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“We only have thirty minutes,” I said softly. “We’ll need to work quickly to bring back enough to stand out.”
I heard some of the Tenacity people swear when they spotted the pile of headless bodies and looked at the mass piled close to the back end of our truck. So many infected. I shuddered to think what would have happened if the infected had waited until we’d been out of the trucks.
“Come,” Tor said.
He picked me up, and my usual team of fey fell in around us as he jogged farther down the road. The Tenacity people tended to converge on the closest houses then returned to the truck, too afraid to venture any distance. Typically, I wasn’t overly concerned due to the fey presence. After our current greeting, though, I would be a liar if I said I wasn’t more anxious.
Fallor already carried a stack of totes, which he set outside the first house.
“Food is the focus today. If it looks even remotely like food, toss it in the tote. We clean out the kitchen and move to the next house. We don’t have time for full cleanouts,” I said.
My team grunted in acknowledgment, and I divided them unevenly into three groups. The main group would stay with me. Two teams of two would go to the next pair of houses under the guise of sweeping for infected when, in reality, they would be prepping the supplies. To the Tenacity people, it needed to look like I was doing the gathering so they wouldn’t question the hopefully big haul I’d go home with at the end of the day. The reality was that I would be inside the house, safely held in Tor’s arms, while my team packed everything into totes for me.
I was using the fey in the exact way they weren’t supposed to be used. But they all understood what the end goal was. Heck, even if the goal wasn’t to make Tenacity a fey-friendly settlement, I knew they would have still helped me. They were simply that nice, which was why Mya had established the rules in the first place.
Thirty minutes later, I was back in the truck and behind the wheel.
“You did good work,” Richard said. “I counted twelve totes of food from your houses.”
I nodded. “Did anyone question anything?”
“No. Ryan suggested the humans only focus on kitchens while having the fey check for obvious overstock locations elsewhere in the house. One of them got lucky and found a shelving unit stocked with canned goods. They’ll think you were lucky, too.”
Ryan gave the signal and climbed back into his truck.
“Let’s hope we have a quiet ride home,” Richard said.
I started the truck and eased forward behind Ryan’s, checking the mirror to make sure I didn’t clip the body pile. An arm moved.
“I think one of the infected is still alive in the body pile,” I said.
“Unlikely. They only pile them up once they’re headless.”
Frowning, I glanced at the mirror again. Nothing moved this time.
“They give me the creeps on so many levels,” I said.
“Agreed.”
The drive home was relatively uneventful with only a few car blockades and infected to clear. I spent a good deal of the time watching Tor run. The man was droolworthy, and he knew it, too, because every time he caught me looking, he winked and flashed his teeth at me. However, when the truck stopped, he wasn’t the one to help me down.
My gaze swept the surrounding fey who unloaded the supplies, but Tor was already gone.
The chaos inside Tenacity’s walls was greater than the day before since we’d returned much sooner than usual. The long line of people waiting to be fed stunned me, and I hoped the fey inside the soup kitchen were managing all right.
I hurried to fill a tote with everything I could carry from my take. There was a lot to choose from. This time, I made sure to weigh it down enough that I would need to stop and take breaks. My back would hurt tomorrow, but I knew someone who would willingly rub it for me.
Nat’s group of men was a lot smaller than the day before. And he wore a fairly impassive mask compared to the hateful one he’d previously sported. Wondering if he’d found my note, I started forward with my heavy burden while he watched the people line up for fey-prepared food. My forearms started to ache before I reached him. Unwilling to be too obvious in my provocation, I didn’t set the tote down.
When I’d almost reached him, his gaze found mine and dipped to the supplies I struggled to carry.
“Lose a few people to the soup kitchen line?” I asked with a smirk, not stopping my progress.
“Unlikely. I’m sure they’ll show up soon. Looks heavy. Need help?”
“No. I’ll manage fine. I always do.” I passed him and didn’t look back. However, I didn’t make it much farther before I needed to stop for a break.
The people in the line eyed the supplies while I shook out my arms.
