Author: Sam Sisavath
Date: 2020-12-13 08:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Thriller; Post-Apocalyptic | Infected
Description: THE SPY GAME IS NO PLACE FOR A HERO. The ghoul apocalypse reshaped the world. It also changed people. Some for the better, often for the worse. For Keo, it's the former. Well, mostly. He's a changed man now that he's found the love of his life, but when he agrees to help his old comrades at Black Tide with an important mission, Keo probably should have said no. But Keo being Keo, he didn't. Shoulda, woulda, coulda, pal. The job is to gather vital intelligence that could have dangerous ramifications, as well as alter the balance of power in what remains of the United States of America. It's a t
Publisher: Barnes & Noble Press

100 Deep

Copyright © 2020 by Sam Sisavath

All rights reserved.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

Published by Road to Babylon Media LLC
www.roadtobabylon.com

Edited by Jennifer Jensen & Wendy Chan

Cover Art by Deranged Doctor Design

Contents

Books in the Road to Babylon Series

Also by Sam Sisavath

About 100 Deep

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Books in the Road to Babylon Series

Glory Box

Bombtrack

Rooster

Devil’s Haircut

Black

The Distance

Hollow

Daybreak

The Ranch

100 Deep

Nice Shot

Also by Sam Sisavath

The Purge of Babylon Post-Apocalyptic Series

The Purge of Babylon: A Novel of Survival

The Gates of Byzantium

The Stones of Angkor

The Walls of Lemuria Collection (Keo Prequel)

The Fires of Atlantis

The Ashes of Pompeii

The Isles of Elysium

The Spears of Laconia

The Horns of Avalon

The Bones of Valhalla

Mason’s War (A Purge of Babylon Story)

The After the Purge: Vendetta Trilogy

Requiem

Tokens

Remains

The After The Purge: AKA John Smith Post-Apocalyptic Series

Mist City

Run or Fight

Shoot Last

The Allie Krycek Vigilante Series

Hunter/Prey

Saint/Sinner

Finders/Keepers

Savior/Corruptor

The Red Sky Conspiracy Series

Most Wanted

The Devil You Know

The Fall of Man Post-Apocalyptic Series

The Break

Homefront

Firebase

The Tide

About 100 Deep

THE SPY GAME IS NO PLACE FOR A HERO.

The ghoul apocalypse reshaped the world. It also changed people. Some for the better, often for the worse.

For Keo, it’s the former. Well, mostly.

He’s a changed man now that he’s found the love of his life, but when he agrees to help his old comrades at Black Tide with an important mission, Keo probably should have said no. But Keo being Keo, he didn’t.

Shoulda, woulda, coulda, pal.

The job is to gather vital intelligence that could have dangerous ramifications, as well as alter the balance of power in what remains of the United States of America. It’s a tricky business, this spy game, but if anyone can do it, it’s Keo.

Or, at least, Keo hopes so. Or he might not see Lara again.

One

It was a full moon. Bad things always happened on a full moon. Everyone knew it, from the ancient Greeks to the modern Americans. They wrote essays about it. Poems and books and such. He was pretty sure the guys that came before Homo sapiens chiseled cave walls about it—not that he had any proof or anything.

“Chang.”

It wasn’t that the lack of a full moon would have prevented all the bad things that were about to happen tonight from happening. In Keo’s experience, the bad stuff always happened whether you wanted it to or not. The trick was to adapt. Which brought to mind a saying that was favored by his old friends at Black Tide: “Hope for the best, prepare for the worst.”

“Chang!”

Not that Keo was hoping for anything right now. Hope didn’t get you anywhere. Because people did things during a full moon they wouldn’t have done on any other nights. And others, well, they’d always wanted to do those things, but just never had the courage. For some reason, a full moon always got those types’ bloodlust going.

“Hey, Chang!”

Keo wasn’t one of those people. He did things because he had to, because not doing them cost him more. A led to B, which ended up at C, and eventually, D. Or something like that. He could have been slightly off his alphabet by a letter or two.

A loud whistle, followed by the half-amused, half-annoyed sounding, “Eyes over here, champ!”

Keo looked over at the whistler.

A big man with shaggy blond hair that would have made him look like a hippie, except for the rest of him. Broad shoulders and a neck as big as one of Keo’s thighs. Not fat by any stretch of the imagination. Harvey was just big.

“We didn’t come here to sightsee, champ, we came here to do work,” Harvey said.

“Work?” Keo thought. This isn’t work, pal. You don’t know what real work is, but maybe one day I’ll show you.

Keo hopped off his saddle. The animal he’d been given was a nice, tall thoroughbred, but Keo had ridden better versions. There was once a horse named Horse that had served him pretty well for a while. Then Horse got it into his horse’s head that he didn’t need Keo and took off. Or maybe Horse just realized being around someone like Keo was bad for his health. Not that Keo could blame him. Most people he’d met would say the same thing, never mind such a clever animal like the horse named Horse.

A horse was a horse…until it wasn’t. Or something like that.

“Man, where are you right now?”

Keo looked over at the person who’d asked the question. Lance, though Harvey called him Lancelot. Because Lance was blond with boyish good looks that helped him seduce any woman he wanted and was hell on wheels with a sword. Actually, none of those things were true. Harvey called Lance Lancelot because Harvey had, once upon a time, seen the movie Excalibur and thought it was funny. Keo didn’t have the heart to tell ol’ Harvey that Lancelot, not to mention his buddy Arthur and all their pals of the Round Table, didn’t actually exist and were just a figment of some Briton’s imagination. Probably.

The real Lance didn’t look anything like the Lancelots portrayed in all the movies and TV shows about the King Arthur myth. The Lance that walked up the cobblestone driveway next to Keo was dark-haired and short. Keo had 6 inches or so on him, depending on what shoes Lance decided to wear on that given day. Lance wasn’t so much skinny as he was a bag of bones. His arms looked more like chopsticks, and Keo was always a little paranoid the man’s web gun belt would slide down his hips—the holstered firearm and sheathed knife, not to mention the ammo pouches, right along with it. He also stank of cigarettes. The man smoked religiously and probably had for many years since he was a kid. That was probably why he was stuck a midget his whole life. Keo had heard that tobacco could stunt your growth.

Maybe Lance’s lack of height and heft was why Harvey appeared so intimidating by comparison. He was bigger than all of them, and in this game, physical intimidation, without the need to actually do anything, was a major asset. Certainly, Harvey made the FN FAL battle rifle he was carrying in one meaty paw look like a child’s toy. The gun, also known as the “Right Arm of the Free World,” appeared weightless as he walked up to the front door of the big two-story house and rang the doorbell.

Keo and Lance stopped about five feet behind Harvey. There was a fourth body behind them, but he was busy tying up the horses to a streetlamp at the curb. Keo glanced back as that person, Steven, jogged over to join them, running across the homeowner’s well-manicured lawn as he did so. Keo wondered how the homeowner had managed that; or maybe, more importantly, why? Who took care of their lawns these days? The man’s neighbors sure as hell didn’t. Half of the houses Keo saw as he rode up the street, their path lit by solar-powered streetlights, had jungles for lawns.

“Horses good?” Lance asked Steven as the young man reached them.

Steven nodded, slightly out of breath despite the short distance. “Good. They’re good.”

“Secured?”

“Secured.”

“You sure?”

“Yes.”

“Sure, sure?”

Steven grinned. “Sure as sure can be sure.”

Lance chuckled.

That was a joke between them. Keo had counted three times that they’d done that and hadn’t found any of it all that amusing.

Must be an inside joke or something.

That, or just an example of some really bad sense of humor.

It was probably that. Keo had met a lot of guys in his time who thought they were funny. One of them was Danny.

Steven was younger than Danny, so he had an excuse to be bad at comedy. Fourteen years old and taller than Lance but shorter than Keo, with a physique that was about in the middle of the two older men standing in front of him. The kid shared Danny’s sandy blond hair, though his was a bit longer.

Unlike Lance or Keo, the teenager’s web gun belt only had pouches for supplies and a sheathed knife. He was also not carrying a pump-action shotgun like Lance or Keo’s slung MP5K. The knife was all Steven got until, Keo was told, the kid earned something more, though no one explained to Keo exactly how that would come about. Not that Keo couldn’t have guessed. Places like this operated strictly on a meritocracy. It wasn’t who you knew, but what you did—or were willing to do that got you noticed.

When no one answered his first ring, Harvey pressed the doorbell again. He hadn’t bothered to turn around to look at Keo and the others. He didn’t have to; the plan was already explained before they climbed on their horses.

Harvey didn’t have to press the doorbell a third time. Light appeared on the other side of the door’s security glass, signaling that the homeowner had woken up. The sounds of locks opening—three that Keo counted—and finally the obvious clank-clack of a deadbolt sliding out of place.

The door opened, revealing a man in white pajamas with a lantern. Light danced across his wrinkled face and wide forehead; brown eyes peered out at Harvey and stayed here. He recognized the person in authority. It certainly wasn’t Keo or Lance, or the kid, Steven.

“Harvey,” the old man said. “It’s late.”

“Can we come in, Roy?” Harvey asked.

“What’s this about? It’s late.”

“I know it’s late. Can we come in?”

Roy gave Harvey a Like I have any choice look before stepping aside. “Come on in, then. I’ll get Mary to make some coffee.”

“Don’t bother,” Harvey said as he stepped inside. “We won’t be here long.”

“Mind telling me what this’s about?”

“Let’s talk in the living room.”

“Mary—”

“Let’s not get her involved.”

“Okay,” Roy said.

The old man finally looked over at Keo and Lance. Roy kept one hand on the door, the other holding the lantern. Keo wondered if the man was thinking about slamming the door in their faces. Not that that would have done him any good, since Harvey was already inside. And it wasn’t like Roy had anything on him but his pajamas at the moment.

Probably should have armed yourself, Roy ol’ pal.

Roy wasn’t completely weaponless, of course. He had the lantern. But it would have been the lantern against Harvey’s FAL and sidearm, not to mention his large KA-BAR blade. Given those odds, Roy probably figured it was better to see if he could talk his way out of this. The old man nodded at Keo and Lance as they, too, stepped inside.

“Lance,” Roy said.

“Hey, Roy,” Lance said.

“Chang,” Roy said to Keo.

Keo pursed a smile back. It didn’t matter how many times people called him Chang; it always took him a moment to respond.

“Roy, sorry to bother you so late,” Keo said.

“No worries. I was gonna get up to pee anyway,” Roy said. He, too, pursed a smile back at Keo. “Old man bladder, and all.”

“I hear that.”

“Not yet, but you will, soon, kid.”

Roy didn’t bother to acknowledge Steven. Most people didn’t bother with Steven.

The click as Roy closed the door behind them. Then, for some reason, did all the locks again. All of them.

Harvey had made himself at home in Roy’s first-floor living room and found the switch that turned on the lights. Two of them, both LEDs powered by solar panels in Roy’s backyard. Keo knew that because he’d helped Roy set up the second panel three days earlier. Not that he’d had any choice; as a newcomer, he’d been given mostly random labor duties. Becoming one of Harvey’s gang—at least for this one night—was a big promotion.

“Sit down, Roy,” Harvey said as he walked around like he owned the place. The big man glanced up at the second-floor railing before peeking at the stairs.

“I’d like to know what this is about,” Roy said. He hadn’t sat down.

“Sit,” Harvey said.

“Tell me what this is about first.”

“Sit.”

Roy sighed and sat down on a brown armchair. The furniture was mostly immaculate, except for a tear on the right armrest. All Roy had to do to pop out the leg rest part was to lean back slightly, but he didn’t do that now. He could probably already sense the mood and knew being comfortable wasn’t in the cards tonight.

Keo thought Roy looked much older than his fifty-nine years. Crow’s feet jutted from the corners of his eyes, and old scars lined his chin and forehead. His broken nose had never been properly reset, just one more proof that he hadn’t survived The Purge without having to fight for the privilege.

Watching the man attempt to figure out what was happening and how he was going to survive the night made Keo feel sorry for him. He’d been in situations like this before and felt Roy’s fears. He could see it in the man’s slight twitches, the way he rested both palms on his chair’s armrests, fingers digging slightly into the fabric. There were no obvious signs on the face or in the eyes, because Roy was putting on his best game face.

But it wasn’t convincing enough.

At least not to Keo. He’d simply been around too long, done too many things, and seen too much to miss all the signals. He was looking at a man who knew his life was dangling from the edge and that any wrong move could get him killed.

Harvey stopped pacing the living room to look back at Roy. “Where were you last night?”

“What?” Roy said.

“Where were you last night?”

“Why?”

“It’s a simple question.”

“Is it?”

“Simple enough that you shouldn’t have any problems answering. Where were you last night?”

“Here,” Roy said.

“Here?”

“Yes. Here. At home.”

“That’s funny, because someone saw you around the hotel.”

Roy’s already lined forehead furrowed even more. “What?”

“Which part didn’t you understand?”

“I was nowhere near the hotel last night. I was here. Here.”

“Can you prove that?”

“I was with Mary. You can ask her.”

“She’s your wife. She’d say anything you told her to. Even lie for you.”

“She wouldn’t lie for me.”

“So you’re saying your wife doesn’t love you?”

“What?” Roy shook his head. He looked like a drowning man trying to fight his way back to the surface. “No, no, that’s not what I’m saying. She loves me, but she doesn’t have to lie. Because it’s the truth.”

“Lancelot,” Harvey said.

Lance took something out of his pocket and tossed it to Roy. The old man was surprised and didn’t extend his hand fast enough. That “something” clinked on Roy’s tiled floor.

It was a key. Slightly bigger and longer than a regular key. Heavier, too, by the sound it made as it landed.

“Look familiar?” Harvey asked.

Roy stared at the key for a moment. He squinted before leaning forward to pick it up, then held it up to the light.

“Well?” Harvey said.

Roy lowered his hand and looked across the room at Harvey. “This is mine.”

“Of course it is,” Harvey said. “You think we’re here by accident?”

“But…” Roy held the key up again and squinted at it even closer.

“It’s yours,” Harvey said. “It was used to get into the hotel last night. Why were you there, Roy?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?”

“I don’t know, because I wasn’t there last night.”

“We found it on the floor,” Harvey continued as if Roy hadn’t said anything. “Next to Paulie’s body.”

“Paulie? What happened to Paulie?”

“You tell me.”

“I don’t know, Harvey. I don’t know anything.”

“You didn’t put a knife into the back of his skull?”

Roy shook his head so violently Keo was afraid it might snap loose from his neck. “No. I swear to you, Harvey. I was here all night, last night. I swear to you!”

Harvey put his forefinger to his lips. “Not so loud. You’ll wake Mary up.”

Roy stood up from the armchair. “I was here all night,” he said at barely half the volume. Even so, Keo picked up the trembling in his voice.

Somewhere behind Keo, Steven shuffled his feet.

Nervousness? Or anxiousness?

“Steve-o,” Harvey said.

“Yes?” Steven said.

“Come here.”

Steven didn’t move.

“I said, come here,” Harvey said, louder.

What happened to not waking Mary? Keo thought, but of course kept his mouth shut.

Steven walked over reluctantly.

Harvey held up his hand.

The teenager stopped, then looked from Roy to Harvey to Keo. Keo wanted to ask the kid what he was looking at him for. It wasn’t like Keo could do anything for him right now.

Harvey drew his sidearm—a Beretta 9mm—and walked over to where Steven stood. He took the kid’s hand and placed the gun in it, then squeezed Steven’s fingers to tighten around the grip, because apparently Steven hadn’t figured out how to do that.

Or, more likely, didn’t want to.

“Shoot him,” Harvey said. He was staring at Steven, focusing solely on the kid and no one else. If Harvey even noticed Roy suddenly shaking in front of him, he didn’t react in the slightest.

“Shoot him,” Harvey said again. He took a step back, before saying again, “Shoot him.”

“I…” Steven said. He held the gun in his trembling right hand.

For his part, Roy looked uncertain if he should stand still or run for it. His mouth moved, his lips quivering, but nothing came out. Either he was afraid to protest or…

No, that was it. He was scared shitless.

“We live by simple rules here, Steve-o,” Harvey said. His eyes never wavered from the kid’s. “Roy broke those rules. He killed one of his own. One of us. That can’t be forgiven.”

“I didn’t—” Roy said, but never got the chance to finish because Harvey lunged at Roy and punched the old man in the face.

Roy staggered backward and fell down into the furniture. Blood poured from his nose as he attempted to stanch it with one hand. Then, when that didn’t work, tried with two. That seemed to work better, but too much blood had already stained the front of his white pajamas.

Harvey turned back to Steven. “Shoot him.”

“I…” Steven said.

“Shoot him now.”

“I can’t.”

“Yes, you can.”

“I can’t.”

“Yes, you can!”

“I can’t!”

Harvey unslung the FAL and pointed it at Steven. “Shoot him now or I’ll shoot you, you useless piece of shit!”

Keo didn’t wait to see if that would get Steven to finally pull the trigger. He couldn’t afford to. It was 100% assured that at least one person was going to die tonight, and Keo had no interest in adding a second body to that count.

So Keo drew the Glock from his holster and fired it.

Twice.

Roy jerked in the armchair, then slinked down against the fabric. Somehow, he managed not to slip all the way off the furniture.

Keo was putting his pistol away when Harvey pointed his battle rifle at him. “What the fuck did you just do?”

“It’s getting late, and I’m tired,” Keo said. “You wanted the old man dead, the old man’s dead. Now, can I get back and finish my beauty sleep already?”

Harvey glared at him from behind the FAL’s iron sights. He didn’t lower the rifle.

One second.

Two…

Three…

“Well?” Keo said.

Five seconds…

Six…

Seven…

Harvey finally lowered the rifle with a smirk. Then he snatched the Beretta back from Steven. He might have had something else to say—either to Keo or Steven—but a bloodcurdling scream filled the house first.

A woman in a white nightie raced past Harvey and toward Roy. Mary, Roy’s wife. She was a good twenty years younger than the old man, and still attractive. She was even more beautiful in the daytime, when Keo had first seen her while he helped replace the damaged solar panels in Roy’s backyard.

That was also the same day Keo took the opportunity to steal Roy’s key.

The same key that was on the floor now, next to Roy’s murdered body as his wife screamed his name, over and over, and over again.

Two

“Why did you do that?”

“You weren’t going to.”

“I would have.”

“No, you wouldn’t.”

Steven stared at him. It wasn’t one of those I’m going to kill you one of these days stare. It was more of a How did you know? variety. Keo had seen it before. Steven was a kid who was out of his element, which made Keo wonder what he was doing here in the first place.

“Maybe you’re right,” the teenager finally said.

I know I’m right, Keo thought, but he only nodded.

They glanced over as Harvey and Lance came out of Roy’s house. The two had been calming down Mary for the last thirty minutes. Or Lance was, anyway, while Harvey ransacked the place. The big man had sent Keo and Steven outside while he did that, which made Keo wonder what it was exactly that Harvey was looking for and didn’t want either him or Steven to know about.

Then, the follow-up question: Did he find it?

From Harvey’s empty hands—not counting his weapons—the answer to the second question was probably no. Unless, of course, Harvey had been searching for something small. In which case he could have easily stashed it in one of his many pockets or even one of the pouches around his generous waist.

Keo hadn’t heard a peep from Mary for about twenty minutes now. Which meant Lance had done a good job. Keo just hoped that didn’t involve a gun and a bullet. Or a knife. He knew Lance well enough that the other man wouldn’t have resorted to something like that, though Harvey might have ordered him to anyway. And right now, what Harvey said was law.

“She okay?” Keo asked as two men reached them.

“What do you care?” Harvey asked. He snickered. “You didn’t give two shits about her old man.”

“I guess I have a soft spot for the weaker sex.”

“She ain’t that weak,” Lance said. He dabbled a white rag he’d been holding in his hand against his left cheek and the side of his neck. Finger scratches. Apparently Mary hadn’t gone quiet willingly, though Lance didn’t look too injured. Scratched as all hell, though.

“She alive?” Keo asked him.

“Sure,” Lance said. “Why wouldn’t she be?”

Keo shrugged. “Just wondering.”

“I’m not killing a grieving widow, Chang. What do you think of me?”

You? Incapable of something like that. But the guy next to you?

Keo said instead, “Orders are orders, right?”

“Not tonight, apparently,” Harvey said.

The big man climbed back onto his horse, a black mare that was just as big as he was. Keo didn’t want to be anywhere near that animal when it started kicking. Or when its rider was riled up, for that matter.

“Let’s go, it’s getting late,” Harvey said. He reined the mare around and trotted off without bothering to wait for them.

Keo hopped onto his chestnut, Steven doing likewise to his white-and-black Paint. Lance put away his rag and jumped into the saddle of another black mare, though his was nowhere near as intimidating as Harvey’s.

Steven rode off after Harvey while Keo and Lance followed slowly behind. Lance had been slow to move his horse, and Keo recognized someone wanting to have a chat when he saw one. Not that he thought he’d managed to get away with what he’d done to Roy scot-free. Harvey hadn’t said anything, but Keo thought it was just a matter of time. Lance, on the other hand, would have more questions. The man was, after all, the closest thing to a “friend” Keo had in this place.

“What happened back there?” Lance asked. Keo figured the other man had waited until Steven was out of earshot first.

“Back where?” Keo said. Not that he didn’t already know the answer. He was just trying to stall for time so he could get his story straight. That old proverb about tangled webs and lies and weaving came to mind.

“Don’t be a smartass,” Lance said.

“Am I?”

“You are.”

“Be more specific.”

“At Roy’s, smartass.”

“What about it?”

“Why’d you shoot him?” Then, before Keo could answer, “And don’t give me that crap about losing out on your beauty sleep. I know for a damn fact it takes you well past midnight to get any shut-eye.”

Lance would know what. The man was his bunkmate, after all, and had been since Keo arrived at Shaker Town almost two months ago. They’d had shifts together on what everyone called Shit Duty for almost six weeks now. Two weeks ago, Lance was promoted out of Shit Duty. Then this morning it was Keo’s turn. Besides the fact that he smoked way too much and the stench clung to every inch of his clothes, Lance was all right.

They rode up the empty streets, passing the many homes that made up Shaker Town’s residential area. Dark windows greeted them on both sides, and if not for the solar-powered LED lights that had replaced the streetlights, they’d be moving under the eerie glow of the full moon.

Bad things always happen on a full moon, Keo thought. And tonight’s no exception.

Sorry, Roy.

“Well?” Lance was saying.

“The kid didn’t have it in him,” Keo said.

“So?”

“Harvey was going to shoot him.”

“No, he wasn’t.”

“You sure about that?”

“Yeah.”

“Are you sure?”

Lance didn’t answer quite as quickly the second time.

Finally, he said, “Maybe. I don’t know. Just known him for a week, so…” He shrugged. “Maybe I’m wrong.”

“I didn’t want to take the chance.”

“Why? You don’t know Steven from Adam.”

“He seems like a good kid.”

“You don’t know that.”

“That’s why I said seemed.”

Lance chuckled. “All that, because you thought he might be a good kid?”

“I’ve done dumber things.”

“You don’t say?”

“Trust me, I have.”

“I know, I was being sarcastic.”

“Ah.”

“That was still a stupid thing to do back there.”

“It was spur of the moment. I didn’t think it through.”

“No shit. Tell me something I don’t already know.”

“I once had a date with a girl from the Ukraine. Everything was going pretty well, until one day I found her sleeping in the same bed as her three brothers. They were all naked. When I asked her why, she said because it was hot. It was ten degrees below freezing at the time.”

“Huh?” Lance said.

“You said to tell you something you don’t already know.”

Lance sighed. “Awesome. Thanks for that little story.”

Keo grinned. “You’re welcome. And hey, thanks for recommending me to Harvey.”

“Who said I recommended you?”

Keo smirked.

Lance laughed. “Yeah, it was me.”

“Thanks,” Keo said.

“Yeah, well, don’t make me regret it,” Lance said, before he rode on forward.

Keo watched him go and thought, Unfortunately, Lancelot, ol’ buddy, you regretting even knowing me is probably going to happen sooner rather than later.

* * *

Shaker Town had another name, one that appeared on digital Google Maps and plain paper maps as an unincorporated community alongside a sprawling river that flowed downward from the northern part of Georgia’s mountains. It was approximately 40 miles, give or take, by car from the former state capital. Not that anyone would be caught dead in Atlanta these days. Unless, of course, one was looking to be dead. In which case there were easier and less painful methods to go.

Keo didn’t know anything about Georgia or where anything was located within the southern state of what used to be the United States of America. He’d been to Atlanta once or twice in the past, but they were never vacation trips. It was always in and out, wham bam, thank you, ma’am. But Black Tide knew about the exact locations of everything; so, so did he. At least, the important CliffsNotes version, which was good enough for what he had to do.

Lance didn’t say much as they followed Steven and Harvey through the burbs of Shaker Town. It was essentially two blocks of homes that looked, more or less, like each other, with just a few minor differences. Not all of them were occupied, but most were. Solar-powered streetlights, the only viable way to keep the lights on these days, lit their path from Roy’s house all the way to the main road about half a mile away from the closest residence.

Back on the main road that connected Shaker Town’s various areas, there was just one light every fifty meters or so, which meant there was a lot more darkness than lights. Keo didn’t mind riding through mostly shadows. He was well-armed for the occasion—silver bullets in his Glock and silver along the blade at his hip. It was the first time in a long time he’d been carrying guns and, he had to admit, it felt good.

As they rode up the empty street, Keo was reminded of another place in another time that looked very much like this one. But that wasn’t too much of a surprise. Most former ghoul settlements looked like Shaker Town. There was a reason the ghoul collaborators, during the year-long Purge, had chosen spots like this: Its close proximity to the river provided plenty of food, and the water made the crop fields that swayed in the darkness to the left and right of the road bountiful.

There was no one working in those fields right now because it was much too late. Roy was the one in charge of a workforce consisting of over 200 people that toiled away in them during the daytime hours.

Or he used to be, anyway.

Was Keo feeling a little guilty about the man’s death? Besides, well, shooting him? Yes, he was. Even though he hadn’t done it on purpose, he’d set up Roy to be blamed for his actions last night. There were no two ways about that. Fact was fact. If things went south, he always knew he’d have a patsy.

Sorry, Roy.

Guilt? Yeah, there was a lot of that. But Keo was used to it. Most of his life was spent doing things he regretted, though it would be much later that he came to realize that conclusion. At the time of those regretful actions, he’d been blissfully ignorant of his misdeeds. It’d taken a woman to show him the way. Since then, Keo had spent a lot of waking hours trying to deserve her.

Tonight, he’d taken a step back.

A big, big step back.

“Don’t say anything,” Lance was saying.

Lance was puffing on a cigarette he’d lit up as soon as they left the homes behind. Keo wondered how long it would take before he got secondhand cancer from being in such close proximity to the man. Lance didn’t seem to care, though. The way the man put it, he’d already survived the end of the world, so everything after that was gravy. He’d been riding the gravy train for years now.

Keo was about to ask why? when he saw Harvey up the road. The big man sat in his saddle waiting for them to catch up.

“Let me handle this,” Lance said, blowing a cloud of smoke.

“Sure thing,” Keo said, resisting the urge to cough. Instead, he moved his horse just a little farther away from Lance so he didn’t have to suck in the fumes.

They caught up to Harvey, who started his mare moving again. The three of them continued side by side, with Lance between Keo and the big man.

“Harvey,” Lance started to say.

“Go on,” Harvey said. Then, off Lance’s puzzled look, “I want to talk to Chang alone for a minute.”

Lance glanced over at Keo, who nodded back at him. “See you back at the ranch.”

The other man pursed his lips, and Keo wondered just how much the last two months of friendship he’d developed with Lance meant. Was Lance really willing to throw his recent promotion away to go to bat for Keo? And what else?

“Don’t be a bitch, Lancelot, head on out,” Harvey said. He didn’t try to hide his annoyance with Lance’s lack of immediate response.

“See you back at the ranch,” Lance said to Keo before riding on ahead of them.

Keo and Harvey continued side by side with nothing but darkness around them. Lance appeared in a pool of light up ahead. He looked a few million miles away at the moment.

“He wasn’t going to do it,” Harvey said. He hadn’t wasted very much time.

“Who?” Keo said.

“The kid.”

“Steven.”

“How many kids you see tonight?”

“Is that a rhetorical question?”

Harvey grunted. “You have a smart mouth.”

“But not a very smart brain.”

“People tell you that?”

“Too many to count.”

“They’re right.”

Keo sighed. “I know.”

“But he wasn’t going to do it,” Harvey continued. “I could see it in his eyes. He wouldn’t have been able to pull the trigger.”

“He’s just a kid.”

“He’s fifteen.”

“That’s a kid.”

“Not these days.”

Keo didn’t say anything because Harvey was right. Before The Purge, fifteen was young. These days, you grew up fast or you didn’t grow up at all. Keo had met plenty of “kids” that stopped being that when they saw their loved ones and friends and neighbors turn into ghoulish monsters that tried to eat them.

“How long have you been here?” Harvey asked.

“Two months, give or take a day or two.”

“Where’d you come from?”

“My mom’s womb.”

“Again with the smart mouth.”

Keo grinned. “Texas.”

Harvey gave him the side eye. “What the fuck were you doing in Texas, Chang?”

The big man had stressed Chang for a reason. Keo didn’t think Harvey knew he was half-Korean, but the man would have had to be blind to think Keo was full Caucasian. Keo only had half of his father’s blood running through his veins.

“I get around,” Keo said. “But I spent a lot of years in Texas after.”

“After?”

“After.”

“Right. After.”

They rode in silence for a few seconds.

Finally, Keo said, “So what is this? A job interview?”

“Nah,” Harvey said. “You already passed that.”

“Did I?”

“Back at Roy’s.”

“I didn’t know I was being interviewed back there.”

“You weren’t. The kid was. But you passed anyway.”

“Lucky me. So what now?”

“Show up with Lance tomorrow at the resort. You’re leaving Shit Duty behind.”

Harvey started to ride off.

“What about the kid?” Keo said.

Harvey stopped and turned his mare around. “What about him?”

Keo looked forward, past Harvey and at Lance and Steven. Keo’s bunkmate had caught up to the teenager, and they were waiting at the next streetlight about thirty yards ahead, looking back in Keo and Harvey’s direction.

It was hard not to see Steven’s tall figure in the saddle. Tall, but oh so young. Lance was easier to pick out; he was the one with a cigarette dangling from his mouth, the red end glowing slightly in dark night. That was either Lance’s third or fourth, but Keo had lost count. He always did mean to ask the man where he got all his cigarettes from.

“What happens to him?” Keo asked Harvey.

Harvey glanced up the street for a moment, as if lost in thought.

Finally, he turned back to Keo. “He’ll get another chance. I just don’t know when.” He seemed to sigh. Seemed, because Keo couldn’t be sure. “I thought he had it in him, but I guess I was wrong.”

“You know him,” Keo said. It had never occurred to him before that Harvey knew Steven. He’d always thought the teenager was just another helper, the one that tied up the horses and got them ready to ride.

“Yeah,” Harvey said. He reined his horse around. “He’s my son.”

Then the big man rode off.

Three

He woke up to a stranger in his room.

Reflexively, Keo glanced over at the cot next to him, on the other side of the small room. Lance’s.

“Relax; he’s gone,” the stranger said.

Keo groaned as he sat up on his own uncomfortable cot, the rusted springs creaking loudly underneath him. He made a mental note to ask for some WD-40 to shut it up. “What are you doing here?”

“Listening to you snore like a runaway train.”

“Nonsense. I don’t snore.”

“Like a runaway train. I had to plug my ears with tissues.”

“I don’t believe you.”

The small figure smirked, her blonde hair visible against the sunrise outside the window. Keo didn’t bother to keep his voice down; he could already hear the rest of the building moving around outside his door, not to mention above and below him. Shaker Town woke up early, especially the ones on Shit Duty.

Keo swung his legs off the cot and ran his fingers through his hair. “What are you doing here? You’re not supposed to be here.”

“You need a haircut,” his uninvited guest said. “And a shave wouldn’t hurt.”

“Thanks for the grooming tips. Anything else?”

“Maybe a whole new wardrobe, while you’re at it. You’re looking a tad shabby.”

“Fashion sense is a bit lacking around here.”

“Excuses.”

“What are you doing here?” Keo asked again. “Lance could have seen you.”

“Your boyfriend left hours ago.”

“And how do you know that?”

“I know a lot of things.” Then, without missing a beat, “Like what happened at Roy’s last night. Wanna tell me about that?”

Keo lifted both eyebrows in curiosity. “Who else knows about that?”

“Not many. Steven told me.”

“Steven?”

“Last night, after he came home.”

Keo peered across the room at her.

He still marveled at how much Claire had grown up since the last time he saw her, outside of Darby Bay. She was taller—which he didn’t think was possible—and prettier. He didn’t tell her that second part, though. It would have just been awkward.

“So what happened?” Claire asked. “And why did you screw up something I spent months putting together?”

Keo got up and walked over to the sink and poured some lukewarm water from a plastic bottle into his palms. He splashed his face. The bottle had been reused so many times that it’d begun to turn a strange shade of gray. The sink was the only real luxury in the room. There was a communal bathroom at the end of the hallway outside. The toilets still worked, courtesy of a water tower in the middle of town that was refilled whenever it got too low. Shaker Town had its shit together.

“I didn’t have any choice,” Keo said.

“Do tell. Starting with what happened and how you ended up shooting that poor old bastard Roy.”

“I had to shut him up. Maybe he would have given me away, maybe not. I couldn’t take the chance.”

“Damn, Keo,” Claire said. He could feel her eyes on him even though his back was turned to her.

Keo splashed more warm water on his face before reaching for a ragged towel hanging on a hook. It was the same damn towel he’d been wiping his face with since he got to Shaker Town. He and Lance.

“What else did Steven say?” he asked.

“His pops wanted him to shoot the old guy, but you did it first,” Claire said. “He’s kind of glad you did.”

“He said that?”

“Not in so many words, but I read his body language.”

“You can do that now, huh?”

“Among other things.”

Like what? Keo thought, but didn’t ask.

Claire continued. “He doesn’t have it in him. He wants to make his old man proud, but there’s a limit.”

Keo tossed the towel into the sink, wondering what else Claire knew about the kid Steven. He kept that to himself too as he walked over to where Claire sat on the windowsill, looking out at the brightening streets below. She had one hand on the filthy dust-covered curtain and was peering down.

He stared at her for a moment. “You okay?”

She turned her gaze over to him. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“I don’t know. Just asking.”

Claire let the curtains drop. “I’ve been here for five months. You just showed up.”

“I arrived two months ago.”

“Exactly. You just showed up.” Then, without missing a beat, “I know what I’m doing. I’m the reason you guys even know about Shaker Town’s dark secrets in the first place. Don’t worry your pretty head about me, Keo.” She grinned. “Or should I say, Chang.”

Keo grunted. There was nothing “pretty” about his head. He had scars and wrinkles and a hundred other things that would inform anyone who cast eyes on him about the kind of life he’d lived. If they’d bothered to take a look at him sans clothing, they would have been even more speechless.

“A name’s a name,” Keo said.

“Not much of one,” Claire said. “You don’t look like a Chang.”

“What does a Chang look like?”

“Chinese?”

“I am Chinese.”

“No, you’re not.”

“As far as everyone here knows, I am.”

“That sounds a little racist.”

Keo smirked.

“What if you run into a real Chinese guy?” Claire asked.

“I’ll cross that bridge when and if I come to it.”

“And here I thought I was running around this place without a net.”

She looked out the window at the streets below again. Keo joined her.

Shaker Town was an old relic from the past, with architecture that had been around since Georgians were still using African slaves to work their fields. The buildings, including the one Keo was in at the moment, were reminders of that dark past. From a distance, it looked classic and traditional, but up close it was worn down and in need of a new coat of paint. Or two.

Or five.

The six-story building Keo was in now was reserved especially for those on Shit Duty—newcomers that hadn’t proven their mettle to the higher-ups, men like Harvey. Keo had been stuck in the same area since he arrived. He was surrounded by men and women who had been here even longer.

The fact that there were both genders in the building meant not everyone passed the time by him or herself. Loud sounds of lovemaking—or as Lance put it, “bunny fucking”—were easy to hear all day and night. Keo supposed people had to do something to pass the time. He didn’t have that luxury, though.

The fact that Claire had made her way here, then talked her way up to his room, wasn’t a stretch. The building had guards in the lobby, but they were all well-aware of what went on in the rooms. Most of them were also serving Shit Duty and weren’t beyond having their own company to pass the time.

Keo had been hoping last night’s adventure at Roy’s would get him out of the building, but that hope had been dashed when he returned here with Lance. But he’d still managed to impress Harvey, so that was something.

“Show up with Lance tomorrow at the resort. You’re leaving Shit Duty behind,” the big man had said last night.

Except Lance had left without Keo, which made Keo wonder if his bunkmate knew about what Harvey had said. Probably not, or Lance would have waited for him. Right?

Keo glanced down at his watch.

5:16 a.m.

Shit Duty officially commenced at 6:00 on the dot. That left him with some time to find Lance. After all, Keo had worked too hard to get this far; he didn’t feel like going right back to square one.

“So, did you find it?” Claire was asking him.

Keo shook his head. “One of the guards either took a wrong turn or was doing his rounds when he ruined the scavenger hunt. I had to kill him and take off. Never got past the back hallway in the lobby.”

“So you didn’t find it.”

“There was no time. I could already hear more people coming.”

“Dammit,” Claire said. “That’s our best chance so far. Two months of planning…”

“We’ll get another chance.”

“Another two months?”

“Let’s hope not.” Then, looking at her, “You sure about your intel?”

She nodded. “It’s some kind of weapon. I don’t know what kind. But they’re doing something in that hotel that’s got a lot of people spooked.”

“I haven’t heard anything about it.”

“That’s because you’re not talking to the right people.”

“And you are?”

“It’s my job, remember? Assess the threat and report back.”

“But you don’t know what they’re doing up there.”

“Not yet. All I know is that they’re expecting it to be a game changer, especially when it comes to Black Tide.”

Keo didn’t say anything. He didn’t have any reasons to doubt Claire. Everything Black Tide had on Shaker Town said the same thing—the place was looking to expand and had been before Danny stepped in to halt their progress. The presence of a weapon that could change the balance of power in the region would allow the Powers That Be in Shaker Town to continue those ambitions.

Keo glanced out the window. “On the bright side, they thought Roy did it, so I’m in the clear.”

“I still can’t believe you shot him,” Claire said.

“I told you, I didn’t have any choice.”

“Keep telling yourself that, if it makes you feel better.”

Keo sighed. A few years ago he would have called her a kid, but those days were long gone. People like Claire and Gaby had had to grow up fast. Too fast.

“So, you and Steven,” Keo said after a few seconds of awkward silence.

Claire glanced across at him, something that looked like amusement dancing in her eyes. “He’s Harvey’s kid, you know.”

“I heard.”

“Since when?”

“Last night. Harvey mentioned it.”

“Hunh.”

“‘Hunh?’” Keo said. “What does hunh mean?”

“Most people don’t know that.”

Which makes sense because Lance didn’t, and neither did I until last night, Keo thought.

He said, “They’re hiding it?”

Claire shrugged. “Not so much hiding, just not telling everyone, especially you Shitties.”

“Shitties?”

“That’s what they call you guys.”

“Because we’re on Shit Duty.”

“What else?”

Keo rolled his eyes. “How long were you on Shit Duty when you first got here?”

“What makes you think I was ever on Shit Duty?”

“You weren’t?”

“Keo. Look at me.”

He chuckled. “Point taken,” he said, but refrained from asking the twenty-something what exactly the administrators of Shaker Town had her doing if not Shit Duty.

The truth was, he didn’t really want to know. Claire wasn’t the kid he remembered from Song Island. She hadn’t been that in a long time now.

“So I struck out. What about you? Any progress on finding out what they’re doing up there?” Keo asked.

“I’m working on it.”

“You’ve been working on it for a while.”

“I’m working on it.”

He smiled. “I’m just saying.”

She made a face at him. “Can’t believe you fucked it up. The Keo I used to know was so much more efficient.”

“That Keo was younger. I’m an older, wiser Keo.”

Claire grinned.

“What?” Keo said. “What’s so funny?”

“Wiser, huh?”

“Of course. The young Keo would have stuck around to finish the job instead of hightailing it outta there. The older, wiser Keo knows it’s better to not get caught and blow the whole mission.”

“I guess that’s one way to look at it.”

“That’s the only way.”

“Is it, now?”

He gave her a half roll of his eyes. “So. I take it Steven doesn’t know anything?”

“He doesn’t. I’ve been careful.”

“How careful?”

“You don’t want to know.”

You’re right, I don’t, Keo thought.

He said, “What about Harvey? Have you got any closer to him? The kid’s a nice way in, but the dad’s the real prize.”

“He’s a harder nut to crack.”

“He’s a man.”

“Yeah, I kinda noticed that, Keo. But he’s still a tough nut to crack.”

“Can you crack it?”

“I don’t know.” She got up from the windowsill. “Until then, you need to be careful around him.”

“Harvey?”

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

“He’s bad news. The guy you saw last night…” She let the rest trailed off.

“What?” Keo pressed.

“He’s dangerous.”

“I know he’s dangerous.”

“No, you don’t.”

“So tell me something I don’t know.”

“He’s more dangerous than you think. More dangerous than most people know.”

“Kid, I saw him try to make his son kill an old man in cold blood. You don’t have to tell me Harvey is dangerous.”

Claire smiled at him.

“What?” Keo said.

“You just called me kid.”

“And?”

“No one’s called me kid in a long time.”

“You’re still a kid to me.”

“No, I’m not.” Then, before he could say anything, “I should be going.”

“Stay frosty.”

“Always.”

She walked across the room to the door. Claire put her hand on the doorknob but didn’t open it right away.

She looked back at him first. “Is it a boy or a girl?”

He smiled. “Lara hasn’t done an ultrasound. And we probably won’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because it doesn’t matter if it’s a boy or a girl. We’ll love him or her just the same.”

“Oh, how romantic. I think I’m gonna barf.”

Keo chuckled.

“You stay frosty too, Chang,” Claire said, before she opened the door and stepped outside, the door clicking quietly shut behind her.

Keo stared at the door after her, wondering if he suddenly had someone else to worry about other than himself. As if this damn mission wasn’t already complicated enough.

Four

“Look at who it is. Big Man on Campus. And here I thought there was a chink in your armor, Chang.”

Keo sighed. As if he’d never been insulted using his ethnicity before. His half ethnicity, anyway. The guy who was doing the insulting now probably thought he was being extremely clever, too. Keo wanted to tell him he wasn’t even close.

“Open the door, dummy,” Keo said instead.

“What’d you call me?”

“Dummy.”

“That’s not my name. Say my name.”

Keo stared at him.

The guy with the big mouth was Sean, a six-foot-three skin-and-bones douchebag that had taken a dislike of Keo the first day he showed up at the Bunkhouse, which wasn’t really a bunkhouse but just what everyone called it. They were numbered from 11 to 33, though Keo had no idea whatever happened to the first 10 or if they ever existed.

Keo wouldn’t have bothered with a verbal back and forth with Sean if he could have helped it. But he couldn’t, because the only way out of Bunkhouse 14 was to be allowed out. It was also the only way in.

Every Bunkhouse—at least the three Keo had seen the interior of—consisted of a single entry point in the lobby. It was monitored by a four-man team, with two of them always present in case the other duo needed to take a break or make a trip to the little boys’ room. The front door was made up of two sections—the door itself and a metal gate on the outside. Not that it would have been difficult to break both down, if you had the right equipment.

Keo, at the moment, didn’t have any of the right equipment. He’d surrendered everything he’d been given after returning from Roy’s house last night. The Bunkhouses had armories in the lobby, which were guarded by two armed men.

“Well?” Sean said when Keo didn’t say anything to him. “What’s my name? Say my name, and I’ll open the door for you.”

Sean’s partner was a big black man name Ronald, who looked up from his very old—and very frayed around the corners—copy of Penthouse to see what was going on. Ronald, all 310 or so pounds of him, sat in a metal chair with twisted legs. Keo always wondered how long it would take that chair to collapse underneath the massive weight of its daily occupant.

Ronald didn’t say anything and went back to “reading” his magazine. From the bulge in his pants as he scanned the pages, Keo guessed Ronald had other interests at the moment, and Keo’s back and forth with Sean wasn’t anywhere near the top.

“Sean,” Keo finally said.

The tall redhead grinned. “That’s right. I’m Sean. And you’re chink. Chang. I meant Chang.” He grinned. “Honest mistake.”

“Funny.”

Sean chortled. “I know, right? I’m a riot.”

“You’re something, all right.”

The lanky idiot finally unhooked the keys from his belt and unlocked the front door. “What’d they have you doing last night?”

“Didn’t Harvey tell you?”

“Nah.”

“Then I guess you don’t need to know.”

Sean narrowed his eyes at Keo. “Think you’re suddenly special, don’t you? Because you got called off Shit Duty for a day…”

Actually, it was just for the night, Keo thought, but didn’t bother correcting the man.

He said, “Rome wasn’t built in a day.”

“Huh?”

“Rome wasn’t built in a day.”

“What’s that mean?”

Keo narrowed his eyes at the man. “Are you serious?”

“Why?”

“He means, it’s one step at a time,” Ronald said from behind his old copy of Penthouse.

Sean glanced back at him. “How’s that?”

“Rome,” Ronald said.

“What about it?”

Keo imagined Ronald rolling his eyes behind the skin mag’s pages, but of course couldn’t see.

Sean didn’t wait for his guard partner to answer. He turned back to the door and finished opening it, before taking out another key and unlocking the gate. It was an overly complicated procedure that had no reason to exist except, in Keo’s opinion, annoy the Bunkhouse residents.

“Sign out,” Ronald said.

Keo did, scratching his name and apartment number—Chang 411—on a yellowing notepad with the word OUT written in big letters at the top. A second pad with IN sat next to it. There were already four or so dozen names before his on the first pad. Once it was filled, the guards would turn it over to make use of the other side. When the entire pad was full, they’d replace it. Shaker Town’s storage probably had stacks of the stuff, because every Bunkhouse used the same archaic system to keep tabs on its, as Claire had said, Shitties.

As Keo scribbled down his name and room number, he’d taken a second or two to search for Claire’s name on the list. He couldn’t find it, which was odd because how else had she gotten in? Everyone had to sign in and out.

“Remember curfew,” Ronald said as Keo put the pencil down.

“You say that every time,” Keo said.

“And yet, people still ‘forget,’” Ronald said, making air quotes with one hand.

“Yeah, don’t forget, Chang, wouldn’t want you to get in trouble,” Sean said as he held the door open for Keo.

Keo smiled at the man. “We wouldn’t want that, would we?”

As he walked past Sean, Keo sneaked a peek at the man’s hip. Or, more precisely, the SIG Sauer 9mm in the holster. It would have been easy to reach for it—Sean had one hand on the door, the other twirling his key ring—but there was no point. He would still be stuck in Shaker Town, surrounded by even more people with guns. Besides, he’d come here on a mission, and the end to that was still nowhere in sight.

The metal door clanged shut behind him, followed by the inner door.

Clank-clank-clank! as Sean did the locks.

Three total, all deadbolts. The top first, followed by the middle, then the bottom one. Keo had memorized how Sean—or Willard and Orin, who usually manned the night shift—favored locking the door.

Keo turned left and walked up the sidewalk, passing another one of the Bunkhouses. Like his, this one had a giant number painted over the front walls, some of the white paint interrupted by a pair of windows.

It read: 12.

You would have to be blind not to see it from a block away. Or two blocks. The door was similarly marked, though not as big. Over the years, parts of the number had faded and been repainted. Keo could tell that by how jagged the lines were at different points.

Shaker Town was made up of four areas: Residents, Downtown, Resorts, and Fields.

Most of those were self-explanatory, especially the first, where, of course, the higher ranks lived in their nice homes. People like Roy and Harvey, even though the latter usually spent most of his time in Resorts. The Fields supplied the food while Downtown—where Keo was walking along now—gave shelter to the mass of people that made up the non-military population. The whole place numbered 2,000 or so at last count, according to Black Tide.

There were plenty of those civilians around Keo right now. Young boys and girls ran along the sidewalks and played in the streets, while women hung clothes out windows to dry them in the morning sun. People shouted at one another from their apartments, while others sat on front doorsteps talking about something that was interesting to them. There was a park nearby where old men played cards and checkers, but Keo tended to avoid that.

All the buildings were numbered, but not all of them were Bunkhouses like the ones he’d been assigned. The rest were apartments, homes to the people that worked the fields that kept Shaker Town fed. But you couldn’t “graduate” to one of those until you were married. And you couldn’t get married until you were done with Shit Duty. The problem, as far as Keo knew, was that there were no obvious steps to get ahead. Two months later, and he was still trying to figure out how Shaker Town’s hierarchy worked.

The first day Keo arrived, he was surprised by just how normal the place looked, sounded, and felt. The vibe was wrong. At least, “wrong” in the sense that he had expected something else. Something more…depressing. Except there was nothing bleak about the people around him. They looked, for all intents and purposes, like normal men and women going about their lives, as if The Purge never happened.

Keo knew better, of course. He’d read the reports and seen some slivers of the dangers that Shaker Town held. The place was good at hiding it, but you could pick out the cracks if you looked hard enough. Or bothered to look in the first place. None of that made the city any different than countless others he’d gone through since the end of the world. The only difference was why he was here in the first place. Two nights ago had been his first crack at moving the mission along.

So much for best laid plans.

But not everything was a total loss. He’d won Harvey’s…interest? Was that the word? Whatever it was, there was a possibility it could lead to something—

The sidewalk underneath him trembled as something loud came up behind him.

Keo glanced over as two horse-drawn wagons rumbled up the street, carrying men and women in the back. Two kids that were kicking a ball around in the street darted out of the way just in time, a woman in an apron shouting at them to “Get the hell out of the street!”

He looked after the wagons. More Shitties. There were a variety of them, too. Old and young and a mix of races. Not everyone looked like they wanted to be here, or maybe they just didn’t like being crammed into the back of a wagon moving on wobbly wheels. It didn’t help that the drivers were whipping their horses to move faster.

One of the wagons jumped a curb and nearly tipped over. One of the boys in the back—he couldn’t have been older than ten—was tossed into the air. The kid might have landed in the street if one of the older men didn’t grab him by the arm and pull him back down first.

That was a close one.

Something bounced off Keo’s right leg. A ball. He bent to pick it up.

“Hey, mister,” a voice said.

Keo glanced over at a kid in torn jeans. He was one of the two that had almost gotten run over by the wagons. The kid had his hands on his hips, face contorted into an expression of impatience. He had an unwieldy bush of red hair sitting on top of his head. Freckles adorned his cheeks, and he looked a bit like a mini version of Sean. Keo wondered if they were related. Did a woman hate herself so much that she voluntarily had sex with Sean and produced an offspring?

“Can I have it back?” the kid asked.

“Catch,” Keo said, and kicked the ball up the street as hard as he could.

The ball disappeared into the air in a wide arc before coming back down, nearly bouncing off the head of a man, wearing an olive-green jacket, who was walking across the street. The guy managed to duck just in time as the ball sailed over his head. He straightened up, snapped a quick look in Keo’s direction, and scowled.

Keo gave him a Sorry about that, pal wave, but the guy ignored him and hopped up onto the sidewalk and knocked on Bunkhouse #17.

“Hey!” the kid with red hair said. “Why’d you do that?”

“Sorry. I got a lead foot,” Keo said.

He wasn’t sure if the kid believed him or not, or even knew what a lead foot was. The boy turned and raced up the street after his ball. A second kid, this one blond and wearing ragged overalls, ran hot on his heels.

“You fucking asshole,” a familiar voice said, chuckling behind him. “He’s gonna go tell his mom on you.”

Keo looked back at Lance, sitting on a horse in the street. His short bunkmate was leaning forward on his mount, with one arm braced against the saddle’s horn and the other holding a half-eaten apple. Lance’s horse, not the same one from last night, was a big brown animal with a white stripe on its forehead. The animal stared back at Keo with large brown eyes, maybe wondering why he was looking at it so closely.

If Lance hadn’t spoken up, Keo would have smelled him eventually. Cigarette stink radiated from his clothes, though he didn’t have one dangling from his lips this morning. Maybe he’d run out of smokes.

“Nice horse,” Keo said.

“I’m thinking I might get to keep this one,” Lance said. He rubbed the horse’s mane with one hand. “Supposed to be a Missouri Fox Tractor.”

“Trotter.”

“Trotter?”

“No such thing as a Missouri Fox Tractor. But there is a Missouri Fox Trotter. This looks like one.”

Keo walked over and held up a tentative hand toward the horse. When it didn’t move away, he gave it a quick rub on the side of the head.

“Hey, stop touching my horse, you fucker,” Lance said.

Keo grinned. “It’s a nice animal.”

“A horse’s a horse.”

Not really, Keo thought.

He said, “You came back to give me a ride over to the resort?”

“Hell no. Only one of us gonna ever ride this bad boy.” Lance started up the street, sticking close to the curb where Keo walked alongside him on the sidewalk. “You and Sean get into it again this morning?”

“I think he likes me.”

Lance chuckled. “I doubt that.”

“You know what they say about bullies.”

“What’s that?”

“You only bully the ones you like.”

“I think that only works with girls.”

“Maybe Sean’s an equal opportunity bully.”

“Hope you never find out.”

“Hey, it’s a free country. He can like whoever he wants.”

Lance chortled, when another approaching rumble and a third wagon full of Shitties appeared behind them. This one was mostly women. Very young women. They were holding on for dear life as the drivers took the turn up ahead. Unlike the previous one, these guys were better at it and managed to skirt the curb with aplomb.

“More Shitties,” Keo said.

“Harvey said to expect more of them today,” Lance said.

“Where are they coming from?”

“He didn’t say.”

“You didn’t ask?”

Lance shrugged, before looking down at Keo. “Harvey said something interesting about you this morning.”

“Should I be happy or scared?”

“I’m not sure. He seemed impressed.”

“He said that?”

“That’s why I said seemed. Go figure. You disobey orders and shoot old boy Roy without his permission, but instead of getting the shit kicked out of you, I think he’s going to make you permanent.”

“Sweet. So that means no more Shit Duty?”

“Well, maybe some Shit Duty, but definitely not as much as before.”

An old TV song about “moving on up” came to mind, not that Keo could actually remember all the words. He could probably hum most of it if someone were to put a gun to his head, though. Something about the good life and something, something, something.

They continued up the street, just as the guy in the olive-green military jacket stepped into Bunkhouse #17 farther up the sidewalk.

“Oh, and get this,” Lance was saying.

“More good news?”

“Harvey wants you to meet him.”

“I already met Harvey. Last night.”

“No, numb nuts. Not Harvey. The Deacon.”

“The Deacon?”

“Yeah. He wants to meet you.”

That was unexpected. Keo hadn’t come here to meet the man who led Shaker Town to its current height, and he wasn’t entirely sure he wanted to. For one, John Deacon, who everyone called The Deacon, had nothing to do with Keo’s mission. And right now, Keo just wanted to get it done and go back to Lara.

“You’ve met The Deacon?” Keo asked.

“Twice,” Lance said.

“What’s he like?”

“I dunno. Just a guy, I guess.”

“Really. ‘Just a guy?’”

Lance grinned sideways at him. “Okay, maybe not just a guy.”

“The man built Shaker Town into a powerhouse. He’s the reason this place exists.”

“Yeah, well, he still puts his pants on one leg at a time like the rest of us.”

“That’s not what I heard.”

“You’ve been listening to too many rumors.”

“I’ve heard people saying they’d do anything for him. Do just about anything he told them without question. They worship the guy.”

“People talk lots.”

“What about you?”

“What about me?” Lance said, when something exploded on Keo’s left side and showered him and Lance with brick and mortar…

…and glass…

…and body parts…

Five

There was the familiar taste of metal in his mouth and the smell of burning flesh in his nostrils. They were not good sensations to be experiencing. Keo thought he’d left them behind a long time ago, but as the saying went, The more things changed…

His ears were ringing, but he was more concerned with the unrelenting throbbing originating from one side of his head—just one side, for some reason—and a general numbness that had come over almost his entire left arm. Again, just the one side.

He looked to his right, where he’d last seen Lance, while picking himself up from the sidewalk. He had to use his right hand to push himself up because he couldn’t trust his legs. Chunks of debris—jagged stone and brick—pricked at his palm as he did so.

A severed arm lay on the sidewalk a few feet from him. A man’s, by the size. It’d been ripped off about two or three inches above the elbow, the flesh and small hairs scorched. Keo could still make out a golden ring on the ring finger.

Smells like chicken, he thought as he blinked through the haze of smoke.

He struggled against the pervading soot in the air. He might have been coughing, but he couldn’t be sure. (There was that whole ear ringing thing...) He could feel his heartbeat sledgehammering against his chest just fine, though; it was on the verge of busting through and exploding out into the tainted air. He’d seen a movie like that once. It had aliens in it.

Water dripped from his eyes and ran down his cheeks. He was pretty sure he was coughing now. (Pretty sure.) He wondered if his left arm was gone.

No, it was still there.

Daebak.

The same couldn’t be said for the building that was once Bunkhouse #17. It was still there but was missing a big chunk of its front façade. Glass covered the concrete floor around Keo’s boots, more than a few blood-smeared shards sliding off his shoulders and top of his head as he moved around, trying to get his bearings.

His equilibrium was shot. That probably had a little something to do with the unrelenting buzzing in his skull.

Nah, there was no probably about it. That was definitely it.

You sure, pal? he asked himself.

Yes, he was sure.

Mostly.

Ghostly figures manifested themselves out of a massive hole which used to be a part of the apartment’s front door. Men and women staggered like drunks on their way home from a bar after one too many drinks. They were covered in dust, looking more like undead specters than people. Some were bloody, others dazed. More than a few were helping each other outside, every single one of them trying desperately not to slip on the carpet of brick and mortar and glass and body parts.

And it smelled like chicken. Lots of chicken.

Keo had been in more than one battlefield in his lifetime. It was how he used to make a living.

How he used to have to make a living.

These days, things were different. He didn’t have to do any of this. Heck, he didn’t even have to be here.

But he was, anyway, even if he couldn’t remember why at the moment.

No matter. He was still alive.

Barely.

But barely was good enough, considering what had happened to the others.

More body parts.

Blood on the sidewalk and streets.

Everywhere.

It was bad. It was really bad.

Keo tried to shake away the banging drum inside his head as he watched bodies continue to stream out of what used to be Bunkhouse #17. People were starting to gather around them, wading through the smoke.

Civilians. Workers that were supposed to be in the fields but hadn’t yet left, and were now moving toward the blast to help.

The blast.

Someone had blasted the building.

His mind’s eye flashed back to a few minutes earlier (or at least he thought it was just a few minutes earlier) before the explosion, replaying the events:

…the kids playing soccer in the street…

…new Shitties arriving in wagons…

…Lance riding his horse alongside him…

…old men sitting in front of the apartment stoops chatting…

…women hanging out of windows…

…a guy in a drab olive-green army jacket…

…a guy in a drab olive-green army jacket…

Keo had almost hit the guy with the soccer ball, but the man had been quick enough to duck. Just before he hopped up the curb and knocked on Bunkhouse #17. Then he’d gone inside.

…then he’d gone inside…

After that, everything was a blur. Not that Keo couldn’t figure it out even if he had no clue about the why of it. The what was pretty easy.

Knowing, though, didn’t help him right now.

He managed to reach over and grabbed a streetlight with peeling black paint—he wasn’t sure if the paint had been peeling before or had been caught in the explosion—to steady himself and remain on his feet. He glanced around again, following gray soot-covered forms as they continued to stagger their way out of the holes in Bunkhouse #17.

Holes, because there were more than one. Three that he could see, spaced out along the front of the building. Whatever the bomber had strapped himself with, it’d caused some serious damage. Keo didn’t even want to think about how many were dead inside.

He didn’t want to think about that at all.

Civvies were helping the injured, grabbing them as they staggered around the streets and sidewalk around Keo like sleepwalking children. Keo had seen shellshocked soldiers before. When you got hit—and hit hard—it was difficult to get your head around what had happened. It would be hours, maybe days or weeks, before these poor saps knew that a man strapped with explosives had stepped into Bunkhouse #17 and killed himself.

Keo gripped the cold metal pole tighter as he looked around, shaking his left arm to get it working again.

…shaking his left arm…

Good. It was still attached to his shoulder. Damn, he’d been a little freaked out at the possibility he might not have it anymore.

But there it was, moving from side to side. It was numbed and there was blood dripping down his forearm from inside the long sleeve, but everything appeared intact and accounted for. Appeared, anyway.

Let’s hope for the best and prepare for the worst, pal.

Except he didn’t really want to because the worst was, well, worse. Keo liked having two arms. There was something nice about that. Something really nice.

“Hey, you okay?” a voice asked.

Keo wasn’t sure who was asking. It sounded feminine, even sweet, but maybe that was just the continued ringing in his ears playing tricks with him.

“Hey, buddy, hey,” the voice said.

A soft hand touched his shoulder and turned him slightly. Keo would have resisted if he could, if he had the strength to do so.

A lightly tanned face—no, not tanned, but black—peered at him, the woman’s head cocked slightly to one side. She was looking him up and down. Not tall—maybe five-two, and way too thin for what he thought were impressive breasts that made themselves known behind a tight gray sweater—

“Are you kidding me?” she said.

“What?” Keo said. Or thought he did.

She glanced down at her chest, then back up at him. “Are you kidding me right now, buster?”

Ah. I was staring at her boobs.

Bad boy. Bad boy!

He might have laughed. Or chuckled. Or let out something that sounded like amusement, because the woman rolled her eyes at him before grabbing his arm and throwing it around her smaller frame.

Man, she was small. He was afraid he might send both of them sprawling back to the ground, right on top of all those sure-to-be painful jagged bricks and rocks and glass. But somehow she managed to keep them both upright and began helping him across the street. Keo let her—not that he could stop her—and tried to help out as best he could by forcing his legs to move one at a time, one at a time...

A young man with a buzz cut ran up to them, waving his hands in front of his face and trying—but failing—not to cough. “What happened? Jesus Christ, what happened?”

“Some kind of bomb,” the woman said. She turned slightly to look back at the building. “Go help the others.”

“How?” the man asked.

“Any way you can.”

Keo wasn’t sure if the guy understood, because he didn’t move. Instead, the man—he was at least twenty years younger than Keo—stared at him.

“Go!” the woman said. Or barked. Keo was pretty sure she barked, because the guy quickly snapped out of it and ran toward the chaos.

Keo glanced over his shoulder to follow Buzz Cut and got an even better look at the remains of Bunkhouse #17.

He wasn’t quite sure how the building was even still standing, but it was. There were ten floors to it and it didn’t look to be in any danger of collapsing on itself, even though the blast had taken out most of the lobby walls and a good chunk of the second floor. More people continued to come out of the smoke and rubble, civilians rushing to help them from every side. If Keo didn’t know any better, he’d swear they’d practiced something like this before and everyone knew their roles. That couldn’t have been the case, because he’d never heard of Shaker Town coming under this kind of attack.

Not everyone stumbling their way out of the building was injured. The ones exiting now looked more stunned than hurt, waving everything from clothes to hands to magazines to clear the clouds of vaporized concrete from their eyes.

“Come on, let’s get you some help,” the woman was saying.

Yes, that was probably a good idea. He’d gotten some feelings back in his left arm, but he didn’t think he was going to be throwing a football with it anytime soon. Not that he could have thrown a pigskin even when he wasn’t injured but, well, he could have done a better job than his current status.

His legs were moving just fine now, and he kept up with the woman. At least, Keo didn’t think he was letting her do all of the work. At this point, that was the best he could muster.

A patch of red hair on the street, poking out from underneath a large slab of concrete. There was a body underneath what used to be a piece of Bunkhouse #17’s walls which had been blasted nearly across the street.

…there was a body underneath…

…patch of red hair…

Keo was staring at the hair, wondering if the kid was already dead, when he felt a tugging. The woman was trying to move him because he was frozen in place. Despite his weakened state he was still bigger and stronger than her, and if he didn’t want to be moved, then she wasn’t going to make him.

“Come on,” she said. “Are you okay? Come on, we have to get you help. You’re bleeding all over me.”

He was? He didn’t know he was bleeding. Was it more than just the blood dripping from his left forearm?

Maybe that was why there was metal in his mouth.

“The kid,” Keo said. Or managed to croak out.

“What kid?” the woman asked.

“The kid,” Keo said, staring at the red hair.

The woman followed his gaze. Unlike him, though, she snapped out of it faster. “Come on,” she said.

Keo began moving again, trying to keep up with her the best he could. They walked past the slab of concrete. It was partially tilted, and he could just glimpse dirty white tennis shoes poking out from underneath.

He looked forward, trying to shake off the ringing in his head. “Lance.”

“Who?” the woman said.

“Lance. He was back there, with me. I gotta find him.”

“You can’t help him. You can’t even help yourself right now.”

“I gotta find him…”

“We’ll find him for you. What’s his name again?”

“Lance.”

“Lance. Right. We’ll find Lance for you, don’t worry.”

“You will?”

“Yeah, sure.”

“You will?” he asked again. He sounded pathetic even to his own ears. He blamed it on the pain.

“You betcha, buddy, you betcha,” the woman said.

He was pretty sure she was just humoring him because she didn’t stop half-carrying, half-shouldering him to the other side of the street, where two other people—a man and an elderly woman—hurried out from one of the buildings to help.

Then they were laying Keo down on the sidewalk, and someone was trying to force-feed water down his throat while someone else was dabbing at his cheeks with a wet towel. The woman who’d helped him was giving orders. She was pointing and shouting.

For a second—just a second—she reminded him of Lara. The way she took charge, giving orders and looking completely unflustered by the situation.

But she wasn’t Lara.

Lara wasn’t here with him. She was back at Black Tide, about to give birth to their child.

And he belonged alongside her, but he wasn’t.

Instead, he was in Shaker Town, trying not to die.

Shoulda, woulda, coulda, pal.

…shoulda, woulda, coulda…

Six

Keo wasn’t sure when he lost consciousness. Hell, he wasn’t even sure when he closed his eyes. But suddenly he was looking up at a cracked ceiling with a fan turning slowly above him. Not that the fan was moving on electricity; it was just wind coming from the open window to his right, pushing it round and round and round.

He glanced over at the window’s direction and could just make out voices outside. The fact that he couldn’t see anything out there told him he wasn’t on ground level, so the speakers were somewhere below him.

He wasn’t the only person in the room. Two others lay on the floor nearby. A man and a woman. Both were heavily bandaged—the entire left side of the man’s face was covered with gauze. The woman’s arms and legs were just as heavily bandaged. They were both either sleeping or unconscious. For their sakes, Keo was hoping for the latter.

Keo sat up. Or tried to. He got as far as three inches off the carpeted floor before he lay back down with a groan.

Yeah, let’s not try that again.

Not yet, anyway. His legs felt okay, and he had sensations in both arms again. He lifted his left. Someone had cut away the sleeve to gain access to it, so he was walking around with one long sleeve and one short. He was able to raise it, if with some pain. Not a lot, but some. That was okay. A little pain was better than no pain, because no pain meant he’d lost the arm. Right now, it was just covered in a layer of bandages.

Medical ointment tickled at his nostrils. It was coming from him and his two roommates. The whole room was covered in the stuff.

He thought about rolling over onto his stomach so he could try pushing himself up onto his knees, but decided that was probably not a very good idea. He reached up and felt along his temple instead.

There was something on his forehead that hadn’t been there before.

Stitches.

Swell. I just got prettier.

No wonder he’d been suffering through a drumline after the explosion. Compared to the others, he’d gotten through the blast relatively scot-free. That was certainly something his two roommates couldn’t say.

…or the kid with red hair.

Keo sat up. Quickly, without thinking about it.

And this time managed to get up all the way. The carpeted floor felt good, but he didn’t want to take too close of a look. There was blood and dirt and caked mud around him, and he had no illusions it wasn’t the same under him.

What was that old saying? Ignorance was bliss?

Keo slowly rose to his feet, then walked over to the window. Both legs were working well again. He’d been worried about them, too. There was no telling where he’d been struck by flying debris.

But he was up and about. That was good. That was really good.

Keo leaned against the wall, half for support and half—no, that was really just it. He was a little afraid he might fall if he didn’t have something to keep him propped up. He trusted his legs, but maybe he was just being a little too optimistic. People did say he could be way too optimistic for his own good.

Really? Since when, pal?

He chuckled to himself. What was he thinking? It was the opposite. That was why he needed someone like Lara in his life. She was the antidote to his pessimism. His happy pill to his assholeness.

He’d been wondering if it’d been a day or more since Bunkhouse #17 was hit. He found out the answer to that when he looked out the window. The woman hadn’t brought him very far from the explosion. In fact, he was in the building—the third or fourth floor, as far as he could tell—just across the street from it.

So that was why he could still smell explosive powder in the air. He was wondering about that.

Bunkhouse #17 had seen better days. It looked worse from his new vantage point than it’d been when he was on the sidewalk, and it had looked pretty goddamn bad then, too. From up here, though, it was a mess. A real fucking mess.

There was still the acrid stink of explosives in the air, but any fires or smoke had been cleared or put out. Blood splatters, some bigger than others, crisscrossed the streets. The people that had bled them were either inside rooms like the one Keo was in now or, for the unfortunate ones, lying in the body bags that lined the sidewalk. He counted eleven in all. That wasn’t too surprising. In Keo’s experience, there were usually more wounded than there KIAs in suicide bombings. And that was exactly what this was. Keo had spent too much time in the Middle East to not know the telltale signs.

There wasn’t very much activity outside, with only a few armed people standing along the sidewalk. Were they guarding the bodies? If so, Keo wasn’t sure why. There were more civilians out there than non-civvies, many of them picking up after the damage in the streets, using hands and wheelbarrows to haul away the debris. Soon, the streets would be completely clear and you’d probably never know what had happened.

Well, except for the blood.

Unless they were going to hose this stretch of Shaker Town down, then there was going to be blood out there for a long time. Not that anyone walking by wouldn’t have known something bad had happened. The big holes in Bunkhouse #17 weren’t going to go anyway anytime soon.

“Already up, huh?” a voice said.

Keo glanced behind him as the small black woman who’d “carried” him here entered the room. He hadn’t heard the door opening at all and found that extremely disturbing.

“Yeah, couldn’t sleep with all the stink of death,” Keo said.

She narrowed her eyes back at him. “Was that a joke or something?”

“Something.”

“Hunh.”

“That’s usually the right response.”

She smirked, before kneeling next to the bandaged woman. She had a stethoscope around her neck and was listening to the other woman’s heartbeat, then checking her pulse.

“You a doctor or something?” Keo asked.

“Or something,” she said.

“Touché.”

She got up and moved the short distance over to the man, and did the same to him.

“What’s going on out there?” Keo asked.

“What do you think?”

“Looks like a mess.”

“It’s that, all right.” She got up and walked over to him. “Let me check you.”

“I’m fine.”

“I’ll be the judge of that.”

He stood still and let her do her job. She was staring at him as she listened to his heartbeat.

“What?” he said.

“What?” she said.

“You’re staring at me.”

“Am I?”

“Yes.”

She shrugged. “What’s your name?”

“Chang.”

“You don’t look like a Chang.”

“What does a Chang look like?”

“Chinese.”

“I am Chinese.”

“No, you’re not.”

“What makes you say that?”

“You’re not Chinese.”

“Half?”

“Not even that.” He thought she might keep the topic going, but instead she pulled her stethoscope down and took a step back. “Any pain?”

“A little.”

“From one to ten.”

“What’s one? Also, what’s ten?”

“So fine, then.”

He smiled. “Yes.”

That wasn’t entirely true, but it was mostly true. Mostly. The pounding in his head had stopped, and he was getting better control over his legs and arms with every passing minute. Not 100% by any stretch, but better than before.

“Left arm?” she asked.

“Better.” He lifted his right one up and down to show her.

She nodded. “Then I guess you don’t need painkillers.”

“Well, I didn’t say that.”

She squinted at him.

“What?” Keo said.

“You need painkillers or not?”

“I could use some.”

She took an unlabeled bottle out of her pocket and shook out two white pills.

“Vicodin?” Keo asked.

“You wish. Generic acetaminophen.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s all we got. You want them or not?”

“Beggars can’t be choosers.”

She handed the two pills to him. “You want water?” she was asking when he popped both into his mouth and swallowed them down. “I guess not.”

He grinned.

“So manly,” she said, and did a half-roll with her eyes.

Keo chuckled as she moved to the window and looked out at the scene below and across from them. He’d thought she was pretty small when he first saw her, but up close she was even tinier. Barely five feet, if that, and though she’d cut her hair a bit too short, it didn’t do much to hide her attractiveness.

“What happened?” Keo asked.

“You don’t know?”

“I know someone blew up the building.”

“That’s exactly what happened.”

“Who was it?”

“I don’t know. They’re still trying to figure that out.”

“Who is?”

“The ones in charge.”

“That’s not you?”

“Not even close.”

As if on cue, two figures stumbled out of the biggest hole in Bunkhouse #17. One of them was Harvey. The other man was someone Keo hadn’t seen before. They were both wearing reusable medical masks that they ripped off as soon as they were outside and could breathe in the fresh—or at least, comparably fresher—air.

Keo watched the two men turn to one another and begin talking. It didn’t appear to be a very animated conversation; more like two investigators confirming what they’d discovered inside.

“I heard he was coming,” the woman said. It just then that Keo remembered he didn’t know her name.

“You have a name?” he asked.

She gave him an amused look. “About time you asked.”

“I was too busy trying not to die.”

“Of course.” Then, “Verona. But everyone calls me Ronnie.”

“Thanks, Ronnie. For saving my life.”

“I didn’t save your life.”

“Don’t be so modest.”

“I didn’t. You weren’t in any danger of dying out there. Your wounds weren’t that bad.”

“Still. Thanks.”

She nodded, before looking back out the window. “You’re welcome.”

“So who’s supposed to be coming?” Keo asked as he glanced out at Harvey and the other guy on the sidewalk across the street from them.

“The Deacon,” Ronnie said.

“The Deacon is here?”

“No. But I thought he’d be. I mean, if this doesn’t bring him out of his ivory tower…” She let the rest trail off.

Harvey must have sensed eyes on him, because the big man glanced up in their direction. Keo thought Harvey was eyeballing him, but was surprised to notice Ronnie tensing noticeably at his side.

“You know him?” he asked.

“Yes,” Ronnie said.

He waited for her to continue, and when she didn’t, said, “Ex?”

“Something like that.”

Interesting, Keo thought, though he didn’t know why it was interesting. Maybe the idea of a big brute like Harvey, who looked very much like a corn-fed country bumpkin being romantically linked to someone like Ronnie, who was the exact opposite of a corn-fed country bumpkin, was what did it.

Outside on the sidewalk across from them, that same corn-fed country bumpkin lifted one hand and beckoned to Keo and Ronnie with his forefinger.

Keo exchanged a look with Ronnie. “You or me?”

“I don’t know,” she said.

They looked back down at Harvey, who must have interpreted their confused reaction and did something very cute with his hands:

He pressed them against the edge of his eyes and pulled back.

The classic “chinky eyes” stunt.

“I think he means you,” Ronnie said.

Keo smirked. “Yeah.”

He turned and walked across the room, careful not to step on his two unconscious roommates. One of them was breathing fine, but the other one, the man, not so much. The guy was probably dead for all Keo knew, or cared.

“Hey,” Ronnie said.

Keo stopped at the door and looked back at her.

“You gonna tell me why you’re pretending to be Chinese?” she asked.

“It’s a long story.”

“I bet.”

“Later, doc,” Keo said, and stepped outside.

Before he could close the door, Ronnie said, “I’m guessing you don’t want me to let Harvey know about this conversation of ours?”

He smiled at her. It was forced, but he thought he’d pulled it off. At least, he didn’t think she noticed it.

Keo said, “You can do whatever you want, doc. It’s a free country.”

“It is?” she said.

“Isn’t it?”

She shrugged, and Keo thought, Interesting, just before he closed the door.

Seven

“What did you see?”

“Stars.”

“Stars?”

“Yeah, stars. My head was ringing.”

Harvey squinted at him. “Be serious.”

“I am.” Keo tapped his temple with the palm of his hand, as if to shake loose the cobwebs. “Other than that? There was a guy in an olive-green army jacket. Short black hair. Squirrelly eyes.”

“Squirrelly eyes?” the guy who had come out of Bunkhouse #17 with Harvey said. He was smaller than Harvey—but then again, who wasn’t?—and didn’t look all that comfortable wearing the gun belt with the holstered sidearm on his left side, because apparently he was left-handed.

Lefty hadn’t identified himself, but Keo assumed he was one of the big shots in Shaker Town. Keo had only deduced that because Harvey was, so anyone he took the time to chat with, not to mention investigate the remains of the bombing with, would have to be of equal status if not higher.

Definitely not higher, Keo thought as he eyeballed Lefty. The man just didn’t give off that alpha vibe. Not that Harvey did, but he was damn close.

“Yeah, he had squirrelly eyes,” Keo said. The phrase was something the folks back at Black Tide used to say, and Keo guessed it worked in this situation, too. “But the important part is him walking into the building before it went kaboom.”

“It went kaboom?” Lefty asked.

Keo smiled. “Are you just going to repeat everything I say?”

“You got a hell of a way of speaking, that’s all.”

“It’s a gift.”

“Not much of one.”

“Everyone’s a critic.”

“What else?” Harvey asked.

“That’s it,” Keo said.

“You think he was the bomber?”

“A leads to B, leads to C.”

“What does that mean?”

“Yeah, I think he was the bomber.”

Harvey squinted at Keo again. “Who was he?”

“I dunno. I haven’t been here long enough to know everyone in town.”

“But he had squirrelly eyes, you said.”

“Exactly. And you can never trust anyone with squirrelly eyes.”

Harvey seemed to think about that for a moment. Keo wasn’t sure if the big man believed him or not as he glanced around. First at the bodies on the sidewalk behind them, then at the jagged holes in Bunkhouse #17.

The two men were waiting for Keo to come down from the residence he’d been sleeping off the last three hours, which was how long he’d been out, according to Ronnie. The interrogation began quickly after that. Keo told them everything he knew. All of it. It wasn’t like he had any reasons to lie.

As he walked across the street, going around drying puddles of blood, Keo was glad someone had removed the big section of wall that had been blasted loose from the bunkhouse and killed the redheaded kid. He’d seen a lot of blood and death in his life, but children casualties always stayed with him. It was really the only reason Keo knew that, despite everything he’d done in his life before The Purge, there was still a kernel of humanity left in him: He wouldn’t kill a kid. Not on purpose, anyway.

The taste of crushed brick and mortar hung in the air, invading his mouth whenever he opened it. The acrid smell of gunpowder tickled his nostrils and eyes, but Keo was able to push through them. Ronnie had been nice enough to give him a handkerchief, which Keo tied around the bottom half of his face. Even so, there was no mistaking what had happened here very recently.

The bodies had been loaded into a wagon—it might have even been one of the wagons that had sped up these same streets earlier, before the explosion—and driven off. There were still three body bags waiting to be taken away. Two men and a woman. Keo knew that because the sheets that covered them weren’t long enough to hide all their faces, and the woman’s hair, long blonde locks, were spread out behind her like a fan. There was blood on her forehead and more clinging to her strands of hair.

“Finish up here,” Harvey was saying to Lefty, “then meet me at the armory.”

Lefty nodded.

Harvey turned to Keo. “You come with me, Chang.”

“Why?” Keo said.

“Because I said so,” Harvey said, before walking off.

I guess that’s a good enough reason, Keo thought as he followed the big man.

There was still a mild tingling from Keo’s left arm, but nothing he was too concerned about. The wounds would heal, like all the other ones he’d gained since the end of the world. Even so, he wished he had asked Ronnie for some extra painkillers, though she probably would have said no.

“We’re going to the armory?” Keo asked.

“That’s right,” Harvey said.

“I thought I was meeting The Deacon.”

“Change of plans.”

“Too bad. I was looking forward to meeting the boss.”

“Yeah, well, get used to disappointments, Chang.”

“Story of my life.”

Harvey grunted. “Don’t be a smartass. This is serious business.”

“Hey, you don’t have to tell me that. I almost got my head blown off, remember?”

“Consider yourself lucky.”

Yeah, that’s me, lucky, Keo thought.

But he didn’t say it, mostly because he didn’t think pushing Harvey’s buttons for the sake of some chuckles was a good idea. He could tell the man was on a mission; that was a face that meant business if Keo had ever seen one. Harvey was not taking any of this lightly, and well, he shouldn’t. As far as Keo knew, someone had just sent a suicide bomber into Shaker Town and taken out a dozen people and wounded scores more.

The armory was a good five miles back at the resort area. Keo knew that because he’d skirted the big warehouse while he was sneaking into the hotel two nights earlier, an act that had gotten poor Roy killed.

Poor Roy? You killed him, remember?

Oh, yeah.

Harvey wasn’t going to walk all five miles, of course, and he didn’t have to. His horse—the same big black mare from last night—was waiting for him among a group of others.

The big man untied the reins of his animal and nodded at the skinny man who was standing watch over them. “Give Chang one of the horses.”

“Yes, sir,” Skinny said. Then, turning to Keo, “That the new fashion or something?”

Keo was going to ask him what he was talking about, when he remembered that he only had one remaining long sleeve.

He smiled at Skinny. “It’s all the rage with the kids.”

“I bet. So, which one you want?”

Keo looked the animals over. There were six of them, but only one was a big brown thoroughbred with brown eyes. Not Horse the horse, but close enough.

“He’ll do,” Keo said.

Skinny untied the horse and passed the reins over to Keo, who hopped into the saddle. Harvey turned and headed off, and Keo followed behind him.

They weaved their way through downtown, sticking mostly to the streets. There weren’t a lot of people still outside, and eyes tracked them from open windows on both sides. Most of the civvies were either already at work in the fields or locked away inside their homes. According to Ronnie, Martial Law had been declared, and anyone who wasn’t needed elsewhere was told to stay indoors.

After a few minutes of riding in silence, Keo moved closer to Harvey. “I couldn’t find Lance. You know what happened to him?”

“He’s at the infirmary,” Harvey said.

“He’s okay?”

“He’ll live.”

“Is it bad?”

“He’ll live,” Harvey repeated.

Keo nodded, and thought, I guess that’s good enough.

It wasn’t like Keo was best friends forever with ol’ Lance, but he liked the guy well enough. At least, as well as you could like someone who you were forced to bunk with and who later thought highly enough of you to recommend for a promotion. Actually, now that Keo thought about what Lance had done for him… Yeah, he probably owed the guy. If not for Lance, Keo might still be struggling to rise out of his Shitty role.

Keo made a mental note to look in on Lance and find out just how okay his former roommate was doing.

“What happened back there?” Harvey was asking him.

“Someone bombed you,” Keo said.

“Wrong.”

“Wrong?”

“Someone bombed us.”

“Us?” Keo thought. There ain’t no us here, pal. There’s just you and me, and I’m looking for a way outta here.

* * *

The armory was a big warehouse nestled in the heart of Shaker Town’s default command center, which was itself repurposed from a former summer resort area. The sunshine and beach that used to welcome tourists flanked one side of a river that sloshed violently down from the nearby mountain. The other side was all open fields and trees. Anyone who tried to swim in the river was asking for trouble. Either that or they better be damn good in the water.

A series of hills, like camel humps, rested in the northern side of the resort. Keo knew for a fact that there were Shakers out there, keeping an eye on all the man-made trails that led into Shaker Town. There were more guards on the various roads that were lower to the ground, but if you knew the location, you could sneak around them. Keo had done so two nights ago. That nightly jaunt, unfortunately, hadn’t gone quite as planned.

This time around, Keo didn’t have to use the cover of darkness to gain entry into the place. He simply followed Harvey in. Armed men along the road didn’t try to stop them. Everyone knew who Harvey was. They did stare at Keo as he rode past them, though. Curiosity, mostly, though a couple gazed at his face for just a bit too long for his liking. He wanted to think they’d never seen a “Chinese guy” with his type of scars before.

Getting prettier and prettier, pal.

Keo stuck close to Harvey just in case someone decided to stop him and ask what he was doing there. There was one very big tip-off that he didn’t belong—he wasn’t armed. Everyone else was, even the ones doing construction or just walking around. This was an area of Shaker Town that was cut off from the civilians. And Keo, while he was stuck on Shit Duty, was still a civilian, supposed promotion notwithstanding.

The activity around him wasn’t quite a well-oiled machine, but it was a good facsimile. If the people here were on high alert after what had transpired this morning with the bombing, Keo couldn’t see it in the way they moved around. Either they didn’t know, or…

No, of course they knew. It was impossible not to know about what had happened earlier.

So why did everyone seem so…calm?

Keo looked away from a group of Shakers putting together what looked like another warehouse and toward a building at the center of the resort, two or three football fields across from him.

The hotel.

It was five floors of 5-star luxury accommodation. It sat to Keo’s left on a slightly raised hill, balcony suites overlooking the river and surrounding beachfront. If someone wanted to, Keo imagined they could somersault off one of those fifth-floor balconies and right into the water. Of course, that person would have to be either an idiot or crazy.

Two nights ago, Keo had found himself in that place. It used to have a name, but everything associated with its former life had been either torn down or painted over. These days, it was being used as Shaker Town’s main command hive. The Deacon himself had a suite somewhere in there, though no one actually knew which room, or even which floor.

“It’s some kind of weapon,” Claire had said. “I don’t know what kind. But they’re doing something in that hotel that’s got a lot of people spooked.”

“I haven’t heard anything about it,” Keo had said.

“That’s because you’re not talking to the right people,” she had said.

Keo looked back at Harvey now, wondering if the big man was one of those right people he had to talk to about what was going on in the hotel. He made a mental note to ask the Shaker. Well, not really ask, but something along those lines.

They finally stopped in front of the armory, which was really just a big storage warehouse that once housed a myriad of machines and equipment used to keep the resort running. These days, it had a new function. And because of what was inside it, there were guards stationed at the front doors and walking around the perimeter. There were also two riflemen on the rooftop. Two that Keo could see, anyway. He’d spotted three of them four mornings ago during one of his scouting runs.

A young Shaker, who couldn’t have been eighteen, walked over to take their reins as Keo and Harvey hopped off their mounts. Keo passed his off to the kid—he was tall, but way too skinny—and followed Harvey over as two of the guards pulled the wide doors open for them.

Keo didn’t have to guess what was inside. The name said it all.

There were guns.

A lot of guns.

Every type known to man, it seemed, hanging off one rack after another. Boxes of ammo lined shelves, and ammo cans were stacked on top of one another along the floor. There were already other people inside picking out weapons and dumping bullets into bags. At least ten, with more in the background moving around.

The intel on Shaker Town said The Deacon’s men had “liberated” the weapons from a nearby Air Reserve base. They’d cleaned out everything but the aircraft and cars left over from the pre-Purge days. After all, Joe Blow couldn’t just grab a plane and make it work. And cars were next to useless without gas. On the other hand, any Tom, Dick, and Harry could pick up a gun and pull the trigger.

Harvey turned back to Keo. “I don’t have to ask if you know your guns, do I?”

“Do I look like a bleeding-heart hippie to you?” Keo asked.

The big man smirked. “No, you do not.”

“So what are we doing here?” Keo nodded at the others. “You boys getting ready for a parade or something?”

“Something like that,” Harvey said. “Load up. We leave in an hour.”

Then Harvey began walking back to the door.

Keo stared after him. “Hey.”

Harvey stopped and glanced back. “Which part of ‘load up’ don’t you understand, Chang?”

“Where exactly am I going, and what exactly are we doing once we get there?”

“Wherever I tell you, and whatever I tell you. You got a problem with that?”

“Just wondering.”

“You wonder too much.”

“Yeah, that’s what everyone always tells me. Too much wondering. Wonderer Chang, they call me.”

Harvey squinted at him. Like the half dozen or so times since they’d met, Keo imagined the big man trying to figure out if Keo was being serious or not.

Finally, Harvey turned to go again. “Join us outside when you’re done.”

“Yes, sir,” Keo said.

He looked back at the rack of guns, then at the other Shakers. No one bothered to acknowledge him, so Keo walked along the rows and looked for something good. Something special, maybe. He didn’t know where they were going or what he was going to be asked—okay, ordered—to do once he got there, but you could never go wrong with being as fully prepared as possible.

He stopped at a group of submachine guns. One in particular caught his eye.

“M4s are farther down,” a voice said.

Keo looked over at a man in his thirties, wearing an Atlanta Falcons ballcap on his head. He had an M4 carbine slung over his shoulder and was holding two boxes of 5.56 bullets in one hand.

“What?” Keo said.

“The M4s,” the guy said. He nodded. “They’re down there.”

“I was looking at these,” Keo said, nodding at the submachine guns. He removed a Heckler & Koch MP5. It had a collapsible buttstock and an empty magazine attached, but no suppressor.

Beggars can’t be choosers.

“German?” Atlanta Falcons guy said.

“What can I say? I’m a fan.”

“I’d thought you’d go for a Chinese gun,” the guy said, grinning crookedly.

“You thought wrong, didn’t you?”

The guy shrugged. “I guess so,” he said, before walking off.

Keo grabbed a box of 9mms from another shelf, then thought better of it and went hunting for a belt and backpack. After all, Harvey had told him to load up, and Keo had every intention of doing just that. It’d been way too long since he was fully armed and was starting to feel just a tad naked.

He was shoving spare magazines into a tactical pack he’d found when someone said, “Catch.”

Keo turned just in time to see a ball cap similar to the one Atlanta Falcons guy was wearing flying at him. He snatched it out of the air. No wonder it looked the same—because it was. He looked around him and saw that everyone who was still inside the armory with him had put on identical caps.

The guy who had thrown Keo’s hat to him was adjusting the brim of his own. Late twenties, with long blond hair. He had a slender figure, and Keo wondered if he would have been able to peg the guy as, well, a guy from behind.

“Why the hat?” Keo asked him.

“So we don’t shoot you,” the guy said.

“We certainly wouldn’t want that,” Keo said as he slipped the hat on. It had a snap in the back that could be adjusted for comfort. Keo took his time doing that.

“I’m Fridge,” the guy said.

Keo gave him a nod. “Chang.” Then, “Fridge?”

“’Cause I’m big like a fridge, of course.”

“Of course. What was I thinking?”

Fridge chuckled, before smacking Keo playfully on the shoulder as he walked past him. “Let’s go, Chang. We don’t wanna be late for all the fun.”

“Yeah, wouldn’t want that,” Keo said as he grabbed another spare magazine, just in case, before following on Fridge’s heels. If he’d learned anything in his time before, during, and after The Purge, it was that there was no such thing as too much ammo.

Harvey was waiting for them outside, surrounded by the ones that had come out before Keo and Fridge. The big man looked over at Keo, and his eyes fell on the MP5 Keo was slinging. “You going with that?”

“Yeah. Why?” Keo said, even though of course he knew why. When given the option of a carbine or a submachine gun, most people went for the former. Keo, though, always prized portability and maneuverability over range. He was a close-quarters combat kind of guy.

“It’s small,” Harvey said.

“It’s not the size that matters, but how many rounds you put into the guy.”

“That’s your final answer, Chang?”

“Yup.”

“All right, then. Do what you gotta do.”

“Yes, sir.”

Harvey turned back to the others. They were all wearing the same black Atlanta Falcons caps, even Harvey.

“What exactly are we gonna be doing, boss?” one of the men asked.

“What’s the mission, sir?” another one said.

“We’re going to go kill some people,” Harvey said. “Any other questions?”

There wasn’t.

Harvey stared over at Keo again. “What about you, Chang?”

“What about me?” Keo said.

“You got any problems with our mission?”

“None whatsoever,” Keo said, but he thought, Dammit. This was not what I came here to do...

Eight

There were five of them. Two women and three men. They were moving east in the general direction of Shaker Town, though whether they were really headed there or not was open to debate.

Keo didn’t get the chance to ask them, because Fridge opened fire first. The lanky kid was somewhere near the middle of the line of hidden Shakers and was too quick on the trigger. He let loose with his M4, the suppressor on the end dulling the fully automatic shots into a wet-sounding pop-pop-pop.

The others, of course, took that as a hint and joined in on the fun.

Keo didn’t. He was two trees down and to the left of Fridge. Three more down from him was Harvey, who was waiting to give the order. The big man never got the chance, because the Shakers sprayed the road first.

Four of the five people fell off of their saddles immediately. The fifth tried to take off, but he was taken down by a burst of automatic gunfire. His horse, unfortunately, also took some of the rounds, and it fell next to him. The animal attempted to get back up, found its legs weakening, and collapsed permanently alongside its dead rider.

“Cease fire! Cease fire!” That was Harvey shouting. Then, not more than a few seconds later, “The horses! Grab the fucking horses!”

Some of the Shakers attempted to do just that, running out of the wooded area where they’d been hiding and out into the country road. The horses—three were still on their feet—took off before they could reach them. A couple of the men attempted to give chase, but they might as well be running after Usain Bolt. Those animals were gone, and they weren’t coming back.

“Goddammit,” Harvey said, stepping out from behind the big tree he’d been hiding behind. He didn’t look very pleased with what had transpired.

Keo walked over to join some of the Shakers as they stood around the dead bodies. Four were definitely dead, but one wasn’t. A woman with short black hair. She was lying on her stomach, hands pressed against a bullet wound in her left side. There was an extra hole in her right leg that was left to bleed freely, though her tight denim pants stanched it somewhat. She was wearing an empty holster, and one of the men had taken a bolt-action rifle from her, as well as removed the knife in the sheath on her left hip.

The Shakers were staring at her as if they’d never seen a woman before. She wasn’t ugly, but she wasn’t that attractive. But then, maybe Keo just had higher standards than most people. Lara tended to inspire that.

One of the men drew his pistol and took aim at the woman. She stared back at him with the fire of defiance burning in her eyes. If Keo expected her to start pleading for her life, she disappointed him. There was a lot of fight in this one, even if it wasn’t going to help her one bit.

Goddammit, Keo thought. He didn’t want this. He didn’t want any of this.

But he also couldn’t just let her be shot down in cold blood.

“What are you doing?” Keo asked the man with the handgun.

The man—thirties with greasy black hair—looked over at him. “What do you think I’m doing?”

“She’s not a threat.”

“So?”

“She’s a prisoner.”

“Not anymore,” the man said, and turned back to the woman.

She continued to stare daggers back at the gunman. Defiant to the end.

Damn it, Keo thought and reached out and grabbed the Shaker’s hand and jerked it up just as the man pulled the trigger.

Bang! as the shot echoed.

Greasy whirled on Keo, eyes flaring. “What the fuck!”

The others had stepped back, wanting no part of this. Either they didn’t approve killing an unarmed and wounded enemy, or the woman’s sex had a little something to do with that. Either way, they weren’t getting involved.

So it was just Keo and Greasy.

Keo held onto the man’s hand, his right holding the MP5 slightly tilted. He could have pulled the trigger at any time, but didn’t.

Not yet.

“She’s wounded,” Keo said.

“So?” the man said.

“She’s no threat.”

“So?” the man said again.

“What the hell’s going on?” a voice said before Keo could respond.

Harvey. The big man walked over to where they huddled. He glanced at the woman, then over at Keo and Greasy.

Keo let go of the man’s hand. Greasy took a quick step back, face turning red, but didn’t make another attempt to murder the woman.

“He was going to kill her,” Keo said, nodding at the woman.

“And your point is?” Harvey asked.

Keo turned to face the big man. “We have an opportunity to find out if there’s anything waiting for us between here and there. What if they’re expecting us?”

“Why would they be?”

“After what they did? Why wouldn’t they be?”

Apparently Harvey hadn’t thought about that, and he didn’t answer right away.

“Sir?” the guy with greasy hair said. “Should I put her out of her misery?”

Harvey stared down at the woman.

She stared right back at him.

Tough nut, Keo thought. If the woman were even a little bit scared, Keo couldn’t detect any hints of it on her face.

“All right, Chang,” Harvey finally said. “She’s your responsibility.” He turned around and waved an older man over. “Patch her up. She’s coming with us.”

Harvey walked away and to where the others were gathered, looking down the road.

“Fridge,” the big man barked.

Fridge—the skinny and tall man who looked nothing like a fridge—turned around. He must have known what Harvey was going to say next, because he quickly stuttered out, “I’m sorry, sir. I don’t know what happened.”

Harvey didn’t waste his breath. Instead, he walked up to Fridge and punched him in the gut. If Fridge was ready for it, it didn’t keep him from folding over and going down to the asphalt road, where he lay crumpled up like a fetus.

Harvey hovered over him. “Next time I tell you to wait for my signal to open fire, you goddamn well better wait for it.”

Fridge managed to squeak out, “Yes, sir.”

Harvey stomped back into the same woods where they’d emerged from, barking, “Hide everything that’s dead, and let’s go!”

Everyone in an Atlanta Falcons cap broke into activity. Some of the men grabbed the dead bodies and horses and carried them into the woods after Harvey, while two others helped Fridge up from the ground.

Keo remained standing over the woman. Toby, one of the older members of the group, had arrived and taken out a kit from his pouch, but the woman didn’t want to remove her hands from her side wound for him to work.

“You’re gonna bleed to death if he doesn’t patch that up,” Keo said to her.

She scowled at him.

Keo shrugged. “But hey, if that’s what you want…”

That wasn’t what she wanted, and she grudgingly took her hands away. Blood squirted out briefly before Toby pressed a wad of bandage against it. Keo noticed that the man hadn’t bothered to clean and disinfect the wound first, or taken any precautions before beginning his work. Either Toby wasn’t a real medic, or he just didn’t care all that much about his current patient.

“What’s your name?” Keo asked the woman.

She didn’t answer.

“I just saved your life,” he said.

“Why?” she said.

“She speaks!” He grinned. “I need to call you something.”

“Call me whatever you want.”

“Just don’t call you late for dinner?”

She squinted back at him with a puzzled Say what? look.

He sighed. She was probably way too young to understand that. The woman was only in her late twenties. Maybe even younger than that; people just looked older than their age these days. She would have grown up during The Purge. Most people her age, like Fridge, didn’t have a clue what life was like before everything went to shit. Or they didn’t remember it with any clarity.

“How about Suzanna?” Keo said.

“Whatever,” she said.

He grinned.

Toby finally finished—he’d wrapped up her side, wrapping the gauze around her clothes—and did the same for her right leg. It looked like shit, and Keo would be shocked if Suzanna survived beyond the day.

But he told himself he’d cross that bridge when he got to it.

If he got to it, that was.

“She’s good,” Toby said, standing up.

If by ‘good’ you mean royally shit, Keo thought.

He said instead to Suzanna, “Can you get up?”

She didn’t answer. Instead, she got up. Or tried to.

She managed halfway before falling back down. She would have crashed right back to the cold asphalt if Keo hadn’t grabbed her by the arms first and kept her upright. She staggered, and even as she did so, he noticed that her eyes went for the Beretta in his hip holster.

“Don’t,” Keo said. He’d said it softly, low enough that only she could hear.

Her eyes darted from the gun to his.

He shook his head back at her, then sneaked a look over to the others. Toby was walking toward the trees, and the others had cleared the road of bodies. Not that they’d done a very good job, because there were still patches of blood to mark the ambush.

Keo turned back to the woman, and in the same low voice, “You want to stay alive or not?”

She didn’t answer.

“Well?” he pressed.

Grudgingly, she nodded.

“Good,” Keo said.

He tightened his grip on her right arm while moving to stand on her right side in order to keep his holstered gun and slung MP5 out of reach. They weren’t completely out of reach, but she’d have to reach around him for either one of them. With her left hand at that. Of course, he was going under the assumption she was right-handed, like most of the world’s remaining population.

Toby the Not Very Good Medic had stopped near the tree lines to wait for them. “You need help?”

“I got her,” Keo said.

“You sure?”

“Yeah.”

“Suit yourself.”

The man turned and disappeared into the woods.

Keo and Suzanna followed.

They had just left the road ten yards behind them when they came across Suzanna’s former comrades. The Shakers had dumped the bodies and hadn’t bothered to hide them from anyone or anything. As soon as they were gone far enough, the animals would descend on them. And then, at night, another kind of animal would feast.

Keo didn’t have to look over at Suzanna to see the horror on her face. He could feel her entire body stiffening at the sight of the other woman and three men that she probably used to call friends.

“Come on,” Keo said and gave her a slight tug because she’d come to a stop.

She stumbled a bit, and he remembered that she wasn’t just wounded in the side but also in one leg. He slowed down so she wouldn’t fall—

She fell.

Keo turned just as she did so, presenting the front of his body to her—and moving the holstered Beretta within reach.

She was reaching for the pistol—either she’d planned the whole thing, or this was a spur-of-the-moment decision; not that it really mattered—when he let go of her right arm. Without him holding her up, she fell backward and crashed into the ground on her butt, letting out a pained scream at the same time.

“Dammit, I told you not to do that,” Keo said.

She glared at him, her lips twisting in a Go fuck yourself expression.

Running footsteps as Toby and two others, including Fridge, appeared out of the trees in front of them. They slowed down when they saw Keo standing and Suzanna on the ground.

“You okay? What happened?” Fridge asked.

“She tripped,” Keo said. He held out his right hand toward Suzanna. “Right?”

She didn’t say anything. She also didn’t reach for his outstretched arm, either.

“I said, right?” Keo said.

She nodded and took his hand. “Yeah. I tripped.”

He pulled her up—maybe a little more roughly than he really needed to—and the woman let out a grunt. Her face contorted in pain, beads of sweat appearing along both brows. He felt a sudden pang of guilt but didn’t let it show on his face as he pushed her forward—just hard enough to make it convincing.

Toby and the other Shaker left, while Fridge waited for Keo and Suzanna. The young blond was all smiles. Apparently getting gut punched by Harvey for disobeying orders hadn’t dampened his spirits any.

“She gonna live?” Fridge asked, looking at Suzanna.

“Toby thinks so,” Keo said.

“You know that guy’s not a real medic, right?”

“I figured that.”

Fridge chuckled, then turned to walk alongside Keo as they headed farther into the woods to rejoin the others. The horses were waiting fifty yards back, where they’d left them to get ready for the ambush.

“You get any?” Fridge was asking him.

“Any what?” Keo said.

“Those guys back there. I’m pretty sure I got two of them. Maybe three, if you’re counting the horses.”

Asshole’s real happy about it, too.

He said, “I’m not sure. Too many bullets flying to keep count of who got who.”

“But you squeezed off some rounds?”

“I did.”

That was a lie, but Fridge wouldn’t know that. Once the blond had started shooting, everyone had joined in. Everyone except Keo, and possibly Harvey, who had been waiting to give the order. But of course no one would know those facts. Keo hadn’t seen anyone looking at him during the brief five or so seconds of shooting.

That was all it had taken. Five or so seconds. Suzanna (or whatever her real name was) and her friends hadn’t stood a chance.

Keo had managed not to take part in the massacre, but he had a feeling that wasn’t going to last. The day was still young, and they were only a few hours out from their real target. Suzanna was part of a scouting party that kept an eye on the area. Once her people found out what had happened to her, there would be retaliation.

And then things would get really…interesting.

Nine

Arrowhead was located less than an hour from Shaker Town.

By car, anyway.

By foot—or in the case of Keo and his Shaker “colleagues”—it was more like five hours of painstaking travel. The fact that they had horses meant they could get there in less than a day, but even then it was already nightfall by the time they glimpsed the first patrol.

Like Shaker Town and many of the settlements Keo had found himself crossing in the post-Purge years, Arrowhead was a former ghoul collaborator town. It was chosen for its proximity to a nearby stream that ran around a half-mile stretch. That body of water supplied it with not a source of H2O, but plenty of sea life. The area itself used to be a wildlife preserve, which meant there were more than enough animals in the woods surrounding it to survive on. The ghouls themselves had whittled the number down, but as with everything involving nature, life found a way to make a comeback.

Arrowhead was the rural equivalent of Shaker Town’s urban, with people living in log cabins and similarly constructed buildings. From the background information he’d been given, Keo knew that the Arrowheads, as they were called, had torched the town they’d been resettled in and created a new place for themselves in this valley. It was a thriving community, one that, while not necessarily shut off from the rest of the world, didn’t proactively engage in it. Or, really, need it.

In a state that was quickly coming under the control of one dominant force—Shaker Town—Arrowhead was the last remaining holdout. And maybe that explained what Keo was doing here, now, though the whys of it was not something he was too concerned about at the moment. He had other things on his plate right now.

Keo and the Shakers had made their way through the heavily forested area that surrounded Arrowhead without much trouble. They avoided the main roads and kept away from the spurs. There were so many trees and greens they could have gotten lost and not been found for weeks or months. They had to let two patrols pass them by on the way here, but once they reached a high point in the surrounding hills, they were able to look down at the main town.

It hadn’t been that difficult, and Keo made a mental note to let Black Tide know so they could tell Arrowhead just how vulnerable they were.

But that was for another day.

As for right now…

The men settled into the darkness around Keo, spreading out in a jagged line among the trees and bushes. They were high up enough that they could look down at the town and spot figures moving around. There were lights, but Arrowhead, unlike Shaker Town, didn’t depend on solar-powered LEDs. Most of what Keo saw were torchlights—stationary ones, and others being carried by people walking along the darkened streets. The creek flowed somewhere behind the settlement, the sound of moving water the only other noise in the darkness besides the crickets and owls.

Keo was glad to hear the sounds of living things. That meant the unliving ones weren’t moving around the area. Not that he wasn’t prepared, but, well, a night where he didn’t have to contend with ghouls was a good one. Just in case, though, Harvey had made sure every one of the Shakers had armed themselves with silver-coated blades. Keo had one in his hip, but he’d give anything for bullet equivalents. But that, of course, was too much to ask. Silver-tipped bullets were not as plentiful as they used to be. Ironically, you could find gold anywhere if you cared to look.

So Keo had to be satisfied with the knife on his left hip. That was fine. He’d had to make do with less in the past.

As he settled down along the line—he had Fridge to his immediate right and Toby the-not-really-a-medic medic to his left—Keo swiped at the mosquitos trying to nibble at one of his earlobes. The female insects’ buzzing was incredibly loud, but he passed that off to the lack of any other sounds.

Keo didn’t question why Harvey hadn’t given the order to attack yet. There were two reasons for that.

One: The Shakers were outmanned and outgunned. There were a good 500 or so people (according to Black Tide intel) down there, which would easily dwarf the 20 men Harvey had brought with him.

Two: It was stupid to attack the town now, while the citizens were just starting to settle down for the night. The smarter move would be to strike when they were asleep, with only the guards walking around to deal with.

And three: This was a guerrilla raid. Harvey wasn’t here to put an end to Arrowhead; he was simply tasked with hitting back after what had happened in Shaker Town. Wham, bam, go fuck yourself, ma’am. This was all about the suicide bombing this morning. Keo still didn’t know who was responsible for that, but it was very clear that the Shakers thought the Arrowhead folks were.

True? Not true?

That wasn’t for Keo to say. He had a mission, and it didn’t include getting involved in the back-and-forth between the two settlements. This was something that had been going on for years now. It was the reason Black Tide got involved. And, in a lot of ways, the reason why he was here in the first place.

And yet, here he was.

About an hour after they arrived at the outskirts of town and sat to wait (That old Army motto, “Hurry up and wait” came to Keo’s mind), Harvey himself moved down the line and tapped him on the shoulder.

“Come with me,” the big man said.

Keo got up. He was glad to be on his feet again and moving. It kept the mosquitos from zeroing in on him and let him stretch his legs.

“When’s the attack?” Keo asked as they moved through the darkness, with only the growing moonlight to guide them. The woods were so dark Keo could barely make out Harvey in front of him, but thankfully he was able to see where he was going without tripping over a log or, God forbid, running smack into a tree.

“I’ll let you know when it’s time,” Harvey said.

“Just wondering.”

“Again with the wondering.”

Keo wasn’t sure where Harvey was leading him, but he figured it out about ten seconds before they got there.

Suzanna.

(Or whatever her real name was.)

She was sitting on the damp ground, her back against one of the bigger trees along the hillside, about thirty meters behind the line of Shakers. There were two men keeping watch on her. They had bound Suzanna’s hands behind her back with zip ties and slapped duct tape over her mouth. There was no missing those big eyes of hers as she looked up and over when Keo and Harvey approached.

Keo’s mind raced with the things Harvey had planned for poor Suzanna. Most of all, anything that happened to her now would be his fault because he’d kept her alive. This was one of those times when a good deed might end up punishing him. Whereas Suzanna might have received a quick death before…

No good deed goes unpunished, pal, Keo thought as he stopped beside Harvey.

The big man stared at Suzanna, and she returned it without blinking.

Tough chick.

Keo had to admit, there was a toughness about the woman that was very much genuine. She wasn’t about to back down now, even though she had absolutely no leverage.

But how tough was she, really? That was probably what Harvey had brought him here to find out. Keo wasn’t excited to discover the answer. Because, whether he liked it or not, what happened next was going to be partially his fault. He should have let them kill her. It would have been more merciful. Not to mention sparing him the guilt.

Should have, would have, could have.

That was the story of his life these days, it seemed.

Harvey crouched in front of Suzanna and drew a big Bowie knife from its sheath. He held it up so she couldn’t miss it, not that she could have not seen the damn thing, as big as it was. The blade, coated with silver, gleamed against the little moonlight that managed to pierce the canopy above them.

The big man put a finger to his lips, before saying softly to her, “Scream, and I gut you, then watch you bleed out. Understand?”

Suzanna didn’t answer him, not that she could with the duct tape over her mouth. But she could have nodded or indicated understanding with her head. She didn’t do any of those things.

Instead, she continued to stare back at Harvey as if that big knife of his wasn’t capable of cutting her up from head to toe with barely a flicker of Harvey’s giant wrist.

She was tough, all right. It was too bad she was going to die soon.

Harvey ripped the duct tape off her mouth. He didn’t do it gently, either. Suzanna could barely contain her yelp as the tape pulled layers of her lips with it. She turned her head slightly, and when she turned back to face Harvey, strips of blood dripped down her chin.

But she bit her tongue and didn’t cry out. Either because Harvey had already warned her, or she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.

Keo was leaning toward the latter.

He was waiting for Harvey to commence the interrogation when the big man stood up and turned around to face Keo. “Come with me.”

Keo followed Harvey. They didn’t stop until they were far enough from Suzanna that she would have to strain to overhear them.

“It’s your turn,” Harvey said.

“My turn?”

“Find out which building Horatio’s in.”

Horatio, Keo thought. So that was the reason they were here.

Horatio was the leader of Arrowhead. The man, as far as Black Tide knew, had been here since the Purge days and had stayed behind to lead his people from the ghoul settlement to start over. He was The Deacon’s counterpart and the only man who had been able to resist Shaker Town’s expansion in recent years.

“What if she doesn’t tell me?” Keo asked.

Harvey shrugged. “Then I guess she’s useless.” He smiled. There wasn’t a whole lot of humor in it. “You’re the one who wanted to keep her alive. So make her useful, or cut bait.”

The big man slapped Keo on the shoulder. It was a hard and loud slap and nothing Keo would ever mistake for genuine friendship.

“Show me what you got, Chang,” Harvey said before walking away.

Keo looked after him, wondering if Harvey expected Keo to actually make Suzanna talk or if this was just…

No, he clearly hadn’t expected Keo to be able to make Suzanna give up information. This was all about making Keo prove himself.

…by killing a helpless woman.

Fuck.

Harvey disappeared back into the dark woods, his boots crunching against the wet stalks of grass as he rejoined the others.

Keo turned back around to face Suzanna.

The woman was glaring at him.

She might not have heard his conversation with Harvey (at least, Keo didn’t think she could), but she probably already knew what was going to happen next. After all, she’d have to be an idiot not to know why they’d kept her alive after killing her four comrades.

Suzanna’s guards were two men Keo hadn’t been personally introduced to, but he recognized the tall and lanky one. He had shaggy red hair, and Keo had seen him back at the armory. The other guard was almost the exact opposite—squatty and fat. This one clung to his FN FAL battle rifle as if it were glued to his stubby fingers. Neither man seemed especially interested in either Keo or Suzanna, and stood to the sides of her watching out for any Arrowheads that might wander across them.

Keo walked back to where Suzanna sat and crouched in front of her. Her eyes—light brown—zeroed in on him and stayed there. He wasn’t quite sure what was going through her mind at the moment. Maybe she was thinking about why he’d kept her alive. Or maybe she just wanted to punch him in the face.

“Did you hear what Harvey asked me to do?” Keo asked her.

She didn’t reply.

“He wants to know what building Horatio is in,” Keo continued.

Again, no response.

But she also didn’t look away from him.

Keo leaned in closer to get a better look at her bandages. Toby the not-really-a-medic medic hadn’t done a very good job, and it showed. She was bleeding, fresh red spots covering her waistline. There was more blood on her right leg pants where the other bullet had struck her and went through. If she was in pain, Suzanna didn’t show it.

“Let’s start with your name,” Keo said.

She didn’t say anything.

“How about Suzanna?” he said.

Her eyes lifted slightly in puzzlement.

He grinned. At least he finally got a response. “Suzanna. That’s my name for you, since you don’t want to give me one.”

She smirked. It was partially amusement, but mostly annoyance.

“Okay, Suzanna,” Keo said, “tell me where Horatio is. If you’re so inclined, you can even point it out for me. What do you say?”

She continued not saying anything.

He sighed. “You know he’s not going to accept that answer. Harvey, I mean. He’s giving me first crack at you, but when I tell him I didn’t get anywhere, he’ll do it himself. That’s if he feels like wasting time. He might just kill you. And we wouldn’t want that, would we?”

“Why not?” she said.

That caught Keo by surprise. Not just the fact that she’d finally spoken for the first time, but also the question.

“Why not?”

There was more to that question than met the eye. She’d said “Why not?” but what he heard was “Why don’t you want that?”

Or maybe it was “Why did you keep them from killing me back at the road?”

The other possibility was “Why didn’t you not tell them I tried to take your gun?”

Of course, Keo could be making all those questions up in his head. He’d never been particularly good at reading women’s faces, and Suzanna’s wasn’t any different.

“Why not?” Keo said, mostly because he couldn’t think of anything else to say.

“Why not?” she said again.

Keo sneaked a look over at Shaggy to his left to see if the tall and lanky fellow was listening in on them. He wasn’t. If he even knew what Keo was doing with Suzanna, it didn’t show in his posture. The man was staring off at nothing, M4 rifle in front of him and his back turned to them.

Susanna saw where he was eyeing and shot a glance at Shaggy’s direction, too. She also did the same when Keo turned toward Squatty, whose back was also facing them. Like Shaggy, Squatty was at least ten meters away and seeming as if he’d rather be asleep in his bunkhouse back in Shaker Town than out here trying to swat away mosquitos.

Keo returned his gaze to Suzanna and saw something surprising.

It wasn’t the same defiant woman he’d been seeing all day. Instead, Suzanna looked almost…curious? She had also noticeably relaxed her body against the tree trunk, and there was something that could almost pass as an expression of Who are you? on her face.

Keo shook his head before slowly easing his knife out of its sheath.

Suzanna’s eyes went to the blade, then quickly back to him.

He shook his head again while putting a forefinger to his lips.

She nodded.

He moved slightly to her side until he could see her zip ties, then reached for them with the knife.

“Hey, what are you doing?” a voice said.

Squatty, from his right.

At the same time, the rustling of movement from his left.

Goddammit, Keo thought as he dropped the knife and grabbed his slung MP5. While still on his knees, he squeezed off a burst in Squatty’s direction.

Then Keo was on his feet and looking past Suzanna’s head at Shaggy as the man fumbled with his M4. He was moving too quickly, panicking, and was barely getting a grip on the rifle when Keo stitched his chest with at least three rounds.

“Daebak,” Keo said out loud as he went back down on his knees and sliced Suzanna’s zip ties free.

He dragged her up to her feet.

“What now?” she asked.

“Run,” he said.

Ten

Suzanna did run, but first she grabbed the pistol out of Shaggy’s holster and then snatched up his M4 off the ground. Then she fumbled for about ten extra seconds to remove a spare magazine from his pouch. That was smart of her. Keo had been debating whether to hand her his Beretta. He didn’t exactly like the idea very much, but thought it was necessary to arm her for what was coming. Turned out he didn’t have to. As far as he knew, she’d gone for the M4 because it was smaller and lighter than Squatty’s FAL. Of course, that was just a guess.

She was still trying to get the second mag loose—apparently Shaggy had stuffed too much into his pouch and everything was jammed in there—when Keo grabbed her by the arm and jerked her up.

“Now!” he hissed.

“Shit,” she said, but she gave up on the spare mag and took off into the woods.

He ran after her, sneaking a look back only after a few paces.

There was no one back there.

Yet.

That would change soon enough. There was no way Harvey and the other Shakers hadn’t heard the two MP5 bursts he’d used to end Shaggy’s and Squatty’s lives. The two men were lying in the grass right now, mosquitos buzzing around their lifeless corpses.

Keo refocused on Suzanna in front of him. She was moving pretty well for someone who’d been shot twice and had been kept zip-tied almost all day. Maybe the fact she was running for her life had a little something with that. Staying alive was a hell of an incentive.

Of course, she did have two bullet holes in her (three, if he really wanted to get technical about it), and eventually she would start to slow down as a result. She continued to move, but was now limping noticeably. She might have always been limping, for all he knew; he just didn’t pick up on it until now.

Keo easily caught up with her, ducking just as a tree branch nearly took his head off. “You good?”

“Hell no,” she said through gritted teeth. She was holding onto the M4 as if her life depended on it, which it probably did.

Keo grinned. Ask a stupid question, get a stupid answer.

He shot a quick glance over his shoulder again.

There was still no one back there.

Correction: There was still no one back there yet.

Keo turned back to Suzanna and wondered if it would be faster if he tossed her over his shoulder and carried her. Probably not, because she wasn’t exactly a small woman. Though she wasn’t big by any means—about 110 or so pounds, he guessed. Then there was also the possibility of both of them getting run down. Keo wasn’t looking forward to that possibility either.

Not one bit.

It had taken him about twenty seconds since they’d started running to notice they weren’t actually going straight ahead. He’d been assuming Suzanna shared his desire to put as much distance between them and Harvey’s gang as possible. It turned out he was wrong.

This is what happens when you assume, pal!

Suzanna wasn’t going straight, but rather angling slightly to the left with every step. And Keo, without thinking, was following on her heels.

“Are we heading back toward the town?” he asked.

She gave him a quick What the hell do you think we’ve been doing all this time? expression, before actually responding verbally. “Yeah.”

“Just wondering.”

“Where did you think—” she began, but never got to finish before the crack! of a rifle exploded in the night and a round zipped! between their heads and pekked! off a tree trunk somewhere in front of them.

He ducked instinctively—and so did Suzanna next to him—when he felt the burning trail of the round pass him by. It was much too late, of course, because if the shooter had been true, either one of them would be dead.

Keo rose back up to his full height even as he snapped a quick look back.

Shadows flickering in the background. They weren’t on top of them yet, but that wouldn’t last forever. He wasn’t moving as fast as he could have because of Suzanna. He was at 50% speed, maybe even less, because that was all his Arrowhead running partner could muster at the moment.

And even that was taking a lot out of her. Her face was clearly straining, every stride she managed seeming to take a lot out of her. She continued to limp badly. Unlike him, she never sneaked a peek back at their pursuers. That was awfully smart of her. They both knew what was already back there.

“Keep going,” Keo said.

She didn’t respond but did exactly just that, even as she continued to angle left as she (limped) ran.

Keo slowed down just enough to turn around, the MP5 swinging up.

There, two figures bursting out of the night air, the brim of their black Falcons cap hiding their eyes and most of their faces. They had to go around a massive tree that blocked their path, one plowing his way through a brush while the other ducked underneath a large branch so he didn’t get decapitated.

There were just two of them, though. They were probably the fastest runners in Harvey’s crew. The rest were undoubtedly back there, trying to catch up. Keo was surprised they weren’t on horseback. Then again, there were so many trees that the Shakers had climbed off their mounts and walked the last ten kilometers or so to reach Arrowhead. The wilderness was too thick, with obscene amounts of low-hanging trees, to ride horses through safely.

These duo were thirty meters away but closing.

One of the runners started to lift his weapon. Keo didn’t recognize the man but could easily make out the pump-action shotgun in his hands. There wasn’t a lot of light in this part of the forest but enough that Keo knew the man had spotted him.

Keo fired off a burst, and the man stumbled and fell.

He didn’t bother watching where the Shaker had landed or if he would get up again. Keo was already too busy swinging the submachine gun toward the other guy—

Crack! as the man squeezed off a shot from his bolt-action rifle.

But the Shaker was running and shooting, and despite their nearness—just twenty or so meters separated them now—the man still missed Keo by a mile.

He didn’t give the man a second shot. (Or third, actually, since that first round also belonged to this guy.) He squeezed off another burst from his submachine gun, and the man fell face-first into a dark shrub, scattering a family of rabbits hiding inside.

Keo turned and ran.

He caught back up to Suzanna without much trouble because she had slowed down tremendously, her limp even more exaggerated now. Her mouth was contorted in pain, sweat pouring down her face.

“You’re not gonna make it,” Keo said.

“I’ll make it,” she said, without looking over at him.

“No, you’re not.”

“Shut up.”

“You’re not gonna to make it.”

“I said, shut up!”

She was a tough cookie, he’d give her that, but there was a limit to that toughness. And apparently getting shot twice earlier today had located it.

“You’re not gonna make it,” Keo said again. “We have to find a place to hide.”

“I’ll—” she started to argue.

“Now,” he snapped.

She sighed. “I know a place. We’re not far from it.”

He was about to ask You know ‘a place?’ then remembered that this was her stomping ground. She’d probably been through these woods hundreds of times, maybe thousands. Even in the middle of the night, with only slivers of moonlight to guide them, she had a better understanding of where they were and where they had to go than he did.

“Lead the way,” he said.

She did, turning suddenly right and dipping underneath a large tree branch. Keo did likewise, letting her get ahead of him so he could watch their six. If anyone popped up in front of them, she could deal with the threat. Right now, it was the ones behind him that he was more concerned with.

He sneaked a glance back.

Nothing.

Check that: Nothing yet.

Sooner or later, Harvey’s crew was going to catch up to them because he was moving too slowly. Way, way too slowly. He didn’t have any choice. His speed was constrained by Suzanna’s, and right now he wouldn’t be surprised if she fell down and didn’t get up.

And yet, she continued to hobble and strain in front of him. Her grunting was getting louder and louder.

Snap! as a twig broke in half somewhere behind and slightly to his left.

Keo spun in that direction just as a horse jumped through the air between two trees.

The animal was coming right for him, unshod shoes aiming straight for his head. He wasn’t sure if that was on purpose, or if the animal and its rider just happened to have picked the perfect spot to time their jump. Either way, they were going to land right on his face.

The horse—a brown animal with white stripes—would have done exactly that if Keo hadn’t ducked, letting his legs go rubbery as he collapsed to the ground. He struck the soft earth on his ass just as the horse glided over his head, its screeching whine coming out of its mouth and filling his ears. It was almost as if the animal wanted to let him know that it’d almost stomped him to death.

As if Keo needed the extra notice.

He quickly picked himself up from the ground, the MP5 gripped in his hands, forefinger sliding into the trigger guard. The thoughts, Try not to hit the horse. It’s just a poor innocent horse! raced through his mind as he did so.

By the time Keo was back on his feet and turned around, the horse had already stopped moving, and the man in its saddle was already taking aim at him with an M4 rifle. It was another one of Harvey’s boys, his black Atlanta Falcons hat tilted slightly to one side.

And the guy had Keo dead to rights.

A single, purposeful pop! echoed from behind him, and Keo watched the rider slide off his saddle and hit the ground with a hard, resounding thwump!

He turned around to find Suzanna standing behind him with her M4 still raised.

She lowered the rifle. “The horse,” she said.

The horse? he thought.

Right. The horse!

Keo spun around just as the now-riderless horse bolted into the forest night.

“Come on, we’re almost there,” Suzanna said behind him.

“There, where?” he was going to ask, but she was already moving again.

Or limping, anyway.

He hurried after her, keeping his ears open and continually looking behind him every ten or so steps. Suzanna seemed to know where she was going. Either that, or she was doing a very good job of faking it. He didn’t think so, even if he couldn’t see very much of anything around him because they’d wandered into a thicker part of the woods. There was now more darkness than light.

Way, way more.

Every step Keo took was an adventure. When he snapped a branch, it surprised him. When he stumbled into brush, he couldn’t understand where it’d come from. More than once, he almost walked right into a gnarled tree trunk. Woodland creatures scurried out of his path, and birds that had been squatting above him took flight. Keo thought he could hear an owl or two—or three—hooting somewhere in the vicinity.

And all the while, he kept Suzanna’s continually moving form in front of him. He was glad she was hurt and going barely at half-speed, because otherwise he might have lost sight of her on more than one occasion.

Yeah, he felt a little guilty about thinking that.

Just a little.

If Harvey’s men were still in pursuit, they weren’t in any big hurry to show themselves. Not that Keo even allowed himself to think the big man would just let them go. If nothing else, Harvey was liable to hunt Keo down—forget about Suzanna—out of spite. He seemed like that kind of fellow.

“Here,” Suzanna finally said.

Keo turned around. She was waiting for him in front of a pitch-black opening in the side of a slanted hill. It was the jagged round entrance into a cave.

“There?” Keo said.

She nodded. “It’s safe.”

He was going to ask “Are you sure?” when she slipped inside.

I guess so, he thought and followed her in.

It was dark inside. Really dark. Keo stumbled over large pebbles, feeling along the prickly and damp walls with one hand to keep from falling on his face. He waited for his eyes to adjust to the blackness, but it was slow going. There was a smell in the air that he couldn’t quite place. Not the acrid stench of nearby ghouls, which was the important part.

Keo didn’t like wandering around dark places if he could help it. Ghouls weren’t the menace they used to be, but you didn’t need a horde to make things difficult. One or two of the creatures, in the wrong locations, could be real trouble.

But he couldn’t smell any of the telltale signs of ghoul presence, so he breathed a little easier. Not literally, of course, because there was definitely some strange staleness in the air that was not pleasant to suck in.

He wasn’t sure how far they went into the cave, but it was deep enough that when he glanced back he could barely see the opening and the trees on the other side. He supposed that was a good sign, because if he could barely see out, then anyone out there could barely see in.

Something scurried along the wall on his left, and Keo pulled his hand back just in time, though he was certain he’d felt something…hairy. He glanced back again, hoping to get a good look at what that “something” was. It was a fast sucker, and he only glimpsed shadows moving before it disappeared completely.

Oh, well. Maybe it was better he couldn’t see what else was in here with them.

“This is good,” Suzanna said from behind him.

Keo turned around.

His eyes were starting to adjust enough to the darkness surrounding them, so he could make out some details now.

Details, such as the muzzle of the M4 carbine in Suzanna’s hands as she pointed the rifle at his head.

Hunh, Keo thought. I guess I should have seen this coming.

Eleven

“Daebak.”

“What?”

“I should have seen this coming.”

“After that. You said something else.”

“Did I?”

“Yeah, you did.”

Keo shrugged. It was dark in the cave, but Suzanna would have seen it since she was standing barely five feet from him. The black barrel of her M4 was easy to pick out. It helped that it was aimed straight at him.

“Just wondering how I ended up in this situation, with a gun pointed at my face and someone else’s finger on the trigger,” Keo said.

“You murdered my friends,” Suzanna (or whatever her name was) said.

“I didn’t do any such thing.”

“You and the others.”

“Not me. I kept my finger off the trigger. Which I’d like you to do at this very moment, if you don’t mind.”

“That’s not going to happen.”

“You do remember that I saved your life back there, don’t you? Doesn’t that count for something?”

“Why?”

“Why?”

“Why did you save my life?”

“Do you really need a reason?”

“Yes.”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

“Just saving your life wasn’t enough?”

“No.”

He sighed, before sneaking a look over his shoulder back at the cave entrance. It was easy to locate it—a jagged opening in the pitch blackness. He saw woods, trees, and not much else on the other side. That was good, because it meant Harvey’s boys hadn’t found them yet. But how long was that going to last? He guessed it probably depended on how hard it was to find the cave if you didn’t know it existed in the first place. He was hoping the answer was really hard.

He turned back to Suzanna. “They’re going to find us, you know.”

“Maybe,” she said.

“No maybe about it. Sooner or later, they’re going to find us. It’s not like this cave of yours is all that well-hidden. You found it without any problems.”

“I knew where it was.”

“Point taken, but it’s still not hidden. Or am I wrong?”

She thought about it for a moment. Or he thought she was, anyway. His night eyes hadn’t completely adjusted to the darkness, so he could have been wrong. He didn’t think he was, though.

Probably.

“I saved your life, because I’m not one of them,” Keo said.

“Then who are you?”

“Not one of them. That’s the important takeaway here.”

She scrunched her nose at him. Or it looked like a scrunch. Her nostrils might have just twitched because she was itchy—

The snap-snap-snap! of footsteps.

Keo went down on his knees, Suzanna doing the same in front of him. He glanced back again toward the cave opening and just barely caught a glimpse of a furry creature going past it. There and gone a heartbeat later. Was that a boar? A bear?

Whatever it was, it had no interest in coming into the cave. He breathed a sigh of relief, and so did Suzanna behind him.

When he turned back around, she still had the M4 pointed at his head.

“Oh, come on,” Keo said.

She squinted at him. “Come on what?”

“I saved your life. How many times do I have to say it? Doesn’t that count for something? Something?”

“Why did you?”

“Because I’m not one of them.”

She reached forward with the barrel of the carbine to tap the brim of the Atlanta Falcons cap he was wearing. “That says different.”

Damn. He’d forgotten all about the hat. Keo reached up and took it off. “I didn’t exactly have a choice.”

“Who are you?”

“My name’s Keo.”

“I heard them calling you Chang.”

“Because I’m not who they think I am.”

“So who are you?”

“Not one of them.”

She stared at him.

He returned it.

“Seriously,” Keo said.

Suzanna sighed and seemed to relax a bit. Seemed.

Then, blinking at him, “I think I’m going to faint.”

“What?”

“I think I’m going—” she said, before the M4 lowered and she collapsed to the cave floor with a dull and slightly echoey thump.

Keo slowly stood up and looked down at her body. She lay unmoving on the damp ground. She might have even been dead, for all he knew. Keo was a bit hesitant to reach down and feel for a pulse. A part of him thought she might be playing possum.

“Hey,” Keo said.

She didn’t respond. He couldn’t even tell if her eyes were still open. The way she was lying, though, didn’t appear to be someone who was faking it.

“Well, that was…weird,” Keo said, his own voice echoing back at him.

* * *

She was still breathing, albeit weakly. The physical strain of running for their lives through the woods had a lot to do with that. Her side wound, which hadn’t been all that well treated by Toby the not-really-a-medic medic had opened back up and was bleeding again. Fortunately, the hole in her thigh was a little better wrapped. Not all that much better, but a little better.

Keo didn’t have a lot on him to treat her injuries, and the best he could do was tighten the bandages around her body. He was more than a little afraid of infection. That was, after all, the only thing more deadly to a soldier on the battlefield than a bullet. Right now, Suzanna was definitely a soldier.

It didn’t escape him that he still didn’t know her real name, even though she knew his. Yeah, he probably should have kept that one to himself in case she was captured again, and he right alongside her.

Shoulda, woulda, coulda, pal.

He spent the rest of the night listening to the crickets and the owls and every other woodland creature that called this patch of Georgian land home moving around with impunity outside the cave. He also kept a mindful ear open for anything that could have been coming from behind them. He wasn’t entirely sure how deep they were in the side of the hill; for all he knew, there could be another kilometer or two back there. All he was certain of was that it was pretty damn dark back there, and just about anything could be lurking in the shadows, ready to pounce.

Things like, say, ghouls.

Don’t let there be ghouls back there. I don’t need the headache right now.

His biggest comfort was that he still couldn’t detect the telltale signs of undead things. Like, say, a horrid stench that was reminiscent of spoiled garbage and rotting flesh. Keo had, for good and ill (but mostly ill) come face-to-face with more of the creatures than most people should have.

Suzanna was snoring on the floor next to him while Keo sat with his back against the rough wall. The air was as stale now as it’d been when he first sniffed it, and there was a general wetness around him that he couldn’t quite figure out the origins of. He kept one eye on the opening about thirty meters to his right and the other on the pitch-black darkness of the cave’s interior on his left.

It was nerve-wracking, to say the least, waiting for someone to pop up on one side and something to do likewise on the other. He’d been in much worse spots, that much was for sure. At least he wasn’t sitting there naked or weaponless.

Yeah, at least there’s that.

About two hours after midnight, Keo closed his eyes to rest for a bit and ended up falling asleep.

It was a big mistake, but he wouldn’t know that until he woke up.

* * *

Keo opened his eyes to sunlight…

…and two scrawny kids trying to decide whether to shoot him or not.

He’d definitely had better mornings, that was for damn sure.

“Shoot him.”

“Why?”

“Look at that scar.”

“What about it?”

“That’s one ugly scar.”

“So? You want me to shoot him because he has a scar?”

“You need a better reason?”

“Well, yeah.”

“You’re so demanding.”

“And you’re such a douche.”

“Hey, shut up, I think he’s awake.”

“So he is.”

Keo was still lying on the same damp floor he’d lain down on last night, staring up at the long barrel of a bolt-action hunting rifle that had a large scope mounted on top. Not that the scrawny kid behind the weapon needed such a huge optic to make sure he put a round through Keo’s forehead. There was only about a foot between his face and the gun.

Jesus, he’d fallen asleep last night without realizing it. Had he been that tired? He had to be. What was the other explanation? Maybe that he was getting old and wasn’t as young or spry as he used to be.

Definitely that one.

“Don’t listen to the other guy; don’t shoot,” Keo said to the kid holding the gun in front of him.

Scrawny grinned. He couldn’t have been more than 17, and wearing something that almost looked like a ghillie suit, but wasn’t quite one. If Keo didn’t know better, he’d think the kid had attempted to put one together but either gave up halfway or this was the best he could do.

His partner was taller but just as thin and young. Guy number two was also wearing a similar—with some minor differences—outfit. Leaves poked out from their headgear, and their faces were smeared with black and green camo paint. Like their attempts at ghillie suits, the paint job didn’t look very good.

The cave had brightened up, with sunlight pouring in from behind the second scrawny guy to Keo’s left. The one with the rifle was to his right. Keo turned his head slightly to check on Suzanna, but she wasn’t there.

“What happened to Suzanna?” he asked the scrawny kid with the rifle.

“Who’s Suzanna?” Scrawny #1 said.

“The girl in here with me.”

“You mean Cody?”

“I don’t know. Is that her name?”

“Why’d you call her Suzanna?” Scrawny #2 asked.

Keo looked over at the other kid. He didn’t have to think too much about where his MP5 was. Or the Beretta that was no longer in his right holster. The kids—and that was all they were—had taken his weapons.

“I didn’t know her name,” Keo said to Scrawny #1. “So it’s Cody?”

“That’s right,” the kid said. He hadn’t moved his rifle even a little bit from Keo’s face. His forefinger was also on the trigger guard, against the trigger, and at this range…

“She’s okay?” Keo asked.

“Dunno,” Scrawny #2 said. He was leaning back against the cave wall, looking bored with the whole thing.

The morning sunlight had brightened up the cave to such a degree that Keo could now see just about everything around him. Not that there was a whole lot to look at. It was just a cave, after all. Once you’ve seen one, you’d seen them all.

Keo didn’t need the two teens to tell him what had happened while he was sleeping. It was pretty obvious. Someone—likely the Arrowheads—had shown up and taken Cody, a.k.a. Suzanna, away. She’d looked pretty bad last night, and that was with barely any lights to see with. How did she look this morning?

As to why he was still here, looking up at two kids that were debating the merits of shooting him, Keo wasn’t entirely sure.

“I saved her life, you know,” he said to Scrawny #1.

He’d recognized the kid’s voice as the one that wasn’t enthusiastic about shooting him. Scrawny #2 was the asshole that wanted to put an end to his existence while he slept.

“Did you?” Scrawny said. He didn’t look convinced.

“Yeah.”

“She looked pretty bad when we found her.”

“I didn’t do that. But I kept it from being worse.”

“What about the others?” Scrawny #2 said.

Keo was going to ask “Others who?” when he figured it out.

The others were the four that Harvey’s men had slaughtered on the road yesterday.

“I didn’t do that, either,” Keo said.

“Man, you’re all kinds of innocent, aren’t you?” Scrawny #2 said.

Keo didn’t like the kid’s tone, but he did like the lack of aggression he was getting from Scrawny #1. That is, if you could call pointing a rifle at someone and within a hair’s breadth of pulling the trigger as non-aggression. Right now, though, Keo would take whatever he could get.

Beggars can’t be choosers, and all that jazz.

Keo was about to plead his case some more when a radio squawked, and a male voice said, “Mick and Pick, come in.”

Mick and Pick? Keo thought as he watched Scrawny #2 reach behind his waist and produce a radio.

Scrawny #2 pressed the transmit lever. “Go for Mick.”

“Is he still alive?” the male voice asked through the radio.

“That depends,” the kid named Mick said.

“Stop fucking around. Is he still alive or not?”

“He is, sir. I was telling Pick to shoot him, but Pick’s being a real pussy about it.”

Pick, the oddly-named other Scrawny, snorted but didn’t look all that offended. Keo had a feeling this was a thing between them. Bad sense of humor and awful paint jobs, not to mention half-assed ghillie suits.

“Bring him in,” the male voice on the radio said.

“You sure, sir?” Mick asked. “He’s pretty ugly.”

“Just bring him in, dammit.”

“Yes, sir.” Mick put his radio away and nodded at Pick. “You heard the man.”

Pick took a quick step back from Keo and lowered his rifle halfway. “Get up.”

Keo got up from the ground. Wet dirt fell off his clothes as he did so. He brushed at his pants legs.

“Let’s go,” Mick said and began walking toward the cave opening.

Keo followed. “Where we going, boys?”

“Home,” Pick said from behind him.

“Goody. I always wanted to go home.”

“I guess this is your lucky day then, huh?”

“That’s me. Always lucky.” He glanced at Pick walking after him. “So your name’s Pick, huh?”

“That’s right,” the kid said. “What of it?”

“It’s an unusual name.”

Pick shrugged. “What can I say? Everything else was taken.”

Keo grinned and thought, Now, where have I heard that before?

Twelve

Keo liked Pick but didn’t care all that much for Mick. He wondered if the two had come up with those names themselves or if someone else had given them to them. It would have been one hell of an amazing coincidence if those were their real names and they just happened to end up partners in crime all the way out here. Or partners in scouts, which was really what they looked like with their half-there ghillie suits. They didn’t just have the appearance of kids that spent an awful lot of time in the woods, they smelled like it, too. Keo hadn’t noticed the latter until they were out in the open air and beyond the cave’s stale atmosphere.

“What’s the matter?” Pick asked from somewhere behind him.

The kid was close enough that Keo thought he could pull the trigger and blow a hole in Keo’s back without trying, but just far enough that Keo didn’t have any confidence he could do the spin-and-grab move. Not that he was even considering it, but, well, it would have been nice if he’d had the option. Mick, the one Keo didn’t like all that much, was leading the way. He was taller than Pick, but just as lacking in size.

The three of them had left the cave behind and were now moving through the woods, taking the sloping hillside in order to reach another road that would lead them into Arrowhead. The boys knew where they were going. Not that Keo had any doubts.

It was bright outside, warm rays of sunlight piercing through the tree canopies above them. Keo wasn’t sure where he and Suzanna had ended up last night and still didn’t have a clue this morning. But he could sniff cooking fires in the distance and see wisps of smoke between the thick walls of foliage that surrounded them like hives.

It was way too green in here for his liking. Keo had never been especially fond of the woods. Not that he couldn’t survive in them. He’d had to do that on more than one occasion. But, given the choice, he’d take urban concrete any day of the week.

The only sounds were their boots against the soft, and at parts, muddy ground. That, and whenever Keo stepped on a branch. The boys didn’t seem to have that trouble. It was almost as if they knew exactly where every single loose twig had fallen. That was impossible, of course. Or, at least, Keo liked to think so.

“Make more noise, why doncha,” Pick said after Keo stepped on his fifth—or was that sixth?—twig and a snapping noise echoed, mingling in with the woodland creatures that loitered on tree limbs and scurried about in the bushes.

“Sorry,” Keo said.

He wasn’t, really, but it seemed like the thing to say. They hadn’t bothered to bind his hands or legs, probably because they didn’t want the hassle of carrying him back to town. That, and because they had all the guns and he… Well, he didn’t have much of anything, except the Falcons cap he was still wearing for some reason.

“You ever heard of stealth?” Mick asked.

“What’s that?” Keo said.

“Stealth.”

“Yeah. What’s that?”

“You don’t know what stealth means? They don’t teach that at Chinese schools?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never been to Chinese schools.”

“I don’t think he’s Chinese, Mick,” Pick said from behind Keo.

“What is he, then?” Mick asked.

“Not Chinese.”

“So what is he?”

“Um, I’m right here, boys, you can ask me,” Keo said.

“You’re not from around here, that’s for sure,” Pick said.

Keo couldn’t help but smile to himself. That was something country people usually said to city folks in all the movies Danny forced him to watch back at Black Tide Island. It’d sounded extremely corny then and still did now.

“No, I’m not,” Keo said. “What gave it away?”

“A lot of things,” Pick said.

“Like what?”

“You being a Shaker and all, for one.”

“I’m not a Shaker.”

“You keep saying that.”

“Because it’s true.”

“Uh huh.”

“Swear.”

“Right.”

Keo grinned. He wasn’t sure who was messing with whom now. “Guys, I swear I’m on your side.”

That wasn’t technically true. Keo wasn’t really on anyone’s side at the moment. He was sent here on a mission that didn’t involve the Arrowhead folks. But here he was anyway, and it was up to him to make the best of it.

“You can swear all you want, doesn’t make it true,” Mick said.

“What’s it gonna take to convince you?” Keo asked.

“It’s not us you have to convince,” Pick said.

“Who, then?”

“You’ll find out.”

Keo remembered the voice on the radio. “The man you were talking to on the radio? Is that the head honcho I gotta talk to?”

“Maybe,” Pick said.

“Who was it?”

“No one you need to know about,” Mick said.

“Was it Horatio?”

“Could be, might not be.”

“That was Horatio,” Keo said with some certainty.

Some faux certainty. He didn’t know what Horatio sounded like, never mind what the man looked like. His job was never supposed to go beyond the borders of Shaker Town, so Keo had never bothered with intel on the surrounding settlements.

“So that’s where I’m going? To meet Horatio?” Keo asked.

Pick chuckled behind him. “That’s one way to put it.”

“What’s the other way?”

“You’ll find out.”

Keo didn’t particularly like the sound of how that was phrased. “I keep telling you, I’m not a Shaker.”

“You can tell Horatio that,” Mick said.

“So I am going to see Horatio.”

Mick glanced over his shoulder at Keo, but didn’t say anything.

Keo smiled. “You boys live here long?”

“Here, where?” Pick said.

“Arrowhead.”

“Does forever count?”

“Forever? Really?”

“Mind as well be, considering we don’t remember any other place but here.”

Might as well, Keo thought, knowing exactly what Lara would have said if she were here and heard the grammatical error.

Of course he didn’t correct the kid. Pick—and likely Mick, too—wouldn’t have enjoyed anything resembling a well-rounded education all the way out here. The fact that they both knew how to survive off the land or were very comfortable around their weapons was all they needed to know.

They had gone about five minutes from the cave and were still moving gradually down the slanted ground when they heard gunfire in the distance.

Keo went down on one knee instinctively, Mick doing likewise in front of him. Keo glanced back and saw that Pick, about two meters away, had done the same thing.

His eyes went to Pick’s weapons. The rifle was a no-go. Keo didn’t think he could wrestle it out of the kid’s hands; he looked scrawny, but he had a pretty good grip on it with both fingerless gloved hands.

And the pistol…

That wasn’t going to work, either. Keo couldn’t make out the handgun’s brand or model because it was hidden inside a holster with a flap over it.

As if he could hear Keo’s thoughts, Pick looked over and narrowed his eyes.

Keo grinned back.

“Don’t try it,” the kid said.

“Try what?” Keo said.

“Uh huh.”

“You’re being paranoid.”

“Whatever, mister.”

“I was just admiring your camo work.”

“Oh, yeah? I did it myself.”

I can tell, Keo thought.

But he said, “Nice.”

Keo wasn’t sure if Pick believed him or not. Maybe the kid was just humoring him.

He turned to listen to the chaos going on in other parts of the forest instead.

The pop-pop-pop of automatic gunfire was easy to pick out from the boom! of shotgun blasts and the occasional cracks! of high-powered rifles. The skirmish was coming from higher up along the same hillside. Close enough that Keo could hear the echoes fading after each shot, but not near enough that he was in any danger.

The boys realized that too, and stood back up.

Keo joined them. “What’s going on out there?”

“We’re hunting down your buddies,” Mick said.

Keo looked back at the teenager. “They’re not my buddies.”

“That hat says different,” Mick said, pointing at Keo’s cap with his rifle. “Falcons suck, by the way.”

“I don’t know baseball.”

“Football.”

“Same difference. Also, I’m still not their buddy.”

“Whatever.”

Mick turned around and continued, and Keo followed. The soft, squishy tap-tap of Pick’s boots as he went over the same patch of muddy puddle that Keo had stepped through less than a minute ago followed somewhere behind him.

Keo hadn’t noticed it before, but they were definitely traversing the same grounds that others had moved across earlier in the day. The tracks were still fresh—boots and sneakers—and were leading in the same direction where Mick was taking him. He guessed that was the other Arrowhead party heading back to town in a hurry with the wounded Cody.

Speaking of Cody, a.k.a. Suzanna, Keo hoped she was still alive. Right now, there was only one person who could keep him alive today, and that was her—

A small, round object, the size of a rock, glinted brightly in the corner of Keo’s right eye. He looked over as it sailed through the crisp morning air.

It wasn’t a rock.

Oh shit, it wasn’t a rock.

“Grenade!” Keo shouted.

Mick stopped and turned even as the grenade continued on its path toward them. It was going to land somewhere between him and the kid, less than a foot or two from where Keo stood.

Or was standing, because Keo was already spinning and diving, shouting, “Get down!” at a shocked Pick as he did so.

Luckily for Keo, Pick didn’t have his rifle pointed at him at the time, because otherwise all he would have had to do was pull the trigger and Keo was done for. Not that that stopped Pick from doing just that—starting to lift his bolt-action—when Keo lunged in his direction.

The crack! of Pick’s rifle as it fired—the heavy round zipping just a few inches from Keo’s left ear—as he crashed into the teenager and drove both of them to the ground.

Not more than a second later, the earth-shaking boom! as the grenade went off somewhere behind him.

Keo was on top of a struggling Pick as dirt and grass and mud and everything else on the forest floor rained down on him.

A voice inside him screamed for him to Get up! Get up now, or you’re a dead man!

He couldn’t get up yet, but he could roll over and off the teenager, even as he heard footsteps coming.

“We’re under attack, you idiot!” Keo shouted. “Find a target! Shoot! Shoot!”

He’d just thrown out the shouts in case Pick was listening. He didn’t have a whole lot of confidence the kid would, but Keo was wrong. The crack of Pick’s rifle, followed by the sounds of him working the bolt, then crack again.

Keo didn’t know whom Pick was shooting at. He was too busy rolling, rolling, and rolling until he’d gotten out of the open.

The pop-pop-pop of rifle fire, followed by the forest ground shaking again as another grenade detonated.

Fuck!

He kept moving, the thoughts Stop, and you’re dead! Stop, and you’re fucking dead! thundering across his mind even as he rolled, rolled, and rolled some more. Fortunately, he was moving downhill, so he was picking up speed with every passing heartbeat.

But he didn’t stop. He couldn’t stop. He was unarmed, and there were men trying to kill him. Men with guns and grenades and probably knives, too—

Thump! as his back slammed into a waiting tree trunk.

Pain. A lot of pain.

But Keo pushed them all into the back of his mind and scrambled back up to his feet. He didn’t waste the second or two it would have taken to check to see if anyone was already in pursuit.

He took off.

He didn’t know where the two Arrowhead teens were, though he was pretty sure Mick was dead. Pick, too, maybe.

But he had no time to find out either way.

He was too busy running for his life, because there were still bullets zip-zip-zipping! around him. Someone was still trying to kill him!

He found out who that someone was when the man shouted, somewhere behind him, “Run, Chang! Run as fast as you can, but you’re not going to get very far, you motherfucker! I’m coming for you, Chang! I’m coming for you!”

It was Harvey.

But of course it had to be Harvey.

Fuck my life, Keo thought as he dodged branches and darted around trees.

He was running as fast as he could, because stopping was not a viable option. He was in no man’s land. First Shaker Town, now Arrowhead. And it wouldn’t surprise him one bit if both sides thought he was the enemy and shot him on sight.

He should have stayed back at Black Tide with Lara. He should have said no when Danny asked.

Stupid Danny.

If Keo survived this, he was going to kick Danny in the balls.

Kick him real good.

Thirteen

“Chang! Where are you?”

Nowhere you can see, pal.

“Come on out! I just wanna play!”

Yeah, I highly doubt that.

“Don’t be shy! Come say hi!”

Pass.

“Chang!”

Yes?

“Come out, come out, wherever you are!”

This guy…

Keo sighed to himself and thought about how great it would feel when he shut Harvey the fuck up. Because the big man was annoying him. More than that, Harvey was drawing a lot of unwanted attention to him.

You’re begging for it, Harvey.

Be careful what you wish for, fucker.

Except Keo couldn’t shut the man up. At least, not yet. He was between a rock and a hard place at the moment.

Or, should he say, a tree branch and five guys trying to kill him. Because that was how many were below him right now.

Five guys.

Harvey was one of them. The other two included Fridge, the trigger-happy kid, and three others that Keo had never bothered to get to know. Toby the not-really-a-medic medic was nowhere to be seen. Keo assumed he’d gotten himself killed when the Arrowhead folks attacked their, well, would-be attackers.

Five guys. All armed.

That was the problem. The all armed part.

The bigger problem? He wasn’t armed.

One of many problems, anyway. Keo wished he could say not having a gun was the least of his worries. After fleeing the scene of the ambush, Keo had considered running back to take refuge in the cave from last night, but he’d decided against that.

One: It was a friggin’ cave.

And two: Going into it meant not having a way out. Or maybe there was a way out, but Keo didn’t know about it.

So Keo had made the best decision he could under the circumstances. He’d relied on his old skills: Climbing.

He’d always been a very good climber. His mom, who was Korean, used to call him wonsungi. The Korean word for monkey. Keo had put that childhood skill to very good use over the years, and this was one of those times.

Harvey was still calling out to Keo as he led the four Shakers through the wooded area, seemingly oblivious to the fact they were still in enemy territory. All of them were, including Keo. As far as he knew, both Mick and Pick were dead and the Arrowhead folks were now looking for all six of their scalps. They would have no idea that he wasn’t a Shaker, and truth be told, he didn’t blame them one bit.

Snap! as one of Harvey’s boys broke a twig in half.

Another snap! as another one of his boys did likewise.

They weren’t being all that subtle about moving around. Maybe that lack of care had something to do with what they’d already gone through. Harvey had blood on one side of his cheek, where a bullet had grazed it. He’d stanched the bleeding with a square bandage, but blood still trickled down his chin. The others looked similarly battle-weary, as if they’d been fighting for the last week instead of… What? The last hour or so?

Keo hadn’t heard shooting last night after he’d fled into the cave with Suzanna, or he would have woken up. Most of the fighting had taken place this morning while Keo was being marched down to Arrowhead.

Whatever had happened, and however long it had taken, it had cost Harvey a good deal. He’d arrived here with nineteen men—Keo being one of them—and had four left. And to look at the remaining four, they were ready to go home.

Also, they were walking instead of riding, which meant they’d lost their horses. That was going to make returning to Shaker Town a little more difficult, not to mention a whole lot more time-consuming.

Keo had lost count of how far he’d run since the ambush. He guessed two kilometers before he finally got winded and decided climbing was the better route. He was pretty sure he was still inside the wildlife preserve that the Arrowhead people had made their home. Although, to look at Harvey and his remaining four guys, Keo was having second thoughts about that.

Why wasn’t Harvey in more of a hurry to hightail it back to Shaker Town? Why did they seem so damn unconcerned with their surroundings? It was possible they’d killed all the Arrowhead people they were fighting with. But even if they had achieved that, they would know the town would just send more people. After all, there was a reason Arrowhead and Shaker Town had been at odds for years now: The two factions had more than enough men to keep a fight going for days, if not weeks, in a head-to-head battle.

So why did it look like Harvey was on a Sunday stroll in the park?

It had been exactly two minutes and ten seconds since Harvey last called out Keo’s name, and the man hadn’t made another peep since. Not that he kept quiet. He was making as much noise as his lackeys; none of the five Shakers seemed capable of going stealth even though they’d done very well at staying silent last night. Maybe the skirmish with the Arrowheads had hurt them more than just what Keo could see.

The crack! of a rifle exploded, scattering the birds in the trees around Keo.

But the gunfire had a much more devastating effect on one of Harvey’s men. A tall guy with long hair that flailed underneath his slightly slanted Atlanta Falcons cap crumpled to the wet ground between Harvey and Fridge.

Another one of Harvey’s men—they were spread out in a jagged line to cover more ground as they searched for him—spun around and fired. Or sprayed indiscriminately would probably be the better description. Keo couldn’t locate who had fired the first shot, and if he couldn’t from his high angle on the branch, then there was a good bet the Shaker had even less ability to find his target.

Not that that stopped the man. He fired every round he had until his M4 ran dry, then he began reloading. Or fumbled to do so, anyway. He didn’t get close before there was a second crack! and the man’s brains exploded out the back of his head, the black cap flicking off him and landing about five feet at just about the same time the body hit the ground.

Keo remained as still as possible and watched the fighting unfold. Not that he could have done anything else.

It wasn’t much of a fight. Harvey and his men should have left when they had the chance, instead of coming after Keo.

But they hadn’t, and now…

Sucks to be you, Harvey, Keo thought as the big man took off running, spinning and firing into the woods behind him occasionally.

Fridge and the other remaining Shaker—a black guy wearing denim jeans and an Atlanta Braves jacket—took off after their leader. Denim twisted around in mid-stride and unloaded the entire magazine in his AR-15, screaming incoherently as he did so.

Guy’s seen one too many action movies.

Fridge didn’t bother to return fire. That was smart of him, because there was absolutely no one to shoot at. At least, no one that he could see. Instead, Fridge ran underneath Keo, following in Harvey’s footsteps.

Keo turned slightly but couldn’t relocate Harvey. The big man had already disappeared into the wall of trees, and Fridge was right behind him.

The last Shaker should have taken off after them. That would have been the wisest move. Instead, he was wasting bullets shooting trees and branches and shrubs and scaring everything that lived in the place.

Guy’s definitely seen way too many action movies.

And there was no return fire. It was almost as if the shooters were biding their time, waiting to see how long it would take the Shaker to run out of bullets.

Then he did, and the man scrambled to reload.

The Shaker had managed to push the spare into the mag well and was about to pull on the charging handle when another crack! echoed.

A large caliber round blew through the man’s chest and exited his back, before pekking! loudly into the trunk of the tree that Keo was perched on. Keo swore the whole tree shook slightly against the impact.

And just like that, the “fight” was over.

Three bodies lay on the ground, and two were missing. Harvey and Fridge had made it. At least, for now. Keo didn’t think they were going to get very far. This was still Arrowhead territory, and there was a lot of woods left to go.

So where did that leave him?

He continued being as still as possible, breathing slowly as not to make too much noise, and waited for the shooters to show themselves. He was pretty sure it was more than one, even though they’d all used the same large-caliber ammo and, likely, a similar type of high-powered bolt-action rifle. Keo could tell the difference between those and a semiautomatic like the weapons the Shakers had dropped.

…like the weapons the Shakers had dropped…

The closest was the AR-15 next to Denim, about seven feet from Keo’s tree. He could see it in the tall grass, about half a foot from the man’s outstretched right hand. Close enough that if Keo jumped down and went right for it, he could probably reach it before the shooters could react.

Was he willing to bet his life on that, though?

Yeah, maybe not.

So he remained quiet and patient. He didn’t have to wait very long. About twenty seconds later, two figures revealed themselves.

They were wearing ghillie suits, but these were more elaborate—and as a result, more effective—than the ones Keo had seen on Mick and Pick. Keo hadn’t even spotted this duo until they stood up.

They walked forward, making barely any sounds as they did so. They didn’t even seem to be trying to stay quiet; they just were.

Or they were quiet until one of them took out a radio and spoke into it. “Tangos on the move.”

The two-way squawked, and a familiar male voice said through it, “How many?”

“Two.”

“The rest?”

“Accounted for.”

“Roger that.”

Keo was pretty sure the shooter had been talking to Horatio. That is, if he’d been right and it was Horatio when he eavesdropped on Mick and Pick talking to the man through their own radio back in the cave.

The man put the radio away while his partner walked to the closest dead Shaker and kneeled next to him. The man rolled the body over onto its back and went through the pockets.

Both men, like Mick and Pick, wore camo paint on their faces to help them blend into their wooded environment. As with the ghillie suits, these two had put their paints on much better than the kids.

Keo was looking at professionals. Maybe they weren’t soldiers, but they’d been doing this long enough to know how to set up an ambush and kill. They’d done both of those things easily, taking out Harvey’s trio without much fanfare or theatrics. They’d just performed the job. It was cold-blooded, in a way, but also admirable.

“What’d you find?” the first one asked as he walked over to his crouching partner.

The way they moved and talked convinced Keo they were a two-man team. Like Mick and Pick, only, well, more effective.

“Diddly squat,” the second one said. He stood up and looked around. “Lots of guns, though. We should probably take those.”

“We have plenty of guns,” the first one said.

“You can never have too many guns.”

“Then you can lug them all back with you.”

The second one glanced around again before shaking his head. “Nah, let’s let the kids come back here and pick them up.”

“Now you’re being smart.”

Both men were close enough now—about ten meters away—that Keo could just barely make out strands of white hair poking out from underneath one of the hoods. They were carrying pouches that bulged underneath their suits.

Keo watched the shooters standing nearby. They didn’t bother picking through the other two dead Shakers. In fact, they didn’t seem interested in doing much of anything but just…loiter.

“You know what I hate about Shakers?” one of them finally said.

“What’s that?” the other said.

“They smell.” He sniffed the air as if for effect. “You can smell Shaker Town on them. It reeks from their pores. Everywhere they go, they leave a stench behind.”

Keo’s eyes lifted slightly. If he didn’t know better, he’d swear the man was talking about him.

No, the guy couldn’t have been talking about him. He wasn’t exactly hidden—he only had some branches to cover him, and they barely did that—but he was high up enough that he’d eluded Harvey and company without a problem.

But then again, the Shakers were city people. They didn’t live in the woods and lived off the land. Hell, they wouldn’t even be able to do survive more than a week out here before starving to death first.

“Worse than ghouls?” Mr. Sniffer’s partner was asking.

“Definitely worse,” Mr. Sniffer said.

The partner sniffed the air too, his paint-covered nose wrinkling. “Maybe you’re right. What do you call that smell, anyway?”

“Garbage,” Mr. Sniffer said.

“More like vomit.”

“Garbage vomit?”

“That sounds about right.”

Keo squinted down at the two men and thought, What the hell is this, a comedy routine?

The paranoid part of him thought they were doing all of this for his benefit. But of course that didn’t make any sense.

Why would they? Why would they even bother?

“Well?” Mr. Sniffer said, even as he turned and looked right up at Keo. “You gonna stay up there all day, or what?”

Keo sighed, and thought, Daebak.

Fourteen

Keo had seen Arrowhead from a nearby hillside, and it hadn’t looked all that impressive. Up close, and while walking through the place on foot, he formed a new appreciation for it.

The town was nestled inside a valley, the forest that used to take up space here cleared to make room for its human inhabitants. The individual houses and community buildings were all constructed from wood, some simpler than others. They were all very recently built, too. The place smelled, looked, and felt like what it was: A brand new start for everyone that called it home.

The nearby stream and animals in the surrounding woods took care of any potential starvation problem, which was a good thing because the place teemed with people. The town looked bigger and more spread out than Keo had thought last night. Unlike the denizens of Shaker Town, there was less obvious separation between the armed men and women and the civilian population here. People looked much more comfortable with one another. Of course, that was just on the surface. Every place Keo had ever been to had a dark underbelly. It was only a matter of time before he found Arrowhead’s.

He was led past buildings being used as a school. Children were visible through the windows, and a class was singing a song that sounded familiar, but he couldn’t quite place it. Another class was already on the playground. Fresh air flowed from the woods, and the water nearby was a constant source of soothing noise.

Horses—a lot of them, maybe more than he’d seen back at Shaker Town—lined the streets while people moved along wooden sidewalks. It was like being inside a frontier town, but one where all the people wore contemporary wardrobe. And the guns, of course. Those definitely screamed now.

As he was led into Arrowhead, Keo hadn’t bothered looking for an opportunity to escape his two captors. They were probably too seasoned to allow him to get the upper hand, and he didn’t feel like getting shot. Besides, by the time they started moving through the woods and back to town, four other Arrowheads had joined them. Keo didn’t ask—and didn’t think they’d tell him even if he did—but he had a good idea there were more of them chasing after Harvey and Fridge. If Harvey’s boys had indeed lost their horses between last night and this morning, they weren’t going to get very far on foot.

Still sucks to be you, Harvey.

It potentially sucked to be him too, but Keo thought he had a reasonably good chance of talking his way out of this. That was one of his strengths. Or he liked to think so. Lara would disagree. Then again, as much as she knew him—and she knew him better than just about anyone else—she didn’t know everything about him, or how many tight squeezes he’d gotten out of by just flapping his gums.

Time to flap away, he thought as they reached what he thought was the center of town. There were no fences or barbed wires but there were noticeably more armed guards on the streets. There was also a giant American flag moving in the breeze from a tall pole in the very middle that Keo hadn’t seen last night in the darkness.

Keo had attempted to make small talk with his captors as they brought him down from the woods, but neither man bothered to engage him. Because he didn’t know their names, he called one Don and the other Lon. Not that there was any real reason why one was Don and the other was Lon. They were still wearing ghillie suits and their faces were covered in camo, and truthfully, it was hard to tell them apart.

“This the place, boys?” Keo asked as they walked through what he assumed was the town square, though in this case it was really more of a large circle.

Neither Don nor Lon bothered to reply.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” Keo said.

Again, no response.

After a few more minutes, his captors delivered Keo to where he was supposed to be: A two-story building with a pair of armed guards standing outside. If this was indeed the residence of Arrowhead’s leader, it wasn’t very impressive. So in that respect, it fit right in.

“In you go,” one of his captors said. It was either Don or Lon. Besides looking identical in their getup, the two men also had similar baritone to their deep voices.

The door opened as Keo approached it. Don or Lon had radioed ahead, so Keo wasn’t surprised someone came outside to greet him. It was a woman in her thirties, long blonde hair in a ponytail behind her. Tall, feminine without being too girly, but just girly enough without being too manly. It was an amazingly subtle balance.

Like the others he’d seen in Arrowhead, the woman didn’t wear anything that looked remotely like a uniform. Boots and long cargo pants meant she could go from the stream to indoors to the woods without having to change. There was a thin scar on her right jawline that was on its way to fading in a few years.

She nodded at Keo’s captors. “I’ll take him from here.”

“Yes, ma’am,” either Lon or Don said.

Then, also either Lon or Don, “Don’t let him near any trees. The boy knows how to climb.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” the woman said.

Footsteps as Don and Lon headed off. Not that Keo entertained any ideas about escaping even then. Besides the woman, who was armed with a holstered Glock, there were the two guards standing nearby. They were both carrying semiautomatic rifles—ARs, from the looks of them—and had been eyeballing him the entire time as he approached their station. Although he couldn’t see them now, he was pretty sure they were still glued to his back, ready to shoot him dead if he tried anything.

Keo chose to smile at the woman instead. “I’m Chang.”

“Good for you,” she said, before nodding toward the door she’d just come through.

Keo walked forward and inside. The woman followed, closing the door softly behind her.

He waited in a large and very empty lobby for her. There were some couches and chairs and stuffed colorful birds staring back at him from some of the walls, but otherwise nothing to indicate what the place was used for. A meeting hall, perhaps? Maybe there was a big table with chairs inside one of the back rooms in the rear hallway. Stairs led up to the second floor to the right of it.

The tall woman walked past him. As she did so, his eye went to the Glock in her hip holster. There was no flap on it, so all he’d have to do was grab it. There was absolutely no one else in the room to stop him, and she was already in front of him, her back turned…

But he didn’t go for the gun.

Keo had options, which wasn’t always true this morning. In the here and now, windows of opportunities were opening to him. Keo had come to Georgia on a mission and with a plan. That hadn’t involved the folks at Arrowhead, but now that he was here, he thought he could use it to his advantage. The mission itself was still in play, but he’d have to return to Shaker Town to complete it.

So instead of trying something, he followed the woman to the stairs, then up.

“Smart,” she said.

“Smart what?” he said.

“Not going for my gun.”

“Now why would I do a silly thing like that?”

“You seemed like the type to do something silly like that.”

Keo grinned. “Momma always said I’m smarter than I look.”

“She was just being nice.”

“Ouch.”

“Besides, it would have been a big mistake. We already know what you did for Cody. She’s alive because of you.”

Keo couldn’t help but breathe a sigh of relief, though he hoped his guide didn’t notice. Too much.

“She’s okay?” he asked.

“Okay enough,” his guide said.

Good enough for me, Keo thought, because good enough meant Cody, a.k.a. Suzanna, was still alive. More than that, she was vouching for him. No wonder Don or Lon hadn’t bothered to put him in cuffs earlier, and why this tall and very nice-looking lady was so nonchalant around him.

They rounded the turn in the stairs and continued up.

“I’m Chang,” he said.

“You already told me,” she said.

“Thought I’d mention it again. Can I get a name?”

“Lindsey.”

“Nice to meet you, Lindsey.”

“We’ll see about that.”

“I thought we were friends now.”

“We’ll see about that, too.”

“What else will we see?”

“We’ll see.”

He chuckled. “This has been an incredibly stimulating conversation, Lindsey.”

The second floor, like the first, was devoid of anything special. Wooden flooring and more stuffed exotic bird species adorned the walls. He could smell the newness in every part of the building as he walked through it, following on Lindsey’s footsteps as she led him toward the front, to where he’d seen the balcony outside one of the rooms.

Lindsey knocked on the heavy oak door at the end. “He’s here, sir.”

Keo didn’t say anything. He had an idea who sir was, but he kept his mouth shut. He’d been guessing that it was Horatio, the leader of Arrowhead, on the radio with Mick and Pick, but it was just a guess.

As Lindsey stepped back and glanced over at him, it occurred to Keo that he still didn’t know what had happened to the two teenagers.

“Mick and Pick,” Keo said. “How are they?”

Lindsey shook her head, but didn’t answer. Not that she had to. That shake said everything. That, and the unsmiling look on her face.

“I didn’t do that,” Keo said.

“We know,” Lindsey said.

Keo nodded, when the door opened and a young man in his twenties looked out at them, before stepping aside.

Horatio?

“In you go,” Lindsey said.

Keo looked over at her. “You’re not going in there with me?”

“I have things to do.”

“Maybe we’ll see each other again.”

She flashed him a wry smile that told him she was used to men coming on to her. Not that Keo was doing that.

Not too much, anyway.

Keo made a mental note not to tell Lara about this.

“Maybe we will,” Lindsey said, before turning and walking away.

The young man who had opened the door for Keo said, “Come in. Chang, right?”

“That’s right,” Keo said as he stepped inside.

“Chang?” a booming voice said from farther inside the room. It was the same voice that had spoken to Mick and Pick on the radio, only a lot clearer now, in real life. “That’s what you’re going with? I guess every other name was taken, huh?”

Keo stopped and stared across the wide, spacious room, and would have laughed if he weren’t too busy trying to figure out how the hell this was even possible.

Finally, he said, “How the hell are you even still alive?”

Fifteen

“Sonofabitch.”

“That’s the greeting I get?”

“I thought you’d be dead by now.”

“You sound disappointed.”

“Just surprised.”

The old man laughed. “Hey, you’re not the only one shocked to see me still kicking it, kid. I feel the same way every morning.”

Keo grinned and walked over to shake the man’s hand. It’d been years since he’d last seen him. In fact, he couldn’t remember the last time, but it’d been a long time. Though, to look at him, the man Arrowhead called Horatio was as spry now as when Keo had last seen him back in the jungles of Louisiana.

“Who’s Horatio?” Keo asked.

Norris smiled. “Me.”

“You? You’re Horatio?”

“It’s my first name.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“You never asked.” Horatio Norris looked past Keo at the young man who had opened the door. “You can leave us now, Lewis.”

“Are you sure, sir?” the young man asked.

“I’ll be fine. He’s an old friend.”

Lewis lifted his right eyebrow in surprise. “I’ll be right outside, sir.”

Norris nodded as Lewis left, closing the door softly behind him.

Keo gave the other man a long, hard look. Yes, it was Norris, all right. He was still bald, still black, and still old. Or older. But then again, he suspected that the ex-cop from Orlando could say the same things about him.

Norris took a step back and did the same to Keo. “You look like shit.”

“You should see the other guy.”

“As bad as you?”

“Worse.”

“I find that hard to believe.”

“Well I’m alive, and he’s not.”

Norris chuckled. Then, suddenly serious, “Speaking of which, what the hell are you doing attacking Arrowhead with a bunch of Shaker Town boys?”

“I didn’t exactly have a choice.”

“Long story?”

“Not too long.”

“Then tell me about it,” Norris said, and walked toward the balcony.

Keo followed him, filling Norris in on what had happened, starting with the bombing yesterday and leading to last night, then eventually this morning.

They stepped outside into the cool breeze. Norris leaned against the wooden railing and looked out at the town with Keo next to him. They watched people going about their business, most of them seemingly oblivious to the recent violence. From up here, Keo could see the organized activity around the stream. Fishing, clothes washing, and bathing in what he assumed was cold water.

“Who bombed Shaker Town?” Norris asked when Keo was finished.

Keo looked over at him. “You.”

Norris lifted both eyebrows in surprise. “Me?”

“Not you, you. You guys. The town.”

The older man shook his head. Keo couldn’t get over how little Norris had changed since the last time.

Must be the clean living, Keo thought. I wonder what that’s like?

“It wasn’t us,” Norris said.

“I figured,” Keo said.

“But they thought it was us?”

“Either that, or…”

“Or?”

“They needed an excuse.”

Norris smirked. “Of course they did. How else are they going to explain breaking the truce that Black Tide brokered? I’m surprised they only sent a few men.”

“About twenty.”

“That’s a few, considering how many Shaker Town has.” Norris eyeballed him. “But that still doesn’t explain what you were doing here with them?”

“I told you, I didn’t have a choice.”

“No, Keo. I mean, how did you end up there?”

“That’s another long story.”

“Is it?”

“Not really.”

“So let’s hear it.”

“First things first. Did you know it was me out there?”

“Not a clue. They just told me someone was captured and that his name was Chang. The description they gave was ‘Chinese guy.’” He shrugged. “Not exactly descriptive.”

Keo smiled.

“Why do they think you’re Chinese?” Norris asked.

“Chang.”

“Ah. Right. Chang.” Then, “You changed your name?”

“No. It’s part of the story.”

“So let’s hear it already.”

“Black Tide sent me.”

The surprise on Norris’s face was priceless. “You’re working for Black Tide now?”

“Sort of.”

“Sort of?”

“Sort of.”

“The fuck you say.”

“Sort of.”

“Since when?”

“It’s another long story.”

“What isn’t a long story with you?”

“They needed someone to go into Shaker Town. The fact that someone bombed the place while I was there, and then I got roped by Harvey into coming here for his little hit-and-run job on you, was incidental.”

“Who’s Harvey?”

“The big guy leading the attack.”

“Ah.”

“Where is he now?”

“I don’t know, but I have men looking for the remnants of this morning’s raiding party. They told me there are still two of them out there.”

“Fridge and Harvey.”

“Big guys?”

“Fridge is actually skinny.” Keo shrugged. “I guess it’s supposed to be ironic or something.”

“It’s something, all right.”

Norris turned back to look out at the town, lost in thought. Keo watched him carefully and couldn’t help but feel a little bit envious that Norris had ended up here, while Keo was running around out there doing…not much of anything. Or, at least, nothing that rivaled Norris’s accomplishments in Arrowhead.

The guy’s already past Social Security age, and he’s already done more than you have, pal. How sad is that?

It was pretty sad.

Finally, Norris looked back at Keo. “You still haven’t told me what you were doing in Shaker Town.”

“I can’t tell you.”

“Why not?”

“It’s classified.”

“Seriously?”

“I’m afraid so.”

“Keo…”

“I’m sorry, Norris. It’s strictly need-to-know, and you don’t need to know.”

“Tell me anyway,” Norris said, squinting at Keo. He suddenly looked very serious, which was a far cry from the last time Keo had seen the older man.

“I can’t,” Keo said.

“Fuck you, Keo.”

“It’s not my call.”

“Then whose call is it?”

“Black Tide.”

“And who’s running Black Tide now?”

“Danny.”

“Who?”

Keo smiled. He forgot that not everyone knew Danny’s first name.

“Hartford,” he said.

Norris nodded. “You’re working for him?” Then, before Keo could answer, “Sort of, right?”

Keo chuckled. “It’s complicated.”

“Of course it is,” Norris said, and Keo thought he just barely managed to keep his eyes from rolling.

* * *

Norris led Keo outside the two-story—Norris’s residence, as it turned out—and across the circle to a squat building that acted as the town’s communications center about 200 meters away. Keo knew that without Norris having to tell him, because he could see the big radio tower next to it.

Inside, they walked through a hallway where people nodded at Norris as they passed. Keo felt a brief pang of jealousy. Maybe it wasn’t so brief. Norris had achieved so much while he was just trying to stay alive. Future historians would probably write books about people like Norris and Danny and Lara. Keo would be lucky if he got a footnote or two.

The main comm room was occupied by three people, two women and a man. When Norris entered, he said to the women, “Get me Black Tide command.”

One of the women turned around in her chair and switched on a radio that was connected to a console. The whole setup looked pretty high-tech for a building in the middle of a former wildlife preserve. Keo guessed Arrowhead was used to making contact with those beyond their natural defenses. And given Black Tide’s muscles, it was only natural to have them on, figuratively, speed dial.

It didn’t take long for the woman to make contact. She introduced herself as being from Arrowhead, then handed the microphone to Norris.

“This is Norris. I need to have a powwow with your Commander Hartford. It’s urgent.”

It took longer than a few minutes, during which Keo found a seat and rested for a bit.

Norris made a face at him. “Tired?”

“Bushed,” Keo said. “I’ve had a long few months.”

“I bet. Want to get some shut-eye while we wait?”

“I don’t think that’s going to happen anytime soon. I’ll make up for it when this job is done.”

“Horatio,” a familiar voice said through the radio. It was Danny. Or Commander Hartford, as Norris and the rest of the world knew him.

“I got one of your man here, Hartford,” Norris said into the mic.

Danny didn’t answer right away.

Then, after about ten seconds of silence, “Who?”

“Chang,” Norris said, looking over at Keo.

Another long silence.

This time, it lasted almost twenty seconds.

He’s not alone, Keo thought.

Then: Lara’s with him.

“This has to be confidential, Horatio,” Danny finally said through the radio.

Norris turned to the three others in the comm room with him and nodded. “Give us the room, folks.”

The two women and man left, leaving just Keo and Norris. Keo walked over and made sure the door was locked, just in case. He already knew what Danny was going to tell Norris, and it wasn’t something anyone else needed to know.

“All right,” Norris said into the mic. “We have an empty room.”

“Chang’s there?” Danny asked.

“He’s here.”

“Let me speak to him.”

Norris held the mic to Keo. “It’s for you.”

Keo took it and pressed the transmit lever. “Danny.”

“How many?” Danny said. There was no hi or acknowledgement, just that simple question. Danny was asking for the code word that only Keo was supposed to know.

“100 deep,” Keo said.

Norris gave him a puzzled look, but didn’t say anything.

Then, before Danny could respond, “He knows who I am, Danny. Horatio and me go way back.”

“Seriously?” Danny said.

“Yeah. Small world, I guess.”

“No shit.”

Keo passed the mic back to Norris.

The older man took the microphone. “Why did you send Keo to Shaker Town?”

“Keo, tell him,” Danny said.

“There are rumors that they’re developing a new kind of weapon,” Keo said. “Something that could alter the balance of power in the region.”

“What kind of weapon?” Norris said.

“That’s why I was there. To find out the answer to that question.”

Norris narrowed his eyes at Keo, maybe trying to figure out if Keo was telling him everything.

“We don’t know,” Keo said. “Nobody knows. Again, that’s why I was there. Why I spent two months just getting established.”

“How sure is Black Tide about the existence of this weapon?”

“That’s…complicated.”

“How?”

“The intel is from one source that’s been in Shaker Town for close to half a year.”

“Just one source?” Norris said. He hadn’t bothered to try to disguise his doubt.

“Again, that’s why I was there, Norris. To confirm or deny the intel.”

“So have you? Confirmed or denied this supposed weapon’s existence?”

Keo shook his head. “Not yet.”

He briefly considered telling Norris about Roy and the entire fiasco involving his access key, but decided it was a moot point.

He said instead, “Real or not, Black Tide had to make sure. Shaker Town was already dangerous. If they really have developed something that could challenge Black Tide, they’ll be able to do whatever the hell they want around here. And I think you remember what they were doing before Black Tide got involved.”

Norris’s face turned grim. “I remember, kid. I buried a lot of people’s sons and daughters because of Shaker Town.”

“So you know how vital this mission is. Why we need to know.”

Before Norris could respond, the radio he had clipped to his hip squawked. “Horatio, come in.” It was Lindsey, the woman who had led Keo to Norris.

Norris unclipped the two-way. “I need more details,” he said to Keo.

“I’ll tell you what I can,” Keo said, but thought, Just not everything.

Norris pressed the transmit lever on the radio and said into it, “Horatio here.”

“We got them, sir,” Lindsey said.

Norris mouthed Shakers at Keo, before answering the radio, “Alive?”

“A little bruised and dirty, but still alive for now,” Lindsey said.

“Bring them back to town. We have some questions for them.”

“Understood.”

Norris put the radio away, while Keo thought about Harvey and Fridge looking “a little bruised and dirty.” He imagined a little bloody and maybe more than a few scars, too, after what had happened last night and this morning.

Keo stood up. “Let me do it.”

“Do what?” Norris asked.

“Talk to them.”

“Why?”

“I know them better than you do.”

“Barely, according to you.”

“Still better than you do. Besides, I have experience with this.”

“Experience with what? Interrogations?”

Keo shrugged. “Sort of.”

Sixteen

Harvey probably wished he were back in Shaker Town right about now. The big man was covered from head to toe in mud, and was sporting enough bruises on his face (and, likely, the parts of his body hidden underneath his clothes as well) to convince Keo that he had put up a fight during his capture. The Shaker leader wouldn’t have gone down easily, and the fact that he’d been captured at all was a shocker. Harvey had the makings of a go down guns blazing-type of fellow.

Fridge, on the other hand, looked as if he just wanted to pee himself. And maybe he’d already done that—more than once—while he was led back to Arrowhead by its hunters.

And hunters were exactly the kind of people Arrowhead had at their disposal. Men like Lon and Don, whose real names Keo still didn’t know. Even Mick and Pick, as young and experienced as they’d been, had seemed very at home in the woods. There was a reason the town had remained independent for so long even as The Deacon and his Shaker Town soldiers dominated their other Georgian neighbors.

The holding cell was in a nondescript building about 50 meters or so walking distance from the comm station, and it didn’t look as if it’d gotten a lot of use in the past. It was in there that the Shakers sat and waited. Guards stood watch inside, but Lindsey was already inside the holding room, waiting for Keo and Norris.

“Sir,” Lindsey said, nodding at Norris. She hadn’t bothered to acknowledge Keo, though he thought she’d tossed something along the lines of, What are you still doing here? in his direction when she saw him walking in beside Norris.

“How are they?” Norris asked.

“Alive,” Lindsey said.

“You look hungry. Did you have lunch yet?”

Lindsey looked down at her watch. “Still too early, sir.”

“Go grab a bite anyway.”

Lindsey hesitated.

“Go on,” Norris said.

The woman nodded, getting the hint. “Yes, sir. Feeling a little snacky at the moment.”

She walked past them and kept going. Keo glanced after her, and caught her doing the same. When their eyes locked, she quickly looked away and hurried out of the room.

“She’s your second-in-command?” Keo asked Norris.

“As close as I have to one,” the older man said.

Norris led him down the hallway toward the back. There were five cells, but only one, at the very end, was currently occupied.

Keo stopped next to Norris and looked in at Harvey and Fridge.

The two men sat on the floor—there was no bench—with their backs against the wall. Harvey narrowed his eyes at Keo—and just Keo—while Fridge pretended he was somewhere else. There were no windows in any of the cells, but there was still plenty of natural light to see with.

“You,” Harvey said. If stares could kill, Keo would probably be dead by now. Or suffering a very, very slow death.

“Me,” Keo said.

“I knew you were one of them.”

“I’m not.”

“Bullshit.”

“Why doesn’t anyone believe me when I tell the truth?”

“I’m going to kill you,” Harvey said.

“You’re not going to do anything,” Norris said.

The Arrowhead leader’s voice seemed to almost boom, which surprised Keo. Was it the hollowness of the hallway? Or was Norris doing something with his voice? Or maybe, just maybe, the Norris that Keo knew had been replaced by this man. Still Norris, but a bigger-than-life version of him.

“But you will tell me why you were here last night,” Norris continued.

“Is that right?” Harvey said. He spat a glob of blood onto the hard concrete in front of him. “You might as well kill me and get it over with.”

“I’m not going to kill you,” Norris said. “But I will make you wish you were dead.”

“You think you can?”

“Uh huh.”

“So do it, then. Let’s see what you got, old man.”

Norris grinned, and Keo thought, Hunh. That’s new.

The older man turned to Keo and nodded before walking back down the hallway. Keo went with him.

Norris didn’t say anything until they’d left the hallway behind and closed the door. There were two guards standing a few meters away, but they kept their distance to give Keo and Norris privacy.

“What do you think?” Norris asked. “Will he talk?”

“Yes,” Keo said. “If you ask the right questions, in the right way.”

“‘The right way?’ What does that mean?”

Keo stared at him. Really, really stared at him.

“How far are you willing to go to make him talk?” he asked Norris.

Norris didn’t answer immediately.

“How far,” Keo pressed.

“Whatever it takes,” Norris finally said.

“Are you sure about that?”

“Yes.”

“Norris. Are you sure about that?”

Norris didn’t answer that question quite as readily.

He’s still an ex-cop, Keo thought, still staring at his friend. Whatever he’s done, however much he’s grown as a leader of men, Norris is still a cop.

“You can’t do this,” Keo said.

“Why not?” Norris said. He looked almost offended.

“You’re you.”

“What does that mean?”

“Horatio. The guy who saved Arrowhead.”

Norris chuckled. “Is that who I am?”

“Isn’t it?”

The older man shrugged. “Maybe. I don’t know. I guess that’s for history to decide.”

“It’s already decided. You’re you, and I’m me.”

Norris shook his head. “I still don’t know what that means.”

“It means Danny asked me to do this for a reason,” Keo said. He looked back at the door into the holding area. “I need a few minutes alone with Harvey.”

“What else?” Norris asked without missing a beat.

“And a hammer.”

* * *

Lindsey was the one who brought the hammer over, and two of Norris’s men went back to the cell and removed Fridge. The young Shaker had his head down as he was led out, still pretending he was somewhere else. The fact that he was mostly unhurt—not counting his muddy appearance—was proof that he hadn’t fought when captured, unlike Harvey.

Keo would have gone to work on Fridge if he thought the man knew anything worth interrogating. But he didn’t, because Fridge didn’t.

So he waited for the others to leave the hallway. Lindsey was the last to go. She looked back at Keo when she reached the door.

“Don’t come in until I come out,” he said.

She nodded and left, closing the door after her.

Keo turned around and looked through the open cell door at Harvey. The big man sat on the floor with his back against the wall, in exactly the same spot where Keo had last seen him. The Shaker matched Keo stare for stare. If he was the least bit alarmed by Fridge’s removal, or the hammer in Keo’s hand, the man didn’t show it.

He walked inside. “It’s Keo, by the way.”

“What?” Harvey said.

“My name. My real name. It’s Keo. Rhymes with mayo.”

“Who gives a shit.”

Keo smirked. “Just in case you were wondering.”

“I’m not like you, always wondering. I couldn’t give two fucks about your real name, dead man.”

“‘Dead man?’”

“That’s what you’re going to be when you go back to Shaker Town.”

Keo closed the cell door. He didn’t lock it because he didn’t have the key. He wasn’t even sure why he had closed it. It seemed like the thing to do. Not that Harvey could have gone anywhere even if he were to make it out into the hallway. Norris had plenty of men with guns waiting on the other side.

He turned back to Harvey. “You’re right. I am going back to Shaker Town. Can’t help it. It’s why I’m here. Well, not here, here, if you know what I mean.”

“You talk too much,” Harvey said.

“I’ve been told that. Lots.”

“They’re all right.”

“Yeah, yeah. Everyone’s a critic.” Keo flexed his fingers around the hammer. “What’s The Deacon got cooking in that hotel of his?”

“How the hell should I know?” Harvey said.

“You’re one of his command staff. Who else would know more than you?”

“Ask The Deacon.”

“I will, when I see him. Right now, I’m asking you.”

“And I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Of course you do.”

“Nah. You’re speaking Greek, buddy.”

Keo smiled. “Reminds me of this Greek girl I met once. In Paris, ironically enough. Pretty girl. Tried to stab me with a fork.”

“Too bad she didn’t finish the job.”

“For her, yeah. Not so much me.”

Harvey grunted. “Is this supposed to intimidate me, dead man?”

Keo shook his head. “No.”

“So what’s the point?”

“I was just being friendly.”

Keo stopped about three feet in front of Harvey and went into a crouch, letting the hammer dangle over his right knee. It was a nice 16-ounce fiberglass claw hammer with a bright yellow non-slip rubber handle. The head was smooth solid steel, and the whole thing weighed just a shade above one and a half pounds. It’d seen plenty of use and there were scratches everywhere, and the color had dulled somewhat.

Harvey’s eyes were drawn to the tool in Keo’s hand. The big man was clearly trying to resist it, and he probably didn’t think Keo had noticed. Except Keo had, because he’d been waiting for it.

Keo tightened his fingers around the hammer’s rubber handle. So hard that it made a slight—very slight, but audible—squeaking noise.

“Tell me about the weapon,” Keo said.

“What weapon?” Harvey said.

“The one The Deacon is making inside that hotel. Tell me everything you know about it. Details. Locations. Everything.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“I don’t give a fuck—” Harvey started, when Keo lunged forward and swung the hammer.

Harvey moved quickly—way faster than Keo had expected, for a man of his size—and lifted his left hand to ward off the attack.

He succeeded. Somewhat.

Instead of Harvey’s chin, which he’d been aiming for, Keo caught Harvey’s rising left hand. The steel head of the hammer cracked against the back of Harvey’s palm, and the big man screamed as he fell sideways.

Keo stood up and hovered over him.

Harvey lay crumpled on the floor, looking up. The defiance was still there on his face and burning in his eyes, but it’d lessened noticeably. He clung to his left hand with his right, as if he couldn’t believe Keo had actually struck him.

“Tell me about The Deacon’s weapon,” Keo said. “Tell me everything you know.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about!” Harvey shouted.

“I don’t believe you.”

“I don’t—” Harvey said. Or, again, started to say.

Keo swung again.

Harvey raised his right hand to ward off the second attack but Keo got around it and, this time, hit his target.

Bone cracked underneath Harvey’s left cheek.

The big man screamed again and rolled over onto his stomach. He spat out blood and coughed, and sounded very much like he was choking on his own pain.

Keo sucked in a deep breath. “It’s a hammer. You’re going to break before it does.”

He tightened his grip around the rubber handle. Again, so hard that it made a squeaking sound.

“And I got all day,” Keo said.

Seventeen

It turned out he didn’t need all day.

He didn’t even need all hour.

Harvey broke faster than Keo had expected.

Big man. Small tolerance for pain.

Who would have thunk it?

“Jesus Christ,” Lindsey said when Keo was done.

“What’s wrong?” Keo asked her.

“You fucked that guy up.”

“The hammer did most of the work.”

“Jesus Christ, Keo.”

He looked over at Norris, who grinned back. “Well, she’s not wrong,” the older man said.

“I did what I had to,” Keo said.

“So what did he tell you?”

Keo looked after the two men carrying Harvey out of the holding area. Blood dripped from the makeshift stretcher as they went. The Shaker was unconscious, which was probably for the best since he’d been screaming his head off during the entire thing.

“Everything he knows,” Keo said. “Which, unfortunately, isn’t everything I needed. But it’s enough to go on.”

Of the two Arrowheads, Norris was the one who didn’t appear all that bothered by the state of Harvey’s holding cell when he returned with Lindsey. There was blood on the floor. A lot of it. Lindsey hadn’t been able to say a word when she arrived and got a glimpse of Keo’s handiwork. That is, until the whole Jesus Christ outbursts.

“Tell me why he was here first,” Norris said.

“The Deacon sent him to ‘retaliate,’” Keo said, making air quotes. “You would then retaliate in kind, which would give Shaker Town even more excuses to launch a full-frontal attack.”

“‘Even more?’”

Keo took out the rag that Norris had offered him and wiped his hands. It was a good thing the fabric was dark blue, because Keo was sure if it’d been white, the blood on his fingers would have turned it into a gory canvas. He hadn’t expected Harvey to bleed so much, but apparently the big man was a real bleeder.

“They’re blaming you for the bombing yesterday morning,” Keo said.

“What bombing?” Lindsey said.

“Someone bombed Shaker Town,” Norris said to her.

“When did this happen?”

“Yesterday morning,” Keo said.

“Casualties?”

He nodded but didn’t elaborate.

“And they’re blaming us for it?” Lindsey said.

“That’s the idea,” Keo said.

“It’s the excuse they’ve been looking for to poke the bear,” Norris said. “Attack us without cause, and Black Tide would be all over their asses.”

“But we didn’t bomb them,” Lindsey said. She looked over at Norris, the unspoken question all over her face.

Norris sighed. “Kid, you really think I’d tell people to send a suicide bomber into their place? For what?”

“No. But I just wanted to make sure.”

“You sure now?”

“Yes, sir.”

Norris turned back to Keo. “So these last few days was just to break the truce? Pretend we attacked them first so Black Tide doesn’t have any excuses to come down on them like a ton of bricks when they try to burn us down?”

Keo nodded. “That sounds about right. The order came from high up.”

“The Deacon. He’s behind this.”

“Stands to reason.”

“What else did Harvey say?”

“Whether they bombed their own town?” Keo shook his head. “He doesn’t know.” He shrugged. “I believe him.”

“Why?”

“I saw him the morning it happened. If he were playing a role then, he’d be in for an Emmy.”

“You mean Oscar,” Lindsey said.

“Who’s Oscar?”

“The Oscars. That’s the award you give to actors.”

“Technically, they give Emmys to actors, too,” Norris said.

“That’s true.”

Keo barely managed not to roll his eyes. “Whatever. Point is, Harvey was just following orders. The Deacon is behind this.”

“Fucking Shakers,” Lindsey said. She glanced down the hallway in the direction that Harvey had been carried out. Then, looking back at Norris, “So what now, sir? How do we respond to this?”

“We’re not,” Norris said.

“Sir?”

“We’re not going to answer them.”

“Why not? They started it.”

“That doesn’t matter.”

“Sir?” Lindsey said, eyes widening in disbelief.

Norris turned to Keo, and said to him as much as he was to Lindsey, “There’s a reason it’s been almost two years since the last time we clashed with Shaker Town. A full-blown war isn’t going to help anyone, least of all us. Do you remember how many people we buried the last time?”

Lindsey opened her mouth to answer. She seemed ready to fight to the bitter end. But then nothing came out. Not right away, anyway.

She finally said, “I remember.” Then she looked over at Keo as if to ask for his help.

He didn’t know what to tell her, so he didn’t say anything.

“Besides, there are bigger issues at stake,” Norris said. “Right now, I need you to make sure the Shakers stay alive. I don’t want anyone getting payback for what happened to Mick and Pick or Cody or anyone else we lost yesterday and today.”

“Sir…” Lindsey said.

“I need you to trust me on this.” Then, gazing at her with those intense brown eyes of his, “Do you trust me?”

Lindsey didn’t hesitate. She nodded. “Of course. I’ve always trusted. I always will.”

“So please go do as I say.”

“Yes, sir,” Lindsey said, and walked down the hallway.

Keo waited for her to look back, but she never did. Lindsey stepped outside and closed the door after her, leaving him with Norris in the holding area by themselves.

“What did he have to say about this new weapon The Deacon is supposedly building?” Norris asked Keo when the door was closed. “Does it exist or not?”

“He doesn’t know everything, but he gave me a location. As to specifics… The Deacon is keeping it close to the vest. Only a few people know the details. Harvey isn’t one of them.”

“So what does he know?”

“That whatever it is, whatever The Deacon is doing, it’s on the fifth floor of that hotel. And that’s where I have to go next.”

Norris stared at him in silence for a moment.

“What?” Keo said. “Spit it out, old timer.”

“Can you trust him?” Norris asked.

“Harvey?”

“No. Your dad. Yeah, Harvey.”

Keo shrugged.

“What’s that mean?” Norris said.

“This type of thing doesn’t always produce actionable intelligence.”

“Say what now?”

Keo smiled. “He could be lying just to make it all stop.”

“Was he?”

“I don’t know. He could be, or he might not be. For all I know, he might have told me everything he knew.”

“And you’re willing to put your life on the line on the basis of that?”

Keo sighed.

“Kid?” Norris said.

“It’s not like I got anything else better to do with my time,” Keo said.

* * *

“I saved this for you,” Norris said.

Keo grinned. “Bullshit.”

“Okay, so not specifically for you, but when I found it, I thought of you.”

“Gee, thanks, old-timer. You gonna give me a promise ring next?”

The older man laughed. “Don’t be a pussy, Keo. Just say thank you.”

Keo grabbed the MP5SD off the rack and smiled. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.”

They were inside Arrowhead’s version of an armory—really just a big steel building where they kept their weapons and ammo. It was, Keo discovered, the only structure in the entire place that had any large amount of steel as part of its construction. He guessed it made sense, considering what was inside.

Between the holding area and armory, they’d had a long talk about what they were going to do next. More specifically, what Keo was going to do next. Ultimately, it was about returning to Shaker Town, and Keo had no plans to go back without the proper “tools” for the job.

“I still don’t know why you don’t just have Black Tide level the place,” Norris said as he watched Keo grab some magazine for the H&K submachine gun and boxes of ammo, stuffing them all into a tactical bag.

“I can’t do that,” Keo said.

“Why not? If this new fandangle weapon is as dangerous as you keep telling me it is, it’d be the best way to handle it. Boom. Take it out in one shot. That way, The Deacon never gets the chance to use it on us or anyone else.”

“There are civilians in Shaker Town, Norris.”

“So?”

“So?”

Keo looked over at the old man.

Norris sighed. “Right. Civilians.” He shrugged. “It was just a thought.”

“It was a dumb one.”

He picked up some more supplies from a shelf. The armory was chock-full of pretty much everything he needed, from first aid to bullets. Keo moved from shelf to shelf, snatching up what he thought he’d need.

Keo had chastised Norris, but the truth was, the man’s idea was the smartest course of action. Anything else meant Keo had to work harder. But he had to remind himself that if it were easy, then anyone could do it. And frankly, not anyone could do what he was doing.

Thinking way too highly of yourself, aren’t you, pal?

Maybe. Just maybe.

He slung the pack and went looking for a pistol. Norris followed.

There wasn’t anyone else inside the building, which had enough weapons to arm a small country. Keo guessed it came in handy if Arrowhead ever came under a full-frontal attack. Which, according to his intelligence, it had been on multiple occasions over the years, and not always by the not-so-friendly people of Shaker Town.

“So you’re going back there alone?” Norris asked.

“I don’t have any choice. Unless you wanna tag along.”

“Uh…”

“That’s what I thought.”

Norris chuckled. “Sorry, kid, but I have responsibilities now.”

“I gotta admit, I didn’t see this coming.”

“You and me both.”

“How’d it happen, anyway? I thought you might be headed back to Orlando.”

“I was, but got waylaid along the way. Things happened. People got shot. You know the drill.”

Keo nodded. “Yeah. I do.”

“I’ve been meaning to ask…”

“What’s that?”

“Did you ever find her?”

“Who?”

“You know who.”

Keo shook his head. He thought Norris might have been referring to Lara, but it couldn’t be. Norris had no knowledge of Keo’s relationship with her, so who…

Gillian.

He was talking about Gillian.

Damn. He hadn’t thought about her in years.

“Gillian,” Norris said. “Did you ever find her?”

“I did.”

Norris waited for him to continue, and when he didn’t, the Arrowhead leader sighed. “You gonna make me pull it outta you?”

“Let’s just say it didn’t work out.”

“No?”

“No.”

“That’s too bad. I know you were high on her.”

“That’s life.”

“But she’s…?”

“Alive and well, and last time I saw her, pregnant.”

Norris lifted both eyebrows.

Before the other man could ask, Keo said, “It wasn’t mine.”

“Well, shit.”

“Yeah.”

“Sorry, kid.”

“It is what it is.”

He considered telling Norris about Lara and how he’d found love with her instead. But not many people knew that—and not many people needed to know that—so he kept quiet.

He said instead, “I need a horse.”

“We can spare one,” Norris said.

“Thanks.”

“You don’t have to thank me. The way I see it, what you’re doing will benefit us both. Hell, it’ll benefit all of Georgia if you can put an end to Shaker Town.”

“That’s not the plan, Norris. If Black Tide starts going around starting wars with settlements, no one would trust us again.”

“So you guys are the country’s policemen now, huh?”

“No. Just what’s left of it.”

“Hell of a job.”

“Someone’s gotta do it.”

“Never thought it’d be you, though.”

Keo chuckled. He never thought it’d be him, either, but here he was. If he’d told himself just ten years ago that he’d end up here, doing this, Keo would have thought it was the dumbest thing he’d ever heard. This was not something he was trained for.

“Have you met him yet?” Norris was asking him. “The Deacon?”

Keo shook his head. “No. I was supposed to yesterday morning, before the bombing. I’ve seen him around the place, though. But you’ve met him.”

Norris nodded. “We had a couple of parlays, back before Black Tide got involved and made everyone put down their guns and get chummy. It was always just me and him in a small room talking about how we were going to bury one another. Good times.”

“I can imagine. What can you tell me about the man that intel wouldn’t know?”

“He’s interesting.”

“Interesting how?”

“I’m not sure how to put it.”

“Try.”

Norris didn’t. At least, not right away. He seemed to think about it seriously for a few seconds.

Then, finally, “Unpredictable. The Deacon is very unpredictable.”

Eighteen

He didn’t actually need all day to return to Shaker Town, but that was how long it took anyway. Mostly because Keo had to avoid detection on his way back, which meant taking it slowly and the very long way around. He wasn’t too worried when he was still in Arrowhead territory, but once he was beyond that, the road was more treacherous. Not because of the things he could see, but the things he couldn’t.

Or, more precisely, the people he couldn’t.

According to Norris, there were more than a few parties of Shakers in the surrounding areas, either scouting or waiting to ambush his men. There were skirmishes and two injuries, both Arrowheads, but no word on how Harvey’s old chums had fared. Right now, the two sides seemed to be in a stalemate of sorts, waiting for the other to make the first commitment to engaging in an all-out war.

Norris wasn’t about to give Shaker Town what they wanted, but he hadn’t been shy about calling a meeting with his people and, as Keo left on his black mare, began arming them. School was called off for the day, and teams in the wilds recalled.

Keo had spent about twenty minutes in the comm room talking things over with Black Tide about his next move. He didn’t like the conclusion to their talk.

Neither did Danny nor Lara.

None of them liked it, but it was what it was.

And again, Keo had to remind himself that if anyone could do what he was doing, then he wouldn’t be here in the first place.

* * *

Getting back into Shaker Town was easy. Way too easy.

Or, at least, that was what Keo’s paranoid mind wanted him to think. Except it was easy for a reason, because no one in their right mind would sneak into Shaker Town. The place had a reputation, and the ashes of the settlements it’d crushed and burned down to the ground was proof.

So there wasn’t a whole lot of resistance when Keo finally arrived at the perimeter and waited until midnight to make his move. He could see the lights from where he camped on a slight hill, but of course not make out anyone below. There was a lot of grass left between him and the town, but it wouldn’t take long to reach it.

The black mare stood nearby, chewing on grass as Keo bided his time. The horse didn’t seem particularly interested in anything Keo was doing. According to Lindsey, who had given him the animal, it was old, and maybe that explained everything. Keo had opted for the mare because he didn’t need speed on his side. If anything, the horse’s slowness, coupled with its general lack of interest in just about anything, was exactly what he’d needed.

The trip back had been uneventful. He’d encountered a few clues to Shaker presence, but had managed to avoid the men themself. At one point, he’d even heard voices nearby and smelled their stink. Which reminded him of what Lon and Don had talked about earlier, about the Shakers smelling.

Keo sniffed himself now and wondered if a full day away from the place had freshened him up any. He couldn’t smell much of anything. Maybe that was good. Or bad. Possibly somewhere in-between.

The night was quiet, but Keo kept one hand on the butt of the sheathed knife at his left hip anyway. The blade was coated with silver—something Keo had made sure of before he left Arrowhead—and would come in handy if he encountered ghouls. Permanent homesteads like Shaker Town or Arrowhead drew the creatures, which was why all of them were more than ready to deal with a stray undead at all times.

The air around him was crisp and clean, and there were no telltale signs of ghoul presence. That was good, because Keo didn’t feel like fighting tonight. Or the nights after this, for that matter. If he could get into Shaker Town, finish the job, and return to Lara without having to make use of the MP5SD slung over his back, that was even better.

Sure, it was a little wishful thinking, but hey, sometimes it was better to think on the positive side.

“Captain Optimism, this guy,” he imagined Danny saying.

Not quite, but he was working on it.

* * *

“Well, you took your sweet time.”

Keo sighed. He’d spent the last two hours sneaking into Shaker Town, and then another hour and a half skulking around the backyards of a few dozen homes just to reach Harvey’s house undetected. He’d done exactly that, breaking into the kitchen door and moving stealthily—or he thought it was pretty stealthy, anyway—to the man’s second-floor bedroom.

And who did he find when he opened the door?

Claire.

She was sitting in an armchair in the corner of the room and yawning when he stepped quietly inside. Apparently she’d been waiting for him for a while now, because there was no faking that long and lazy yawn of hers.

“I was busy,” Keo said. He closed the door softly behind him and walked over. “You alone?”

“Not anymore.”

“What are you doing here, anyway?”

“Probably the same thing you’re doing. Looking for Harvey’s key. I was going under the assumption that he didn’t take it with him.”

“He didn’t.”

“And how do you know that?”

“I asked him politely.”

“Uh huh.”

Keo stopped in the middle of the room and glanced around. “Did you find it?”

She stood up, then tossed something in his direction. Keo snatched it out of the air.

It was a key. Identical to the one he’d stolen from Roy a few nights back and used to access the hotel. Like Roy’s, Harvey’s had his marking on it.

“He kept it in a safe in the closet,” Claire said.

“It wasn’t locked?”

“It was. Otherwise there’d be no point in putting it in a safe in the first place, now would there?” She shrugged. Then, off his questioning look, “It wasn’t that hard to open.”

He pocketed the key. “So what were you going to do with it if I hadn’t shown up?”

“What do you think?”

“By yourself?”

“Not anymore,” she said as she walked past him to the door.

She was dressed in black joggers and a sweater. Her hair was tied in a ponytail behind her, and her dark sneakers barely made any sounds as she stepped outside.

He followed her down to the first floor. “You know what happened?”

“The bombing?”

“That, too.”

“I heard about it. What else happened? Where did you go?”

“With Harvey, to Arrowhead.”

“Why?”

“To pay them back for the bombing.”

She stopped halfway down the stairs and looked back up at him. “Wait. Arrowhead bombed us yesterday?”

“That’s what they want Black Tide to think. But Norris says they didn’t do it.”

“Who’s Norris?”

“Horatio.”

“Why did you just call him Norris?”

“That’s his last name.”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

“Hunh,” Claire said. He turned around and continued down. “What happened to Harvey?”

“He’s back at Arrowhead.”

“I guess he’s not coming back, since you’re tiptoeing around his house.”

“You guessed correctly.”

“What happened to him?”

“Arrowhead has him.”

“So he’s still alive?”

“Last time I checked. Why?”

“Just wondering.”

Because you’re hanging around his kid? Keo thought. What is the deal with that, anyway? And should I be worried?

He kept all of that to himself and said instead, “So you were going to go to the hotel with the key.”

“I figured one of us has to finish the mission. Might as well be me since you up and vanished on me.”

They walked across the first-floor living room and into the kitchen. If Claire had gained access to the place earlier through the same venue—the back door—then she’d done a good job hiding her entry, because Keo hadn’t spotted it.

“How’d you get in?” he asked.

“Back door, just like you,” she said.

Damn. She’s really good at this.

“What’s the next move?” Claire asked. “I assume we’re going to the hotel?” She glanced down at her watch. “Four more hours before sunup.”

“I’m going to the hotel,” Keo said. “You’re going back to wherever it is you spend your nights.”

They had stopped in the middle of the kitchen and were standing close enough that Keo was sure the kid just rolled her eyes at him.

No, not a kid. Not anymore. He had to stop thinking of her as that. Claire had grown up.

“You can’t do this by yourself,” she said. “You don’t even have a horse.”

“I did, but I let it go.”

“And why did you do a dumb thing like that?”

“It’s a little hard to ride a horse into town and stay undetected. Besides, I don’t need a horse for what I’m going to be doing next. Alone.”

“I’m going with you.”

“No, you’re not.”

“How long have you been here?”

“What?”

“Just answer the question.”

“Two months and change. Why?”

“I’ve been here even longer, and I’m getting really sick of this place. So let’s get this show on the road. The sooner we get this done, the sooner I can go home. I miss the island.”

Keo wanted nothing more than to do just that. But it wasn’t the island he was missing. It was Lara. She was about to give birth, and he’d promised he’d be at her side when she did. He couldn’t keep that promise while stuck in Shaker Town.

But could he trust Claire? Yes and no.

She was capable, he didn’t have any doubts about that. She was a grown woman who had volunteered for this job. To look at her, she wasn’t even the least bit afraid of the dangers that awaited them.

Maybe that was why he was so worried about her. Fear was a good thing. It kept you alert and ready.

He stared at her, not saying anything for a while.

Claire squinted back at him in the semidarkness. “What? What are you staring at?”

“You.”

“What about me?”

“Why are you doing this?”

“Why are you doing this?”

“Danny asked me.”

“Same reason.”

“He said you volunteered.”

“He’s wrong.”

“Is he?”

“Yes.” Then, before he could say anything else, “Are we going to do this or not?”

He didn’t answer her.

“Keo,” she said.

He still didn’t answer her.

“Goddammit,” she said.

“We do this my way,” Keo said. “You understand?”

“What’s that mean?”

“It means you do what I say. When I say it. Understand?”

This time it was her turn not to answer him.

“Well?” he said.

“Yeah, sure,” she said.

Now why don’t I believe that? Keo thought.

Nineteen

“Are you sure it even exists?” Keo asked Danny a week before he left Black Tide for Shaker Town.

Danny nodded. “Claire thinks it does.”

“She’s seen it?”

“Not exactly.”

“How exactly?”

Lara, the only other person in the room with them, clearly shared his doubt when she exchanged a glance with Keo.

“She knows people who’ve been around it,” Danny said. “Some of them were tasked with guarding it. Shaker Town wouldn’t commit that many resources and manpower if there wasn’t something important happening in that hotel.” Danny sighed. “Look, I’m not saying it’s the best foundation for a mission, but it’s all we have. If Shaker Town is working on something that could challenge us…” He shook his head. “It’s a big if, I know, but the potential threat here is enormous.”

“You’re asking Keo to go into the lion’s den to find something that you don’t even know actually exists,” Lara said.

“Yes, I am,” Danny said. He’d looked back at Keo. “But I can’t make you go in there. I can only ask you to.”

“It’s too dangerous,” Lara said.

“It’s always too dangerous,” Keo said.

“Keo, this is too dangerous.”

“Danny’s right. If they have it, it’s too dangerous to let them keep it. It’s also too dangerous to just attack it with everything Black Tide has. If it’s there, I have to neutralize it first, then you and Danny can swoop in with the cavalry and finish the job.”

“Does a dozen Warthogs count as cavalry?” Danny asked.

“Sounds good to me,” Keo said.

“Sounds like shit to me,” Lara said.

Keo looked over at her and she stared back. More importantly, he focused on the bump in front of her. There was no hiding her belly now.

“I’ll be fine,” Keo said. “This is what I do.”

“What’s that?” Lara asked. “Walk into a minefield with just your boxers on?”

“Well, yes.”

“This isn’t fun and games, Keo.”

“Of course it’s not.” He moved closer and placed his hand over her stomach. “Nothing about this is fun and games. But it has to be done, and you know I’m the best man for the job.”

“There are others…”

“But they’re not me.”

She rolled her eyes. “Who do you think you are? James Bond all of a sudden?”

“No, but I’m the guy who will do whatever it takes to get the job done. Whatever it takes.”

They locked eyes. He could see the indecision on her face, the fear in her eyes as she grappled with the situation. Lara was used to taking control and giving orders. She hadn’t liked it when Danny told them why he’d brought them here, but Keo thought that even she knew Danny was right.

Next to them, Danny cleared his throat. “Don’t wanna disturb this cute moment—”

“Shut up, Danny,” Lara snapped.

“Yes, ma’am,” Danny said. He walked to the door. “I’ll be, uh, outside. You guys take all the time you need.”

When Danny was gone, Lara slipped her hands around Keo’s neck and leaned her cheek against his chest. He tightened his arms around her body, careful not to use too much pressure because of the baby between them. He was always thinking about the child growing inside her these days and how to safeguard it.

“I’ll get it done, and I’ll be back,” he whispered. “Just don’t drop this baby before I do.”

“No promises,” she whispered back. “It might not give me any choice.”

“Make it.”

“And how am I supposed to do that?”

“Whatever it takes.”

She pulled her head back slightly and pursed a smile. “Whatever it takes, then.”

He smiled back. “Whatever it takes.”

* * *

Whatever it takes.

Keo thought about that conversation as he and Claire made their way from Harvey’s house over to the resort area. They both knew the place well enough to get there with blindfolds on, but Keo let her take the lead anyway.

When they finally arrived, he put a hand on her arm and pulled her back. “Stay here.”

She shot a quick glance at him, and he thought, If looks could kill. Damn.

“What did you say?” she asked.

“Stay here. I’ll go alone.”

“Why?”

“I need someone to watch my back,” he said, letting go of her arm.

“No. Really. Why, Keo?”

“That is really.”

“Keo, I can tell when you’re lying.”

“No, you can’t. Because I’m not.”

“I came here to do a job. I’ve spent months doing just that. Now you want me to just sit here and wait for you like a helpless little girl?”

“No, Claire, I want you to sit here and watch my back. Is that too much to ask?”

“Yes, if this is your way of protecting me.”

“It’s not.” He sighed. “I need backup. In case something goes wrong. And there’s a very good chance something might go wrong before tonight is over. You’re the closest thing I have to a cavalry right now.”

She stared at him but didn’t say anything. Even in the darkness of the night, he could see the doubt on her face. She wasn’t buying it.

Not completely, anyway.

“What?” Keo said.

“You better not be messing with me.”

“I’m not.”

“I still don’t believe you, but I’ll stay out here and watch your six.”

He nodded. “Good.”

“Fucker,” she said.

He grinned and got up, then unslung the tactical pack full of supplies he’d brought with him from Arrowhead and handed it to her. “Hold this for me.”

She took it. “What am I, your maid?”

“I don’t need the extra weight.”

“Then try losing some of that flab you’re carrying around.”

Keo smirked. “Don’t be such a bitch.”

That got a grin from her. “You better come back, or I’m going in there after you.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

Before she could change her mind—or mouth something unpleasant at him—Keo turned and jogged down the slight decline in the hillside.

Damn, I can’t believe that worked, he thought even as he moved between tall stalks of grass that slapped at his legs, some going up as high as his thighs. Crickets scattered as he slid across their paths. Somewhere behind him, yards from where Claire was waiting just inside the tree line, a pair of owls hooted loudly.

Sorry, kid, he thought. It’s safer this way.

He wasn’t entirely sure who it was safer for, though. It wasn’t like he wanted to go at this alone. But if experience was anything to go by, it was just easier this way. Add to that Claire’s slightly unpredictable nature, and Keo couldn’t justify putting his life in her hands.

And that was exactly what he’d do if he’d let her come with him to the hotel.

No, it was better to proceed solo. If things went wrong—and there was a very good chance of that—than he’d have no one to blame but himself. This way, at least, he didn’t need to watch out for someone else. When the shit hit the fan, he wouldn’t have to hold his fire for fear of hitting a friendly.

Damn. Almost convinced yourself, pal.

Yeah, almost.

If Shaker Town were on alert after the skirmishes with Arrowhead, Keo couldn’t see it in anywhere. There seemed to be just as many guards tonight, and at the same locations, as there had been four nights earlier when he’d attempted this. Which meant he didn’t have to do anything fancy to cross the field that separated the resort from the woods. The ease with which he was able to approach what was essentially Shaker Town’s command center should have put him on high alert, but it didn’t.

Keo just didn’t feel it.

We’re going on feelings now, are we?

Yes, but only because it felt right.

Because of feelings.

Damn right. Besides, he was due for some good luck anyway.

Keo gripped the MP5SD tightly in front of him, the submachine gun hanging off a sling. It felt good to have the weapon at his disposal again. The MP5 from earlier was a good reintroduction, but there was nothing quite like a suppressed weapon that could spit 9mm Parabellum rounds faster than the opposition could breathe.

Cold air brushed against his exposed cheeks, and his nostrils flared slightly as he maneuvered around a mound of shit. Someone apparently couldn’t wait to find a bathroom to do their business. At least he hadn’t stepped on it. He didn’t think he had anyway, but didn’t spend the extra few seconds to check.

The former five-star hotel came up on him faster than he had anticipated. Solar-powered lights ringed the rooftop on all sides. Prior experience told Keo there were more lights along the balconies that faced the beach. He couldn’t spot those at the moment, because he was approaching from the rear.

Silhouetted stick figures moved around the edge of the rooftops, looking more like chopsticks than people with rifles that could end him. The guards were wearing night-vision gear and had similarly equipped scopes on their rifles. If they spotted him he was a dead man, even from a distance.

So better make sure they don’t spot you then, pal.

With fifty meters to the hotel, Keo’s pace slowed and so did his progress. He spent more time on one knee, submachine gun in front of him, waiting for random patrols to pass. He counted four two-men teams in all, though one of them could have already passed him once already. He couldn’t be sure because he was seeing with just his night eyes and a little bit of moonlight. Not enough to make out details about the patrolmen, unfortunately.

Or fortunately, since if he couldn’t see them clearly, they would have a problem seeing him in return. The fact that he was crouched in the middle of a field of grass that’d been allowed to grow unfettered helped, too.

Keo timed the last patrol—they were showing up, give or take, every 10 minutes or so—until they were out of view and earshot. They were all wearing boots, and the crunch of their shoes against the hard ground was audible in the crisp night. Of course, that meant he was making just as much noise, so letting them get out of earshot was doubly beneficial.

Then, once he made sure the guards on the rooftop were somewhere else, Keo got up and continued. The lack of anything resembling a perimeter fence meant the only obstacles he had to deal with besides the patrols was a twenty-meter or so patch of gravel that separated the back of the hotel from where the grass grew. He hadn’t expected that. The last time he approached the hotel was from the east side, and the floor there had been dirt and, eventually, concrete walkways.

He slowed down to keep his boots from crunching too loudly against the loose rocks. Even so, he made a lot of noise. Too much noise. Maybe it was just his imagination, but he seemed to be making way, way more sounds than necessary.

The last time he made his way into the hotel using Roy’s key was through a side door. This time it was the back entrance. Either one, or a half dozen others, was just as good since the locks were designed for only one key that was then duplicated and handed out to the Shakers’ command hierarchy—of which Harvey and Roy were two.

The door into the hotel was a thick piece of oak with metal lining along the four sides. It was an obvious upgrade. The lock itself was a complicated unit with multiple deadbolts. Whoever had put the security in place for The Deacon had known what he was doing. Like Claire, Keo had tried to pick the lock, but got nowhere. He could have used brute force to open the door, of course, but that would have sent an army of Shakers his way. That was where Roy had come in.

Keo fished out Harvey’s key now. There was an H engraved on both sides. Roy’s, of course, had an R. Keo had wondered what would happen if there were more than one Shaker commander with the same first letter. He supposed they’d probably add a second letter?

Except for the crickets and other insects, the resort grounds were deathly quiet. He found it hard to believe these people were currently on a war footing, with a possible battle with Arrowhead—and beyond—looming on the horizon.

Curiouser and curiouser.

There was a cylinder case with a keyway in the middle of the door, just above the doorknob, and a similar cylinder on the inside that could lock the door manually. Keo was familiar with those. It was all the parts between them that was the problem.

Harvey’s key slipped in easily, and the mechanism inside turned like butter. He listened to the whirring sounds of the bolts within the door moving, then retreating into their slots along the frame with three impossibly soft click-click-clicks.

Easy as pie, he thought as he pushed the door open—it creaked slightly with the weight of the wood, but not too much—and he peered in at a dark back hallway.

There were no lights, but he could make out sounds—footsteps—moving along the building’s tiled lobby all the way across the corridor. Too far away to worry him as he carefully closed the door behind him and pocketed the key.

Keo checked his watch as he moved up the hallway. 3:51 a.m. He’d wasted more time out in the fields than he’d wanted to. That left him with two hours, give or take, until the first rays of sunlight poked their heads through the clouds.

Gonna be cutting it a little close.

He stood in the unlit hallway, with his back against the cold wall, and peered out at the lobby. There were four men present—two sitting on chairs near the front doors and two more behind the guard’s station across the wide room. One or two, or maybe all four of them, were asleep, because Keo could hear snoring. The cavernous spacing of the lobby made it difficult to pinpoint who that was coming from.

He went into a slight crouch and took the first careful—and quiet; oh, so quiet—step into the lobby. Fortunately for him, the four guards were on the other side of the room, with the closest—the two behind the guard station—more than forty meters away.

And it was dark, too.

Thank God it was dark. At least where he was. There was a battery-powered lantern sitting on the guard station that gave off a small glow, but that was about it. The rest of the lights—what little of it there was—came from the high windows that circled the lobby’s ceiling and the glass front doors.

It was dark enough that Keo had to watch his step as he slinked his way from the back hallway to the elevators. But of course he didn’t go for the elevators. There was no power anyway, even if he wanted to make use of them.

No. His objective was the stairs, because his mission was up there.

Keo arrived at the first stairwell door without fanfare. He’d been keeping an eye on the four silhouettes—but mostly the two at the guard’s station—the entire time, and not a single one of them had moved. They were either all asleep or getting there. Not a surprise since it was the dead of night.

He put his hand on the cold stairwell doorknob and prayed the door didn’t squeak too loudly when he opened it and that there wasn’t someone standing right on the other side.

The door didn’t squeak.

Hallelujah!

And there wasn’t anyone on the other side.

Double hallelujah!

He opened the door just wide enough—it was dark on the other side, so no unnecessary lights spilled out to attract unwanted attraction in the lobby—and turned his body sideways before easing his way in.

Again, slowly and quietly—oh, so slowly and quietly—Keo guided the door until it clicked into place behind him. Then he stood very still and listened for something that might sound like another human being inside the stairwell.

One second…

Five…

Thirty…

Nothing.

And no one.

Triple hallelujah!

He was suddenly feeling very good. Apparently he was due for some good luck. He just hoped it held up.

Keo waited until his night eyes had adjusted enough for him to use what little natural lighting existed inside the stairwell to take the first steps up. The air was stale and unpleasant, and Keo shut off the olfactory to focus more on his eyes and ears in case there was someone hiding above him.

Was it possible there were no guards in the stairwell? Only in the lobby? What about the other floors?

He reached the second floor without any issues, or encountered anyone that he had to shoot, so Keo kept going.

The third floor was equally empty and quiet, and Keo continued on up.

The fourth floor came and went, and still no one.

He was feeling pretty good about his second stab at invading the hotel as he stopped at the turn in the stairs and looked up toward the fifth floor. Like the others, there were no signs of a sentry anywhere above him.

Goddamn, I should go find a roulette wheel, he thought as he took the first step up—

—when the steel door to the right of him clicked open loudly and a man stepped inside, a cigarette dangling from his mouth while he struggled to strike a lighter.

Keo turned, the MP5SD moving with him, even as his forefinger slipped into the trigger guard.

The man saw Keo at the same time that Keo spotted him.

They locked eyes for a brief second or two, though it seemed like longer. Much, much longer.

Finally, the man spoke first. “What are you doing here?”

It was Lance.

Fuck. It was Lance.

Twenty

“Whatever it takes,” he’d said to Lara.

“Whatever it takes, then,” she’d replied.

Whatever it takes, Keo thought now as he slipped his forefinger out of the submachine gun’s trigger guard and let it hang off the strap. He hadn’t completely taken his hand off the weapon—it would be a simple matter of moving his right hand slightly to return it to where it needed to be—but enough that he didn’t look like an immediate threat.

Or he was hoping that was how it came through as he turned and stepped down the two steps he’d managed to ascend before Lance came inside the stairwell.

Lance.

Keo had wondered if the man was dead or not, despite what Harvey had said. His former bunkmate certainly looked alive now, if beat up. There was a big welt underneath his right eye, and bandages lined his chin and temple. Bruising remained around one side of his neck, and Keo wondered where else he was struck by the blast.

Lance had given up lighting the cigarette when he spotted Keo, and now held the lighter in his left hand while his right dangled at his side. Very close to the holstered pistol. He carried a pump-action shotgun with a pistol grip slung over his back.

Keo wasn’t too worried about the shotgun. It was the Glock at Lance’s hip that concerned him. Keo could see it in Lance’s eyes. The man he’d known for two months now, who had walked him through the Dos and Don’ts and everything else in-between of surviving Shaker Town, was trying to decide if Keo was a threat or not, and how to respond if he were.

“What are you doing here?” Lance asked again.

“Looking for a quiet place to nap,” Keo said, remembering the sleeping guards down in the lobby earlier. “Figured I might be able to get some shut-eye before sunup, so don’t tell anyone.”

“Up there?”

Keo jerked a thumb toward the ceiling. “The rooftop. It’s gotta be quieter up there.”

“It’s not.”

“How’d you know?”

“I already tried.”

“Good thing I didn’t waste my time, then.”

Lance continued to eyeball him. There was still lingering doubt in his face. Keo could see that much, even though it wasn’t very bright inside the stairwell. It helped that they were close enough and his night eyes had mostly adjusted to his surroundings.

Keo nodded at the cigarette dangling from Lance’s mouth. “You got another one?”

“Since when do you smoke?”

“Since now.”

Lance smirked, then used his right hand to take out a crumpled pack of Marlboros that looked as if it might fall apart at the seams as he shook out a cigarette. Keo grabbed the cig by the offered butt.

“What are you doing here?” Keo asked.

“What do you think?” Lance said.

“Playing hooky?”

“There’s nothing to do here. The other guys are already sleeping. I just snuck out for a little smoke.”

The Shaker went back to working on the lighter. It was the same beat-up chrome one he always carried. Lance got it working after three strikes and fired up his cigarette, before doing the same to Keo’s.

Keo didn’t smoke. It was a filthy habit and had no benefits whatsoever. But it wasn’t like he didn’t know how, and he took a puff and blew out smoke for show.

Lance was still watching him closely. Keo could practically hear the gears turning inside the other man’s head, trying to figure out what was happening, or if Keo was still a threat or not.

Go easy, pal. You wanna be going real easy here.

Keo turned around and walked over to the steps and sat down, but not before pushing the MP5SD behind his back.

It was a calculated move. He’d considered shooting Lance and ending it the second the man spotted him, but even suppressed, the submachine gun would make noise. It wasn’t like in the movies where guns barely whispered.

Here, in the closed confines of the stairwell, discharging a 9mm round, even one that was suppressed, would be noticed. Especially by the other guards on the fourth floor; the same guys that Lance had snuck away from to smoke. Most of it, of course, would depend on how close the others were to the stairwell at the time of the gunshot.

Keo didn’t want to take the chance.

Fortunately, his calculations worked, and Lance relaxed noticeably and walked over to sit down next to him. The other man puffed on his cigarette with a heavy sigh. Lance always did smoke like a man on death row sucking on his last cig.

“So you got assigned here, too?” Keo asked him.

“This afternoon,” Lance said.

“Thought you were in the infirmary.”

“I was.”

“You look like shit.”

“I feel it. I got bruises in places I don’t even know I had.”

“Man, I thought you were dead.”

“So did I.”

“What happened? Last time I saw you, you were on your horse. Then boom. I wake up on the street, and you were gone.”

Keo had been considering multiple angles, but had decided going on the offensive was the correct option. After all, if he could get Lance to keep answering his questions, then the man wouldn’t be able to ask his own.

“Shit, I don’t know,” Lance said.

The Shaker puffed again and blew out another big cloud. Keo did the same, resisting the urge to gag on all the smoke filling up the stairwell around him. Thank God the fire alarms no longer worked. At least, Keo didn’t think they did, or he’d draw even more attention to them than if he’d just shot Lance outright. But he was going under the assumption that nothing in the stairwell worked, or else Lance wouldn’t have snuck in here to smoke.

Unless, of course, this was Lance’s first time, and he didn’t know about the smoke alarms…

Positive thoughts, pal. Positive thoughts.

Lance was rubbing the big bandage over his forehead. “I woke up with the mother of all headaches. Felt like my skull was about to crack open.”

“Same here.”

“But you sure as hell look better than me.”

“What can I say? Good genes.” Then, without missing a beat, “When did you first wake up?”

“This morning.”

“Damn.”

“Yeah, it was nuts.” He glanced over at Keo. “You?”

“I made it through mostly okay, except for this,” he said, running his finger over the stitches along his temple. Then he held up his left arm. “This was covered in bandages for a day.”

“That’s it?”

“Why? You wanted me in the infirmary, too?”

“Damn, you got lucky,” Lance said.

Keo nodded. “I did.”

“And then what?”

“And then what, what?”

“They said you went to Arrowhead with Harvey.”

Shit, Keo thought. He hadn’t considered that Lance might know about that.

“I did,” Keo said. “Then I came back.”

“And Harvey?”

“What about him?”

Lance was staring at him when he asked, “What happened to Harvey? I didn’t see him in town all day.”

Keo ignored the stare and puffed out another small burst of cloud. “Why were you looking for him?”

“Because they told me you went with him.”

“You were worried about me, huh?” Keo grinned. “Gee, I’m touched, Lance.”

The Shaker rolled his eyes. “Don’t be. I was just curious. So, what happened to Harvey? Where is he now?”

Keo shrugged. “I don’t know. We went our separate ways after we came back.”

“When was that?”

“Huh?”

“When did you guys come back?”

“I told you. Earlier yesterday.”

“I was looking for you guys all day yesterday.”

“It’s a big town, Lance.”

“Not that big.”

“Big enough.”

“Maybe.”

“What’s with all the questions?”

“Just wondering why nobody told me you were being posted here.”

Keo smirked. “Why would anyone have to tell you? You’re not that special. You were just another Shitty not too long ago.”

“I’m just saying,” Lance said.

The Shaker still hadn’t looked away from Keo and was talking with the cigarette between his lips. An inch of ash clung at the tip, threatening to fall off and onto the step between the two of them.

“What are you just saying, Lance?” Keo asked, even as he lowered his left hand, with the cigarette between two fingers, toward his waist.

“Someone should have told me, that’s all,” Lance said.

“Like who?”

“I dunno. Someone.”

Keo flicked the half-smoked Marlboro away and swiped at the knife, pulling it from its sheath even as he turned his body toward Lance.

“Sorry, buddy,” Keo said.

“What?” Lance said.

The Shaker’s eyes bulged, and ash from his dangling cigarette flicked into the air between them as Keo lunged, the knife coming up and shooting forward.

And into Lance’s midsection.

Keo drove it in deep. As deep as he could. And he didn’t stop until the guard of the knife had bumped up against Lance’s stomach.

“Motherfucker…” Lance whispered. For some reason, he still clung to the cigarette between his lips.

Keo thought Lance might try to scream, but he didn’t. Either because it never occurred to him, or he didn’t have the strength for it.

Not that it mattered, really.

Lance leaned forward and clung to Keo as if searching for a lifeline. The cigarette finally dropped from between his lips and landed on the step between them. The fired end continued to burn in the semidarkness of the stairwell.

Whatever it takes, Keo thought as he raised his right hand and slapped it over Lance’s mouth to keep him from screaming (Just in case), and twisted the knife.

Twenty-One

Did he feel bad about Lance?

Yes.

Was it going to stop him from doing what he had to do? What he’d come here over two months ago to do?

No.

It was as simple as that.

Whatever it takes.

As much as Keo wanted to believe he’d improved as a human being since The Purge, and had since earned the love of a woman like Lara, he wasn’t going to lie to himself: He was who he was, and nothing was going to change that.

Not Lance.

Not Shaker Town.

Not anything.

Whatever it takes.

He was going to do whatever it took to get the job done.

Whatever it took to go home.

Whatever it took to get back to Lara.

Whatever it fucking takes.

So he left Lance’s body on the fourth-floor landing. He’d considered taking his former Shaker friend’s shotgun, but decided against it. The MP5SD was good enough. It was designed for both close quarters and distance combat. (So maybe mostly for the former.) Besides, if he needed a backup weapon other than the pistol at his hip, he was probably in trouble anyway.

His trip to the fifth and final floor of the former resort hotel was uneventful, which was a good thing because Keo didn’t feel like wasting more time. Sunup was fast approaching—less than two hours now, according to his watch—and he needed to be out of Shaker Town in the worst way.

He hated this place.

He hated the people. The smell. The food.

Most of all, he hated being away from Lara. He should have been with her right now, waiting for her to give birth. Not in his wildest dreams did Keo ever think he’d be responsible for bringing another life into this world.

But here he was, doing just that.

Well, not quite here, if he wanted to get pedantic about it. But man, did he want to be there when Lara gave birth.

So he moved fast and reached the final floor within a few seconds. It was definitely not because he wanted to get away from Lance’s body as quickly as possible.

Nope. That wasn’t it.

Not at all.

…not at all…

The fifth floor was where he wanted to be. Where he needed to be. It was the end of the mission, just as long as everything Harvey had told him proved correct. Which was a big assumption, Keo had to admit, but he didn’t think the big man was lying. Of course, he’d find out for sure soon enough.

The fifth-floor stairwell door was unlocked, and Keo turned the lever without resistance. He pushed the slab of steel open just far enough to see out, not too concerned about light from the stairwell making his presence obvious because, well, there was no light. He’d been moving through the semidarkness for a while now, and that hadn’t changed between the first floor and the fifth.

The room immediately outside was empty. Good. He was expecting at least a couple of guards outside and was prepared to shove the door open and start shooting. Whatever happened now, he was in no man’s land and it was get it done or go home.

And he couldn’t go home until he got it done.

Like most hotel stairwells, this one opened up into a small reception area with two elevators across, about five meters from his position. Both elevators were not functional, like every other thing in Shaker Town—and really, most of the world these days. Even if you had the extra power, you simply didn’t waste it on things like elevators.

Keo stepped outside, careful to make sure the stairwell entrance didn’t slam shut behind him. There was an opening to his right that connected to a long hallway extending both north and south. No doors yet, but he’d see those later. He’d been in enough hotels in his life to know how these places built their guest rooms.

It was quiet all around him, and the paranoia in Keo was inclined to say too quiet. Except it was supposed to be. After all, it was the middle of the morning, with just an hour and change before sunup. No one should be up and awake at this time of the day. Even the guards downstairs in the lobby were snoring away.

Keo moved toward the hallway, the MP5SD in front of him, his forefinger outside the trigger guard. His breathing was slightly labored, which he blamed on the five flights of floor he’d had to march up and definitely had nothing to do with skulking around a building full of bad guys. Or the fact that he’d just shanked the only friend he had in Shaker Town.

Yup, that was it. That was the ticket.

He replayed his “conversation” with Harvey earlier this morning in his head as he reached the end and leaned out, before snapping a quick glance left, then right.

Empty. Absolutely empty on both sides.

Where was everyone? He hadn’t expected an entire troop of men with machine guns at station, but he’d expected some Shaker presence on the fifth. Was it possible the only guards were the ones in the lobby and the ones strewn about the other floors, like Lance?

It couldn’t be.

He wanted to think it was possible, but the realist in him just didn’t buy it.

This is not right.

There’s something wrong here.

…this is not right.

“How many guards, exactly?” he’d asked Harvey.

“I don’t know,” Harvey had said.

The hammer had flown in response.

“I don’t know!” Harvey had shouted, blood flitting from his mouth even as he crawled around on the floor, trying to get away from Keo.

“How many guards?” Keo had asked as he stalked the man.

“Ten! Twenty! Five! I don’t know!” Harvey had shouted. “I don’t know!”

The man didn’t know. A few more blows, just in case, convinced Keo of that. Harvey had limited knowledge of what occurred in the hotel. The Deacon played it close to the vest, trusting the happenings on the fifth floor to only a few people. Harvey wasn’t one of them.

Was it possible Harvey might have lied? Sure. Anything was possible, but Keo didn’t think so. Was he willing to bet his life on that notion, though?

Yes and no.

But mostly…maybe.

He sighed, thought, Goddammit, Danny, I’m going to kick you in the balls when I get back, and slipped out from behind the cold wall and moved down the hallway.

He passed closed doors to his left and right, his boots moving softly against the well-worn carpeted floor. He was traveling over dry mud and dirt and God knows what else people had brought up here from the outside world, but all Keo cared about was that he wasn’t making a lot of noise.

Not too much noise, anyway.

The doors were all closed, but of course he didn’t know if they were locked or not. He could have taken a second or two trying to open them, but there was no point. He had a target in mind—it was straight ahead—and the rest didn’t interest him. Besides, if he entered a room only to find a Shaker asleep in bed, he’d just have to waste a bullet. The suppressor would be much more effective in a room than it would have been inside the stairwell, but Keo still didn’t want to risk it.

And right now, he was as risk-averse as he’d ever been.

Which was a funny thought, considering where he was at the moment—

Tap-tap-tap behind him!

Keo whirled around, the submachine gun lifting as he did so, left eye settling behind the red dot sight even as his forefinger slipped into the trigger guard.

He almost pulled the trigger.

He almost pulled the trigger.

And if he had, he would have killed Claire.

She stood where the hallway joined with the elevator area, looking back at him. He recognized her blonde hair despite the lack of light—his night eyes had just about taken over now—and the slightly startled look on her face.

Startled? That was all? She should have been terrified, because she had no idea how close she’d come to getting shot. His finger was already on the trigger and starting to put pressure on it, and all it would have taken was a slight pull and she would be dead.

He lowered the MP5SD and scowled at her, even though he didn’t think she saw it as she hurried down the corridor toward him. She was half-running and half-walking, but making very little noise. That probably had something to do with her small size.

He waited for her to reach him, and when she finally did, hissed, “What the hell are you doing up here?”

“You took too long,” she whispered.

“What?”

“You took too long. I told you, if you didn’t come back, I’d come after you.”

“Goddammit, Claire.” Then, realizing something, “How did you get inside?”

“You didn’t lock the door.”

“What?”

“You didn’t lock the door after you opened it.”

Keo’s eyes widened. Was she right? Had he forgotten to lock the back door after making his entry?

She smirked. “Don’t worry. I locked it for you.”

He noticed something missing about her. “Where’s my pack?”

“I had to ditch it.”

“You what?”

“I had to ditch it. It was too heavy.”

He sighed.

“Hey, I didn’t tell you to give it to me,” Claire said as she walked past him.

He turned and followed her, then hurried forward to take the lead. “Stay behind me.”

“Yes, sir,” she said, though he thought that was slightly—Oh, who was he kidding, it was all sarcasm. “By the way, the dead guy in the stairs. That’s…?”

“Yes.”

“Damn, Keo.”

He didn’t say anything.

They went down the dark hallway, passing more doors to the right and left. The building stayed quiet except for the sounds of their breathing taking up the empty space around them.

“Where are we going?” Claire asked.

“Dead ahead,” Keo said, before thinking, Dead ahead? Famous last words, pal!

“So, where are the guards?” Claire whispered.

“I don’t know.”

She was a little too close for comfort, and he wanted to ask her to give him some space. He didn’t like that he could feel her warm breath against the back of his neck. If he had to turn to engage enemies behind them, there was a good chance he might strike her while doing so. And then there was the possibility of her unwittingly getting between his gun and the target.

“That’s not strange to you?” she whispered. “Isn’t this a little too easy?”

Keo stopped and turned around to look at her.

Claire stared back, her eyes suddenly crystal clear in the semidarkness of the hallway. He didn’t say anything to her for a moment. Instead, her words reverberated inside his head.

“That’s not strange to you? Isn’t this a little too easy?”

It was the second part that really stuck:

“…isn’t this a little too easy?”

“What?” Claire whispered when he didn’t say anything after five, maybe ten seconds. “What’s wrong, Keo?”

“You’re right, it’s too easy,” he whispered.

He turned around, forefinger slipping into the trigger guard of the MP5SD and testing the trigger, while the fingers of his left hand tightened around the mag well.

He stared down the corridor and waited. There were doors to his left and more to his right. There was nothing at the very end except a wall.

One second.

Five…

“Keo?” Claire whispered.

Keo didn’t say anything.

Ten seconds…

He continued staring down the hallway.

Fifteen…

“…isn’t this a little too easy?” she had asked.

Yes, it was. It’d been very easy. From the moment he entered the lobby to the stairwell and now, the fifth floor.

It’d been easy.

It’d been too easy.

“Keo?” Claire whispered again. There was a new timbre to her voice that he hadn’t heard before. Heck, that he hadn’t heard since he arrived in Shaker Town.

Fear.

It was fear.

Claire was suddenly very scared.

Twenty seconds…

“Get ready,” he whispered.

“What?” Claire said.

“Get ready.”

“For what?”

He formed a fist with his left hand and held it up to silence her.

She went deathly quiet.

Twenty-five seconds…

The first door to open was the one on his left, about three doors down from where he stood frozen in place. It barely made any sounds as it slowly, oh so slowly, opened, and the barrel of a rifle slipped outside.

Keo returned his left hand to the mag well of the submachine gun and lined up the shot.

The rifle barrel continued moving out of the room and into the hallway. An elongated shadow of a figure appeared on the carpeted floor underneath it.

“Keo,” Claire whispered.

“I know,” he said, and pulled the trigger.

Twenty-Two

He had a feeling this was going to happen.

“Move!”

“Move where?”

Okay, so not really. But something like this.

“Last door on the right!”

“Why?”

Again, not really, really, but something like this.

“Do as I say, woman! Move, move, move!”

And right now, that something was possibly—possibly—walking into a trap and not realizing it until too late. A hundred possibilities burst into Keo’s head, but none of them did him any good, because at this very second all he was concerned with was keeping up with Claire as she darted past him and ran down the hallway.

Right now, Keo was moving on instinct, hoping (praying) that he was right, and that if this was a trap (It’s a trap, pal. Face the facts! You got bamboozled!), there would be even more Shakers waiting behind him back there in order to trap him like a rat. Like a stupid, clueless rat that had waltzed right into the ambush.

Which meant the only route left was forward.

God, he hoped he was right, because he really wanted to go home. He really wanted to see Lara again. And now that the possibility might be taken from him, Keo realized that he really, really, really wanted to be a father.

He’d already poured at least two bursts into the door that was opening down the hallway, stitching it with bullets and dropping whoever was behind it. He knew he’d landed his target because the rifle was now on the carpeted floor along with one hand, the fingers attached to it twitching.

Keo had no time (and the bullets to spare) to finish the man off. He was already turning around and facing back up the hallway, toward the elevators, even as he backpedaled after Claire. He looked left, then right, left, then right, fully expecting every door to start opening and Shakers to pour out of each one.

Bang-bang-bang! from behind him.

He snapped a quick look over his shoulder.

Claire, Glock in hand, moving down the corridor. He couldn’t see anyone farther down, but she had to have shot at something, and the fact she was on her feet now told him she’d fired first—

Another door—this one to the right and about four doors up from the last one—snapped open and two men rushed out. They were in a hurry and seemed to be struggling to avoid colliding with one another.

Or, at least, that’s what Keo’s night eyes told him. There wasn’t nearly enough light for him to see every single detail. He saw just enough to know they appeared disorganized, as if they hadn’t expected him and his presence had rustled them out of bed.

But that couldn’t have been true.

Could it?

Stop thinking and shoot!

He did just that. Keo pulled the trigger, and the first man out of the door stumbled on an invisible wire and fell face-first to the dirty carpet. His partner tried to jump over him, but Keo shot the man as he was halfway in the air. The body fell over the first one—

Bang-bang! from behind him again.

“Claire!” Keo shouted.

“Almost there!” she shouted back.

He grinned to himself, when he spotted dark figures appearing all the way down the narrow passageway. They were coming out of the elevator area.

Two.

Three.

More?

Stop counting and shoot!

He did, the sound of the H&K’s mechanisms spinning as the submachine gun spat lead up the dark hallway. One of the figures fell, and another one jerked back slightly but didn’t go down.

Cursing filled the hotel floor before the remaining two silhouettes jumped back behind cover.

“Come on, dude!” Claire, behind him.

Keo turned—and almost tripped over two bodies splayed on the floor in front of an open door. The last door on the right. The same one he’d told her to run for.

Claire was already inside, but he didn’t hear shooting. That was a good sign.

“It’s on the fifth floor,” Harvey had said between mouthfuls of blood. “Right hallway out of the elevator. All the way to the end. Last door on the right. That’s all I know. I swear to God, that’s all I know!”

Keo returned his eyes up the hallway, back toward the elevator. “Claire! You good?”

“Get in here!” she shouted back.

Something that might have looked like a head poked out from behind the wall that connected the hallway to the elevator area. Keo loosed a quick single shot in its direction, and it disappeared. He didn’t think he’d hit it, though.

“Keo, come on!” Claire, from inside the room.

“Coming!” Keo shouted, but stood perfectly still.

He waited.

Five seconds…

Six…

Seven…

A door opened in front of him. About four doors down and on the left.

Suckers, Keo thought, feeling pretty good about someone else being the sucker other than him tonight.

Keo stitched the still-swinging door with a slew of 9mm rounds, the pfft-pfft-pfft! of his MP5SD’s gunshots echoing around him.

A figure fell out of the door and slammed into the carpet. The sounds of more feet beating a hasty retreat away from the opening, along with loud cursing.

“Keo!” Claire, shouting behind him.

He backpedaled until he was right next to the open door. Claire was holding it open for him with one hand, her Glock gripped tightly in her right.

He stepped through the door as she slammed it shut behind him. Like every hotel room Keo had been in, this one featured a door with a slot for a magnetic card on one side and a simple swing bar security latch on the interior. Claire flicked that latch now, then spent another second turning the deadbolt before retreating toward him.

Bam! as something—someone—smashed into the door from the other side.

Claire fired into the door. Keo stepped up beside her and joined her, emptying the remainder of his weapon’s magazine. He oscillated his fire from left to right and, just for good measure, top to bottom.

It lasted only a few seconds, and both of them stopped shooting at the same time. There was no return fire, but there were enough holes in the door that he thought he heard the sound of footsteps retreating up the hallway, along with heavy breathing.

Keo quickly reloaded, snapping in a fresh magazine even as they took half a dozen steps backward just in case the bad guys decided to return their volley. Claire did the same, slipping a new magazine into her Glock.

“You cleared the room?” he whispered.

She nodded out of the corner of his eye. “Yes.”

“Good work.”

“What now?”

“I don’t know.”

“Seriously?”

“Yup.”

“Fuck, Keo.”

“Yeah,” he said, and thought, That sounds about right.

He turned around and got his first good look at the empty hotel room.

He was in one of the suites, with a large living room, a kitchen immediately to his left, and a dining table after that. A loveseat took up space opposite an entertainment center with a TV stand, though the TV itself hung from the wall. Even in the semidarkness, he could make out a thick layer of dust covering the screen. The only other door was all the way across the room, and it led into the bedroom. There were two plastic cafeteria trays on the dining table and food scraps on the floor. The two dead men Claire had shot had been staying here for some time, maybe even living here. He wondered if the state of the bed would clear that up. Which meant…

…that Harvey had lied to him.

“It’s on the fifth floor. Right hallway out of the elevator. All the way to the end. Last door on the right. That’s all I know. I swear to God, that’s all I know!”

He was there right now. Fifth floor. Right hallway out of the elevator. Last door on the right.

And there was nothing here that even looked remotely like a secret lab where The Deacon was cooking up a new weapon that could challenge Black Tide.

There was just…an empty hotel suite.

Harvey, you lying sack of shit.

He was wondering how hard Norris would laugh at him when he found out about this. Then again, hearing Norris laugh would be a good thing, because it’d mean Keo was still alive to be properly ridiculed. Right now, that was preferable to being dead.

Claire had backed up until she was standing beside him, but she kept her eyes on the door and the Glock in her hand. He wasn’t sure if she’d reloaded or not, or even if she had an extra mag to do that. She flexed her fingers on the gun’s grip, and there was a steely look of determination on her face.

Damn. She looks like Gaby right now.

“Good job,” Keo said.

He spoke calmly and didn’t attempt to hide his voice. They were beyond that now. The Shakers outside in the hallway knew exactly where they were, and no amount of whispering was going to change that.

Claire gave him a confused look. “What?”

“Good job.”

“For what?”

“Everything.”

She stared at him for a bit, as if unsure what he was talking about.

Finally, she said, “Thanks. But we still fucked up.”

“Yeah. We did. Mostly me.”

“Me too.”

He shrugged. “Let’s call it fifty-fifty.”

“More like seventy-thirty.”

“Who’s the seventy?”

“Who do you think?”

He grinned, and she returned it.

Pop! as the first bullet smashed through the door and zipped between them.

They both dived to the floor reflexively as the torrent of gunfire began.

Pop-pop-pop-pop!

Bullets buzzed like flies over their heads as Keo began crawling toward the open bedroom door across the room.

Pop-pop-pop-pop!

Claire came to the same conclusion and joined him, the two of them moving like rug rats across the wide, empty room.

Pop-pop-pop-pop!

Fading moonlight from a window somewhere in the bedroom caused the open door to glow like a beacon of hope.

The barrage continued behind them. The pop-pop-pop of automatic gunfire was now joined by the bang-bang-bang of handguns.

Keo didn’t bother glancing back to see if the Shakers had started to come in. The answer was no, because if they were, then they wouldn’t still be shooting and risk friendly fire. Besides, he could hear the door breaking, pieces of it flitting across the room at him and Claire—splinters landing on his hair and back—as they continued pouring it on.

Finally, they reached the bedroom and slid in opposite directions, until they were hiding behind walls. Keo remained low to the ground and didn’t bother reaching up for the door to close it. Instead, he slithered back toward the opening and looked out, even as bullets continued to pek-pek-pek the walls around him, the rounds easily punching through the front door and the wall that separated the bedroom and living room. Glass shattered behind him as bullets destroyed windows and pekked into the wallpaper.

And then, silence.

The only sounds left were Keo’s and Claire’s labored breathing, along with the clink-clink-clink, like raindrops, as pieces of glass fell from the French doors that opened out into the suite’s balcony. Large swaths of moonlight filled the bedroom from outside, and Keo could hear the sound of rushing water nearby.

They were inside one of the suites that overlooked the river.

He glanced across at Claire. She was similarly low to the ground and catching her breath. Her eyes were wide when they met his.

He nodded at her, and she returned it.

Tough kid. You’d be proud of her, Gaby.

Keo peeked out the bedroom and at what remained of the front door. There wasn’t much of a door left, and what was still there hung off a single hinge as the perforated slab of wood swung slowly inward, revealing silhouetted figures outside.

Shakers.

A lot of them.

Keo wasn’t sure if they saw him or not, because they started to come inside, stepping over bodies on the floor. They were clumsy, each man trying to be the first one inside, pushing against one another. It was impossibly disorganized. The sight reminded him of a horde of ghouls, only…clumsier.

The MP5SD was resting on the floor when Keo squeezed off a burst.

Two of the figures fell.

Keo kept firing, and two more slumped to the floor, landing on top of the ones already down there.

The rest reversed course. Keo thought about sending a few more rounds after them, maybe even try to pick off the ones that had gone into hiding behind the hallway walls by shooting through them, but decided against it.

He pulled back and waited. He’d come to Shaker Town with two spare magazines for the MP5SD, and he was already halfway through the first one. He had the Glock in his hip holster, with a spare mag for that, but that was it.

…that was it…

He looked across the open door at Claire. She had come to the hotel with her pistol and a knife, and at least one spare mag. He didn’t know if she had more than that. Of course, he wouldn’t have been conserving ammo nearly as much if Claire hadn’t tossed the tactical pack he’d given to her to hold for him. If only he still had that bag…

“You good?” he asked.

She shook her head. “Not even remotely.”

Ask a stupid question, get a stupid answer, pal.

Keo spent the next few seconds looking around the bedroom. It was big, but that was expected from a suite inside a five-star resort. The big king-size bed, its blankets strewn about the floor, squatted to his right, with a dresser and closet on the left. There was an ottoman in front of a big armchair in the corner and what looked like a sofa that could probably also be used as an extra bed. Both items had fresh holes in them.

The only other way out of the room besides the door between him and Claire was the balcony in the back. It sat behind the destroyed glass French doors, a pair of solar-powered LED lightbulbs perched on top of the railing.

Keo listened to the soothing noise of the river running somewhere outside. When he first saw how the balconies were hanging over the water, he remembered thinking that someone could jump off the balcony and right into the sloshing currents, if they were so inclined. Of course, he’d have to be pretty desperate to do that.

“What now?” Claire asked.

Keo looked over at her. “I don’t know.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

“I thought you’d have some ideas.”

“Why did you think that?”

“You’ve been in these situations before.”

“Who told you that?”

She might have rolled her eyes at him. “Everyone. You’re Keo.”

He didn’t answer right away. Truthfully, he wasn’t sure how to respond, mostly because he wasn’t even certain what she’d meant by that.

He was Keo? Of course he was Keo.

So what did him being Keo have anything to do with this?

“Well?” she said.

“Well what?”

“What’s the plan?”

“I don’t know.”

“Swell.”

He couldn’t help but grin at that response.

“What’s so funny?” she asked.

“Nothing. Just—”

“Hey, Chang!” someone shouted from the hallway.

Keo slid back to the floor and leaned toward the door. He looked out and across the living room at the front door on the other side. He couldn’t see anyone.

That wasn’t entirely true. He couldn’t see anyone alive in the darkness. He could make out the bodies just fine. The Shakers hadn’t bothered to drag their dead out of the way. Maybe they were waiting for something.

Or someone.

“Who was that?” Claire asked. She was whispering again.

“I don’t know,” Keo said.

“Hey, Chang!” the same voice called out a second time.

“He knows you,” Claire said.

“No, he doesn’t,” Keo said. “He thinks I’m Chang.”

“Or should I call you Keo!” the voice shouted.

“Or not,” Claire said.

Keo sighed and thought, Swell. They know who I am.

Twenty-Three

“They know your name.”

“Yeah, I noticed that.”

“How do they know your name?”

“I don’t know, Claire.”

“But they know your name.”

Keo sighed. It was probably a little louder than he’d intended. “I heard. Trust me, I heard that too.”

Claire stared at him. Keo wasn’t sure how to respond, because he was thinking the same thing she was.

How the hell do they know my name?

As shocked as she was, he was more so.

Double shocked.

Triple, even.

Quadruple?

“Yo, Keo!” the same voice shouted. The man was somewhere in the hallway beyond the wide-open front door because there was an echoey quality to his words. “So does the fact that you came back here all by your little lonesome, without Harvey anywhere in sight, mean the big man’s dead?”

Keo didn’t answer.

“Come on, Keo,” the voice continued. “Don’t be shy. We’re all friends here.”

“Friends my ass,” Claire said.

He smiled. Keo agreed with her assessment.

But he also knew there was nothing to be gained by keeping quiet. The man already knew his real name, which meant he probably knew who had sent Keo here, too. More than that, the man likely also had a good idea why Keo was here.

The enemy knew more about him than Keo did about them. He couldn’t even place the voice, and as far as he could tell, it didn’t sound familiar. It was extremely annoying.

Keo slid against the cold tiled floor and peeked out the bedroom door. He looked across the living room and toward the hallway. As dark now as the last time he’d looked, but his eyes had adjusted enough that he could make out the bodies stacked on the ground, a pair of them lying half in and half out of the open door frame.

If the Shakers attacked, it wouldn’t have taken much for Keo to move the MP5SD into position and open fire. He was actually hoping they’d do that so he could respond in kind. The fact that they were hanging back, happy to let the shouter do his work, was a bad sign that they weren’t as dumb as he’d hoped. Keo would have liked nothing more than to thin out their numbers. Not that he thought he could do enough of that to waltz out of Shaker Town.

No, that wasn’t going to happen anytime soon. They had more bodies than he had bullets.

So Keo did the next best thing, and stalled for time.

“Who am I talking to?” he shouted.

A brief stretch of silence, as if the shouter were caught off guard that Keo had responded finally, and didn’t quite know what to do next.

That didn’t last very long.

“You don’t recognize my voice?” the man said.

Keo exchanged a quick look with Claire. She shook her head back at him as if to say, I don’t recognize it.

“No, can’t say I do,” Keo shouted back.

“Aw, man, I’m hurt,” the man said.

“So, who are you?”

“Hey, if you don’t recognize my voice, I’m not going to tell you.”

“I don’t know who you are, pal.”

“Yes, you do.”

“So just tell me your name already, and stop dancing around.”

Another brief moment of silence.

“Well?” Keo continued.

“Nah, I don’t think I will,” the man said. “I’ll leave it to you to figure it out.”

“That’s gonna take some time, because I don’t have a clue.”

“I can see that.”

“Don’t take it personally.”

“But I have to. I thought we were old buddies.”

Again, Keo exchanged another glance with Claire.

And again, he was reasonably sure she was thinking the exact same thing he was: “Who is this guy?”

Keo looked back over his shoulder toward the other side of the bedroom. It was big enough that he and Claire could probably hold out for a while. But that was a finite option. Sooner or later, they’d be overrun. Or worse. A grenade or two lobbed in the right direction, and they were done for.

So why hadn’t the bad guys tossed a few frags into the bedroom yet? Maybe he should be closing the door just in case they got wise.

No, not yet. With the door closed, he wouldn’t be able to pick them off when they tried another assault. They would gain ground on him and Claire if he couldn’t see them coming. He didn’t like the idea of Shakers stationed directly on the other side of the same wall.

Keo’s eyes rested on the twin French doors and the balcony beyond. There was no one out there, and he didn’t expect there to be. Certainly, if the Shakers wanted to jump down from the roof and onto the balcony, they could, and with minimal fear of going over the railing. But why do that when they didn’t have to? Right now, they had Claire and him cornered like rats. There was simply nowhere for them to go.

“Well?” Claire said.

“Well what?” Keo said.

“How do we get out of this?”

“I’ll let you know when I figure it out.”

“Great. I guess it’s true what they say…”

“What’s that?”

“Never meet your heroes. You’ll only find disappointment.”

Keo grinned. “I’m your hero?”

She rolled her eyes. “It’s just a saying.”

He chuckled, then looked out the bedroom door and across the living room at the hallway beyond.

Flickers of motion as Shakers moved around in the hallway. They never revealed enough of themselves for him to squeeze off a burst or two. Either they’d gotten smart or someone had shown up to give orders. Probably the same guy who knew Keo by name.

Who the hell is this guy?

Keo glanced down at his watch.

An hour, tops, before sunrise.

And then?

And then…

He sighed again. And again, it was a little too loud, because Claire heard it.

“You said something?” she asked.

“No.”

“I thought you said something.”

“I didn’t.”

“Oh.”

“Hey, Keo!” the same Shaker shouted from somewhere in the hallway. Keo wished he could have seen the man’s face to get a clue about his identity.

He asked himself again if the voice sounded familiar.

It didn’t.

Right?

“Yeah?” Keo shouted back.

“You know, I thought you were dead,” the man said.

“Is that right?”

“Had no idea you got out of Darby Bay alive.”

Claire’s body tensed noticeably across the door. It was the mention of Darby Bay that did it, bringing back all kinds of memories for both of them. Bad memories. The coastal city was a long time ago, and Keo would rather forget all about it. Claire, too.

But here it was, back again. And this loudmouth that knew Keo was bringing it all back against their will.

Who the hell is this guy?

“Keo!” that same loudmouth shouted.

“Yeah?” Keo said, when what he really wanted was to scream back, “Go fuck yourself, motherfucker!”

Except he didn’t, because he needed information. The enemy knew way more about him than he did about them, and that was unacceptable.

“You really don’t remember me?” the man said.

“No,” Keo said. “Why don’t you let me see your face?”

The man laughed. It was a full-throated laugh, and Keo couldn’t quite decide if it was too forced or completely genuine.

“Now what would be the fun in that?” the man said. “I think I’m going to keep you guessing.”

“That’s not very fair of you. You know who I am, but I don’t have a clue about you. Give a guy a chance!”

The man laughed again. It was definitely a real laugh. The asshole was having the time of his life, apparently. That just made Keo even more pissed off. He was really, really starting to hate this guy…whoever the hell he was.

“You should have seen me when I saw you in town, Keo,” the man said. “Would have done a spit take, if I had water in my mouth.”

He saw me. Shit. He saw me, and I never saw him.

So why didn’t the guy do something about it before? Why did he drag this out, hiding himself until now?

None of it made any sense.

“But man, you did a number on my guys up here,” the guy said.

“My guys?” Keo thought.

That meant Mr. Mysterious had a leadership position in Shaker Town. A position but not the position, because Keo knew who that was. Black Tide had an entire dossier on John Deacon, a.k.a. The Deacon, including a very recent photo. Keo had never seen the man before.

So who was this guy, and what made the ones Keo killed his “guys?”

“Then I remembered who you are, what you’re capable of,” the man continued. “After that, I was surprised you killed so few.”

Keo smirked to himself. “You’re too kind, whoever you are.”

“Credit is given where credit is due.”

“Wish I could return the favor, but I don’t know who you are, and you won’t tell me.”

The man laughed again. “Is that your attempt to get me to reveal myself, Keo?”

Keo heard a snicker and looked over at Claire. She had figured out the same thing Mr. Mysterious had. Like Mr. Mysterious, Claire didn’t seem too impressed with his attempt.

He shrugged at her.

She rolled her eyes back at him.

Keo shouted out, “Not at all. I was just curious. I like to know who I’m shooting at.”

“I guess you’ll just have to be disappointed tonight,” the man said. “And, oh, Keo?”

“Yeah?”

“This is getting boring.”

“Ouch. That hurts my feelings.”

“I doubt that.”

“I’m very sensitive.”

“Since when?”

“Since forever.”

“I was hoping we could have some fun, but I think I’m going to end this now.”

“What’s the hurry? Party’s just getting started.”

“It is for me, but not so much for you,” the man said. “I have things to do, people to kill. Like your precious Black Tide, for instance. I’m not just going to kill them, Keo, I’m going to destroy them. Bury them in a deep hole and piss on them.”

Nice visuals, asshole, Keo thought.

“Unfortunately for you,” the man continued, “you won’t get the chance to say good-bye to your friends. But hey, c’est la vie.”

Shit, Keo thought even as he scrambled up to his feet.

Claire did the same on the other side of the door, but before she could ask the obvious question, “What are we going to do now?”, Keo shouted out, “The balcony!”

“What?” she shouted back.

“The balcony!” he said again, even as he took off across the room.

She followed behind him, even as Keo heard the clank-clank of hard objects bouncing on the hotel suite’s wooden floors.

Clank-clank!

And they were getting louder.

Clank-clank!

And closer.

Grenades. He was sure of it. Mr. Mysterious had either tossed the grenades himself or ordered it. In the back of his mind, Keo wondered if all this conversation had just been to stall him while the man waited for the weapons he needed to finish the job without killing more of his men. Which meant, if true, the guy had played him.

Daebak!

Keo kicked what remained of the French doors open and lunged outside. He grabbed Claire’s right arm by the wrist and dragged her toward the railing. Shards of glass crunched loudly underneath their boots.

Claire let him drag her with him, either because she knew what he was planning, or she was willing to give herself entirely up to him to save their lives. He wanted to tell her that this was the dumbest thing he’d ever done in his life, but it wouldn’t have been even close.

Keo had done much, much dumber things.

“Keo!” she shouted at the last instant.

He didn’t answer her. He didn’t have time.

The air rippled behind them as an intense heat wave engulfed the entire bedroom. Flames licked at the walls and destroyed what was left of the French doors on their way out into the balcony.

Luckily, Keo and Claire were already over the railing.

And falling…falling…

Twenty-Four

Once upon a time, Keo hated the water. That seemed like another lifetime ago. He didn’t just dislike it, but despised it. His mother wasn’t a very good swimmer. Keo was pretty sure she didn’t know how to even tread water and didn’t have any desire to learn. He couldn’t recall a time when she got wet whenever they were at the beach.

His eventual embracing of the water had something to do with his father.

Oh, who was he kidding?

It had everything to do with the old man.

Calling the man who’d given him life not the most nurturing creature Keo had ever met was an understatement. The elder Keo—not that that was his name—did everything possible to make Keo uncomfortable. That included the water. Because Keo hated it, the old man made him go into it. Over and over, and over again.

Later in life, Keo would realize the elder Keo simply wanted him to toughen up, to face his fears, just as the old man had while growing up. Keo had never met his paternal grandparents or, indeed, any of his father’s family, so he didn’t know what type of people they were. Hardasses, would have been his guess.

It was different with his mother, which might be why Keo tended to think in Korean when he thought in any language other than English. Not that he ever grasped Hangul completely, but, well, he’d tried.

Kinda.

Keo’s eventual embracing of the water was both out of spite and because of his old man. At one point, his father gave up on him and declared Keo a lost cause when it came to the water. After that, Keo spent every waking second and minute and hour on the beaches of every country they settled in during his father’s deployment. He was determined to prove the old man wrong, and in doing so, learned to love the water.

And he got good at swimming.

Really, really good.

Good enough that Lara once asked him to take over the swimming part of Black Tide’s basic training. He’d done it, mostly to make her happy, but he hadn’t enjoyed the experience. Keo had a natural chemistry with the water, but not so much with students.

But he’d do anything for Lara, even though she hadn’t wanted him to come here. They both wanted to help Danny and Black Tide—Lara owed them and felt guilty about abandoning them to be with Keo—but she was in no shape to do it. So it was up to him. In a way, he was standing in for her in an attempt to lessen her guilt.

The night before he left the base, they’d laid in bed, with Keo spooning her from behind while his hands wrapped around her body, his palms against her growing belly. Her own hands were over his, holding on tighter than usual.

“Don’t go,” she’d said.

“I told him I would,” Keo had answered.

“Tell him you changed your mind.”

“I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“We came back with him because he needed our help. This was your idea, remember?”

“I change my mind.”

“Since when?”

“Since now. Someone else can do it. It doesn’t have to be you.”

“It’s not exactly something anyone can do, baby.”

“What makes you so special?”

“I’m Keo.”

“What does that even mean?”

“I do things people can’t.”

She’d smirked. Or he thought she did, though of course he couldn’t be sure from behind her. “You think too highly of yourself.”

“I’m just being realistic.”

“Whatever. I don’t care. I don’t want you going there.”

“I already said yes.”

“Tell him you changed your mind.”

“I can’t.”

“Keo…”

“Lara…”

“I don’t want to lose you.”

“You won’t. I’ll come back when it’s over.”

“Do you promise?”

“Yes.”

“Promise me.”

“I already did.”

“Say the words.”

“I’ll come back when it’s over.”

“Do whatever it takes. Say it.”

“I’ll do whatever it takes, and I’ll come back when it’s over.”

“Good,” she’d said. “Now go to sleep. You have a long day ahead.”

She wasn’t wrong. It’d been a long morning and an even longer day.

Then an excruciating two months, and then some.

* * *

“You should have seen me when I saw you in town, Keo,” Mr. Mysterious had said. “Would have done a spit take if I had water in my mouth.”

So why am I still alive?

It was a good question. He shouldn’t have been alive. If the man knew who he was, what he was capable of, and had some kind of bitter history with him (and from everything Mr. Mysterious had said, that was the case), then why hadn’t the guy pulled the trigger? He could have done it at any time, and Keo wouldn’t have seen it coming. In all the days since he’d arrived in Shaker Town, Keo never had any ideas someone already knew his true identity.

And if they knew who he was, then they also knew who had sent him, and why.

So why am I still alive?

The answer to that riddle would have to wait, because at the moment Keo was too busy contorting his body into a missile so that when he splashed down in the (sure to be) cold water, he wouldn’t go splat. Most people didn’t understand just how dangerous water was if you entered it at the wrong angles. Keo did.

He just hoped that Claire, falling out of the sky next to him, understood the same thing. Otherwise…

Captain Optimism, remember? It’s time for some Captain Optimism right about now!

Captain Optimism may or may not have shown up as requested, but its presence (or lack thereof) wasn’t going to stop gravity from doing its work.

And right now, gravity was large and most definitely in charge.

He wasn’t too worried about dying from the fall. They were jumping from only four stories. Five, technically, but given that he’d jumped from the balcony of the fifth floor, it was mostly four stories. Not nearly enough to cost him his life if he did this right. Which was the operative phrase. If he did this right.

So do it right, pal! Do it right, or break a leg!

Or two!

He didn’t break a leg, or two, as he went into the water feetfirst (Nailed it!), both legs tightly against the other. He skewered the plane of water like a knife and went down, hands clutching the MP5SD to his chest. The last thing he wanted was to lose the submachine gun.

That would be bad. It would be very, very bad.

Fortunately, he clung to the H&K as he went into the water, and it was still pressed tightly against his chest when he reversed course and went back up, breaking through the water’s surface.

Keo sucked in a deep breath and glanced frantically around for Claire.

He couldn’t find her.

Where was Claire?

Where’d she—

The woman burst out of the water, gasping for breath as she did so.

Oh. There she was.

Keo swam the short distance over to her, fighting against the currents as he did so.

Currents.

The river was washing them downstream. Keo had expected stronger than usual currents when he saw the water from land, but was still surprised by the violence of it. He was thrashed around, and it took him longer than expected to get his bearings.

Fortunately, the rough currents also provided the advantage Keo was hoping for: Both he and Claire were being pushed away from the bad guys. Keo looked toward the shoreline as men scrambled out of the five-star hotel and rushed down to the beach. The building itself was behind him now and getting farther back.

That was the good news.

“Keo!”

Claire. Where was Claire?

He’d lost sight of her in the brief second or two he’d taken his eyes off her to look toward the shoreline.

Where was—

There. There she was.

She was struggling, fighting the pressure sending them downstream. She kept disappearing back into the water as Keo swam toward her. He wasn’t sure how she’d gotten so far from him that it took him more than a few strokes to reach her. Thank God he was a good swimmer. Claire, on the other hand, hadn’t gotten any better since the last time he saw her.

“Keo!” she shouted.

“I’m here!” he shouted back.

“I’m drowning!”

“No, you’re not!”

“I’m drowning, Keo!”

“Calm down, kid, calm down!” Keo shouted even as he grabbed for her—Got her!—and pulled her to him, her back against his chest and his hands underneath her flailing arms. “Jesus, kid, relax! Just relax!”

“I’m drowning!” she shouted. “This is your fault! This is all your fault!”

Or that was what he assumed she was saying. Most of it was lost to garble when she started swallowing water and spitting them out. She was trying to breathe in-between those two actions and failing badly.

This’ll teach her not to take swimming lessons.

“Relax!” he shouted. “Just relax!”

Claire continued to cough and spit out water, but she must have heard him through her dramatic life-and-death situation, because she did, in fact, calm down. She didn’t entirely relax, but he didn’t blame her too much for that. Drowning was probably one of the biggest phobias for a lot of people. It’d been for Keo too, once upon a time.

The first pop-pop-pop! came from the shoreline to Keo’s right. Bullets zip-zip-zipped around them, more than a few of them going into the water.

Shakers, running toward the water, firing as they did so. As if Keo thought they were going to just let them get away. Of course not. For some reason, the ones on the rooftop weren’t shooting, but that wasn’t stopping the boys on land. But running and shooting wasn’t exactly ideal for accuracy, and Keo thanked God for that.

None of the first volley had come close, but it was only a matter of time. He had the MP5SD slung over his shoulder, his hands full of a still-struggling Claire, so he couldn’t return fire. Not that he thought it would have done any good. The German submachine gun was a tough cookie, but he didn’t feel like testing it after submerging it completely in water. Besides, it was a little hard to swim and shoot at the same time.

“Relax!” Keo shouted at Claire. “I got you! I got you!”

After what seemed like an hour or so of fighting her, but was probably less than a few seconds, Claire’s body finally went slack against Keo’s arms. As in, completely limp. That wasn’t quite what Keo had in mind. Then again, none of tonight was.

Harvey, you lying piece of shit!

Keo held onto the kid (No, not a kid anymore; he had to stop thinking of her as that) as they were pushed downstream by the river’s currents. Keo spent just as much time trying to cling to Claire as he did keeping the two of them afloat. He would have preferred to have gone under the surface to avoid some of the gunshots—the pop-pop-pop of automatic gunfire was unrelenting—but he didn’t have that luxury. Claire was unconscious.

Keo moved them farther away from the shoreline and more toward the middle of the rushing water. The bank on the other side was all woods beyond the 20 or so meters of overgrown grass fields. But Keo didn’t swim for it, only toward it. There was no reason to stop now—and crawling back onto land would be doing exactly that—while they were still so close to the hotel.

So he kept moving, putting more distance between them and the Shakers, even as he struggled to cling to Claire and all the while not drown himself. Because, obviously, that would be bad. Drowning now would be very bad for both him and Claire.

Yeah, don’t wanna drown, pal. Don’t wanna drown! If you drown now, then how are you gonna make Harvey pay?

He glimpsed silhouetted black shapes racing across the landscape in front of him, too far away now for him to make out who they were or if they’d been pursuing him since the hotel. Walls of trees were starting to appear in his peripheral vision, which meant he had put even more distance from the hotel. It helped that all he really had to do was keep from drowning and the river’s currents did all the work for him.

He wasn’t too worried about getting shot. The bullets were still coming, but he could barely make them out over the roar of the water in his ears. The only evidence he had that people were still shooting at them were the muzzle flashes that dotted the dwindling darkness.

…the dwindling darkness…

Keo didn’t have to check his watch to know they were coming up on morning. They’d been pretty close before he and Claire took the leap off the balcony. Even now, Keo could already see the first rays of sunlight in the distance, poking through the tree lines.

Around him, the water didn’t stop moving, and neither did they. So he hung on to Claire and continued kicking, keeping both of their heads above water.

He hung on and treaded even after his arms grew tired and his legs became jelly.

Then he hung on and kicked some more, because the only other alternative was to let the both of them drown.

And that wasn’t going to happen.

No way he was going to die here in Shaker Town.

No fucking way.

Twenty-Five

They washed up onto the beach about, from what Keo could tell, a good mile or so from where they’d splashed into the river. The currents had been strong enough (Thank God) that there wasn’t a Shaker in sight when Keo climbed up the sand on his hands and knees, pulling Claire behind him with one hand. She was on her back and unconscious.

Or he hoped she was unconscious. She could have been dead for all he knew, but he didn’t have time to find out for sure one way or another. He was too busy getting both of them off the narrow beach that was already awash in morning sunlight and into the tree lines where they would have some cover.

It was only then—about twenty or so meters from the nearest particle of sand—that Keo took the time to check on Claire.

She was alive. That was good. Now if only she’d wake up so he didn’t have to carry her everywhere. He wasn’t looking forward to that one bit.

He wanted to produce a radio out of thin air and call Black Tide to get him evac’ed out of there, but that wasn’t going to happen. Not only didn’t he have a radio that could reach the nearest Black Tide base, he still hadn’t finished the job yet.

Did he really want to complete the mission? No, not really. But he couldn’t leave just yet. It wasn’t just the mission, but the presence of Mr. Mysterious. The man had recognized him, but Keo hadn’t been able to return the favor.

“You don’t recognize my voice?” Mr. Mysterious had said. He’d clearly expected Keo to say yes, and when he didn’t, “Aw, man, I’m hurt.”

Keo didn’t believe that for a second.

“So just tell me your name already,” Keo had said to the man.

“Nah, I don’t think I will,” Mr. Mysterious had replied. “I’ll just leave it to you to figure it out.”

But Keo couldn’t figure it out. Had the voice sounded familiar?

No, it didn’t.

At least, he didn’t think so. Just thinking about it was driving him crazy and wasn’t getting him anywhere close to the answer.

Keo decided to focus on what he knew for sure, and that was Claire. She was still breathing, which was good. Her arms and cheeks were bruised, and he wasn’t sure when that had happened. Maybe when they crashed into a few boulders while being thrashed about the water as they were swept downstream. What mattered was that she was alive.

He left Claire on the ground and stood up, then looked around them.

They were surrounded by trees. A lot of trees. Big and tall and small and thick and not-so-thick ones. Animals moved along branches and scurried across the ground among the bushes and overgrown grass. It wasn’t nearly dark enough, despite the high canopies, for Keo to be worried about the possibility of ghouls in the area. That would change when nightfall came, but that wasn’t going to be for a while. Heck, his problem now was getting to nightfall alive.

At least he still had his MP5SD, which he’d clutched to as he fought the water and hung onto Claire. It was wet, but the Germans knew how to build guns, and Keo was pretty sure the weapon would still work once it dried out.

Pretty sure.

Just in case, he unslung the weapon and ejected the magazine, then let as much water drip from it as possible.

Less desirable was the absence of his holstered sidearm. He didn’t remember losing it, but that wasn’t a surprise. He’d been so focused on maintaining his grip on both Claire and the submachine gun that he could have lost his entire wardrobe and might not have realized it until now.

The knife on his left hip, on the other hand, remained in its sheath. The silver-coated blade would come in handy if he stumbled across ghouls.

But again, he’d worry about that if he managed to make it to nightfall.

Captain Optimism, pal, remember?

Yeah, he remembered, but he was also being pragmatic. It wasn’t like unicorns were going to shoot out of his butt if he wished for it hard enough.

No, it was going to take more than—

Snap!

A twig, breaking in half behind him.

Keo turned, the MP5SD rising to take aim, the thoughts Don’t jam. Don’t you fucking jam on me, you German piece of shit! running through his mind even as he settled one eye over the weapon’s iron sights.

Snap!

Straight ahead. An incoming presence.

Snap! Snap!

Running now!

Keo took a quick step to the right and slid behind the wide trunk of a bulging tree. He pressed against its gnarled barks just as a figure burst through a large bush and into the small clearing where Keo had laid Claire down.

It was a man.

No, not a man.

A boy.

It was Steven. Harvey’s kid.

How the hell did he find us?

The teen dropped to his knees as soon as he spotted Claire, the MP5K he’d been carrying falling down on a pile of brown leaves next to her. Steven hovered over Claire, his hands rubbing at her cheeks. His blond hair was covered in sweat and he was breathing hard. Not because of Claire’s state, but the fact he’d been running to get here. That also explained why his shirt was matted to his back with sweat.

“Claire,” Steven said. “Claire!”

He wasn’t quite shouting, but it was close. Too close.

Keo didn’t need that right now. He didn’t know if Steven was alone or if he was just the point man of a search party, but he couldn’t take the chance. Not that he thought the latter was a real possibility. Steven wasn’t exactly someone you’d put ahead of a posse. From everything Keo had seen and heard about him, the teen’s entire existence was owed to his father’s rank in Shaker Town.

“Claire, wake up,” Steven was saying. “Wake up, please!”

Yeah, like that’s going to help, Keo thought even as he stepped away from the tree. He made plenty of noise doing so. Enough that Steven heard and glanced backward over his shoulder.

The kid’s eyes widened at the sight of Keo, and Keo fully expected him to reach for the MP5 on the ground next to him.

Except he didn’t.

Instead, Steven said, “Can you help her? Can you help her?”

Keo couldn’t help but feel a little amused. The kid was in love. Keo could see it on his face and in his wide eyes. The thought of Claire never waking up again terrified the teenager to the core.

“She’s fine,” Keo said.

“But she’s not breathing.”

“Yeah, she is.”

“Are you sure?”

“Pretty sure.”

He snatched up Steven’s submachine gun and slung it. Nice. He preferred the longer MP5SD to its shorter cousin any day of the week, but you could never go wrong with having two of Heckler & Koch’s finest at your disposal.

Keo couldn’t see anything that looked like a knife or sidearm on Steven. Or a pouch for extra ammo. Had the kid run out into the woods with just the MP5K?

“What are you doing here?” Keo asked him.

“Helping her,” Steven said.

“She’s fine.”

“She doesn’t look fine. Are you sure she’s okay?”

“She swallowed a lot of water. She’ll snap out of it soon.”

I hope, he thought about adding, but didn’t.

He said instead, “Answer the question. What are you doing here?”

“Looking for her,” Steven said.

Keo glanced from Claire’s peacefully unconscious form—if he didn’t know better he might think she was dead—and to the kid.

Then Keo remembered what Claire had told him before.

“Steven told me,” she’d said about what had transpired at Roy’s. “Last night, after he came home.”

She hadn’t elaborated on their relationship, but the fact that Steven “came home” meant they were either living together or were very, very familiar. It didn’t take a genius to figure out everything from there. Not that Keo didn’t already suspect it days ago.

Keo concentrated on Steven now. He’d come here looking for Claire. Who else was looking for her? For them?

“Stay with her,” Keo said just before he hurried off.

He’d told the kid to stay with her on purpose, expecting it to work better than just a curt Stay here. After all, the kid had come searching for Claire. For all Keo knew, she’d popped the kid’s cherry.

Damn, girl. You really got him around your little fingers, huh?

Not that he blamed Steven too much. Claire was an attractive girl. Keo wouldn’t want to admit something like that out loud; he’d known her when she was just a little kid, and to him she still was, even though she wasn’t really.

He walked quickly for about fifty meters before stopping and going into a crouch among the high grass, many of which went all the way up to his chest. Keo listened for sounds of people in the woods with him. Noises created by human boots had a way of standing out against the furry legs of animals on branches or the wings of birds in the air.

Nothing.

He didn’t hear anything out there but his own slightly heavy breathing.

How was that possible? Had Steven managed to find them when no other Shaker could? Was the kid that good? Or just lucky? Or—

Screaming, coming from behind him.

A woman’s scream.

Claire.

Keo got up, the words, Fuck, fuck, fuck! flashing across his head as he raced back through the heavy foliage.

He shouldn’t have left the kids alone.

Goddammit, why had he left the kids alone?

More screaming. This time it was male.

The kid. Steven.

Swell. As if he wasn’t feeling bad enough.

Keo ran faster, making way too much noise for his liking, and just hoping that the double screaming of Claire and Steven—and they were really going at it now; back and forth, back and forth, as if they were competing or something—would mask his movements. That was probably too much wishful thinking on his part.

He was halfway back to the small clearing when he glimpsed the first guy, who was wearing, of all things, a fur hat with a raccoon’s striped tail draped down the back. The guy was standing next to the same large tree Keo had been hiding behind earlier. Davy Crockett must have heard Keo coming, because he started to turn around. Sunlight filtering through the tree crowns above glinted off the barrel of the FAL assault rifle in his hands.

Keo squeezed off a burst from 10 meters. Half his rounds embedded in the tree trunk, but enough of them found their target.

Davy Crockett disappeared into the overgrown grass just as Keo made a quick left in case the dead man had companions (What were the chances he didn’t? About zero to none, most likely.) and they converged on the sound of Keo’s weapons fire. The MP5SD had a suppressor, but that only lowered the sounds of his shots, not muffled them completely.

He was right. Davy Crockett did have friends, and they appeared to Keo’s right, moving around the same big tree and into the open. Two men, both as big as houses, and making just as much noise. They had no clue where Keo was, and he didn’t give them a chance to find out.

He fired two bursts in their direction, and they were still dropping when he reached the edge of the small clearing, fully expecting more men waiting for him. He’d fired enough bullets that he thought he might have to switch to the MP5K just to be safe.

Except he didn’t have to.

There was a fourth guy, but he was on the ground and Claire was on top of him, smashing a rock into his face. Or what was left of the guy’s face. It was already a bloody mess, though that didn’t seem to satisfy Claire, because she kept striking him over and over, and over.

Steven stood nearby, watching Claire with a mixture of horror and—

No, that was pretty much all horror.

Keo scanned the area and quickly figured out where the Shakers had come from. The beach.

He took off in that direction, stopping at the tree lines and peeking out. There was an inflatable boat on the sand, along with four rowing paddles lying haphazardly inside it. The boat hadn’t been pulled all the way up and looked in danger of being swept back into the water by the active currents.

Four paddles. Four dead Shakers. (Or three dead Shakers and one soon-to-be-dead Shaker, anyway.)

Keo jogged back to the small clearing.

Claire had come to her senses and climbed off the dead man, who may or may not have had a mustache. Keo couldn’t tell. She had also picked up an AR-15 from the ground and was wiping dirt off it. She was breathing hard, the adrenaline clearly still coursing through every part of her as she looked up and over as Keo reappeared.

“How’d they find us?” she asked.

“Boat,” Keo said. “I forgot to hide our tracks on the beach.”

“You forgot?”

Keo shrugged. “I was a little busy dragging your unconscious body in here. You’re welcome.”

Claire smirked at him before turning to Steven. In a voice that was surprisingly tender, she asked, “Are you okay?”

The kid nodded. Keo wasn’t sure if he could even talk at the moment. Or look away from the dead Shaker with the no-longer-there face.

Keo crouched next to that same man and unbuckled his gun belt, doing his very best not to stare at the missing face or get any of the man’s blood on his fingers. “Grab what you can off the other three, and let’s go.”

“Where are we going?” Claire asked.

“Anywhere but here.”

“On foot?”

“You want me to carry you?”

“I mean, why don’t we take their boat. It’s not like they need it anymore.”

Ouch. That’s cold.

He said, “You do realize that the river just goes in a circle, right? That sooner or later we’d just end up back where we started?”

“Oh, right,” Claire said.

Keo stood up, slipping the belt around his waist. “By the way, I call dibs on the raccoon hat.”

Twenty-Six

“What’s with you and cocks?”

“The what?”

“Cocks.”

“What cock?”

“Those cocks,” she said, nodding at the MP5SD in his hands and the MP5K he had slung over his shoulder. “You sure love holding them in your hands.”

“Heckler & Koch,” Keo said, pronouncing the Koch as coke.

“Yeah, that’s what I said. Heckler & Koch,” she said, except she pronounced it, again, as cock.

He suspected she was just fucking with him, so Keo didn’t keep the banter going. It wasn’t like he was going to win this one, and Keo didn’t like it when he was on the losing side. He was used to being the smartass and not the one on the receiving end.

Fortunately, Claire was already preoccupied with someone else. Namely, Steven. The kid walked alongside them. He was much taller than Claire physically, but she dwarfed him in every other way. And it had nothing to do with the FAL battle rifle in her hands, either. Claire was obviously the dominant force in this relationship. Whatever their “relationship” happened to be.

“You doing okay?” she was asking him now.

Steven nodded, but didn’t say anything. He hadn’t said much since they began their trek through the woods, getting farther away from the water where the Shakers had proven they had the advantage. In the thick of the Georgian woods, there were less chances they could be snuck up on like last time. At least, not without Keo hearing them coming first.

The wings of birds fluttered around them and squirrels raced by along massive branches overhead. Critters did the same on the ground, annoyed at their presence. But nothing popped up that they couldn’t handle with a bullet or two.

For now.

Keo was feeling a little chilly. It didn’t help that his clothes were soaked. If Claire was suffering similarly, she didn’t let it show as she reached over and took Steven’s hand and squeezed. That did it. The kid seemed to snap out of his reverie and looked over at her, before smiling.

She’s got him around her little fingers, all right. He’d probably run into a tree for her.

Keo said, “How’d you find us, Steven?”

The teenager glanced over as if Keo had just spoken to him in some foreign language he didn’t understand.

“Back there,” Keo said. “You were the first one to find us. How?”

“I followed her,” Steven said, nodding at Claire.

“You did what?” Claire said. Apparently she hadn’t realized that.

“I followed you,” Steven said. “When you left the house. To Dad’s house and then to the hotel. After that, I waited inside the woods watching you guys.”

Keo smiled at the thought of Steven outwitting Claire.

“You followed me?” Claire was saying to Steven. She’d let go of his hand, maybe because, like Keo, she was having a hard time believing him. Or maybe she just didn’t want to.

“After you left,” Steven said, nodding.

“I didn’t see you.”

“I know.”

“You actually followed me to your dad’s place without me seeing you?”

Steven gave her a smile that looked simultaneously proud and sad. “You’d be surprised how easily you can be invisible when everyone thinks you’re useless. You just become another face in the crowd. Sometimes not even that.”

Claire glanced over at Keo with an I can’t believe that happened expression on her face.

Keo suppressed a laugh, and said instead, “You saw us go into the water. From the hotel.”

Steven nodded. “Yes.”

Of course he did. How else would the kid have found them so quickly? Even before the Shakers did? He was out there and probably took off in pursuit as soon as he spotted Keo and Claire leaping from the hotel’s fifth-floor balcony.

“Where are we going now?” Steven was asking them.

“I’m not sure,” Claire said. She turned to Keo. “It’s a good question.”

“Arrowhead,” Keo said.

“Arrowhead?”

“I need a radio,” he said, but didn’t expand on it. He didn’t want Steven to know everything, even though he didn’t think the kid was a spy. Steven didn’t come here on behest of the other Shakers; he’d found them because he wanted to find Claire.

“You know where it is?” Claire asked.

“Yes,” Keo said.

“What if they don’t help us?”

“They will.”

“How do you know that?”

“I know the guy in charge.”

“Horatio?”

“Yeah.”

“When did you know Horatio?”

“It’s a long story,” Keo said.

They had taken two more steps when a familiar voice said, “Hey, Keo. You out there?”

They stopped and turned around, both Keo and Claire tightening their grips on their guns. Steven, for his part, looked around like a deer in the headlights.

“Don’t be shy, Keo,” the voice said.

The voice had come through the two-way portable radio Keo had clipped to his hip, that he had taken off Davy Crockett the same time he was grabbing the man’s raccoon hat. Out of the four Shakers, Davy Crockett had been the only one carrying a radio. Keo hadn’t bothered trying to contact Black Tide with it. They were too deep in the woods, and the closest Black Tider base was a long way off, well beyond the two-way’s reach.

But the fact that he was receiving a signal at all meant whoever was sending it was close by. That was what made Keo go down on one knee, the MP5SD immediately swinging in front of him.

Next to him, Claire did the same.

But not Steven.

Claire grabbed his arm and jerked him to the ground next to her.

Keo unclipped the radio, but didn’t answer it right away.

“I know you can hear me,” the voice said through the radio. “You couldn’t have gotten too far ahead.”

It was Mr. Mysterious. The same man from last night. The same asshole that knew Keo’s real identity, and who knew what else.

“I know where you’re going,” the man continued. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to pursue you. I can’t afford it. Good men are hard to find, and you already took too many of mine last night and this morning.”

Keo exchanged a look with Claire. Steven, too, squatting behind her. But mostly with Claire. She didn’t say anything, and neither did the teenager. But by the way she was gripping the FAL, Claire was ready for a fight.

“You still don’t remember me, do you?” Mr. Mysterious said through the radio. “I was hoping that swan dive off the balcony would have brought back some memories.”

Keo finally lifted the radio to his lips and pressed the transmit lever. “Give me a hint.”

“There you are,” Mr. Mysterious said. “I knew you’d answer.”

“You sure know me pretty well, pal. Maybe we should get together and have a proper reunion.”

“Nope. You’d probably just shoot me.”

“I considered it.”

“But you won’t?”

“I didn’t say that.”

Mr. Mysterious laughed through the radio. He hadn’t had to press the transmit lever when he did that, but he’d wanted Keo to hear it. To prove to Keo that he wasn’t afraid.

“Same Keo,” the man said.

“Wish I could say the same,” Keo said. “But since you won’t tell me who you are, I guess I’ll just have to live with not knowing.”

“You really don’t remember my voice?”

“Afraid not.”

“I would have thought hearing it through the radio would jog your memory. It was the first time we met, after all. Well, communicated, I guess would be the proper description.”

Keo exchanged another look with Claire. She was, once again, thinking the same thing he was: Who the hell is this guy?

But like the last few times, Keo didn’t know. The voice didn’t sound familiar. But then, he’d spoken to hundreds, maybe thousands, of people over the radio, and voices that were transmitted through the airwaves didn’t always sound the same as in real life. Of course, there were voices he would recognize anywhere or through whatever means, like Lara, Danny, Gaby.

But this wasn’t Lara, Danny, or Gaby.

So who was this guy?

Keo pressed the transmit lever. “I’ve had conversations with too many people over the radio. I can’t remember them all.”

“I bet you have, a man with your past,” Mr. Mysterious said.

“So tell me who you are.”

“Nope. I’m going to make you think about it.”

“I’d rather not. Thinking hurts the brain.”

Mr. Mysterious laughed. Again, it was for Keo’s benefit, because the man hadn’t had to press the transmit lever on his radio when he did it.

“See you around, Keo,” the man said. “Or should I say, I’ll see you in Arrowhead. That’s where you’re going, right?”

Keo didn’t answer.

“Of course it is,” Mr. Mysterious said. “Rest assured, you won’t have to worry about me stopping you.”

“Gee, thanks, I totally believe you.”

“I’ll see you around, Keo.”

“You should hope not.”

“Let me guess: Because if we do, you’ll kill me?”

“You should be so lucky.”

Mr. Mysterious laughed again. “I’ll see you around, Keo.”

Then the radio went silent.

Keo glanced around the woods just in case Mr. Mysterious had lied—he was a bad guy, after all, and bad guys were filthy liars—and was sending troops after them.

But there was nothing and no one out there except the animals and leaves bristling against a breezy wind.

Keo stood up, and so did Claire and Steven.

“Who the hell is this guy?” Claire asked.

“I don’t know,” Keo said.

“He keeps saying you know him.”

“Yeah, I heard what he said.”

“But…?”

“But I don’t.” Keo looked past her at Steven. “Do you recognize the voice?”

Steven didn’t even think about it. “No.”

“Think about it first before answering.”

“I don’t have to. I’ve been trying to recognize it while you were talking to him.” He shook his head. “I’ve never heard it before.”

“Dammit,” Keo said. Then, “Come on. We have a long walk to Arrowhead.”

He turned and continued on, with Claire and Steven to his right.

“Maybe we should go somewhere else,” Claire said.

“Why?” Keo said.

“He already knows where we’re going.”

“He also says he won’t stop us.”

“And you believe him?”

“No.”

“So…”

Keo shook his head. “There’s nowhere else to go. Arrowhead is the best option right now.”

He could tell that Claire didn’t completely buy his reasoning, but she didn’t say her doubts out loud.

Instead, she said, “I remember the last time you took me for a swim.”

“Excuse me?” Keo said.

“The last time you took me for a swim.”

“Basic?”

“No. Fenton. Remember?”

Keo grinned. “Oh. Yeah.”

“I thought I was going to drown then, too.”

“I seem to remember telling you afterward that you need more swimming lessons.”

“I got them.”

“Sure didn’t look like it back there.”

“Yeah, well, I never learned how to swim down a wild-ass current without swallowing a few gallons of water—” Claire didn’t finish her sentence because Keo had stopped suddenly and glanced back into the woods. “What is it? You heard something?”

“No,” Keo said quietly.

“So why’d you stop?”

“Fenton.”

“What about it?”

“Mr. Mysterious.”

“Who?”

“The guy on the radio.”

“What about him?”

“I remember his voice now.”

Claire’s eyes widened. “Who is he?”

“Buck,” Keo said.

“What?”

“It’s Buck. That was Buck.”

Claire stared at him as if she couldn’t find the words. If Steven recognized the name, he didn’t say anything. The teenager stood silently behind Claire, maybe trying to figure out what he was doing in the woods with them.

Keo unclipped his radio and pressed the transmit lever. “Flectere si nequeo superos, Acheronta movebo.”

Both Claire and Steven gave him a confused look, but Keo ignored them and waited for a response.

He didn’t get it.

At least, not right away.

It took exactly sixteen seconds.

The radio squawked, and the familiar voice laughed through the speaker. “It took you long enough. I was starting to think I didn’t make much of an impression on you.”

Keo said into the radio, “Buck.”

“That’s my name, don’t wear it out.”

“You’re alive.”

“Unless you’re talking to a ghost.”

“That’s good,” Keo said.

“Why’s that?” Buck asked.

“Because it means I can finally kill you myself,” Keo said.

Before Buck could respond, Keo turned the frequency button away and clipped the radio back to his hip.

“Are you sure?” Claire was asking him.

Keo nodded grimly.

“Fuck,” she said.

“Yeah,” he said, before turning to resume their trek. “Come on. We have a long walk ahead of us.”

Claire and Steven followed.

“What if he attacks?” Claire asked.

“He won’t,” Keo said.

“Because he said he wouldn’t?”

“Yes.”

“And what if he lied?”

“He didn’t.”

“But what if he did?”

Keo tightened his grip around the MP5SD, an image of Gaby’s face flashing across his mind’s eye.

“Then I’ll kill him,” Keo said. “But first, I’ll make him wish he’d never survived Darby Bay.”