Quaranteam: North West Ch 26 (Beta) (Patreon)

The following story is based on the fantastic Quaranteam series by CorruptingPower over on Literotica. You can continue to expect general themes of light Mind Control, bonding and Harems from the original, but with a slightly edgy and alternative cast.

Returning Dramatis Personae

House Black

- Harrison ‘Harri’ Black - Sheriff of Black County, ‘Jason Momoa-looking motherfucker’ mountain man (mixed heritage), former Army MP

- Kyla Bautista - Trained dancer, Phillipino Spy, Harri’s Deputy Sheriff, Raven hair

House LaCosta

- Danielle ‘Dani’ - Australian stripper, Brunette

Natives

- Kara Swiftwater - Harrison’s high school sweetheart that ended poorly, community leader of the local Native band, Raven hair

- Gertrude ‘Gerty’ Swiftwater - Kara’s second cousin, Tribal police on the Rez, Voluptuous Native, Raven hair

- Tanaya ??? - Kara’s neighbour on the Rez

OGA

- Captain Magdalene ‘Maggie’ Luckey - African-American, Former Air Force (and former Linda’s Girl, see Phil’s Tale), skilled combatant, mid-recruitment onto Greerson’s team.

Other

- Dylan Taylor - Former Ranger, former CIA, skilled combatant, short with very generic features allowing him to blend into most cultures. Currently runs a Self-Defence Prep Academy and works on Human and Child trafficking cases. Married to Jeanine Taylor.

- Jeanine Taylor - Looks like a blonde housewife, Skilled combatant, certified psychopath. Currently runs a Self-Defence Prop Academy and works on Human and Child Trafficking cases. Married to Dylan Taylor. 

- Jedidiah Crane - Former Pararescue Operator and combat medic, very tall blonde. Ethnically Amish. Skilled combatant.

- Julia De Luca - Helicopter Pilot, former Air Force Pararescue Pilot. Friend and Client of Erica

Referenced Characters

- Agent Greerson - Senior ‘OGA’ that negotiated Harri’s land deal and dropped Kyla into Harri’s life

- Ivy Gauthier - Quebecoise stripper, half-tattooed, Dirty Blonde anal queen

- Erica LaCosta - Fiancee of Harri, Leo’s sister, Italian Tattoo Artist, Dark Brunette

- - - - - - - -

“Pushing the D-side entrance,” I said. The words felt thick in my throat as I stepped out of the grave I’d been hiding in. There were seven of them, it looked like, turned into muddy patches of ground from the rain. The excavator had been carving out another four.

“Wait,” Dylan said over the comms. “We aren’t in position.”

Julia looked at me, and then at the holes, and then back at me as she made the same realisation I already had. Her face was graven but she put a hand on my arm, stopping me. “Tactical awareness, Harri,” she said. “Slow is fast.”

“Fuck,” I grunted, clenching my jaw. Jedidiah was looking at me with a commiserating grimace.

Dylan and Maggie came sliding around the front of the old church building from the direction of the outhouses. “Two confirmed down over here,” Maggie said quietly. “Good shooting, security.”

All we got back was a double click, and I wasn’t sure if that was Kyla and Dani being brief, or if one of them was dealing with the fact that they’d just killed two people. It wasn't the first time for Kyla, but I was pretty damn sure it was for Dani.

“I’ve got a firelane from up in the barn covering the front,” Jeanine cut in over the comms. I glanced towards the barn across the U-shaped compound and saw that she’d unblocked one of the second-floor windows and had her rifle propped on the wooden sill.

“What about the kids, Jeanine?” Dylan asked his wife.

“They’re being good,” she said.

My focus was complete fucking toast. It had gotten a little shaken in the garage when we found the older female captives, but the graves had me all twisted up.

“OK,” I said over the comms as I followed Jedidiah towards our side of the church building. Its heavy stone walls were well cut and placed and I had a feeling the thing was more like a bunker than most churches. Someone had built the place as a partial fortress sometime back in the 1800s and I wondered if it had been to hold off people like my family, or Kara’s. “I need ideas here,” I said quickly. I turned, covering the stone steps down into what had to be a basement entrance. Julia was covering it with me, while Jedidiah watched the big main double doors along with the others.

“Three options,” Dylan said. “Shock and awe, we breach both entrances at the same time, hope we get all of them faster than they can start killing hostages or us. Or we try and do a sneaky peek and get more intel.”

“What’s the third option?” Julia asked.

“Siege,” Dylan sighed. “Kill anyone who comes out until they surrender.”

“But we don’t know enough about these b-a-s-t-a-r-d-s to know if that will work in our favour,” Jeanine said. The fact that she spelt ‘bastards’ meant that the kids must be able to hear her, and for some reason she thought they might not be able to spell.

“Only problem with a sneaky peek is that we’re almost as likely to lose the element of surprise,” Jedidiah chipped in.

“More intel is better than none,” I said. “Alright. I’m taking the basement door, everyone else hold the front while I take a look.”

“I’m coming with you,” Julia said. “You aren’t going in without backup.”

“I should be the one going in,” Jedidiah countered.

“No,” I said. “If you guys need to breach up here then you need to be up here. Same with Dylan and Maggie.”

He turned and glanced back at me, giving me a look. He knew I was making excuses. He knew I just wanted to fucking get in there.

But he didn’t say it.

“Alright,” he said. “You’re the boss, hoss. Team Two, let’s back off a bit and get some crossfire position.”

It only took them a minute to spread out, scattering so that no one would be in each other’s firelines if they needed to open up on the door from cover. They also didn’t want to get too far away either, though, in case they needed to breach the front doors.

“Going down,” I said once we’d all checked in.

“Be careful,” Kyla said softly through the comm.

“I will,” I promised her.

I led the way, my MP5 tight to my shoulder as I took the stone steps down. The rain had made them a little slick, and a pool had formed at the bottom - the door was raised about a foot from the base, so it must have been a common problem. I stopped on the bottom step and blew out a breath.

“Did you seriously think Erica would forgive me if I let you do this alone?” Julia asked from behind me, but not over the comms. She was tight to my back, shotgun ready.

“Wasn’t really thinking of that, but you’re probably right,” I said. “Trying the door.” It was a steel door, much newer than the building, and had a simple vertical pull handle and a heavy-duty deadbolt lock. I wrapped my hand on the handle and pulled gently, but didn’t get any give. Shit, I thought. Am I seriously going to need to have Julia shoot out this lock?

I gave it another tug, though, and it moved.

“It’s sticky,” I said. “We’re going to need to enter fast. This’ll make some noise.”

“So make some noise,” Julia said and patted my shoulder.

I yanked the door hard and it squealed as it ground slightly against the stone frame.

We were in fast, skipping over the water into the dark of the basement.

The inside looked like it must have been renovated over time - cinderblock walls had been added, and we were looking down a short hallway that opened into a dark interior room. The ceiling was almost ten feet up, but the place still felt like a cave. We pushed forward quickly as I hugged the left wall and Julia hugged the right. The room beyond looked like it was the cluttered dumping ground of every generation that had occupied the building since its construction. Piles of random crap were in boxes and crates and scattered on old wooden folding tables. Fabric partitions, stacks of wooden chairs and what looked like corrugated metal sheets blocked the view going deeper in. Still, everything was at least illuminated… barely. Ancient, yellowed bulbs with pull strings were dangling from the ceiling, and the muted thrum of a generator was coming from somewhere ahead and above us.

We reached the end of the little entry hallway, nodded with our firearms and split left and right. Ahead of me was a dark corner of junk. It looked like discarded materials from whenever they erected the big garage structure. I kept my eyes scanning, pivoting to check what ended up being some sort of a coat closet that was filled with piles of clothes. Coming back out, I pressed my way up the back side of the basement and had to weave around a thick concrete support pillar. There was some sort of music going on above us along with the loud thrum of the generator, and if the rain was loud on their roof then I wasn’t surprised that the hillbilly fucks hadn’t heard our shots from earlier, or even the door opening.

I had to sidestep my way around one of those big fabric partitions, but quickly ducked back as I found what I could only think of as the central area of the cluttered basement. And what I’d seen in that brief flash needed a moment to parse out.

Just ahead and to my left, set up along the back brick wall, had been an illuminated area that looked something like a photography setup from back when I’d get school pictures taken in the primary school gym. Even down to the backdrops on rollers. A camera with a tripod on it had been set up but dim. Just beyond it was a sectioned-off area with more of the fabric room dividers, but it had a makeshift roof on it and red light had been coming out - some sort of a shitty black room, I guessed.

Beyond those two little areas, however, had been the cage. It was big - bigger than the one out in the garage, but constructed the same way out of chain link fencing. The lights were dull and yellow in that direction like behind me, but I’d clearly seen it was full of people.

Naked people.

Somewhere past it, there was also a man, sitting in a shitty lawn chair, watching a little old TV with a beer in his hand. He was turned about three-quarters away from me, but he had something in his other hand propped on the floor. It was hidden from my view - it could have been a bat, or a rifle, or a fucking broom. I really couldn’t tell.

“Hostages identified,” I murmured quietly into the comm. “One hostile near cage watching TV.”

“I see him,” Julia murmured back. “I don’t have a shot - he’s backed by the cage.”

“I’m going quiet,” I murmured. “Cover me.”

Julia double-clicked her comm. No one outside was saying anything, holding their security out in the wet without complaint.

I slowly unlimbered my M4 from its shoulder strap and set it down on the ground, then did the same with the MP5, before double-checking my sidearm in its holster and then pulling out my knife.

Lots of civilians, especially those in the city, didn’t get the whole thing about a good knife. People in the backwoods got it though. Rural folk who had to work for a living. A good knife was a useful tool. You could open things with it, close things, poke holes, slice slits. With a good knife you could even hammer a nail or two, do survival procedures, and draw in the fucking dirt if you had to.

To a soldier, though, a knife was almost as important as a rifle. It could do all those things that a rural civilian could use it for, and then you could also kill someone with it.

It was almost always the last line of defence a soldier could have. When shit really went wrong, and the bullets ran dry or the enemy was up on you, knowing how to use a knife half-effectively was a really potent tool. I’d never gotten myself into a spot like that before, and in almost any situation what I was doing was stupid as hell.

But even with the thrum of that generator, and the music, and the rain, and the excavator running outside, there was absolutely no fucking way that anyone upstairs could ignore a gunshot in that basement.

I owned several knives - I wasn’t a collector or anything, there were just different knives for different jobs. Suiting up for the raid, however, I’d fallen back on tried and tested. I pulled the ka-bar out, its dull grey coating keeping the gleam down if it happened to catch a bright light. It was a good fit for my bigger hand, and it was sharp.

Leaving my rifles behind, hearing Sergeants in my past chewing out idiots for pulling this kind of shit echoing through the back of my head, I stepped forward quietly.

The photography area didn’t reveal anything else to me as I slipped past it - the camera would likely have evidence on it we might need later, but now wasn’t the time. I did catch a quick glance of Julia up ahead and to my right, closer to the guard. I came up on the boxy, jerry-rigged dark room and came to a halt, almost losing my footing as I hesitated.

Someone was working in there.

There was a black curtain pulled across the entrance, but I could clearly see a pair of shoes in the red light beneath the edge..

I couldn’t leave him at my back if I made my approach on the guard.

I clicked the comm once and saw Julia look back at me. I gestured to the dark room, held up a finger, and then shrugged and headed towards it. Julia flashed me a grimace but nodded.

The plan formed in my mind quickly. Slide the curtain aside, one hand claps over his mouth, and the other puts the knife to his throat. Whisper a threat in his ear. Use him to approach the other guard - we take them both prisoner, gag and tie them up with anything we find, or extract them for questioning outside.

I pulled the curtain aside and stepped into the dark room, everything turning red from the single overhead bulb. He didn’t turn, didn’t even look. He was focused on the photo he was developing, sloshing it around in the chemical baths. I loomed up behind him, my knife and free hand raised, ready to grab him.

And then I saw the pictures hung on the walls from clothespins. Naked woman after naked woman. Terrified. Trying to hide their nakedness and forced not to. Numbers were written on the corners. 6/10. 7/10. 9/10. 4/10.

He held up his latest picture.

Kara.

I clamped my hand over his mouth and he grunted in surprise, his body jolting as I yanked him back hard against my chest. My fingers stabbed into his cheek and my palm partially smashed into his nose.

My knife didn’t find his throat.

It found his chest.

He was limp when I stopped.

Six, maybe seven stabs. I couldn’t remember them, but I could remember the feel of them. The feel of the blade glancing off ribs, seeking internal organs. It was… crunchy. Blood was only just starting to ooze out of him and I lowered him to the ground. His eyes were glassy, his jaw hanging open. I grabbed the picture of Kara, crumpled it in my fist, and shoved it into his dead mouth.

I was cold inside. I was the void.

It had been six stabs. I’d gotten at least one lung in the first couple, and his heart in the last couple. That was the one that did it, but even if I’d stopped at four he would have died. It just would have taken longer.

I was red hot with rage, and horror.

He wasn’t the first man I’d killed, wasn’t even the first one I’d held in my arms after I did so. But it was the first I killed with anything other than a gun.

And I wasn’t done.

I came back out of the dark room a different man than I had been when I entered. My fears, the really dark ones, hadn’t been confirmed yet. But they were real damn close.

The cage was to my left and ahead. The guard was a straight shot, still watching what seemed to be a taped football game. The little TV had a VCR built into its base, so it had to be an old game, maybe a Superbowl or something. It didn’t matter.

I crept forward, my eyes daggers into his back.

Someone in the cage spotted me as I drifted under the hazy yellow light, and started to say something, but someone else gave a sharp Shh.

Ten steps.

Five steps.

Two steps.

He had a baseball bat in his hand, twirling it absently with his thumb as it balanced upright under his forefinger.

I took his life as I clamped my hand over his mouth and yanked him backwards and to the side, stabbing the knife into the exposed part of his neck in a blow that made almost no noise but immediately sprayed blood across me, the floor, and the TV. It was hot and cloying in my nose and I didn’t care.

He died even faster than the first one.

“Jesus, Harri,” Julia said over the comm.

“Keep looking, there’s got to be a set of stairs,” I murmured back.

I turned to the cage and held up my finger to my lips. I didn’t look at faces. Couldn’t.

At least one of them nodded in acknowledgement, and I pushed forward, pulling out my sidearm one-handed and bracing it with my knife-hand.

There was more crap at the far end of the basement. Another cage too, but it was empty. Two more closets full of what looked like military MREs and other supplies. And the stairs.

They were stone and built into the original structure, about fifteen steps up to a landing and then it doubled back above us heading to the first floor. Julia met me there.

“You OK?” she asked me quietly off the comms.

I nodded, then quietly spit off to the side. She reached over to a pile of what looked like folded napkins and pulled one free, handing it to me. I wiped my face and it came away splotched with red. I wiped with it one more time and dropped it to the ground, still probably looking rough.

“Basement clear, two hostiles down,” I murmured into the mic. “Securing interior stairwell. Wait for intel.”

We got a double-click back in acknowledgement.

“I’ll hold this, go get your gear and talk to the women,” Julia said.

I nodded and patted her shoulder as she took up a position with her shotgun covering the stairs. The quick walk back was a lot faster since I could stand up and stride confidently rather than sneak. I focused forward, not looking at the cage or the body, and quickly went and secured my rifles, slinging the M4 and holding my MP5 for the close-quarters fighting.

Then I went back to the cage and finally looked more carefully at what I was seeing.

Thirty-five, maybe forty women. All younger than the ones we’d found out in the garage. All naked. Most were trying to cover themselves, and many were looking at me fearfully but staying quiet.

“Kara?” I asked, approaching the cage. It had a door at the front but it was padlocked. “Kara? Are you there? Gerty?”

“Harrison,” a woman said, squeezing to the front. She kept an arm over her small breasts but didn’t cover her lower half, instead holding up a hand to warn me away. It took me a moment to realise who it was.

“Tanaya,” I said, stepping closer.

“Don’t touch the cage!” she hissed, her eyes large in warning and making me hesitate. I felt like I wanted to rip the fucking thing down with my bare hands, but I didn’t touch it. She pointed to the upper corner of the cage and I followed her direction, seeing a pair of decently thick copper wires looped around the metal of the cage tightly and secured messily with some sort of rubber caulking. I followed the lines of the wires up and back to the ceiling, where they disappeared through a hole in the thick wood.

“It’s electrified,” Tanaya said.

“They turn it off upstairs when they take one of us out,” another woman said.

“Fuck,” I grunted, examining the wires again. They could be hooked up to the generator, but more likely they had a couple of car batteries up there or something. I looked back down at Tanaya. “Where are-?”

“Gerty is here, in the back,” Tanaya said. “She’s… she’s sick. We’ve been trying to hide the ones who are sick behind everyone else. They’ve already taken a few of us out who were starting to cough and bleed and we heard shots.”

“We have a medical response coming,” I said quietly. “We’ll get Gerty safe, and anyone else who’s sick. What about Kara?”

Tanaya’s look was stoic in that way that a woman could have when she knew she was giving you bad news. I’d seen it a couple of times before in my life, one of which was when my CO delivered the news that I was being relieved of duty after I’d punched the Air Force commander who had been assaulting Miriam. Tanaya wasn’t pretty so much as striking, all sharp lines in her features and skinny like a runway model, so the look was particularly severe coming from her.

“They took Kara upstairs a little while ago,” she said. “Along with a couple of other women. We don’t know what for.”

I grimaced and closed my eyes for half a moment, my silent, wordless prayer more of an internal scream of anger.

“Alright,” I said, opening my eyes again as I looked at Tanaya, and then met the eyes of several of the other women in the cage. “Has anyone been up there?” All I got were shaking heads and I blew out a breath. “OK, that’s fine. We’ve got people outside, too. We’re going to need to attack them up there, then I can cut the battery and come back and get you all out of there. We’ve already found the kids and the other ladies. This is almost over.”

“Harri,” Tanaya said, and I focused on her face again. “What you did to those men…”

“I-” I started, but wasn’t sure what to say.

“It’s the least they deserve,” Tanaya said, her husky voice making it sound like the words of a primal god. “Don’t let them do this to us. Your people. Make them pay in blood.”

I grimaced a little harder, my face likely stuck with that expression for now, and nodded. “I’ll be back as soon as I can,” I said.

I left the ladies behind, opening up my comm as I returned to Julia. “Hostages are behind an electrified fence,” I said quickly. “At least three have been taken upstairs. We’re going to peek, then prepare to breach.”

Dylan started calling the shots outside, getting them into position. I reached Julia, settling in beside her. “Anything?” I asked off comm.

“Nothing,” she said. “Did you find her?”

I shook my head. “Her friend, and her cousin is sick down here. Sounds like the graves were for women who were showing final-stage Duo Halo sickness. I don’t get why these guys would wear masks on the raid, but take them off when around them here.”

“Who knows,” Julia sighed and shrugged. “So who’s peeking, you or me?”

“I think we both do,” I said. “Depends on what’s at the top of the stairs. I can probably give you a lift to peek instead of climbing up.”

She considered for a moment and then nodded. We moved out from her cover and headed to the base of the stairs. The double flights were all stone, and I leaned in and looked up - there was a railing at the top blocking off the drop instead of a wall. I slung my MP5 off my shoulder and went up a step, then crouched and put my hands together into a saddle and motioned with my head to Julia. She set her shotgun down leaning against the wall and pulled her pistol, setting her hands on my shoulders and one foot into my hands.

“Just like high school,” she muttered.

“You were a cheerleader?” I asked, just as quietly.

“...Yeah, let’s go with that,” she said.

She pushed off from the ground and I lifted with my arms, and she pivoted at the waist and then turned fully in my hands as I kept lifting, her other foot joining the first. This let her get high enough to peek through the bars of the railing, her pistol held level with her chin just in case someone was right there. She looked for a couple of solid seconds, peering back and forth as I struggled to keep her up there in an awkward position. If she were going higher I could have gotten her up onto my shoulders, but she was just at the right height.

Finally, even if it had only been a few seconds at best, Julia signalled and I lowered her down, then dropped her and caught her by her waist. We both got off the stairs and she holstered her pistol, picking up the shotgun. “Looks like it’s one big room up there from what I could see,” she said through the comms. “But I couldn’t see the whole thing. At least six hostiles, maybe more. It’s some sort of a main chapel. The D-side where we entered has a stage and an altar, and there was activity over there. Closer to us on the B-side, it looked like there might have been some sort of group working on something.”

“Copy,” Dylan said. “Large single room, two entrances. Did you see hostages?”

“Not specifically,” Julia said.

“Other hostages report three women were taken up there recently,” I filled in.

“Alright,” Jedidiah said. “Is there a reason to rush here, or can we pick them off as they come outside or downstairs?”

I glanced at Julia, who was looking at me. We didn’t know what was happening up there, and thinning their ranks with ambushes was probably the right thing to do without solid proof.

“Jeanine, you’re the trafficking expert,” I said. “You make the call. I’ve got thirty-five plus naked women in an electrified cage down here, and they took three of them upstairs. Is this an imminent threat?”

“I’m coming down from the barn,” Jeanine said. “And then we go.”

“Alright,” I said. “Flashbangs on three.”

There was a long minute of silence on the comms, and then Dylan said, “Team One set.”

“Team Two set,” I replied after a quick nod from Julia. I had a flashbang in hand, and she had one as well. “On three. One. Two.” I pulled the pin, holding the lever down. “Three.”

Julia and I each surged forward and turned on the stairs, heaving our stun grenades up over the railing. She aimed right while I aimed more left. At the same time, the others would be pushing open the main doors and tossing in one or two of their own.

BANG-BANGBANGBANG.

Julia and I had ducked back down, and as the flashbangs went off she took off up the stairs as I fell in behind her, emerging into the brightly lit sanctuary. It was a big chamber spanning the entire width and length of the old building. The roof high above, well over twenty feet, was vaulted and the sound of the rain was coming heavy from the wooden rafters. For a split second before I got a good look at the details all I saw was a church. At the far end was a pulpit and altar up on a stone stage, with a big wooden cross to match the one outside mounted to the wall. Old, heavy pews were mostly lined up facing towards the pulpit, though space had been cleared in a couple of areas and some of them were stacked up against the walls.

Then the weird details started to fill in. There was a hot tub right in front of the stage and a guy wearing an off-white gown was in it. It was so stained that I could see some of the filthy rings from across the building. The walls weren’t decorated with motifs of Christianity - instead, there was an eclectic mix of old shooting targets, posters, and a variety of flags. Someone had spray-painted a message in Latin on the wall across from the main doors. There was also what looked like a small armoury set up behind the altar, right under the cross - rickety racks of rifles were lined up along with boxes of bullets.

Beyond the man in the hot tub, I immediately took in three other spots where there were people. First was the group to my forward-right; they were sitting in some pews and were reeling away from the explosion of the stun grenade near them. Next closest was a man standing most of the way towards the stage and hot tub. Two dark-haired women wearing simple white gowns that might have been tablecloths were clutched in his fists by the back of their ‘dresses.’ And lastly, there were several men up near the armoury.

Those ones were a problem because they weren’t anywhere near where a flashbang landed.

The front door was swinging open and Jedidiah was first in, followed quickly by Maggie and Dylan.

Julia was the first to shoot, her shotgun blast echoing in the open, stone-walled space as she released buckshot at the closest group of men to us. It was shooting fish in a barrel at that range while they were at least partially blinded and deafened, and I left them to her as I knelt and aimed down range towards the armoury. The M4 would have been a more secure bet at the range, but the MP5 could still get it done and I didn’t have the time to swap.

My first shots spanged off of the metal shelving but the third bullet tracked into the chest of one of the militia. By the time I had my first shots off the room had turned to chaos.

Jedidiah, Maggie, Dylan and Jeanine were all inside and firing. There had been a couple more knots of men I hadn’t noticed prior, closer to the front door, and they were ducking for cover. Julia was shooting blasts hard and fast, taking bites out of the wooden pews and people with equal savage efficiency.

My second burst of rounds sent one of the armoury militia reeling away but didn’t put him down. I was a little distracted, however, because the guy in the stained priest robe was shouting up towards the ceiling and struggling to hold something under the water of the hot tub. Or someone.

 I was up off my knee and moving forward down the central aisle through the pews, Julia following me. I took a moment, aiming down the pews to my right and putting a few bullets into scrambling men, and Julia did the same with her buckshot. They weren’t my priority, though, and I swung back around and aimed down my sights briefly at the man who’d been holding the two women by the scruff of their dresses - he was still up, and trying to use them as human shields. My muzzle drifted back to centre-front though, looking down the aisle at the hot tub. The ‘priest’ was struggling to keep the person underwater with both hands, but was still shouting his prayers through the blast of guns. I felt the tug of a bullet whizzing past my ear from the direction of the armoury but I didn’t raise my gun higher - Jedidiah and Maggie were laying down fire on them already and I wasn’t about to let the fucker in the hot tub drown someone.

Poppoppop-poppop. The sound of my shots was lost in the cascade of booms rattling through the old church, the stone walls just magnifying the noise. I felt each one though, the kick of the recoil against my hands and shoulder. Each little dot of the grouping appeared on the ‘priest’s chest one after the other. He fell backwards and the woman he’d been holding underwater burst out, gasping for air and clawing to get herself over the side of the tub and away from him. She had long black hair.

All at once the shooting stopped, but the sound didn’t. Dylan, Maggie, and Jedidiah were shouting orders. The survivors were surrendering. ‘Get on the floor.’ ‘Slide the gun out of the way.’ ‘Let go of the women.’

The guy holding the two women was still up. Jeanine was approaching them, her rifle held off to the side non-threatening, but her other hand was behind her back and gripping a pistol. As she got closer, saying something non-threatening, the guy let one of the women go and she bolted. There was a split second where he was only half-covered, and Jeanine swung her pistol around and shot him right in the balls. The other woman was free to bolt after that as he collapsed.

I wasn’t paying attention to the survivors or the surrender. I was heading for Kara, naked and scrambling on the floor, soaking wet.

“Hey,” I said, letting my rifle drop to my side on its shoulder sling. “Hey, hey, hey, it’s OK. It’s OK.”

I’d gotten within a couple of feet of her and had to dodge back as Kara spun, swinging a broken chair leg at me. Her eyes were wild, and her teeth bared in a feral snarl of fear and adrenaline. Her wet hair clung to her shoulders and forehead and cheeks.

“Kara, it’s me,” I said, holding up my hands to show her they were empty. “It’s me, baby. I’m here. You’re safe.”

She was panting hard, her eyes flickering around for another long moment until they finally focused on my face, and then the panic broke and she broke with it, curling down on herself as she clutched her body.

“I’m so sorry, baby,” I said, going to her and kneeling next to her, wrapping my arms around her as she started sobbing in my arms. “I’m so fucking sorry I wasn’t here earlier. I’m so fucking sorry.”

‘W-wait,” she said, her sobbing breaking her voice, and then she was trying to push me off. “Don’t- Harrison, don’t touch me. It’s not safe!”

I let go, letting her pull back from me. “What do you mean?” I asked.

She looked anguished and a little horrified as she looked at me. “The water,” she said. “It’s contaminated. It’s- God, Harri, they were trying to cleanse the virus with some fucking baptism bullshit. They kept saying that the others died because they didn’t repent. They- they were trying to forcefully convert me because I- I was on the tribal council. But that tub is full of water that the others were coughing and bleeding into…”

I clamped my mouth shut for a moment, swallowing hard.

It would be fine. I would be fine.

I wasn’t worried about me. I wasn’t even worried about Kara - we’d get her sorted.

“Julia,” I called and heard her approaching behind me. “Can you help Kara get covered up and dried- Actually, shit, you’re not vaccinated. Um. Can you find something for her to put on?”

“I can do that,” Julia said.

“Baby, it’s safe,” I said, opening my arms to Kara. “Just- I’m so sorry.”

She came to me, wrapping her arms around me despite the vest and the gear, and I held her tight and didn’t want to let go.

“I’m so fucking sorry,” I whispered hoarsely to her again.

“Stop,” she said. “Stop apologising. You- you came, Harri. God, you saved me. Us.”

“Hey, boss,” Dylan called. “Sorry to interrupt, but we need to talk.”

“Kara,” I said softly. “I- I need you to go downstairs. I’m going to get the battery disconnected from the cage. I’m pretty sure your clothes are in one of the back closet spaces down there. I’ll come get you in a couple of minutes.”

“Your voice changed,” she said, pulling back and looking me in the eyes. Her beautiful brown eyes were the same warm colour even if she had dark rings under her eyes from sleeplessness and panic. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” I said. “Not anymore.”

She nodded, and I helped her stand. Julia had come back and handed me a big tablecloth. It was dirty, but I wrapped Kara up in it so she was covered. “Go with Julia,” I said. “OK?”

Kara nodded, blinking and standing a little straighter as she looked around the chapel. The place was hazy with smoke from the gunfight and had the smell of gunpowder thick in the air. Bodies were scattered across the stage and altar, the pews, and the ‘priest’ was still half in the hot tub. There were a few sprays of blood across the walls and a lot more pooling on the heavy oak floorboards. Soon that iron smell of clotting blood would overtake the gunpowder.

Dylan and Maggie had five men facing the wall near the door, hands on their heads. Dylan was rubbing his chest with a pained expression - he’d caught a bullet with his vest at some point during the firefight but had bounced back, probably jacked full of adrenaline. Jeanine and one of the other native women who I guessed had been waiting for her turn to get ‘baptised’ were trying to coax the third woman out from where she’d wedged herself between the wall and several tables against one wall. Jedidiah, meanwhile, was methodically moving through the room and flipping over bodies to make sure they were actually dead. One groaned, and he grimaced and the boom of a single shot as he put an end to the man echoed through the room. He was bleeding from a wound on his arm, but it didn’t look like it was incapacitating him in any way.

“Don’t- Don’t touch me,” Kara said to Julia. “I’m covered in contaminated water. Just help me get Olivia and Wanda downstairs.”

Julia nodded and shot me a look that I had a hard time interpreting until she looked over at the surrendered militia. I wasn’t sure if she was encouraging or discouraging me in regard to what I might do next.

I pulled Kara into my arms again, hugging her tightly. “It’s over now,” I said. “We just need to do a little housekeeping.”

“Thank you,” she whispered.

I let her go and sent her off with Julia, and they headed towards Jeanine and the other women.

Meanwhile, I went over to the generator that was still chugging away and quickly found that I’d been right - the wires connected to the cage down in the basement weren’t hooked up to the generator but were attached to a bank of car batteries in a couple of milk crates using a jerry-rigged booster cable situation. I stopped myself from just kicking it or shooting it and instead released the clamps by hand, breaking the connection.

I turned and headed for Dylan and Maggie. Of the five men, two were clearly injured. One was bleeding from a wound on his side as he shook on his feet, and another was standing on one foot, his leg dripping blood on the ground.

“They say the boss was that guy,” Dylan said, nodding towards the hot tub. “And that we’re all going to hell for murdering the Mouthpiece of Wrath.”

“Sounds like some D&D bullshit to me,” I grunted.

“What do you want to do with them, Sheriff?” Maggie asked me.

I took a breath and let it out heavily. “What’s the ETA on the medical QRF?”

“Ten minutes, maybe less,” Maggie said, checking her watch.

“Let’s see what they want to tell us in ten minutes,” I said. “Let’s take them outside.”

We marched them out into the rain. It was coming down hard again, all of us immediately getting soaked as I led them over to where the excavator was still rumbling. I climbed up and found the key, reaching around the body still sitting in the driver’s seat to turn the thing off, and then got down and looked at the militiamen. They were all scruffy, dressed in old hunting clothes, but had patches on their shirts and vests with red crosses that were just a little too similar to the medical Red Cross than I liked.

“Knees,” I barked at them. Jedidiah and Jeanine had followed us out, and soon all five of the men were on their knees as we surrounded them. The rain was beating down on us, the light a cold grey. Even the mud was grey and washed out, the freshly dug half-graves behind the line of men.

“Who wants to tell us what the fuck made you think any of what you were doing was a good idea?” I asked.

None of the men opened their mouths, though a couple glanced at each other out of the corners of their eyes.

“What was the plan with the women and children?” Jeanine demanded.

“They were being saved for the glory of god,” one of the men said. He had a split lip and I wondered who had hit him.

“And how were they being saved? Living with you here in this shithole?” I asked.

“The Pastor was supposed to take them,” another man said and got shushed by several others.

I pulled my sidearm and shot one of the shushers in the head.

The bang was a dull echo through the compound. The rain dulled everything.

“The prisons are shut down,” I said, mostly to the men but partially to the others on my team. I had no idea how they were feeling about this, but my heart was empty.

I was the void.

“The virus swept through them,” I continued. “Thousands of prisoners, guards and staff dead. There isn’t anyone left to man most of them. Justice doesn’t come with a gavel and a sentence of years these days.” I looked to the others, who all had grim looks on their faces except for Jeanine, who had a righteous smile on her face as she nodded to me. “And anyone we do arrest and take in will eventually need to get the serum.”

That got me eye contact as they each made the connection.

For these men to live, someone would need to be partnered to them. Maybe more than one someone.

Dylan nodded. Jedidiah grimaced, his upper lip curling into almost a snarl. Maggie spit off to the side, clearly disgusted by the idea.

I turned back to the four survivors. “Who is the Pastor?” I demanded.

They all glared at me, and one of them tried to spit but it dribbled out of his mouth.

“Who were the naked photographs for?” I demanded.

The one on the right end of the line started to sing Amazing Grace. His voice was quakey and ugly, but he started to belt it out as the rain cascaded. The others quickly picked up the song.

I wasn’t religious, and even I felt like it was sacrilege for them to be singing it.

“Three minutes,” Maggie said, checking her watch again.

I grabbed the one who had talked about the Pastor the first time, hauling him to his feet and holding him by his face. “Last chance,” I said. “Who is the Pastor? How many more of you are there out here?”

“They didn’t tell me nothin’,” the man said and then started trying to sing again.

I shoved him back down onto his ass and looked at the others. “I’m ending this,” I said. “Anyone who doesn’t want a part can head inside.”

For a second I thought Jedidiah and Maggie were going to step away, but they both looked down at the men, and the graves, and stayed. I keyed my comm. “Kyla, Dani, don’t watch,” I said. And then I nodded to Jeanine.

It wasn’t pretty. She didn’t make it fast. The psychopathic soccer mom didn’t just shoot them in the head or the chest. She made them feel it as she emptied her rifle magazine into limbs and guts.

Maggie kicked one back down when he tried to rise and bolt, her kick sending him sprawling back into one of the graves. Jedidiah ended him with a burst from his rifle.

It wasn’t done when Kyla called over the comms that the QRF was coming up the driveway, but it wrapped up quickly after that.  Boom. Boom. Boom. No survivors.

Jeanine went to the barn, happy as a pig in shit with her work, and Dylan followed her. Jedidiah went to the garage to free the older women from the cage there. That left Maggie and I, for the moment, walking in the rain towards the little well in the centre of the courtyard as the big army trucks rumbled around the bend. I waved and they circled around the muddy area. Seven trucks in all, and I had a feeling we were going to need more.

“Sorry if this was a bit more than you or Greerson were expecting,” I said to Maggie.

“Not what I was expecting when I woke up to a phone call this morning,” Maggie said. “But a job worth doing, I think. My old CO, Linda, would have looked at all this and probably made the same decisions you did. But who’s Greerson?”

I looked at her and raised my eyebrows as Kyla and Dani came out of the forest towards us. “Really?” I asked. “He sent you.”

“Don’t know him,” Maggie shrugged. “I got my orders from my recruiting officer.”

“Well, I’m sure you will,” I sighed, shaking my head.

The soldiers, actual Army this time and not the National Guard, started piling out of the backs of the trucks in full hazmat gear as Kyla and Dani reached us. Kyla looked grim, and Dani not much better, but we didn’t have time to touch base because the soldiers were shouting for us to put our hands up. It took a hot second for communication to be established properly, but I was soon giving directions to the Captain in charge of the unit. Kyla and Dani joined the medics heading towards the barn and the kids, while Maggie joined the group headed towards the garage - we didn’t want Dylan or Jedidiah getting mistaken as an enemy.

That left me to lead a group of medics towards the church while the soldiers set up security and started looking at emptying the vehicles out of the garage parking area to set up their field hospital.

The first issue I had was the choice of how to bring the medics in. Straight in the main doors and through the internal stairwell meant they would see, and be distracted by, the big firefight area. Veering left towards the outdoor stairs into the basement would bring them right past the graves, and what had happened there.

I led them to the front doors but stopped before entering. “It’s bad in here, ladies and gents,” I said. “But you’re here for the hostages, not to check the bodies. Got it?”

There were some heavy grumbles and a lot of glances between each other. I had five medics with me under their hazmat domes and none of them seemed thrilled that I was giving them orders.

We entered the church and I could hear some swearing behind me as they got a look at the carnage. With the door standing open much of the smoke had dispersed because of the breeze coming in, but the stink of blood was starting to get stronger. We picked our way through the blood and bodies and church pews towards the back stairs, and I stopped at the top where we could hear the dim sound of voices.

“Julia, I’m coming down with the medics,” I called.

“Got it,” Julia called back.

I led the way and we wove our way back towards the middle of the basement through the channels of tables and piles of crap. The hazmat gear made it a little harder for them than me, so I arrived first to see that the body of the former guard had been dragged behind one of the barriers and out of sight. The cage was hanging open, most of the women having come out - I could hear them further down the building and vaguely see them moving as they tried to find their clothes from the pile in that closet I’d passed by. Julia was standing in the area outside the cage, grimacing, as I approached. Kara was standing apart from her, still swathed in the old tablecloth. Her hair was drying haphazardly but she didn’t seem to care, her eyes stuck on the cage until she noticed me and took a deep breath.

“Gerty won’t come out,” Kara said.

“She’s showing signs of the virus,” Julia said through her grimace. “Heavy coughing, a little bit of blood in it. They all know what that means and she was trying to suppress it as much as possible to not get any of the others sick if she could help it. I’d go in, but…”

I nodded, turning to the medics. “Most of the hostages are down that way,” I said, pointing towards them “Julia will bring you to them. And this is Kara, she needs decontamination protocols ASAP. Did you guys bring Serum with you?”

One of the docs shook his head in his hood. “Air Force isn’t releasing it to the Army,” he said. “We got a briefing about it this morning. We need to shuttle everyone here back to our staging base at Grand Ronde, about 25 minutes away. They’ve got a Doctor and some nurses there to handle it.”

I clenched my jaw but nodded. “Most of these women, if not all of them now, will be infected. Probably the same with the older women and the kids. We need to handle any injuries as fast as possible and then get anyone showing symptoms moving ASAP.”

The medics all nodded, grimacing behind their hazmat hoods. If they’d gotten a briefing, as medics and doctors, they had probably gotten one even more thorough than the information I had on what the virus did to a person's body.

Julia took three of them with her, while a female medic approached Kara carefully and started asking her questions. Kara looked to me, obviously uncomfortable dealing with someone from the Army.

“Listen to her, Kara,” I said. “She’s a doctor first, and they need to get you cleaned up. I’m not going anywhere without you, OK?”

She pressed her lips together and nodded, breathing shallowly, and then paid attention to the Doc. That gave me the space to focus on the cage and the women inside.

I went to the door and found that Gerty was still naked, curled up in the back of the fenced area in the fetal position, her back to the door. She was coughing hard, her body shaking with the effort. Tanaya, dressed in a bra and jeans and likely not having found her shirt in the piles before coming back to Gerty, was standing there holding what must have been Gerty’s clothes. Another woman was there as well, and they had both obviously been trying to convince Gerty to move.

I made sure to brush the fencing of the cage as I stepped in, getting their attention.

“She won’t let anyone get close to her,” Tanaya said, her eyes a little teary and her stoic expression trying to hide an obvious heartbreak for her friend. “She says she’ll die here in the cold before she risks anyone else.”

I sighed, shaking my head a little. What would I have done, in her position? My gut instinct would be to try and protect everyone else too. Isolate, try and cough anywhere but in their direction. Keep my bodily fluids to myself because they were rife with the virus. And Gerty had been watching people die of the virus for weeks. She knew the aftermath, if not the process.

She knew she had already planted a ticking time bomb in anyone else who wasn’t already infected. There was also going to be an almost insurmountable amount of guilt. She’d been carrying it for two weeks and Kara and Tanaya had lived with her for almost a week of that time.

“OK,” I said, blowing out a breath. “I’ve got this.”

I motioned for Gerty’s shirt, and Tanaya handed it over. Then I approached the naked woman.

“Don’t,” Gert groaned raspily. “Stay the fuck back.”

“Not going to happen,” I said firmly, going down to one knee behind her.

“Just get them out of here, Harrison,” she wheezed. “I’m already sick. Just- Just find me somewhere nice to bury me. Somewhere they can plant a tree and visit if they want to.”

“You might be sick, but you aren’t dying, Officer Gertrude,” I said. “You think I came all this way to leave your fine ass behind?”

“Take them and get out of here,” she said. It was meant to be a demand, but her lack of energy made it a little less than a firm statement.

“Bad news, Officer,” I said. “We cancelled the pity party. Ain’t no sad clowns, deflated balloons or tiny violins anywhere around here.” I reached down and took her by the arm, starting to pull her up to sitting.

“No!” Gerty grunted, pulling her arm away from me.

“Gerty, do you want to get the vaccine and get better or not?” I asked harshly. “Cause right now your options are let me get clothes on you, bring you out of this little slice of hell, and get you better; or you refuse medical treatment, break the hearts of Tanaya and Kara and all the women you’ve been trying to protect, and are remembered as a quitter.”

Gerty was still for a long moment as she absorbed what I’d said, and then was wracked with another bout of coughing that sounded wet and painful. When it subsided she lowered her hand, wiping it on the floor, and turned her head to look at me. “You have… the vaccine?” she asked.

“A short drive away,” I said. “Enough for everyone who needs it, and right now it looks like you’re Number One on the list.”

She swallowed and grimaced, her brow furrowing. “You’re sure it’ll work?”

“Would I be hovering over your stanky, kidnapped butt if I wasn’t?”

“Probably,” she said.

“Fair,” I said. “But I’m telling you I’m sure. Now, you’re sexy as hell, but I’m gonna need to get your clothes on you, babe. We don’t want you flashing all the Army docs and soldiers and have them falling in love at first sight.”

She snorted softly, managing to roll her eyes despite herself, and let me help her up. Her nakedness was entirely non-sexual in the moment, but there wasn’t any way to ignore her curves as I helped her get her shirt on as she groaned at the aching protests in her body. Tanaya ended up coming forward and helped me get her standing, and we helped her get into the sweatpants she’d been wearing when they’d been taken.

The final medic had been waiting outside the cage respectfully and I handed off Tanaya and Gerty to him, telling them I wouldn’t be leaving without seeing them. Kara and the medic who she’d been dealing with were gone already, and I could hear the ladies at the far end of the basement following the directions of the medics and Julia. That gave me a moment of silence to myself, and my eyes drifted towards the brightly lit photography space, and the dark room beside it.

It was evidence, but what was in there were physical representations of the trauma the women had been put through.

I had to turn away before I went and ripped down the pictures and found somewhere to burn them. I wasn’t sure what I would need to do yet and I couldn’t let the cold rage I felt when I looked at the booth dictate my actions. Not now that the fighting was done.

I ended up heading back up the stairs and into the chapel where the blood stink was continuing to build. The doors were standing open, which helped, and it looked like the rain had backed off again and was just sprinkling. The Captain in command met me at the door, his face cold.

“We need to talk about what happened here, Sheriff,” he said. “I’m getting some reports of…” He didn’t finish the sentence but looked like he wanted to spit.

“We did what needed doing,” I said from my chest, standing tall and levelling my gaze at him.

“This is the United States, not some backwater shithole,” he retorted. “There’s rule of law. You can’t be the judge, jury and executioner.” He jabbed a finger over towards the graves. “That shit would be a fucking war crime overseas, and it’s murder here.”

“It’s justice,” I growled. “We don’t have a court system right now. We don’t have prisons. I might be the only cop outside of a city in this quarter of the state. I am the rule of law, whether I like it or not, Captain. How many hostages did we just save?”

He grimaced, looking away. “Twenty-eight kids, fifty-two women.”

“And I had to do it with retired veterans,” I said. “Not a SWAT team, not the FBI. We’ve gone back a hundred and fifty years out here, Captain. This is the Wild West. Politicians don’t care about the rural backwater shitholes out here. They barely did before the pandemic. I’m a Sheriff, elected by the people of my county. I tracked some culty freaks down here, raised a posse, and we brought justice down on them.”

“It’s murder,” he repeated himself forcefully.

“Tell that to the women buried in those other graves,” I snarled. “Tell that to the three hundred men and women who they executed up on the reservation they kidnapped these people from. Three hundred, at the last count. And it only happened yesterday so that number might keep getting bigger. Or how about you tell that to the women about to come up from this basement. The ones who were stripped naked and photographed before getting shoved in an electrified cage? The ones who were going to be shipped off to God-knows-where for God-knows-what evil shit? Tell me which of these men deserved anything less than the fucking noose or electric chair. Tell me which women of the world should get pawned off onto them with the vaccine. You got the briefing along with the Docs, I’d bet. Tell me why they deserved anything but a fucking bullet or a goddamn noose!”

I was shouting by the end, jabbing my finger at the man without actually touching him. There were a dozen soldiers around, some of them looking nervous, some of them looking stoic behind their hazmat suits and nodding along.

“I’m not leaving anything out of my report,” the Captain said petulantly.

“I didn’t ask you to,” I snapped back, shoving past him and stalking towards where Dylan was standing with Kyla, Dani and Julia. All four of them were watching me, and I could see Jeanine further back, watching from the entrance to the garage area as she helped watch over the rescued kids. She gave me a nod when our eyes met briefly.

“That seemed like a good conversation,” Dylan said dryly as I joined them.

“I’m a little on edge,” I said, gritting my teeth.

“I think we all are,” Maggie said. “Only a few of these soldiers have seen actual combat - the docs and medics were all Reservists who got called up and yanked out of their civilian jobs early on. We’re talking fresh, and since then they’ve been working with the CDC and National Guard. Lots of helping people, not a lot of dealing with war scenarios.”

I shook my head, glancing around. The women were being brought up out of the basement by the side stairs and several of them noticed the graves - more than a few spit in the direction of the dead men, and a few even ran over and kicked the bodies before getting pulled back by others.

“Let’s talk intel,” Dylan said.

“We got intel?” I asked.

“Comms room up in the barn,” he said, nodding towards it. “They had a bank of burner phones and a laptop hooked up to the satellites to get internet. One of them managed to trash the laptop in time, but we’ve got the phones and we’ve got the scraps of notes someone was writing down. I only took a first glance at it all, but we might be able to figure out who else these assholes were working with.”

“One of them mentioned ‘The Pastor,’” I said. “But that guy inside looked like a mockup of a culty priest.”

“Cults of a feather flock together,” Dylan grimaced. “Usually cults aren’t about grabbing people and moving them on, they’re about trying to keep the people they’ve enticed in. That’s just usually though. You’re the boss here, Harrison, so we can do what you want with the evidence.”

“You want to take it though,” Kyla guessed. She’d been quiet since the end of the raid, and staying near Dani, so I wasn’t sure what she was thinking or feeling. Dani was obviously a little uncomfortable but putting up a facade that she was OK.

Dylan nodded slowly. “Jeanine and I have a lot of experience in picking apart this kind of stuff. I’m not sure what kind of resources you’ve got at your disposal, Harri, and I don’t want to step on your toes here.”

“Box it and take it,” I said. “Just keep me updated. If there’s a trail to follow, I’ll help follow it.”

Dylan nodded to me, and then to the ladies, and went towards the barn to do just that.

Maggie, Dani, Kyla and I got rounded up then before I could talk with them more, one of the medics coming over and telling us we needed to go through the decontamination showers they’d set up. Thankfully they weren’t looking to strip us down at the moment, though I had a feeling that would be coming soon. We took off our firearms and other equipment so they could get sprayed down and sanitized while we were put in little plastic sheeting sleeves and were ordered to scrub ourselves down as the sanitizing chemicals rained down on us. It smelled like bitter alcohol, tasted worse if it got in the mouth, and left a mild sting all over that made me worry about what we were doing to our bodies while trying to clean ourselves up.

Once we were done scrubbing, we were lined up and sprayed down with water to rinse off.

And the whole time we had one of the medics directing us to scrub harder and reach the tough-to-get spots.

Once we were decontaminated it was a flurry of activity as people were getting moved around. Kyla and Dani went to get my truck from the highway, and I checked in on the hostages. Tanaya had found her shirt and saw me looking, nudging Kara who had been staring at the wall of the empty garage building. They both came over to me looking as freshly scrubbed as I felt.

“Are you OK?” I asked. “Where’s Gerty?”

“We’ll be OK,” Kara said. “They aren’t making Gerty go through the shower because she’s so sick. They said we’ll move soon.”

“Alright,” I nodded. “I’ll be going with you. Every step of the way.”

Both women nodded, and I grunted and pulled them both into a hug. Kara, the taller of the two, groaned softly and wrapped her arms around my neck, burying in tightly. Despite everything, the violence and the rage and the cold, empty feeling in my chest that was lingering, it felt good to hold her against me like that. Tanaya was a little more timid, and I looked down at her. “Shit or get off the pot,” I said. “I’m here for you if you need me.”

She looked up at me, her eyes soulful, and she seemed to make a decision and hugged me tighter.

“We could all hear what you said,” Kara said quietly. “To the guy in charge.”

“Shit,” I sighed.

“You were right, Harri,” Kara said.

“We aren’t OK, but you gave us some justice,” Tanaya agreed. “And on days like this, that’s the most we can ask for.”

“God,” I groaned, hugging them tighter.

When we finally let each other go, more of the women were hovering nearby and they started to thank me. They took my hands, squeezing hard. They looked into my eyes. They said the words. They sobbed them.

I felt cold as I accepted the thanks, and I quickly had to move on or I’d get overwhelmed.

I could still feel the way my knife plunged into a man, over and over, taking a life.

One of the doctors came over to confer with me and Jedidiah once he was finished with his chemical shower - apparently, the Captain didn’t want to deal with me himself. We quickly organized the first group that would head back to their staging ground near Grand Ronde. There wasn’t enough space in the Army ambulance trucks for all of the hostages, so we would need to take it into two goes. Several of the women and children were related so we had to keep them together, but otherwise, it was more of a rough estimate of who was more at risk of Duo Halo than others.

And that included our team.

I spoke with Gerty quickly as they were loading her into one of the ambulances, showing her that we were going to be right behind her in my truck. She was on a gurney and under a protective hood with a ventilation system since she was still coughing up flecks of blood. I pressed my hand to the plastic and she gave me enough pressure back that I wasn’t worried about her for the drive time. Kyla and Tanaya were in the ambulance with her.

It wasn’t until we all bundled into my truck, the gear stowed in the back, that we finally had a version of quiet as we started to follow the ambulance trucks out of the compound. That was when I could start to hear the ringing in my ears from the gunfight. When I could feel my adrenaline finally start to wash out of me, letting me feel every ache and pain. My leg with the gunshot wound that still wasn’t fully scarred over was on fire. I’d picked up a dozen little scrapes and cuts. My eyes felt like they were too big for their sockets.

“I love you, and I’m sorry,” I said as we pulled onto the highway. I was looking at Kyla.

“Don’t be,” Kyla said. “For any of it. And I love you too.”

I knew we would talk more, and would likely need time to cry and shout and rage. We didn’t have the privacy of the Spring Pond anymore, so we’d need to figure out how to do that all over again.

Reaching back behind me, I held my hand out to Dani and she took it. “Thank you, and I’m sorry,” I said. “I love you, Dani.”

“Love you too, Harri,” Dani said, squeezing my hand. “I-” She hesitated, her eyes watering as she looked away and out the window without releasing my hand. “I wasn’t, um, I knew it would be bad. But seeing those women, hearing what they’d gone through… I understand.”

“I’m so sorry,” I sighed.

Dani shook her head. “Don’t be. What you said out there in the rain, you were right. Harri, people need to know that they have someone who will do the things they might not be able to. There are predators out there in the world, and- God, I feel like I’m garbling up six different movie speeches at once here. The wolves need to know there’s a Lion out here in the forest. One that’s protecting the sheep.”

“Isn’t that supposed to be Jesus?” Julia said a little sarcastically. “I don’t think that’s from a movie, that’s a bible thing.”

“Whatever,” Dani said. “Wolves and Sheep Dogs, then. If society is failing people, we need people like you to help make it whole again. I love you, and I trust your judgement. What happened back there… it wasn’t pretty, but it was right.”

She let go of my hand, and I pulled it back and adjusted the rearview mirror so I could look Julia in the eye behind me. “Thank you for coming, and being my backup,” I said. “I can’t think of a way to thank you enough.”

“What, no ‘I love you?’” Julia asked with a little smirk.

“I’m also sorry for getting you wrapped up in what happened after,” I said.

“Maggie told me what you all did,” Julia said. “Let’s just say that with my tours in Afghanistan and hearing stories from the Special Forces I was piloting for, what we saw in there was bad but not the worst people can do to each other. Those guys were a necrosis that needed to be cut out before it spread and got worse. It wasn’t pretty, but surgery and amputations rarely are.”

“I think that’s exactly how we need to think of it,” Kyla said. “Cutting out an infection.”

We all murmured our agreement, and most of the rest of the ride was quiet until we got near the staging base. It was built up around an old highway motel, several army tents set up on the premises and another half dozen trucks lining the parking areas. A pair of the new Oshkosh L-ATVs topped with M153 CROWS turrets were protecting the front entrance.

“Jesus,” I said, seeing the heavier firepower. I’d finished my tours and left the Army by the time they had gone into service, but I’d watched some YouTube videos about them. They felt like overkill to have sitting in the middle of nowhere, Oregon.

Then again, they had the Serum on site, so maybe it was more about that than anything else.

It was another flurry of activity as we pulled in. There were a dozen doctors and nurses awaiting the arrival of the hostages and wounded, and I saw both Jedidiah and Dylan get whisked off. I waved off a nurse trying to direct me for triage when I spotted a Doctor that I recognized from my stay in Miriam’s base in Portland. She was at the back of one of the ambulance trucks.

“Doc,” I called, jogging over. She looked over, recognized me, and nodded. “Did we get enough?” I asked.

She knew what I meant. “Colonel Abarbanel sent a dozen doses, so not enough to cover everyone. It’s enough to get everyone who is showing symptoms or is at high risk.”

“I think they’re all at high risk,” I said. “My team included.”

“We’ll get it all sorted. Anyone not covered here, today, will get shuttled up to the Portland facility.”

“You’ll have enough, though?” I asked.

She gave me a look, then seemed to reconsider whatever she was thinking. “Word came down yesterday evening. The Oregon rollout is starting in three days. We’ve already started getting shipments up from California in preparation this morning. There will be enough.”

I exhaled heavily, putting my hands on my head as one more weight lifted off my shoulders. Leave it to the government to be a day late and a dollar short, but at least all our efforts wouldn’t be wasted.

“Harri,” Kara said as she climbed out of the back of the truck. She was followed by a pair of male nurses I recognized from Miriam’s medical facility as they were manhandling the gurney Gerty was on out of the back.

“Hey, baby,” I said, immediately scooping her into a hug.

The Doc gave us a look.

“What can we do for Gerty?” I asked her, nodding towards the gurney.

“It looks like she’s entered the final stage of the virus,” the Doctor said. “But is still early on. She’s sick, but not enough that we can’t save her. We’ll get her into one of the rooms we’ve prepped here and she’ll need to get vaccinated and then imprinted as soon as possible.”

“Is there time for her to do the Oracle?” I asked.

The doctor grimaced.

“She doesn’t need to,” Kara said.

I raised my eyebrows, looking at Kara. “What do you mean? Does she have a boyfriend we can get here quickly?”

“You’re going to do the imprinting, Harri,” Kara said. “You’re the obvious choice. She knows you, she trusts you. How many other men in the world can she say that about right now?”

I closed my mouth and swallowed, glancing at the Doc, who gave me a look back that said, ‘If you think I’m going to give you some privacy and miss this drama, you’ve got another thing coming.’

“Kara,” I said, turning back to my ex. “I-” I had to take a breath to steady myself. “I want you. I want you in my life forever. I can’t lose you again. Gerty is your cousin, I can’t imprint her and you.”

She grabbed me by the head and pulled me down into a kiss.

Fireworks burned behind my eyeballs. Racing up and down my tongue. I suddenly felt hot, and cold. It was life, and home, and nostalgia. Her lips felt the exact same as I remembered, even despite the soft bitterness because of the chemical wash lingering on us both. I held her firmly, kissing her and feeling like the moment could freeze like that forever, until it finally ended and she pulled back. Her eyes bored into mine. “Gerty is my second cousin,” she said. “And I love her like a sister. And I love you, Harri. And you’ve always loved me, even with all the shit I put you through. I see that, I’ve seen it for months now. I just didn’t know how to… fix it. I’ll pick you. I’ll do the vaccine thing, and pick you. This world is making us all make choices we never thought we would be faced with. I’ll already be sharing you with other women. What do I care if you’re with one of my other favourite people left in the world?”

“You’re sure?” I asked her.

“Save her, Harri,” Kara said. “For both of us.”

“Stop trying to think of excuses and just do it, Harri,” Kyla said, almost making me jump because I hadn’t realised she was right next to me.

“OK,” I said. “OK. If Gerty says that’s what she wants. Um - Kara, this is my partner, and girlfriend, Kyla. Kyla, this is my high school sweetheart Kara. You’ll, um, be… sharing me.”

“We have a lot to talk about,” Kyla said, offering Kara her hand. “We should find a spot to talk while Harri saves another life. Your friend Tanaya can come too.”

I interrupted their exit by taking Kara by the cheek with one hand and kissing her again, unable to let her go without it. She kissed me back and it was like nothing had happened from the time we were seventeen. Then, when it ended, I turned and kissed Kyla, and it all felt new and fresh and burning with a desire that was similar but different and I was reminded that Kyla was pregnant and going to be the mother of our child and I poured my love into the kiss.

“I love you,” I whispered to her.

She looked me in the eyes and smiled softly, and then nodded. “I’ll call Erica, Ivy and Vanessa to let them know we’re safe, and we got them,” Kyla said. Then both of them went to grab Tanaya, and then to look for a place they could talk.

“That was one hell of a show,” the Doc said.

“You’re going to tell Miriam all about it, aren’t you?” I sighed.

“Damn straight,” she said.

“Do you, by chance, accept bribes?”

“Nope,” she said.

“Shit,” I sighed. “I’ll never hear the end of it. Alright, just to double check, is there a reason it shouldn’t be me?”

“Not that we know of,” the Doc said, shaking her head. “There’s an obvious line drawn on how close a Man and a Woman can be on a family tree, but a Man getting partnered to two sisters unrelated to him wouldn’t cause an issue, let alone second cousins.”

“Alright,” I said. “Take me to Gerty and we’ll see if she wants this, too.”

“I mean, it would be weird, but not a scientific problem,” the Doc said as she led me in the direction Gerty had been taken. “Just a you problem.”