The man in front of him—Rami—had pulled a gun rather than a knife, but Theron was close enough to slap it aside, even as it went off. A bullet lodged in the log wall somewhere behind him. He struck again with his knife, feinting twice, making the man stumble as he threw up his arms to block, then striking. His blade sliced through Rami’s neck as one of the other men was trying to make his way around to his back. Theron leaped into him, hurling his elbow at the man’s gut. His foe twisted and got an elbow down for a partial block, but Theron had struck with enough force that the block wasn’t enough. He stumbled back, and with more space between them, Theron brought his leg up for a kick. His heel slammed into the man’s stomach, and he doubled over before crumpling to the floor.

  Theron spun, his blade raised, and his mace in hand now, as well. Rami and Blackie were dead on the floor, and the third man was rolling about, grasping his gut. For the first time, the fourth seemed to realize that the fight had turned deadly. He backed away, his empty hands up, alternately staring at Rami and Blackie and at Theron.

  The rest of the men in the cabin were on their feet, but nobody else had come forward to join in the fray. Bedene still sat on his stump, but he had his rifle in his arms, his finger on the trigger, the muzzle pointing at Theron.

  What had he been thinking about getting himself into an unwise situation? Yes, that had happened.

  Knife and mace in hand, he crouched, staring at Bedene from across the cabin. He doubted that the man would miss at this distance. All he could do was watch his finger, his body, his face, and try to guess when the shot was coming so that he might dodge it. He had a feeling he was going to get hit either way, but maybe he would get lucky, and it wouldn’t be a killing shot. To die out here, without completing his mission, with nobody ever knowing what had happened to him... That bothered him more than the idea of never seeing another sunrise.

  He didn’t let any of these thoughts make it to his face. He concentrated on Bedene, on trying to anticipate the shot.

  “You fight like a soldier,” Bedene said, his tone cold, his face difficult to read.

  “Doubt I’m the only one here who fought for the Alliance.” He was just the only one here who was still fighting for it.

  “Figured you for a soldier. You got that look about you, beard or not. What unit were you in?”

  It wasn’t the question Theron had expected. Actually, he had expected nothing more than a bullet after Bedene’s declaration. Still, it was an easy enough question to answer; he had any number of units he had served in that he could pick from. He chose the one furthest back, when he had been a nameless private that nobody would remember.

  “Third Infantry Brigade, Rainer Company. I was a scout.”

  “Yeah, I’ve seen how quiet you stalk around out there,” Bedene said. “Who was your CO when you were in?”

  “Captain Bennington,” Theron said, still not taking his focus from the rifle trained on him. For all he knew, Bedene fully intended to shoot him and was just trying to puzzle out who he was before he did so.

  “Captain?” Bedene’s brows twitched upward. “You’re older than you look, new blood. Bennington was a major when I served, and that was nearly ten years ago. He must be a colonel or general by now.”

  He was a colonel, and Theron played cards with him on Tuesday nights when he was in the rear.

  “I imagine,” he said blandly.

  “I was in the Third too,” Bedene said. “A sniper.” He offered a tight smile.

  “Bet that comes in handy,” Theron said, refusing to appear intimidated. It was promising that the man was talking to him, but he didn’t know if the fact that they had served in the same unit, if at different times, would matter to Bedene. Lots of people left the military with bitter feelings, realizing the hard way that the disciplined lifestyle and lack of freedom was not for them.

  “From time to time.” Bedene’s gaze had grown less sharp, more thoughtful. That didn’t mean he couldn’t still shoot, but Theron let himself hope that he might get away with his life tonight.

  He could feel the eyes of everyone in the cabin shifting back and forth from Bedene to him. The three women were behind him, so he couldn’t see them, but he wondered if Andie had picked up that knife. Had anyone noticed him throw it? Or had it, like the knife that had gone into the gasoline container, been unnoticed in the chaos?

  “Look, Mace.” Bedene dropped the butt of the rifle to the floor beside him. “I don’t care who screws what while we’re out here, and I can’t muster any tears for the loss of those two. Men pick their fights, and that’s up to them. But I don’t want more trouble here.” He skimmed the cabin, his gaze landing on each of the men for at least a second. “You all might be thinking that fewer men making it to the market means more money for the rest of us, and there’s something to be said for that, but we’ve got to make it there first. Fertile women are rarer than albino wolves out there, and even in civilization, there aren’t enough who can make babies. These women are valuable commodities, and there are those who will risk taking on armed men to steal them from us.”

  Commodities. Theron forced himself not to argue about the classification, not when it looked like Bedene was willing to look the other way over the deaths of his men.

  “But you listen up, Mace,” Bedene said, focusing on him again, his tone going hard. “We will be selling those women. You get some notion in your head about stealing away with one of them—” his gaze shifted toward Andie, “—and I will hunt you down.” He patted the barrel of his rifle.

  “Not planning on stealing anyone,” Theron said, even if Andie was a pilot, and even if they could use her back at the fort for that special program Morimoto had promised Theron he could be a part of... “Need the money. That’s why I’m here. Just figure we don’t need to be assholes along the way.” He frowned over at the man he had disarmed and kicked earlier, hoping that in killing the other two, he had intimidated that one enough that he wouldn’t try anything again. The man jerked out a nod. He didn’t look happy, but he didn’t look like he’d cause further trouble, either. The fourth of the men who had jumped him wouldn’t make eye contact. “There’s enough of that in the world already,” Theron finished.

  Bedene grunted. “You’re a noble bastard, aren’t you? How long you been out?”

  “Few years,” Theron said, hoping he wasn’t about to be quizzed on other units he had been in, because he had led the last four of them, and he didn’t know if he could pull off referring to himself in the third person. Besides, that seemed risky, like Bedene might put two and two together if he heard Theron’s name. “I came and went a few times before finally getting kicked out.”

  “Kicked out? For what?”

  “Had trouble obeying orders.” That was a truth, even if it hadn’t gotten him kicked out.

  Bedene snorted. “That I believe.” He pointed at the dead men. “Get that mess out of here, and bring in that firewood I asked for twenty minutes ago. You will obey my orders.”

  Theron turned away from him for the first time and looked at Andie. He didn’t know if he had a choice, but a part of him worried that this might be another ruse to get rid of him for a while. Andie had her hands tucked in her lap, but she shifted one palm aside, so he could see the blade there. She had retrieved it. Good.

  She gazed back at him calmly, which he took to mean that she thought she could take care of herself if anything happened in the next twenty minutes. Theron gave Bedene a lazy salute, the sort a man who had been kicked out might find appropriate, then put away his weapons and opened the door to comply with the order.

  Having Bedene refer to the dead men as “that mess” grated at him, and he debated whether to bury them or build a pyre to burn them. He had no idea as to the fallen’s religious preferences, but a pyre would take less time. Theron had a feeling Bedene had meant for him to dump the bodies far enough away that they wouldn’t draw predators to the cabin, but that disrespect was too callous for him, even if he had killed the kidnappers. He wouldn’t have normally, but in a fight against four people who were trying to kill him, he hadn’t dared use anything less than deadly force. He had seen good men, men better than he, hesitate to kill in battle, and they had not survived to defend their choices.

  A moon came out to guide him as he carried the bodies some distance away from the cabin. The search for a clearing took him to the top of a small hill from where he could see the old highway stretching through the pass. He had scarcely started gathering firewood when a dot of yellow on the horizon caught his eye. A campfire. As he watched, more of them appeared, enough to suggest a sizable force. At first, he thought they might belong to Optimus and the rest of his men, but the fires lay farther up in the pass, in the direction of the ruins of Seattle, not in the direction Theron and the others had come from. He doubted that Optimus could have caught up with and passed Bedene’s group, not with all those soft-soled young women along. He would have been lucky to cover half the ground Theron’s own group had.

  So who were these people? Soldiers on patrol? Theron hoped that might be the case, and he resolved to go check before returning to the cabin, but he feared he would find more enemies. It was twenty miles to the border of the Cascade Alliance, and Theron knew his people’s procedures. They wouldn’t build fires and announce their presence openly, unless it was to lay a trap. Whoever was out there, it was unlikely he was looking at soldiers.

  More thieves, then? Thieves who would be willing to kill to capture a few women? Whoever they were, he dared not light a pyre now.

  “Looks like you’re digging graves, Colonel,” Theron said with a sigh. He decided it wouldn’t be seemly to wish he had a few privates on whom to foist the task.

  He eyed the cabin, glad it was sheltered from view by the trees. He would talk to Bedene about putting out the fire in the hearth so it wouldn’t draw attention.

  Chapter 5

  Andie sat with her back to the bumpy logs, her eyes threatening to close. She wanted to remain awake until Mace returned, but she had been up since morning the day before, and after walking all day, the fatigue was hard to push aside. Min-ji and their new acquaintance, Barbara, were already sleeping, curled on their sides with their backs to the wall. Andie had not yet had a chance to talk to the teenage Girl Scouts, but she had learned their names, Ruth Marie and Marisa.

  Andie had used her new knife to cut her bonds. Now she was keeping it out of sight. She kept her hands out of sight, too, not wanting anyone to notice her freedom. After dinner, several of the men had come over to their side of the room and plopped down far too close. Between the loft and the main room, forty people could have slept in the cabin without invading each other’s space, but their kidnappers seemed to want to stay close. More than one of them had his eyes turned toward Andie’s trio. A few others remained awake, crowding near the teenagers at the hearth, doing a lot of bumping and touching as they shared the warmth of the flames.

  A couple of times, the girls had glanced in Andie’s direction, and she wondered if they wanted protection or help. Yet they remained over there. One was even cozying up to one of the kidnappers, leaning against him and letting him grab her butt. Andie wished they would come talk to her, so she could get an idea of their minds. Were they staying close to those men because they didn’t think they had a choice? Or had they decided it was best to have a protector in this situation? Maybe they had chosen those particular thugs because they considered them the least unappealing of the lot. Aside from Theron, that might be true. She hadn’t caught their names, but those men hadn’t harassed her; they had been quiet for most of the day, following orders.

  One of the men at the hearth pointed at the loft, and the girl closest to him nodded. Andie bit her tongue as they climbed up a ladder. That girl might be sixteen or seventeen, but she sure as hell wasn’t any older than that. Yet she had nodded. What was Andie to do? It was better than seeing the girls dragged off against their will, but not much.

  She dropped her head in her lap, struggling with a wave of despair that had washed over her. She ought to be thinking of escape, but other thoughts invaded her mind, driving away more productive ones. She worried about what she would do if there wasn’t a way to go back home. She had been gone less than a day, but homesickness plagued her heart.

  Kissing sounds drifted down from the loft, followed by enthusiastic grunts. Andie wished she could close her ears. Or fall asleep and wake up elsewhere, back in her own time.

  Someone grasped her calf, and she almost cried out in surprise. She jerked her head up, glaring down at the presumptive man who had eased his blanket closer without her noticing. Had she dozed off for a moment?

  “Doesn’t look like your boyfriend is coming back tonight,” the kidnapper murmured, squeezing her calf.

  Andie jerked her leg away, almost turning the movement into a kick. He was lying on his side, facing her, and she could have. Several other sets of eyes, visible as they reflected the flames in the hearth, were turned toward her. If she drove one man away, would the others pounce? Maybe the grunts coming from the loft were making them even hornier than they had been before.

  “No touching,” she told the jerk and hunted for Bedene. She didn’t like him, and doubted he would stop anything, but he had that nice M-16, a weapon stolen from her time and one she knew how to shoot. If he was sleeping nearby, maybe she could get ahold of it and invite herself out the door.

  He had thrown his blanket down on the other side of the cabin, near the hearth. His rifle was beside him.

  “You sure, sweets? You might as well get some practice before going to your new owner.”

  “I’m positive,” Andie said as firmly as she could, lifting her leg slightly, so she still had the option to kick if he touched her again.

  At her side, Min-ji stirred, looking at the man, then sitting up beside Andie. She remembered to clasp her hands in her lap. They were unbound too. They hadn’t dared talk much once the kidnappers had come over, but the plan was for someone to stay up until everyone fell asleep. Then they would try to sneak out. Andie was exhausted and would have preferred a good night’s sleep before an escape attempt, but she didn’t know how many more nights, if any, they might have before reaching their destination. Even walking, it wasn’t that far to Puget Sound, and she assumed civilization, or what passed for it, would exist on the same shores that Seattle occupied—or had once occupied.

  The man withdrew his hand and closed his eyes, but Andie didn’t like the way the others were looking at her and Min-ji. One had sidled close to Barbara too. The fact that she was sleeping probably wouldn’t do anything to stop one of these thugs.

  “There’s something I forgot to tell you,” Min-ji whispered.

  “What?”

  “I realized it when Mace threw the knife.” Her whisper was so low that Andie had to lean closer. “He had to be the one who threw the knife in the cave, to hit that gasoline container. I’d been wondering how I could open it with Bedene guarding it, and then it was suddenly leaking, a puncture in the side. He was the only one there, and he was the one twirling his knife before it happened.”

  Andie only nodded for a response. If for some reason, Mace was an ally, she did not want to reveal him as such to these men, and they were close enough to hear just about any conversation, whispered or not. A couple of them had started snoring, but others were waiting, perhaps hoping for a chance to scratch their itches, deep in the night. Or less deep in the night, if Mace did not return.

  Andie scratched her jaw. Why would he be watching out for them? Or attempting to cause trouble? She thought of Bedene’s warning. Did Mace think he could steal Andie and the others away to sell himself?

  “Please, I can’t,” the girl at the hearth said softly, an edge of fear in her voice. “Not two. Not—”

  The pair of men who had remained after their buddy and the other teenager had gone to the loft were close to her, one in front and one behind, their hands rubbing her through the shirt. One man’s hand drifted lower, to her bare leg.

  Andie wrapped her hand around the hilt of the knife in her lap. If she went over to help, their captors would learn that she had freed her wrists and that she had a weapon. She had hoped to keep that a secret to facilitate escaping later. But she couldn’t do nothing while that girl was molested.

  “We’ll be nice,” the man in front of her said, stepping closer so that his body was pressed against hers.

  Shaking her head, Andie rose to her feet. She picked her way around the men on the floor carefully, concerned one might grab her as she walked past. One did shift onto his side and look up at her, a speculative gleam in his eyes. She kept the knife pressed to her body, using her hands and the shadows to hide it, but she glared back, letting him know she saw him.

  “Ruth Marie,” Andie said, hoping she had the right name. The girls were around the same age, with pale skin and dark brown hair. They might even be sisters. “Why don’t you come join us?” She nodded toward the sleeping area while keeping her gaze on the two men. Their faces had turned toward Andie, but they hadn’t moved away from the girl at all. The one behind her slipped his arm around Ruth Marie’s waist, pulling her tightly to him. “Everyone should be getting some rest. We had a long hike, and I’m guessing the one tomorrow will be just as long.”

  “I’d like to do that,” the girl said, her voice squeaky with fear. Whatever she had been thinking in regard to befriending one of them or finding a protector, having two of them pressing against her, their intent clear, had changed her mind, and she appeared younger than ever as she looked at Andie with imploring eyes.

  Ruth Marie tried to take a step toward Andie, but the men held her fast, keeping her sandwiched between them.

  “Mind your own campfire, woman,” one of them growled, jerking his head toward the blankets. “This one’s staying with us tonight.”

 

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