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The four of them stood in a loose half circle around Captain Joe Ledger. The ranger’s dog, Grimm, a massive American mastiff who usually wore armor fitted with blades and had been trained to hack zombies rather than bite them, sat nearby, watching Benny with undisguised dislike.
The ranger’s own emotions were impossible to read. He had a sunbaked, scarred face that generally wore either a fake smile or a disapproving scowl. The man was still a bit unreal to Benny. He’d first read about him on a Zombie Card; Ledger was a hero of First Night, a former Special Operator. He had led a crew of world-class soldiers against terrorists who were armed with exotic bioweapons. In the weeks following First Night, Ledger was supposed to have saved thousands of people by organizing them, helping them find shelter, teaching them how to fight the limitless armies of the dead. He’d even fought alongside Solomon Jones, Fluffy McTeague, Hector Mexico, and Tom.
This man had known Tom.
The man had once been a great hero.
He was still fighting the zoms and leading the fight against the reapers. Without him, Benny and all his friends would have died in the Nevada desert.
He was a living legend.
And Benny wished he could bury the man up to his chin in an anthill and pour honey over him.
The feeling was clearly mutual.
“You know what your problem is?” asked Ledger.
“I’m standing too close to a jerk who thinks he’s Captain Wonderful?”
“Cute. But no . . . the problem is that you have some skills. For the amount of training you say you’ve had, you’re actually pretty good. And that’s what’s going to get you killed.”
Grimm looked at Benny the way a hungry wolf might look at a limping gazelle. Drool hung from his rubbery jowls.
Benny waited for the other shoe to drop, and it hit with a thud.
Ledger said, “What you are is an arrogant little . . .”
There was more, a lot more, but Benny stopped listening. He turned and began walking away. He got a dozen steps before a strong hand grabbed him and whirled him around.
It wasn’t Joe.
It was Nix.
She was beautiful even when she was furious, and right now she was absolutely furious. Her freckles glowed like hot embers and her green eyes were lethal. She pitched her voice into a low, fierce whisper that only he could hear.
“You listen to me, Benjamin Imura,” she snapped. “Captain Ledger is trying to help us.”
“I
don’t want his help.”
“Don’t be stupid. We need his help. We need to keep training.”
“Tom trained us,” he fired back, his voice rising. “Tom was the best, and he trained us and we’ve been warrior smart. We survived everything because of Tom.”
Nix got right up in his face.
“Survived everything? Really? Why don’t you go tell that to Chong.”
It was worse than a slap across the face.
Chong.
God . . .
Benny tried to say something back, something witty and full of thorns, but the words caught in his throat; he couldn’t spit them out. Instead he turned, slammed his sword into its sheath, and stalked away.
* * *
