one side of the unorganized camp. Sam replayed the evil leader’s words: “Show her what I expect tonight.”

Fear filled her body from the feet up. Melvin and Henry had been bad. This was going to make her want them back.

Her captor shoved her into a large, lopsided tent. He followed her in, closing the flap.

3

The second she was able to move, Samantha forced herself to her feet and began searching for a weapon, ignoring the blood dripping from her mouth, her nose, down her thighs. There has to be something!

Her attacker had chained her ankle to the tent pole like a dog; the cold metal was a horrid reminder of her weeks in captivity. Her gut was blazing with determination to get away. Tonight. They would be expecting it, but they didn’t know she’d kill to accomplish it. They don’t know what I’m capable of!

Samantha edged to the flap and slowly lifted a tiny corner. She swept the men, who appeared unhealthy with cold sores, coughs, and noses being wiped on filthy shirtsleeves. They were an ugly group of hardened killers, with bruised faces and clothes streaked in blood that drew insects in swarms. Sam hated the snapping flies swarming the filthy camp, but it was fitting that the mutations were here, in this place of abominations.

The town outside the camp had been gone before the slavers arrived. Sam cursed herself for being caught off guard. She should have known trouble was coming by the way the rescue party had been leaving so quickly. It had taken days to figure out how to power up the CB system. After finally succeeding, she’d fallen asleep in front of the radio and missed the engines through the wind and her bad dreams.

Samantha shivered as the noise levels increased with more cries, gunfire, barking, shouts. Help wouldn’t come from any of these men. What about the females here?

As she started to raise the flap higher, instinct took over. Sam ducked a big boot slamming into the tent where her face had been.

“Closed!”

Samantha scrambled back, afraid the guard would come in and hurt her too. What am I going to do?

Keep trying.

That, she would do until she was dead. She was a survivor, no matter how many times this new world tried to kill her. At one point, Samantha had laid low in a supermarket full of decaying bodies during a dust storm. The warning had only arrived an hour before the sandstorm, but it had been enough. The waves of energy made her heart clench in longing. It had come from someone who was like her. She had almost chosen to skip Cheyenne and hunt for the person, but she wasn’t sure how to do it. Now, she bitterly wished she had tried.

“You won’t find anything.”

Samantha was on her knees in front of the flap. She looked up to find a tall, thin white man with shifty eyes and a black bandana around his neck. He held a jug of brownish water in one hand. He looked so much like one of the slavers that Samantha forgot her own plan.

“What do you want?!” She backed up on the blood-splattered floor. She wouldn’t get near the cot again unless she was dead or unconscious.

“Cesar wants you to get cleaned up and ready for him.”

Sam ignored the words, escape plans reforming in her mind as she watched his green eyes crawl over her exposed flesh. The steel in her spine hardened. She stood, facing him. Maybe she had gotten lucky. If he wanted her when she was this battered, he was a sexual deviant at the least, and therefore, weak. “Are you one of his men?”

Rick let the flap shut them in smelly dimness. “Slave.”

Sam took in the fresh and old bruises, the dirty, ragged jeans and shirt that hung on him. The voice inside warned her this man could not be trusted. “Can you get a gun?”

Rick shook his head again, ogling the bare skin showing through her torn shirt. He had a thing for broken blondes. It had sent him to prison. “No. Pills, though. You’ll be a zombie while he’s using you.”

Sam forced her lips to curve into an inviting shape. “Do you have a woman or family here?”

“No.” Rick hid his sly nature. Cesar would be pleased with how easy this was going to happen.

Samantha stared.

Rick felt his body respond. The blood and bruises were a turn-on for him. That was another reason he’d stayed. Here, a man was allowed to be just that: a man.

“Do they let you come and go?”

“Sometimes. Usually, I have a guard.” Rick gave a slight wince that he made sure she saw. “I got away once.” His voice lowered to a mutter. “Haven’t tried in a long time.”

Aware of the dim day fading fast, Samantha ran a hand up his arm, letting her shirt fall open. “You like women?”

His expression was full of want, but his mind was full of control. It was all part of the plan. Rick had done it enough to know he’d already succeeded. He was numb to the guilt as he worked her. “Hell, yeah!”

“Wanna touch?”

Rick did want her. Unlike the other females here, who cried too much and cowered, this one had the feel of a fighter. He broke Cesar’s first rule: don’t touch until the deal is done.

Samantha was unprepared for the bolt of lust his gentle hands drew. When she arched into his caress, to her shame, it wasn’t completely faked. “Wanna do more?”

His hands slid to her bony hips.

Sam pulled back, closing her torn top as best she could. “Then get us out of here. I’ll be your slave.”

Rick’s hands lowered in mock fear. “He’ll kill us!”

“We’re not Mexican. He’ll do that anyway.”

There was truth in the statement.

She leaned against him, sensing weakness. “It’ll be great. Just the two of us, and you’ll never be alone.”

“It’ll have to be fast, while they’re drinking. Be ready.”

His words surprised her, even though it was what she wanted to hear. “I will.”

“Good. You can trust me.”

4

“She went for it already?”

Rick told Cesar everything word for word, like he always did. They were standing just out of sight of the tent where Samantha was stashed. This wasn’t the first time they’d run across a valuable female and used her to get inside a defended town. It would be the first time they’d used a government employee. Rick and Cesar both assumed she’d been one. They’d spent enough time around detention center females to recognize the type.

“She is smart. Talk to her a little. Sneak out on one of the horses.” Cesar fingered the handle of the knife in his belt as the cool wind blew by them. “You will contact me in two weeks. If you do not…”

Rick gave in without a fight; shame no longer something he felt. “You’ll have what you want, like in Trinidad and Boulder. This plan always works.”

“And what reward do you ask, white man, for betraying your people? Again.”

Rick didn’t flinch. They weren’t his people. They hadn’t been since the war. “The woman, until I’m tired of her.”

“We have no white unions!”

“Not a union. My slave.”

“If there is a child, it will be killed.”

Rick snorted. “I want her, not some screaming shit machine. If she comes up pregnant, I’ll make it go away.”

Cesar didn’t doubt him. “Deal. Do not forget. Two weeks, and then you will deliver Safe Haven to me.”

Cesar watched Rick go to the woman, waiting until he was out of earshot. “You follow. Make sure your witch is with them. We’ll be along.”

“We will.”

The twins hovered in the shadows, eager to go. The tracks from the school might have led them to the witch, but the brothers had lost their tracks in a sewer drain and hadn’t been able to find them again despite checking exits for hours. The weeks that had gone by had made the twins doubt themselves. If the woman wasn’t what they had assumed, then they would just keep going.

Cesar had put a lot of time and effort into this now. He’d made strong plans based around the control of such a power; being denied would cost someone’s life. They’d likely be caught and killed in the future if they had to run, but the need for revenge on the woman was undeniable. If she was what they thought, then they would gain something any man would risk his life for–true magic. If she wasn’t, their lives might be over in this country.