“Do you know who took my rifle?” Will asked.
“Your rifle?”
“Yeah. I had an M4A1 with me when I was captured. It was in the truck.”
“I dunno. What’s an M4A1 look like?”
Will started to answer, but shook his head instead. “Never mind.” He looked back out the store at the figures moving slowly down the street. “We’ll let them pass us by. There’s no point in engaging. We’re outmanned and outgunned—”
He hadn’t finished “outgunned” when two of the attackers broke away from the technical and started angling—right toward them.
Right. Because why would luck be on my side now?
“Oh no,” Michael whispered a few seconds later.
Kinda late there, kid, don’t you think?
“What now?” Michael said in a hushed voice.
Will didn’t answer right away. He glanced back at the teenager’s terrified face, then looked past him at the back room. There was nothing in there that could help him escape. The window was too high to climb out of, and he wasn’t going to break down a wall with his bare hands. The only way out was through the front door of the Palermo. Or the broken windows would do just as well.
The technical had continued down the street and out of his view, but the two figures were stepping over dead bodies at the pumps after checking them for signs of life. One was a man, the other a woman. They both looked haggard, as if they had been fighting for days instead of ten, maybe fifteen minutes, tops. The woman looked in her mid-thirties and was wearing a Texas Rangers baseball cap that she pushed slightly up when she stopped in front of what remained of the windows so she could peer inside.
“Anything?” the man, who was older by at least ten years, asked behind her.
“I see a body,” the woman said.
“Dead?”
“I said a body, didn’t I?”
The man grunted. “So let’s go.”
“There’s a back room.”
“What about it?”
“It’s open and it looks undamaged.”
Shit. Should have closed the door… Too late for that now.
“Be careful,” the man said.
The woman didn’t answer him. She stepped through one of the broken windows, crunching glass under her boots.
Will’s mind turned. Spun. Then whirled.
He looked back at Michael again. The kid was trembling badly, causing the rifle in his hands to shake along with him. He looked like he was about to throw up.
Will back to the woman, the man in the background, and the technical out there, along with, from what he could see, at least four more heavily-armed men.
Then he glanced down at the Sig Sauer in his hand. It was a good weapon. He could probably kill the woman, take her weapon (it looked like an M4), and use it on the man outside. But then there was that damn truck and the M60 mounted on top of it. That thing could chew up what was left of the gas station in no time, and him right along with it.
Gotta get to Song Island. Can’t do that if I’m dead.
As long as I’m alive, there’s a chance…
“Shit,” Will said, before he realized he had said it out loud. Or whispered, anyway.
“What?” Michael said, alarmed. “What are we—”
Will grabbed Michael’s rifle and jerked it out of his hands. It came easily, as if the teenager was barely holding onto it. Before Michael could protest, Will tossed the rifle along with the Sig Sauer toward the woman. The two weapons skidded across the floor and stopped in front of her. She immediately snapped up her M4 and took aim at them, hiding behind one of the many toppled shelves, though he was certain she couldn’t actually see them.
“Don’t shoot!” Will shouted. “We’re unarmed!”
The woman didn’t answer right away. She looked confused. Then, “Step outside. Slowly!”
Will nodded at Michael, who stared back, horrified. “Slowly, like the woman said, okay, kid?”
Michael sighed, but didn’t respond. He did, though, stand up when Will did, and they moved slowly — ever so slowly — out from behind the shelves. The woman’s hands tightened around the rifle, and Will was almost certain she was going to shoot them down at any second. There was something in her eyes…
I’m a dead man. Any second now…
But she didn’t fire. Instead, she held her ground and glared at them over the iron sights of her weapon, even as the older man rushed into the store behind her. “Where’d these jokers come from?” he asked, slightly out of breath despite the relatively short distance.
“Dunno,” the woman said. “They tossed their weapons.”
“Step forward,” the man said, motioning at them with his rifle.
Will and Michael did as they were instructed, the kid still shaking so much it looked as if he was moving in a herky-jerky motion, desperately trying to make each leg move forward one at a time, one at a time.
The older man hurried forward and circled them before patting them down. He found Will’s pill bottle and pocketed it, then stepped back. “They’re clean.”
“Hear me out,” Will started to say.
“You don’t have a uniform,” the woman said, cutting him off.
“No. I’m not one of them.”
“So what are you doing here with them, then?”
“I was captured this morning.”
The man and woman exchanged a glance. Will was suddenly very thankful he looked like he had been through the blender, with his bruises and dried blood clinging to one side of his face. He really didn’t look anything like the clean-cut Michael in his spiffy uniform standing beside him.
“This morning?” the man said.
“Yeah,” Will nodded. “I’m not one of them,” he repeated, just in case they didn’t hear it the first time. You could never be too clear about your allegiances when someone was pointing a rifle at you.
“What about him?” the woman asked, moving her rifle to rest on Michael. “He’s one of them.”
“He’s surrendering,” Will said.
“I’m surrendering,” Michael said, nodding furiously while his voice trembled badly. “Please don’t shoot. I’m surrendering.”
“How old are you, kid?” the man asked.
“Seventeen,” Michael said. “Please don’t shoot,” he said again. “I’m surrendering, like he said.”
The woman stared at Michael.
Those eyes. Will had seen those eyes before.
Aw, shit, he thought, just before the woman said, “Too bad. We’re not taking prisoners.”
Then she shot Michael in the head from ten feet away.
CHAPTER 7
KEO
He was ready to say good-bye to Song Island by noon. The fact that he hadn’t come to the place with very much, so had very little to pack on his way off it, helped. The short Texan, Maddie, was taking care of the boat while the other pretty blonde, Sarah, was packing his food for him in the kitchen.
With everything he needed being taken care of, all Keo had left to do was to grab some dry clothes from the hotel’s lost-and-found room, where there were piles of the stuff. He knew where they came from, even though Lara hadn’t mentioned it. Some of them probably belonged to Allie’s people, who had come here months ago seeking salvation, only to find death instead. He should have been a little queasy taking dead people’s things, but a shirt and cargo pants, along with socks and boots that fit, were hard to come by these days. Besides, it wasn’t as if he had ever actually met Allie’s people, or the poor saps who had found the island not quite as hospitable as they had expected.