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“Jesus, this guy’s heavy,” one of them said, and groaned. “Ate his weight in cheeseburgers or something. ”
“I could kill a cheeseburger right now. Maybe two. ”
“Shut up and get him over the edge, and we can get chow,” snapped the man standing over Bryn. “Unless you’re so attached you want to take him back and play house. ”
“Fuck you, you’re the one with the cute bald chick. ”
“Cute and fucking dead. ”
“Hot, though. ”
“Shut up, you freak—”
And right then, Reynolds woke up, with a vengeance. And a shriek like a devil coming straight up out of hell with a pitchfork up his ass.
There was a chorus of alarm from the body disposal unit—hers and Reynolds alike. She heard his body fall with a thump to the ground, and she was dropped just a second later. She opened her eyes.
All four of the men had backed off and were staring with understandable horror at the dead man flailing and screaming on the ground.
She rolled to her feet, stepped up behind one of them, and pulled his sidearm from the holster he wore in the small of his back. She pressed it to the base of his skull and said, “Boo. ”
He yelped and flinched, but he didn’t try to move away. His buddies did, retreating another couple of steps in a triangle that put her and Reynolds’ still-twitching not-quite-corpse on the other three points. Sticking together for safety. One of them pulled his gun, but he couldn’t quite decide what to do with it, especially when Bryn put her arm around their comrade’s throat, yanked him off balance, and aimed over his shoulder at the ones still free. “Drop them,” she said. “Or I start making corpses. And I can promise you, that gully’s still a valid destination. Just not for me. ”
“Kill this bitch!” said the one she had choked out. She grinned. It probably looked as savage as she felt.
“Yeah, please do,” she said. “In case you haven’t noticed, killing me doesn’t really help. Thanks for getting us outside the gates, boys. ”
That spooked them enough that they pulled out their weapons and tossed them, which was exactly what she wanted. Reynolds had stopped screaming, but he lay on his side, sobbing. She knew how it felt. The headache alone would disable him for a while, much less the overwhelming shock of what had happened to him.
“Right,” she said. “Let’s do this. ”
She didn’t know anything about these men, but they’d been party to two murders that she knew of, and found body disposal boring work. That didn’t mean they deserved to die, but she didn’t have much choice. Not if she wanted to preserve Patrick’s life.
She snapped the neck of the one she was holding. It wasn’t easy; he was a big man, but she had leverage and strength, and she felt it when the bone shifted and his spinal cord severed. Shots carried in these hills. She was going to have to do this quietly.
She expected it to be difficult. She wanted it to be. But the adrenaline that flooded her made it seem effortless as she shoved the dead man aside and leaped for the group. She hit hard, dead center, and they tumbled like bowling pins. She took hold of the center man as they rolled. He was pulling a knife, which she recognized with a pleased jolt; she needed it. So Bryn took it, by breaking his fingers, and then buried the knife twice in his chest, twisting to be sure he was down. Blood bathed her, but she was already moving on, licking the iron tang from her lips as she ducked a thrown fist, rushed in, and delivered four fast, accurate stabs, severing vital organs and arteries.
The third was running, and that triggered something awful and feral in her. She took him down ten feet away, and severed his spine with a single, sharp cut. Clean, this time. Simple.
She rose, breathing hard, fighting back the urge to rip into the corpses. She thought about cold water, icy rivers rushing over her and washing away the blood and fear and fury.
By the time she opened her eyes, Dr. Reynolds had stopped groaning, and had made it, swaying, to his knees. Behind him, the dawn was glowing gold and pink.
It was going to be a beautiful day.
He didn’t resist as she pulled him to his feet.
“Where are we going?” he asked dully. Still in shock. Good. That made him easier to handle. “What just happened?”
“I saved your ass,” she said. “Walk and shut up, Doctor. ”
He did.
Chapter 18
The compound was just coming awake by the time they’d made it to the tree line near the fence; roosters were crowing, people were chattering, and Bryn heard the laughter of kids as they ran close to the ditch where she and Reynolds had spent the night dead.
She wondered if they were used to seeing bodies there. She hoped not. She hoped that was why their surly body-disposal team had been up so early, to avoid letting the kids see that ugly truth.
