Quaranteam: North West Chapter 22 (Beta) (Patreon)

Returning Dramatis Personae

House Black

• Harrison ‘Harri’ Black - Sheriff of Black County, ‘Jason Momoa-looking motherfucker’ mountain man (mixed heritage), former Army MP
• Erica LaCosta - Fiancee of Harri, Leo’s sister, Italian Tattoo Artist, Dark Brunette
• Ivy Gauthier - Quebecoise stripper, half-tattooed, Dirty Blonde anal queen
• Kyla Bautista - Trained dancer, Phillipino Spy, Harri’s Deputy Sheriff, Raven hair
• Vanessa Peters - Construction Forewoman, Daughter of Brent Peters the head of the construction project, Brunette
• Macho - Rescued daschund puppy, named for his big balls, mascot and beloved pet of House Black

House LaCoasta

• Leo LaCosta - Harri’s best friend and former roommate, Italian carpenter, Erica’s brother

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
• Feather - Fervent native protest organizer and activist. Former colleague of Kara’s.

Valkyrie Falls

• Josie ‘Joss the Boss’ Draper - Professional Wrestler, Athletically Trim Blonde
• Spencer - Professional Fitness Model, Apprentice Personal Trainer, Athletic Curvy Blonde
• Abigail ‘Abi’ Jónsson - Harri’s Personal Trainer, Co-owner of Valkyrie Falls women's athletic retreat, Icelandic Personal Trainer and Crossfit Competitor, Tall Athletically Muscular Blonde

Other

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

Referenced Characters

• Danielle ‘Dani’ - Australian stripper, Brunette
• Mary Duncan - Attended high school with Harri, former cheerleader, Husband has disappeared while looking for work, left to join a ‘commune’ with her kids
• Lt Col Miriam Abarbanel - Military friend of Harri’s, Air Force Lt Col, Jewish heritage, Commanding Officer for Valhalla Hills construction and the Oregon Quaranteam research project

- - - - - -

The drive up to the Rez was probably the worst one I had ever made. I’d made the drive a bunch of times in high school; being sixteen and having a little beater car so I could go to early morning football practices had given me the sort of freedom that made me the envy (and designated driver) for my friends at the time. I’d filled that car with football players more than a few times, but just as many times I’d driven up to the Rez to pick up Kara and her friends, driving them to bush parties, lakes to go swimming or even out to Portland a couple of times so we could go shopping without our parents.

Then that had all stopped, and it had been years until I’d driven up to the Rez again for the funerals. That had only been a few weeks ago now. Checking in after the fire I’d been a little panicked, not knowing if Kara was alive. Making the drive with Kyla and Erica had been less anxiety-filled but kind of weird, and I’d had a lot of different emotions going on. Looking back, those funerals had likely been where the first transfers of the virus had happened and started to spread. So many people in one place, it wouldn’t have taken much for one carrier to spread it to a few people, and now three weeks later it was rampant. It was kind of amazing that it hadn’t happened sooner, between the protest at my place and the recovery efforts after the community centre fire.

Still, even after the funerals, this was the worst. Kara was probably infected, as were her cousin and her neighbour. The chances that they weren’t, when it was running hot through the whole community, were negligible.

At best, according to Miriam, they had two weeks before they would show harsh symptoms, and then something like two days before they were dead. And that was the best case.

I passed by all the landmarks I remembered and then pulled up towards the old ticket booth that marked the boundary of the Rez. Just a few weeks ago it had been converted into the hub of their little palisade of junk, manned by big Native men on the lookout for trouble. Now, as I pulled up, the ‘In’ side of the road was blocked and someone had spray painted ‘SICK INSIDE’ and ‘STAY OUT’ on the old car they’d parked there. The ‘Out’ side had probably been blocked as well, but that car looked like someone had rammed it with another vehicle. It was at an angle and had a bunch of damage to the rear end.

Someone had done the right thing and tried to keep the outbreak quarantined. Someone else had probably thought they were doing the right thing for themselves or their family and tried to escape the death that was already haunting them. Wherever they ended up, I could only hope that they weren’t spreading it to loved ones.

Not that they would be there to know. Two weeks was a long time compared to two days.

I slowly eased my truck around the shifted barricade car and rolled to a stop.

‘I’m just coming in,’ I sent Kara.

‘Don’t come up front. People down the street. Use the back dirt drive from Leaning Oak.’

I sent a ‘kk’ and started driving. The roads on the Rez weren’t in GPS maps, so she’d needed to give me directions. I could remember some of the streets by sight - not a whole lot had changed on the Rez in 15 years or so - but I didn’t know them all, or their names.

Part of me wanted to just speed through as fast as possible, but that would have drawn more attention than taking a slow crawl. Once I got off the main road that ran around the primary residential area and eventually led to the old celebration grounds, I also found that things were more… apocalyptic. More than a few cars were abandoned, half out of driveways or in the middle of the street or parked up on people's lawns in a panic. I saw one that was smashed right into the corner of a doublewide, the trailer collapsing down onto the roof. Trash and other garbage was piled in places, and I saw more than a few residences, both trailer and small house, that had clearly been broken into. Doors smashed open, windows busted.

The worst were the bodies.

They weren’t everywhere, but every once in a while someone had collapsed in a front yard, or in the driver’s seat of their car. Probably looking for help. The blood, trailing from the orifices of their faces, told the story. I’d seen warzones, and bodies, before. This was something else. Portland after the protests and riots had reminded me of a warzone. What I was witnessing now reminded me of scenes from a zombie movie.

There were people as well, living. I spotted a few seemingly going about their lives. One guy was mowing his rocky front lawn with a little push mower that was sputtering. A woman was packing her car, keeping tight hold of two little kids as she did it.

A man was digging in his side yard, a cloth-wrapped body lying next to the hole.

They weren’t the only people though. Down a couple of roads I saw larger gatherings. Groups, not big enough to be called a crowd, gathered. I avoided them, finding detours.

Once I found Leaning Oak Lane, on which I didn’t see a single leaning oak tree, I wound around a couple of bends before finding the dirt track Kara had told me about. The roads of the Rez weren’t laid out in a discernable pattern; not that most of the roads and streets around Jewell were much better. Between the hills and rocky terrain, whether it was the highways or the little subdivision stretches like where Mary had lived, builders were forced to adapt to the terrain. Up here on the Rez, where the land was particularly rocky - because of course the Feds way back then chose shitty terrain for it - it made for a maze that only the locals really knew by heart.

The dirt trail, because that was all it was, was rough but my truck was able to handle that easily. If the lots and roads were a little wild, the one thing going for them was that they were larger than what someone could find in the little subdivisions scattered around town. They weren’t exactly developed lots, most of them occupied by scrub and overgrowth with just a doublewide and whatever sheds or old coverings the owners had erected through the years. The few houses were single-story, or maybe a story and an attic, and there was no way they had basements. I had to pull out my phone and text Kara again that I was on the trail because I had no way of knowing which one of the residences was hers.

I spotted her waiting nervously on the back deck of one of the small houses. She was wearing a blue jean jacket and was looking around with obvious anxiety. Her dark hair was looking a little windblown, but I’d always liked that look on her. Usually, it came along with her beautiful smile, and I’d always loved driving her around with the windows down - she would glare at me, knowing exactly what I was doing, but then break out that smile.

There weren’t any smiles now.

I pulled my truck up off of the path right into her backyard, turning it to face the back towards her deck. At any other time, ploughing through the rough overgrowth at the back of her lot might have been rude, but under the circumstances and considering it hadn’t looked cultivated, I just did it.

“Harri, what the fuck?” she asked as I got out. She wasn’t wearing a mask. “Why are you doing this?”

“Because you need it,” I said, coming around to the back of my truck and opening the gate, pulling out the first couple of paper bags filled with food. “Step back a bit so I can set this down for you.”

She did, but hesitated when she saw me clearly. “What the hell happened to you?”

I grunted as I set down the bags. “Well, the leg is a gunshot wound that I’m still recovering from. The rest is from a fistfight with a couple of bikers. But I’m OK.”

“You don’t look it,” she said, obviously concerned. “You got shot?”

“Through and through,” I said, gingerly patting my leg. “No permanent damage. Don’t worry, it just hurts like hell right now. I’ve got more bags if you want to call some help.”

Kara went to the back door and called inside. She was joined by two more women. The first one I recognized even though she wasn’t in uniform. Officer Gertrude was wearing a pair of rough overalls and a black top underneath that was stretching around her considerable bust. She was curvier than Kara, but seeing them side-by-side I realized the familial resemblance even if it was small. They were the same height, and while her face was a little softer they had the same nose and lips. She wore a silver hoop nose ring in one nostril now, and her clothing revealed she had some sort of thin script writing tattooed on the inside of her arm, and a cross on her other forearm.

“Hello, Officer,” I said.

She grimaced slightly as she nodded. “It’s just Gerty now,” she said. “With everything going on, I got fired.”

“How does that make any sense?” I asked as I went back to the truck for the next pair of bags.

“There were a lot of… arguments on the tribal council,” Kara said with a heavy sigh. “I resigned when they decided to fire Gerty for ‘causing problems.’ It was probably too late already, though.”

“I’m sorry,” I said with a grimace of my own, setting down the next bags.

The third woman, who must have been Kara’s neighbour, was a little shorter and her awkward stance and the set to her expression told me she was much less social than either of the others. Sensing the hesitation, Kara spoke up. “This is my neighbour Tanaya.”

She was dressed in a denim button-down that washed out whatever slim curves she had, along with black jeans held up by a chunky belt that sported the sort of belt buckle I would have expected to see on a rodeo champion. She pressed her lips together in a half-smile and nodded to me. Her hair was dark and as long as Kara and Gerty’s well past her shoulders, but wavy with soft curls instead of straight.

“Good to meet you,” I said. “Hopefully Kara’s said at least a couple of nice things about me.”

“Harri-” Kara said, and I could hear the apology in her voice.

“Just kidding, Kara,” I said, holding up a hand. “If I can’t find a joke somewhere, I’ll lose my mind.”

All three women nodded softly.

I went and got the last bag of stuff that I’d set aside for them. “That should hold you ladies for at least five days or so,” I said as I set it down and backed away. “Just- I could see it’s bad, but how bad are we talking?”

“You ever watch Shaun of the Dead?” Tanaya asked. Her voice was a little deeper with a cute husk to it. “Like that.”

“Fuck me,” I sighed, wiping my hand across my mouth and beard as I took a deep breath. “OK. I’m still trying to get an answer for you, something that will help. The people I’m talking to are coming up blank, but I trust them when they say they are trying.”

“Unless there’s a cure, I don’t know what could be done,” Gerty said. “Last info that came in, the stuff that got me fired up at the station, said it’s killing almost all men that catch it, and most women. Teens worst of all.”

“I-” How did I say this? “That’s true from what I’ve seen,” I said. “The government’s been testing a vaccine, though. The people I know are trying to see if they can find a stockpile to bring here, but it’s not panning out yet.”

“Harri,” Kara said. “You know what ‘vaccines’ and the government do…”

“I know,” I said. “There’s a long history. But it’s real, and so far it seems to work.”

“How do you know that?” Tanaya asked.

I swallowed, glancing at Kara. “Because I was offered a chance to be part of the testing group a couple of months ago, back when the military bought my land,” I said. “It’s a complicated story that I’ll tell you three eventually.”

Kara was frowning in concern, and Gerty was looking at me with a glimmer of hope in her eyes. Tanaya was stoic and hard to read. “Can you guys bring that stuff in?” Kara asked the other two softly. They both nodded and came forward to pick up a couple of the paper bags. Gerty looked inside one and saw I’d included a couple bottles of wine, and she looked up at me with a smile and a wink. Tanaya murmured her thanks and they both slipped back inside the house.

I stood leaning against the back of my truck while Kara hugged herself up on the deck.

“I’m sorry I can’t do more for you right now,” I said.

“Fuck off,” she sighed. “This is more than you should be doing.”

“Are you safe?” I asked.

She nodded, but the hesitation was clear. It only took a glance from me and she knew I knew. “People are acting out,” she said. “Bunching up, trying to blame… everyone. Anyone. They’re saying this is the land cleansing itself, and if we simply listen to the earth it will give us a way to survive. It’s- fucked.”

“Is there anything else I can do?”

“Explain the vaccine to me,” she said. “You’re hiding something. I can tell, Harri. Just because of…” she stopped, hanging her head a little for a moment before looking back at me. “Just because I made some really misguided choices, doesn’t mean I don’t know you. Please just don’t lie to me.”

I had to take a breath. I’d avoided this so far. “The vaccine works,” I said. “Or, it works but in a weird way. It isn’t 100% effective, especially for men. And I don’t know the science, but it’s deadly for men to take directly. The way it was explained to me, women can take it and then it’s like an STD in their system, so they can partially pass it on to a man. Erica, my fiancee that you met, was staying with me and her brother at my parents' old place when the government made me the offer. Part of the deal was us getting admitted to the testing program. She came back, we… had sex, and I got partially covered. That’s why I’m safer to be around town and go get supplies and stuff.”

“And that’s why you’re with that construction woman, and your partner from the funeral,” she said. “Because ‘partial’ isn’t safe, so a man needs multiple partners. That’s why this whole polyamory thing came out of nowhere.”

“It is,” I said. “I never would have considered it otherwise.”

“Is the government just assigning people then? Forcing women to sleep with men?”

I swallowed and shook my head. “It’s more complicated than that. The vaccine doesn’t just pass like an STD. There’s a whole… bonding thing. Or imprinting. It’s like once the exchange happens, the woman is a lock and the man becomes the only key for her. They said they are trying to find a way to change that, for obvious reasons. So Erica and I chose each other, and the others were different circumstances. Ivy, who you haven’t met, is the most ‘standard.’ Anyone entering the program does a massive questionnaire and they have an algorithm or something that spits out a bunch of best options, and the woman gets to choose. She chose me.”

“There’s another one?” she asked. “Four, then?”

I nodded.

“Fuck me,” she sighed, covering her mouth with her hand. “So if whoever you are talking to can get vaccine doses, everyone here will need to have partners. The tribe could get scattered across the state.”

“Or further,” I said. “But they would be alive.”

She leaned forward, putting her hands on her knees as she breathed, then looked back up at me. “I’d ask if this was all a big prank, trying to inject some humour into this, but I can tell it’s not,” she said.

“It’s not,” I affirmed. “And I’ll try my best to keep my friend searching, OK? I’ll- Kara, I’ll do anything I can to keep you safe. You and the people you care about, and I know that encompasses everyone here on the Rez. But if things get worse, for you or Gerty or Tanaya, I need you to tell me. I need you to promise me, because I might be able to do something for one person that I can’t for everyone.”

She nodded, and I gave her a look. “I promise, Harri,” she said. “I promise.”

“You should get the rest of these in, there’s some Chunky Monkey in one of those bags for you.”

She smiled sadly, mentioning her favourite ice cream not picking her mood up. “Harri… if you’re safe, could I… Could I hug you?”

I groaned because every ounce of me wanted to do that for her. Wanted to feel her wrapped up in my arms so I could tell her it would all be OK. “God, I want to do that, baby,” I said. “But even with four partners I’m not fully covered.”

“Four isn’t enough?” she asked me, eyes widening a little incredulously. “What is?”

“Last I heard, something like seven,” I said. “My friend told me I have around 85% efficacy right now, but all the science is complicated. And, Kara baby, I would risk it if I wasn’t taking care of other people as well. You and the ladies were the most important people who needed this stuff, but I’ve got another delivery to make and they aren’t vaccinated.”

She raised her chin, pointing her face to the sky as she hugged herself around her stomach again. I wasn’t sure what she was looking for up there. “God, you’re too good, Harrison,” she whispered, shaking her head. She looked back down at me. “Don’t die, OK? And don’t get shot again. I haven’t shown you it in a long time, but this world needs more men like you. I always knew you were a good guy, a good man, and I let other people in my head and spoil that. I’ve been an absolute bitch to you, and I’m so sorry. You never deserved any of it.”

I had to fight the urge to go to her, and I almost lost. “Everything is forgiven,” I said. “OK? Everything. And we can’t change what our families did or were. Now get your fine ass inside and lock that door. Barricade it even. And call me for anything, even just to talk.”

“OK,” she sighed and nodded. “OK. I will. I promise. Thank you, Harrison. For all of this. For being you.”

“I’ll always be me,” I said, forcing a smile. “I’ll see you soon, OK?”

She picked up the last bag of groceries and propped it on one hip as she watched me get back into my truck. Once I was inside, I let out a deep breath and closed my eyes while she couldn’t see me. I wanted to tell her I could get her a dose right now. I wanted to tell her I would love her just like I did when we were teenagers, and we could pick up where we left off. For all that Erica was judgemental of her, I knew they would get along after things got settled. They were similar in a lot of ways, but different in other important ones.

I wanted to tell, but I knew what it would mean for me to offer it to her right now. It would mean, in her eyes, that I was giving up on the rest of the people in need. It would look like I was just trying to scoop her up like the hand of God and deus ex machina her survival.

I needed to trust Miriam and hope that she could shake something loose. That was the only way I could do what Kara would want and what she needed.

And even if I did offer, and even if she said yes, and even if she chose me and not to save a man from the community, that choice would haunt her. Maybe I should have let it be hers to make anyway, but I couldn’t put that on her. I would carry it.

I pulled away slowly and saw Kara give a little wave and head back into her house, the door shutting behind her.

“Fuck!” I shouted in the closed cab of my car. I pounded the steering wheel with my fist.

I followed the dirt path down around a dozen more properties before it let out onto a road, and I started tracking back towards the main street and the exit from the Rez. Already frustrated and feeling a tightness in my chest - the muscles, not my heart - I tried to block out the horrible little things that dotted the homes and shops. There wasn’t anything I could do, and I hated feeling that way.

Unfortunately, blocking things out wasn’t helpful when it came to avoiding trouble. I made a turn that should have brought me one road over from the main drag and I slammed on the brakes as I came within ten yards of a crowd. It was maybe thirty people and they looked…. Crazy. They were hooting and cheering, and a lot of them looked like they were dressed in the ceremonial garb that was usually kept for festivals and cultural events. The few men in the crowd were bare-chested, and everyone had daubs of paint on their faces and bare skin. It took me a moment to realise it was supposed to be warpaint. Plenty of them turned at my approach, but many of them were still focused as a few people were putting more paint on a man who was on his knees in the front yard of a house. He was a little gaunt, and his bare chest was heaving as painted hands were slapped on his chest and back. His face already held streaks of blue and red, and he was wearing a feathered war headdress.

“What the fuck?” I muttered.

I grabbed the microphone from my dash and brought it to my lips, my eyes narrowing as I looked at the assembled crowd. They were all dead people walking, congregating during an outbreak. I triggered the mic. “For your own and public safety, disperse immediately,” I said, my voice echoing out from the speakers built into the lightbar of the truck.

Then Feather turned from painting the man on his knees, snarling at my vehicle as she narrowed her eyes. “A false warrior of the white devil!” she cried, pointing at me accusingly with a hand dripping with red paint. “You have no authority here, pig! The earth rises up to send you back across the seas, and we shall inherit her protection once more.”

Well, now I knew where the crazy was coming from. She’d always been particularly nasty at any protest over the years, but this was something else.

“You are all risking your lives by congregating like this,” I said into the mic. “The virus is contagious for two weeks with almost no symptoms before two days of brutal death. Many of you are likely carriers and causing the deaths of your friends and neighbours.”

“He speaks with the false promises that destroyed our ancestors!” Feather shouted. “Drive him out!”

A brick came flying out of the crowd and panged off the hood of my truck heavily. Then I noticed other people in the crowd raising things that they’d been carrying. Some had rocks and bricks and sticks. Others had bows and arrows, and hatchets, and I spotted at least one shotgun.

“Fuck this,” I grunted, dropping the mic and slamming the truck into reverse, turning in my seat to look out the back as best I could as I peeled away. More rocks and bricks came flying my way, and I jerked when someone shot a fucking arrow at my truck and it glanced off the windshield with a sharp crack, leaving a jagged scar across it. I rounded the corner before anyone took a shot with a firearm, burning it back to the next intersection and then putting it into drive and speeding down the street. I whipped by abandoned cars, circling around the insane mob, and found myself in an area that I remembered. It took me another minute of fast driving before I reached the barricade.

I slowed to go around it then, muttering to myself, I threw the truck in reverse again and backed up into the car that had been moved. I pushed it back into place, then drove off.

It wouldn’t stop anyone determined, but it was something.

I thumbed open my phone, keeping one eye on the road, and called Kara.

“Harri?” she asked, surprised since I’d just left.

“Yeah, I’m out,” I said. “But I figured out the ringleader of your ‘people going insane during a quarantine’ problem. It’s Feather.”

There was a moment of silence. “Shit,” she sighed. “Did she see it was you?”

“I don’t think so,” I said. “But if she asks around, people might be able to pinpoint that I was in your area just by my truck. They shot fucking arrows at me. Are you safe, or should I try and find a way to get you ladies out?”

“We should be fine,” Kara said. “Feather is… she’s always been a lot, and all of this must have pushed her over the edge. She might threaten us, but I don’t think she’ll actually try to attack us.”

“That’s a pretty thin line, Kara,” I said.

“I know, but I can talk her down,” she said.

“Tell me if something changes.”

“I will,” she said. “Be safe.”

“Be safer,” I countered.

The drive away from the Rez was way less full of anxiety and much more frustrating. People could be real cockbags.

- - - - - - - - - -

Showering at the compound was an unpleasant affair as I stretched and saw the bruising on my side, along with the aggravation to my leg. My headache, thankfully, had faded and the other bruises weren’t so bad that I couldn’t play them off. I also hadn’t gotten a broken nose, which I’d left two of the bikers with, so that was a good thing.

Adding the trip to the Rez onto my timeline, not to mention the black market, had me a little worried about the frozen and dairy items in the truck, so I washed myself as fast as I could before wiping down the inside of my truck in case I’d pulled anything in on my clothes. Once that was done, I headed over to the Falls to make the delivery.

“What happened?” Erica asked me as soon as she saw me in the parking lot. Several of the ladies were there to help carry in the groceries. “And don’t tell me it was nothing, Harrison Black.”

Erica, apparently, was getting used to her Matriarchal role.

“A couple of things,” I said.

“Well, you can start with the arrow sticking out of the side of your truck.”

“What?” I asked, rounding the truck with a frown. Right there, stuck in the passenger side door, was an arrow. “Fuck me.”

I told her about the drop off at the Rez, all of it, as we sat outside and she held my hand and looked into my eyes. She was frowning and nodding as I told her how frustrated I was with the whole thing.

“You did what you could reasonably do, babe,” she said when I was through. “Other than going all caveman and throwing all three of those ladies over your shoulder and carrying them out by force.”

“You know-”

“I know,” she stopped me. “I know. Now tell me what else happened.”

Erica could read me as easily as Kara. I had a moment where I could have chosen to play it off, but looking at my fiancee I knew that was the wrong choice. I could also tell that she had something she was holding back. So I told her about the black market but downplayed the fight and how I got out of it. She narrowed her eyes slightly and I could tell she was stopping herself from either criticising my recklessness, or calling me on the downplaying. Probably both.

“Well, at least people are getting food,” she said. “The news said that shortages are going to get worse. We might end up needing that black market sooner than later.”

“Doubtful,” I said. “We can eat with the construction workers if we need to, and between Vanessa and Miriam we can probably syphon off resources for here.”

“Still, it’s good to know it’s there for now,” she said.

“So what do you have to tell me?” I asked.

She frowned, but blushed, which was a weird combination on Erica. “Well, I figured out why I’ve been freaking out so much lately when things have gone wrong.”

“OK,” I said dubiously. “Why is that?”

“My hormones are way out of whack,” she said. “I’m told that comes with being pregnant.”

“That- I-” my eyebrows raised as my brain took the extra second to click on what she was saying. “Really?”

“Yes, really,” she grinned. “I grabbed a bunch of tests a little while ago because Kyla and I are both trying, and I took one last night and one this morning and they were both positive.”

I tackled her, softly, to the grass beside the parking lot and kissed her as she laughed and hugged me.

I was going to be a father. I was going to have kids with the most wonderful woman.

“You’ll be an amazing mom,” I said in between kisses all over her face.

“And you’ll be an amazing-”

“Guys!” Josie called, jogging through the parking lot towards us.

“Little busy, hon,” Erica called to her.

“No, you need to come inside,” Josie said as she got closer. I sat up from leaning over Erica at the tone of Josie’s voice.

“What is it?” I asked. “Something happened.”

“It’s all over the news,” Josie said. “It’s- I don’t know what’s going to happen now.”

The President of the United States collapsed and fell into a coma shortly before 3:30 PM on July 7th. We watched the next hour on the big TV in the rec room of the Falls with all the ladies. As the reports went on we switched from channel to channel. Faces we’d never seen on major stations were covering the events. No one was contradicting the other stations, though plenty of narratives were spinning out of it.

I made eye contact with Leo when they announced that, with President Trump in a coma and unresponsive, Vice President Pence was going to be temporarily sworn in under the 25th Amendment. Leo was a lot more liberal than I was and had been staunchly disgusted by Trump, as had Erica. I had been a lot more… forgiving wasn’t the word, but I respected the Office and I respected the democratic process. He was the President, and while he was something of a garbage fire when it came to his personal life, he was still the duly elected President. The fact that it was two equally shit choices between him and his opponent hadn’t helped matters.

Leo, and Erica, both thought Pence was even worse than Trump because of his religious dogma. I didn’t have a care either way on that, having grown up without religion really affecting me at all. He seemed a lot less turbulent at least, so maybe he’d be a steady hand at the head of our country when it needed steady badly.

The Vice President of the United States collapsed at 4:15 PM as he was stepping up to take his oath and assume the mantle of President.

After that was some chaos. Many of the ladies were frightened, and some were vindictively pleased if they were in the anti-Trump camp. I comforted people as I could, trying to assure them things would be fine even if I didn’t know what came next.

In the middle of all that, as the commentators on the news were pointing out the line of succession put the Speaker of the House as next up, I felt my phone buzzing in my pocket. I stepped away from the rec room and pulled it out, seeing it was a text.

Greerson: Have a job opening if you’re interested. Super stressful but great benefits. Comes with a big house and staff. Interested?

I raised my eyebrows high at the gallows humour. I also had no fucking idea how I had his contact in my phone. Before I could even reply, I got another text.

Greerson: Too soon?

I snorted and shook my head, smirking. It was a historical tragedy in the making and Agent Greerson, big shot in the shadowy OGA world, was texting me quips. I was a military man, and I understood gallows humour well, so I sent him back a crying-laughing emoji as I shook my head again. Then I sent another message. You’re probably a little busy, but I could use a favour.

Nothing came back within a couple of minutes, so I headed back in. There was no telling what kind of shit he was dealing with at the moment.

Speaker Pelosi was sworn in, and I couldn’t help but scoff a little. She was the US’s first Female President, even if it was starting out as temporary, but that didn’t matter so much to me as the fact that she’d made that stupid Late Night show bit where she showed off an entire freezer full of expensive ice cream while the country was in lockdown and people were already dealing with food scarcity.

Politicians, as I’d pretty much always believed, were fucked no matter what.

Things started to calm down, and I found my hand in Ivy’s as she smiled and pulled me towards the door. She, along with Dani, had the least care for the happenings of American politics in the short term, and I’d already sat with Ivy through multiple sessions of her cursing in French at the computer screen as Trudeau up in Canada seemed to put his foot in his mouth as often as Trump had. Dani often had few good things to say about the leadership back in Australia, either.

We had a new President.

I had more pressing concerns.

- - - - - - - - - -

I celebrated again, more thoroughly, with Erica alone in her room. We were both a little giddy about the idea of being parents, but we decided to keep it just between us for the time being. Not long, we both wanted to tell the others and especially not make it seem like we were hiding it from them, but with us all being split on where we were living and the investigation and the stuff on the Rez it didn't feel like the right time. Erica also assured me she could do all the early research we needed to do in terms of finding a doctor and getting her set up properly for what came next.

Keeping it from Kyla was especially hard for me when we had our time together, though she was distracted from reading me by my latest injuries and what had happened on the Rez. She, more than the others, had the least experience with Kara and the tribe in terms of the legal and protest issues since she'd joined us later than that.

“Why didn’t you just offer it to them, Harrison?” she asked me with a sigh, softly shaking her head. “She wouldn’t have said no.”

“I don’t think she would to save herself over others,” I told her. “And if she did, she would regret it.”

“Sometimes I forget how long you were alone,” she said, looking at me intently as she lay next to me in her bed. I wanted to ask her what she meant by that, but she kissed me and soon she was fucking me and I was entranced by her as she rode me with languid grace, staring her love down into my eyes.

Vanessa, once I was back on the site and she came home after work, was just as upset with me for the biker incident as Erica and Kyla had been. The fact that the story of a fistfight with some bikers also seemed to turn her on, she swore, was not a reason to do it again. She also needed a good amount of quiet time between the two of us, cuddling as she decompressed. Her father and a lot of the male crew on site were Trump supporters or at least ‘old school’ Republicans, so the events of the day had brought on a lot of friction among the crews, the upper staff, and the Imprinted ladies who leaned more Democrat since most were from the city.

Politics, it seemed, often wasn’t that important to people until it was thrust right up in their faces. Surprise, surprise.

Agent Greerson didn’t text me back again until later that night, and when I asked if he could help with the Rez issue he told me he wasn’t in a position to shake loose anything, especially when similar situations were happening all across the country. It had been a long shot anyway, but I still felt a little more defeated at the possibility getting cut off.

The next few days, thank God, calmed down and I didn’t get shot at or find myself in any more fistfights. Most of my time was spent piecing together a timeline for the whereabouts of the recently deceased Poole brothers and their unidentified fellow raider. With all my other leads played out, and the serial number for the pistol not looking like it would lead me anywhere without showing up with warrants at every firearms dealer in the State (which could still end up being a dud), the receipts were my only real clue.

Creating the timeline was fairly simple, though it wasn’t exactly comprehensive. There were days between them pretty frequently, and they jumped up and down the state. I tried mapping them out with pins and running a thread to track the timing, but I wasn’t able to get a clear picture of a home base area. They were definitely more active in the northwest of the state, but weren’t limited to it. There were even a couple of trips up into Washington State, though not particularly far based solely on their fast food stops.

In between that work, and starting to call up the fast food locations to ask for any security camera footage they had for the dates and times on the receipts, life seemed to settle into a little routine.

Vanessa was working hard. The second bunkhouse was getting filled up since the renovations were finished to make it Partner-friendly, which brought even more unskilled (in the trades) hands and mouths to the site. She was doing her best to divvy out what jobs she could if they made sense - they had a full-time medical response team with the nurses, and she proved to me that their cafeteria was putting out some pretty impressive food now that several ladies who had been in a Culinary Arts program before being offered a spot in the testing program were on site. The offices got filled out more - accounts needed to be managed, and shipping and receiving had records to streamline and organise. Brent had almost too much of an office staff and could pick and choose the most experienced options for any role.

The rest of the ladies were getting crash courses in site safety, and then crash courses starting trades apprenticeships. With the third bunkhouse going up as planned, and in record time, I had a feeling Vanessa could put ‘Trade School Headmistress’ on her resume sooner than later, she’d be managing so many students at once.

Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately for my feelings towards Miriam, none of the women coming onto site were newly imprinted - they’d been partnered up back in the aftermath of the outbreak on the site, and had been living with their partners in hotels and motels since then. That meant that Miriam wasn’t ignoring my request for help, but it also meant she still didn’t have the vaccine doses that would be needed.

In between my murderboarding and the occasional trips around the site, ostensibly to check on security but mostly to stay up to date on how the roads were working out, I found myself on the phone a lot. I spoke with Erica a few times a day, usually a couple for only a few minutes, but for at least an hour each afternoon. The initial excitement about our future child was still there, but all of the other little worries and anxieties were starting to set in, and we had a lot to talk about.

I also got daily calls from Kara as she updated me that she and the ladies were safe, and of what they could tell was going on on the Rez without leaving the house. Things had gotten worse - people were still dying, but there were less of them wandering the streets. They’d had a couple of people come by begging for help, but it was obvious they were on their last legs. She’d risked a bit of time outside to splash some bloody handprints off of the front windows of her house with a bucket from a distance.

We also talked. Not about big things, but just reminiscing about high school. Telling each other stories we remembered of the people we’d been back then. Of the silly adventures we’d had, and how important they’d seemed back then. I told her about running into Mary and her kids and helping her out. She told me how she’d been invited to Stacey Duncan’s wedding almost a decade ago - the two had hated each other in high school, so the invite had been out of nowhere. She’d gone, more out of curiosity than anything, and Stacey had acted like they’d been the best of friends.

She told me about college, and how she thought I would have loved it, and asked me about the military. I told her my funny stories, and promised to tell her some of the harder ones when we could hug each other.

Gerty asked to talk to me on the third day as well just so she could interact with someone else for a bit. We traded stories about Kara that had her laughing and yelling in the background. Then Gerty walked away from the others and asked me about how things really looked outside the Rez. I didn’t hold back, respecting that she’d been a Rez cop, and told her about the looters and the black market and the deaths. She admitted she was worried, and I did my best to console her as she broke down a little on the phone with me, not wanting to show anything but a smiling face to Tanaya and Kara. Once we were back onto happier, lighter things I told her that I’d be happy to talk to her again any time she wanted, and that one of these days I’d need her to give me some Policing tips. That got me a laugh, which was warm and rich.

The afternoon of that third day, frustrated with the murder board and receipt trail, I got dressed up, borrowed the unmarked truck from the site motor pool again and drove down to the Golden Beaver. Nothing useful came out of it beyond having a reason to fuck my girls, at least for the short term, but I needed to maintain my ‘cover’ and put in time with the sovereign citizens if I was going to have a chance at using them to leapfrog up the unofficial cell structure their loose organization used. There were fewer people there this time, and I wondered if the virus was catching up with them.

If it did before I made contact with whatever their militant arm was, they would be a literal dead end.

I couldn’t help myself and texted that one to Greerson with almost no context, but he seemed to appreciate the pun when he replied almost ten hours later.

It was on the fourth day, still relatively early in the morning, that I picked up a call from Erica.

“Hello, wifey,” I said, already smiling as I stood up from where I’d been sitting and sorting through emails.

“Hey, Harri,” Erica said, the tone in her voice immediately making my smile slip.

“What’s wrong?” I asked. Immediately my mind was jumping to worst-case scenarios, and now there was only really one - something was wrong with the baby.

“It’s not an emergency,” Erica said quickly, hearing my immediate tenseness. “You just need to come out here, sooner than later.”

“OK, I’m on my way,” I said, starting to cover up my murder board with the tarp I used to keep any rain off of it. With so little room in the RVs, I’d set it up by epoxying some corkboard to the side of one of the shipping containers that formed our compound walls. Vanessa had helped me hook up the tarp with some rope so I could cover it without much effort. It was janky but it worked, and I figured once the investigation was complete we could use it for more entertaining activities. “What’s up?”

“Josie just got word she lost a friend, and she’s taking it really hard,” Erica said. “Everyone is trying to comfort her, but it’s not helping. I think she needs a calming male presence.”

“Erica,” I said. “I don’t think-”

“I’m not asking you to fuck her, babe,” Erica said. “Just be there for a friend.”

“OK,” I agreed.

It didn’t take me long to get there, and Kyla met me in the parking lot with a quick kiss. She gave me the fast rundown - Josie hadn’t been able to get ahold of an old friend for a while now, and she got a call from another friend confirming he had passed from the virus a few weeks ago. Josie had broken down, and no one had been able to get through to her as she locked herself in her room. That had been early in the morning, and it was already the middle of the afternoon, and the ladies were getting worried.

“I think Josie isn’t used to being vulnerable,” Kyla said quietly, and I could tell she was speaking more from her training as a spy as she analysed the situation. “At least with women. Based on her background, and her mannerisms, she’s friendly and joking with other women but doesn’t let them in. I would bet there was bullying and mean-girl shit in her background, and falling into a male-dominated sport like wrestling was a comfort.”

“Have I mentioned lately how much you amaze me?” I asked Kyla, which brought out a smile. I hugged her and kissed the top of her head.

Inside, several women said hello and asked me quick questions in passing, but everyone seemed to know why I was there. Ivy, when she saw me, leapt into my arms for a big public kiss before sending me in the direction of the stairs. Leo stopped me briefly, looking frustrated that he wasn’t able to help. We hugged each other tightly, the silent message that we were glad that we were safe passing between us. I wasn’t sure what I would do if I lost him, or if I’d be in any better a state than Josie sounded like she was in.

At the top of the stairs, I almost collided with Spencer as she was rushing to head down in the opposite direction. She flushed immediately, but her smile was big as she gave me a hug and - since I was a couple of steps lower than her - she took the opportunity to give me a kiss on the cheek. After an assurance that I wouldn’t leave without checking in on her before I left again, she shooed me up into the hall.

Abi and Erica were talking quietly in the doorway to Erica and Ivy’s room, clearly keeping an eye and an ear on Josie’s room one down the hall. Erica immediately stepped into my arms, hugging me tightly and kissing me. “Thanks for being quick,” she said.

“Of course,” I said.

Then Abi surprised me by hugging me as well. We’d had little hugs before, but this one was a full-armed one. It felt a little strange, being hugged like that by a woman who was an inch taller than me. Her grip was strong, but I still felt all the physical markers of hugging a woman. “Thank you,” she said as we hugged.

“You alright?” I asked as I hugged her back, matching her firmness.

She nodded. “We’ve all been receiving bad news here or there, and helping each other through it. Focusing on workouts was also helping, that’s why all the ladies have been so dedicated even if the world is falling apart. Your family has helped since they arrived, and the classes have been good for mental health.”

“I’m glad,” I said. “I wish I could do more.”

She smiled sadly, pulling back from me and shaking her head, then glancing at Erica with a little smirk.

“What?” I asked.

“She said you would feel that way,” Abi sighed. Then she surprised me again by giving me a peck on the lips. It was friendly, not romantic. “You do more than enough, Harrison.”

I just sighed, and she hugged me again before pulling away. “So what’s the latest?”

“She’s still locked in her room, and tells people to leave her alone,” Erica said. “She’s isolating herself, and that’s not good right now.”

“Alright,” I said, keeping in mind what Kyla had said. “I’ll see what I can do.”

I went to Josie’s door and waited one beat before I knocked firmly.

“Go away,” Josie called from inside.

“Open the door, Joss,” I said firmly. “It’s me.”

There wasn’t an answer.

“I’m coming through this door whether you open it or not,” I said.

There was movement on the other side of the door, and then it opened. Josie looked a little pitiful. Her eyes were red and puffy, and her cheeks were streaked with tears. Her hair was wild, and she was just wearing a basic bra and panties.

I stepped into the doorway and wrapped my arms around her, and she immediately started sobbing as she buried her face in my chest and clung to me. Shifting us a little, I let the door close behind me, and I just held her there in the dark as she cried. After a few minutes like that, when her tears softened, I hefted her up and held her with one hand on her ass and one on her back as she wrapped her limbs around me, clinging so tight it was almost painful. I walked us deeper into the room and found her bed, kicking off my boots before laying us both down on it and encouraging her to shift until I was spooned behind her and she was hugging my arms to her stomach and chest.

She cried again, burying her face in the pillow as I held her.

For a woman with such a ready smile, flirt or joke, I was shocked at how deep her sorrow could reach.

“He was my person,” Josie finally said, panting a little as her body tried to come back from the exertion of her sobbing.

“Boyfriend?” I asked.

She shook her head. “Not since high school. Not really. He was my best friend. We tried dating a couple of times, but it was always awkward and we ended up friends who fooled around once in a while. But I loved him. We met at wrestling camp the summer before our junior years. After high school we went to the same wrestling school, and we worked the same promotions. He was the only person in my life who got it, who understood why I did it.”

“He sounds like he was really special,” I said softly.

“He was,” Josie sobbed softly. “Chris was… he was a light. No matter what was happening, or where we went, I knew he was on my side. We didn’t work as a couple, but that didn’t mean I didn’t need him or love him.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, hugging her tighter.

“God, I’m such a mess,” she said, wiping at her face. “I’m being such a little bitch.”

“Shhh,” I shushed her. “Say that again and I’ll piledrive you into this mattress.”

She snorted and gave one little chuckle, and then we let the silence and the darkness in her bedroom settle as I held her.

She told me more about Chris. About her earliest years of wrestling, and the two of them struggling to make ends meet after high school as they tried to find a way to break in. She told me about the little things he liked, his favourite foods and how he would make cinnamon buns on his cheat days. She showed me pictures of them on her phone, both casual and professional. Clips of him wrestling. Clips of him when he’d done a six-month stint being her ring-side ‘manager.’ Even clips of when they had an in-ring feud at one small promotion and he slammed her through a table with a frog splash from the top turnbuckle, followed by her smashing him with a barbed-wire-covered baseball bat.

“You loved him,” I assured her. “He knew it.”

“But I should have done more…” she gasped pitifully.

I comforted her, trying not to consider how much those words haunted me. Or how much I didn’t want them to haunt me in the future.

It must have been two hours since I’d gotten to the Falls that Josie sat up, taking a deep breath and rolling her shoulders and then her neck. She turned in the dark and laid back down, but this time she was cuddling against me. “Erica said blowjobs don’t count,” she whispered as her hands started to feel around my belt.

“Joss,” I said quietly, stopping her hands with mine and pulling them away. “I can’t tell you how much it would thrill me to fool around with you, or even more, but we can be close without being sexual. The first time we do something… alone, like this, I don’t want it to be because of something like this. I don’t want you to have any regrets.”

She pressed her forehead to my chest, breathing deeply. And then her stomach grumbled loudly, making both of us chuckle.

“Hungry?” I asked.

“I didn’t even eat breakfast,” she said, then took another long breath and shifted up the bed a bit. “Can I at least kiss you?”

“I think that would be OK,” I said.

We kissed, tenderly, in the dark for a few minutes before her stomach grumbled again. That made me smile and I sat up, manhandling her a little as I got her on her back and I leaned over to kiss her bare stomach. Her abs were firm against my lips, and a part of me wanted to just do it. To give Josie what she wanted, and take what I wanted. But I didn’t, and I blew a raspberry instead, making her chuckle some more.

“Come on, babe,” I said. “Let’s get some food. I’m sure the ladies would be interested to hear about Chris and maybe watch some of his matches with you. They were worried as hell.”

Josie sniffed and wiped under her eyes, then kissed me again as she sat up. “Thanks, Harrison,” she said quietly.

“Whatever you need,” I said, rubbing her arm comfortingly.

She got herself cleaned up and dressed in some comfy sweats before we headed down to get dinner, and soon she was getting passed from hug to hug until she was sat down in the cafeteria and Ivy and Spencer planted Macho in her lap, who brought a little smile to Josie’s face as he wiggled half his body he wagged his tail so hard.

The smile wasn’t much, but it was enough. Surrounded by friends, surrounded by support and love, we could make it through.