by Kyla Stone
The smoke shifted and swirled around him in a thick, eddying soup. He blinked his stinging eyes. Everything was a dingy gray, every shape more than a foot away dark and indistinct.
The truck loomed in front of him in the haze like a monstrous beast. He turned to the right, resisting the urge to flail his arms.
Fear and adrenaline pumped through him. He might die here, on this road, surrounded by Headhunters and this bitter, choking smoke.
But his sense of purpose was stronger than his fear. He would save Amelia’s mother. He knew he could do it. It would never pay back the wrong he’d done to Amelia, the betrayal that had almost cost her life, but it was something.
And he could take his revenge for Nadira’s death. Nadira, who’d been kind and sweet and gentle, the only one to offer him grace and forgiveness when he—a murderer and terrorist—had least deserved it.
He didn’t have the time to reach into his pocket and feel the square of pale blue cloth, part of Nadira’s head scarf. He knew it was there.
In the battle at Sweet Creek Farm, Nadira had leapt in front of Cerberus’s gun. She had taken the bullet meant for Gabriel. She had sacrificed her life for his, offering him a redemption he’d believed was beyond his grasp.
Nadira had given him a new life, a new purpose. The least he could do was kill her murderer.
Gabriel skirted carefully around the truck, passing within inches of several Headhunters. His pulse thundered in his ears. If they even glanced at him…but their eyes were on the hills, their panic causing tunnel vision, blinding them to the enemy in their midst.
He moved among them, unseen, unnoticed.
Several men cursed, aiming wildly at nothing. A skinny Headhunter in a coyote pelt leaned against the truck, clutching his leg as blood gushed between his fingers. The women being used as human shields whimpered and cried softly.
A Headhunter in a bristling black bear pelt held a child to his chest. A girl, tiny, not more than five. Gabriel glimpsed wide, panicky blue eyes and stringy blonde hair before a swirl of smoke rose between them.
Bile churned in his gut. An image of the little girl in a yellow bathrobe flashed through his mind, her black hair flung around her delicate face like a halo, blood seeping from a hole in her chest. The girl from the heaving, burning deck of the Grand Voyager. The child who’d died because of Gabriel’s actions, his single-minded determination to win at any cost—even innocent lives.
He forced himself to turn away from the blonde girl. Helping her now would only doom Elise Black and the other hostages. He wasn’t abandoning her; continuing with his mission was his best shot at saving them all.
A few Headhunters let loose a volley of automatic fire into the hills.
“I’m out!” someone cried.
“I’m low, too,” a man in a leopard pelt said.
“Save your ammo!” Cerberus hissed. “Don’t shoot at ghosts!”
Gabriel turned toward the voice and caught sight of the wolf pelt a few yards away, a dazzling streak of white in a haze of gray. He smiled as he stepped over another Headhunter’s body and inched closer to Cerberus’s exposed back.
He was about to show Cerberus just how deadly a ghost could be.
He let his rifle drop against his shoulder strap and slipped his pulse gun out of its holster. He pressed it against the side of Cerberus’s skull. “Long time, no see, asshole.”
Cerberus barely flinched, but his lips curled back in a snarl of rage, revealing his canines sharpened like fangs. He was caught in a trap, and he knew it.
“Nobody move!” Cleo shouted from behind a massive tree just up the hill. “We outnumber you ten to one.” Which was an outright lie, but the Headhunters didn’t know it.
“Come out, little girl, so we can blow your head off,” said a burly Headhunter to Cerberus’s right. “Every single one of you. Are you gonna shoot these innocent women and children to get to us?”
“We don’t have to.” Cleo’s cool, confident voice cut through the chilly air. A gust of wind dissipated more of the smoke. “From my count, your automatic weapons are nearly empty. While you’re busy attempting to reload and hold on to your hostages at the same time, we’ll pick you off, one by one. Besides, we have a gun trained on your leader. Make a move, and he goes. Then so do each of you.”
Silas materialized out of nowhere, his semi-automatic pointed at the burly black Headhunter directly to Gabriel’s right—likely Cerberus’s righthand man.
“We’ll take some of the hostages with us,” the Headhunter growled. He wore a panther pelt and silver hooks in his ears. His skull was thick and angular, his nose blunt, his eyes dull and deadly.
“We only care about one,” Cleo said, the shrug evident in her voice. She wasn’t bluffing, either. Cleo might be on Gabriel’s side, but she was cold as a mountain glacier.
Gabriel shoved the barrel of the gun against Cerberus’s head. “Let Elise go.”
“You kill me, and my men will open fire on you, consequences be damned,” Cerberus said.
Now Gabriel shrugged. It was a calculated risk. But he had seen the way the Headhunters obeyed Cerberus’s every word back at Sweet Creek Farm. He was their alpha. His men wouldn’t risk his life if they didn’t have to. “I’m willing to take that chance.”
“Just let me go,” Elise said in a trembling voice. Gabriel dared not take his gaze off Cerberus, not even for a second. Elise was only a glimmer of pale face and dark hair out of the corner of his eye. “They’ll have mercy if you let me go.”
Cerberus let out a bark of laughter.
“Did they hurt you?” Gabriel asked her.
“No,” Elise said. “Not in the way you’re thinking.”
“We’re traders,” Cerberus said darkly. “We never damage the merchandise. Well, almost never.”
Gabriel’s heart jolted as he sensed movement. He had no time to react. The burly Headhunter in the panther pelt moved swiftly, his gun lifting toward Gabriel.
Silas pulled the trigger. The Headhunter lurched, blood spraying from the bullet that entered the back of his skull and exited somewhere in the vicinity of his shattered left eye socket. Blood splattered Gabriel, Cerberus, and Elise.
Gabriel didn’t flinch. He didn’t even blink. He couldn’t afford to. “Thanks,” he said to Silas.
Silas smirked as he wiped a spray of blood from his lean face. He was tall and wiry, his short brown hair spiked off his forehead, his gray eyes glinting with amusement. “Anytime.”
Behind Gabriel, a second Headhunter fired. The bullet whizzed past his cheek. One of their people further up the hill shot once. Gabriel heard rather than saw the body crumple. The hostage screamed, though she was unhurt.
“Guess a girl can shoot after all,” Willow quipped from behind a pine tree ten yards up the hill. She stepped out into the open, a semi-automatic half as large as herself grasped in both hands. “Well enough to take out a few filthy mouth-breathers, anyway.”
Silas spun around to level his gun at the Headhunters behind him. “Looks like you just lost.”
“Surrender now, Cerberus,” Gabriel said.
Cerberus sighed and dropped his gun. “Stand down.”
One by one, his men lowered their machine guns, grumbling in protest but obeying. The hostages staggered forward, crying with relief. The little girl with the blonde hair dashed into the waiting arms of an older woman—likely her mother.
“Drop the weapons and kick them aside. Lose your handguns and knives, too,” Gabriel ordered. “And release your hostages.”
Cerberus dropped his gun and lifted both hands, palms out. Elise Black stumbled away from Cerberus, clutching her neck and gasping.
“Mother!” Amelia sprinted down the hill, her arms already opening wide. Amelia and her mother clutched each other. Elise burst into sobs. Amelia put her arm around her mother’s shoulder and whispered soothingly into her ear.
Gabriel’s chest filled with warmth as they embraced. He watched as Amelia pulled her mother out of the road
and back up toward the safety of the hill. “You’re okay now,” she said over and over. “You’re okay.”
Cleo strode down the hill, her rifle leveled at Cerberus. One of her trusted soldiers, a well-built black guy named Jamal Carter, came down with her. He was in his mid-twenties, with a full beard and a bevy of piercings in his lip, nose, and ears. In spite of the hardware, he was quiet and laid back—until it was time to fight. He knew his way around guns, and he didn’t hesitate to shoot to kill.
Cerberus eyed the patch on Cleo’s arm, a closed fist raised in the air against a field of blood-red. “Before you shoot me, I have a proposition your leaders would very much like to hear.”
Cleo cocked her brows. The scarred left side of her face was smooth, the burned skin stretching from below her left eye across her cheek and jawline to the side of her neck. “I’m listening.”
“You know who we are, just like I know who you are. We’re traders and service providers. We collect valuable resources—items, people, information—and exchange those resources in fair trade to surrounding communities for services rendered.”
“You’re monsters!” Willow strode down the hill. She was a Filipina firecracker, short and thick but incredibly strong, and a gifted fighter. She huffed her bangs out of her dark eyes and glared fiercely up at Cerberus. “Thieves and murderers.”
“Only when we have to be,” Cerberus said evenly. “Our mercenary skills are in high demand in communities all over Georgia and beyond. Don’t mistake business for anything but what it is, girl.” He lifted a hand and rubbed his right shoulder, right about where a scar from his bullet wound would be. The bullet wound Gabriel gave him after he murdered Nadira. “At least, until certain members of your group made things personal.”
“I’m just sorry I missed,” Gabriel said, fresh rage filling him. “Lucky thing I have another chance to get it right. It’s time to put you in the ground.”
“Wait.” Cleo lifted one hand. “What do you think you have, trader?”
Cerberus straightened his broad shoulders, the white wolf pelt rippling in the cold breeze. Digital tattoos slithered over his neck and the back of his hands. “Information.”
“Speak now or forever hold your peace. I don’t play games.”
Cerberus tilted his head as he studied her. “Let me speak with your leader, girl. This is a subject for men to handle.”
Cleo patted the gun holster at her hip. She wore a knife sheath at her other hip and strapped around her right thigh. Her eyes blazed. “I am the leader, you misogynistic bastard.”
Cleo was smaller and younger than Cerberus, but she held her own without flinching. Her hair was shaved to her skull on both sides of her head, with a knot of purple braids on top that tumbled down her back nearly to her waist. She was Indian, with rich brown skin, cunning eyes, and a vicious smile.
Cerberus frowned in displeasure. He and the Headhunters liked the old ways, he’d said at Sweet Creek Farm, back when women knew their place. “The leader of your Patriots, then.”
Her smile widened. She glanced at Gabriel, amused. “Oh, you mean General Reaver.”
“Yes, him. He’ll want to know this information, I assure you.”
Cleo lifted one shoulder in an insolent shrug. “Well, I’m afraid she is busy right now. And if it’s up to me, which it is, I’d rather just kill you all right now. So if you have something to say that might save your worthless hides, I advise you say it.”
Cerberus’s face purpled with anger. But he maintained control. Which was unfortunate. Gabriel was tired of this back and forth. Anger ate at him. His hands trembled with rage. It was time for justice for Nadira, for all of them. It was time to kill this bastard. His finger tightened on the trigger.
Cerberus seemed to sense Gabriel’s movement. He set his jaw. “So be it. I know what you want. We’ve heard the whispers in the surviving communities we trade with. Your people have been searching for certain high-powered weapons.”
A shadow crossed Cleo’s face. She bit her lip, frowning. Her sharp gaze darted to Gabriel, then back to Cerberus. “I’m listening.”
“The Settlement. It’s southeast of here. They have an armada of airjets—”
Cleo spat on the road. “We know the Undergrounders. They’re too well-fortified to take anything by force. They’re not interested in playing ball, but they keep to themselves. They aren’t a threat or a resource. They’re nothing. So, if that’s all you’ve got—”
Cerberus licked his lips. “We know where a Phantom is.”
Cleo stiffened. Gabriel had no idea what Cerberus was talking about, but Cleo clearly did. She was startled, but she quickly regained her footing. “You have a Phantom.”
“We know where one is located. Rogue soldiers took it from Robins Air Force Base before being ambushed themselves. We found it and hid it with a transponder and GPS locator.”
“And you’re claiming you can get it for us?”
“Keep us hostage, if you must, while you verify it. You can go get it tomorrow. And I can offer more. I have fifty skilled fighters right here. I can summon two hundred more within the week.”
Cleo’s eyes narrowed. “And how do I know you’ll stand by your word?”
Cerberus spread his hands. “Like I said, trust but verify. We’re businessmen. We’re traders. It’s what we do. We have services to offer you, resources to trade. This is business. More, it’s the future. Someone in your position should think long and hard before throwing away something so valuable for a bit of revenge.”
A second conversation was happening between Cleo and Cerberus, a negotiation Gabriel wasn’t privy to. He knew the words but couldn’t discern the underlying meaning. The hairs prickled on the back of his neck.
“We’ve asked you before,” Cleo said.
Cerberus smiled, flashing white teeth. “Let’s just say the circumstances have changed.”
“Permission to engage,” Gabriel hissed between gritted teeth. “Why are we wasting our time—”
Cleo held up a hand, silencing him. She kept her eyes on the Headhunter. Her lip curled in distaste. “You will have to release your…resources.”
Cerberus flipped his palms skyward. His gaze flitted up the hill to Amelia, who stood with her arms wrapped around her mother, consoling her. “I’m sure we can negotiate mutually beneficial terms.”
“What the hell is he still talking for?” Willow stalked across the road and jabbed her gun in a Headhunter’s face. She glanced back at Gabriel, her features contorted in fury. “We don’t need her permission. It’s time to end this.”
“Stop, Willow,” Cleo ordered. “Or we’ll be forced to make you.”
Cleo gave a signal to the New Patriots standing at the tree line. Four of them shifted positions. The New Patriots weren’t just aiming at the Headhunters. They were aiming at Willow and Silas, too.
Anger surged through Gabriel. “What the hell are you doing?”
“Your men need to stand the hell down,” Cleo said calmly.
“Not until we’ve finished our business.” Willow was right. They didn’t need Cleo’s permission to do anything.
He refocused his attention on Cerberus, the man who’d murdered an innocent girl. Who had tried to kidnap Amelia and stole Elise. He was evil. And without courts or police or a government, the only justice was the justice they enacted themselves. “Control your men. Get their guns away from my people.”
“Don’t do this, Gabriel,” Cleo warned.
But Gabriel didn’t listen. “This is for Nadira. Be grateful yours will be a quick death instead of the one you deserve—”
Cleo lunged forward in a single, swift movement. Something cold and metallic touched the side of Gabriel’s head. “Do not pull that trigger.”
Dread knotted his gut. “Or what?”
“Or I will do whatever I have to do to stop you. Don’t make me order Jamal to take out Willow.” Cleo spoke with a cool indifference that sent a spear of certain fear through his heart. She would do it as
easily as she had branded Willow with her cigar. To a girl like Cleo, the ends justified any means.
Gabriel knew that. He’d believed he could keep the situation under control.
He was wrong.
“Lower your guns,” Jamal said.
“Listen to him,” Gabriel said through gritted teeth.
“You bitch,” Willow hissed.
Silas spat colorful obscenities and hurled his gun at Cleo’s feet. She didn’t flinch. “There’s been a change of plans,” Cleo said loudly so that everyone could hear. “We all have a common enemy. So, let’s put this little squabble behind us and look to the future—the only thing that matters. We don’t have to like each other—” she glanced pointedly at Cerberus and Gabriel. “Hell, I hate most of you. It doesn’t matter. If you want to live, if you want your kids to live, then we must work together.”
Cleo reached over, seized Gabriel’s gun, and wrenched it out of his hands. With her rifle to his temple, he had no choice. He let go. “Why are you doing this?”
Cleo ignored him and turned to the Headhunters. “Gentlemen, welcome to the New Patriots.”
3
Micah
Nineteen-year-old Micah Ramos Rivera hadn’t seen his brother so angry in a long time. Maybe since the Grand Voyager. That was five months ago; it felt like five years.
“What the hell is going on?” Gabriel snarled.
“I have something to show you,” Cleo said, nonplussed. She puffed a circle of smoke from her cigar. It drifted between them in the cold air. “Then we’ll talk.”
They had just returned to the New Patriots compound. The Fort Cohutta Detention and Rehabilitation Center was a self-sufficient, previously abandoned prison tucked halfway up Wildwood Mountain at the base of the Blue Ridge Mountains.
Cerberus and around forty of his Headhunters were already sequestered in the quarantine barracks to ensure none were infected. A handful of Headhunters had declined to join the New Patriots; Cerberus sent them back to their own headquarters to send more Headhunter reinforcements. For what, exactly, was still unclear.
