The truck shakes and rattles along the road that was once a highway passing through Remerton. Zoya leans her head against me where she sits between my knees. Her eyes are half-closed, but I know she’s listening to us talking as her ears flicker back and forth like radar parabolas, zoning in on who’s talking. Right now, it’s Miranda’s melodious voice when she points to the map, she’s rolled out on an upside-down box that serves as a table in the back of the truck.

“Here’s where we are now. Just north or Remerton. We’ll continue along this road until we reach one of the smaller roads about an hour away. If we could have kept going on the highway, that would have been preferable, but your intel regarding all the blown-up intersections, we have to hope for the ramp leading to the smaller road being intact.” Miranda pauses and runs her gaze over me. “How far did you got before you were forced to turn back while on foot?”

“Bryerston. They had a mean checkpoint there. Somehow, they’d found a way to stack vehicles on top of each other on three levels. Heavily armed. If I hadn’t found some teenagers that had run away from the area, I never would have known which one of the rumors was credible or not. As it turned out, some people up north sit on a lot of power.” It’s not the first time I have told Miranda this, and like before, I can tell this doesn’t sit well with her. She is carefully structuring a document containing who or what would pose the largest threats against her ambitious plan for the future. Large farms where people used food as the tipping point in their power plays, definitely was something she would have to deal with at some point—and thanks to me and my relentless search for my brother, a lot sooner than she planned.

As we leaned over the map, I pointed at the red mark I’d insisted she’d highlight, showing off another intersection. I’d had bad experiences there before as what was left of the inhabitants in a small village east of it had developed a particularly nasty way of doing business—to put it mildly. 

“Guess we’re about to come up on that intersection in a few moments. How long b3fore you came upon it last, Andrea?” Miranda shifts her position and takes a seat next to me. Zoya steals a kiss at the back of her right hand, and Miranda caresses her ear in a way I realize has become her habit when it comes to my dog.

“I think…four months. It was just after the holidays anyway. It was not pleasant, but it seemed as if they had less people at their checkpoint. I don’t see that being a problem with this many soldiers.” I smile carefully. Miranda’s brought enough people and firepower to cope with most scenarios. 

“We’ll see. We’re going to close in on the intersection with caution, since we have somewhat dated intel.” Miranda holds up her hand, as if to forestall my resentment words about that. “And don’t get me wrong. I’m glad you haven’t subjected yourself to this danger when you’ve been up here without backup—not counting Zoya.”

Ah. That. Miranda has shown her protective side toward me several times, but even more so since the attack on Ogden’s collective. I suppose, thinking back, I started protecting her on day one. 

“Two minutes, Colonel,” The driver calls back through the opening in the canvas. Where there normally is a small window in the back of the truck, the solders have installed a sliding hatch to be able to communicate with the troops in the back.

“Got it.” Miranda looks around us. “Stay vigilant. We know from our scouts that there are cars on the road in these parts. They provide cover for snipers, or archers.”

“Got it, Colonel,” Martin, one of the guys that went with me on the pharmacy raid, that I called Tall Dude, said. “My guys are ready.”

Miranda nods and pulls her cap down to shade her eyes. I do the same with my baseball hat. I know that jumping out from the covered truck and into sunshine, does a number on your eyes and makes it hard to focus.

“Cars ahead, Colonel.” The driver calls out and the next second, we ready our weapons. I let my bat sit on my back and draw my right Glock. Zoya listens to all the movements, and it’s clear she understands to be as attentive as the rest of us.

“Children on the road!” The driver’s tone is different now and he slows to a full stop. “Three of them. Looks like they’re all below age of eight, or thereabout.”

“The hell?” Miranda mutters. “Children?” She looks at me under raised brows.

“That’s new to me,” I say. “The village just east of here…I know families used to live there about five-six years ago. Not sure if these are their kids.”

“Let’s find out.” Miranda gets up and moves to jump off the back of the truck, when Martin stops her. 

“Sorry, Colonel. I got to secure the outside first.” He opens the flap of the canvas and together with two other soldiers, he jumps out and makes sure it’s reasonably safe. 

“Come on,” Miranda hums impatiently. When she gets a thumbs up, she jumps out and I follow right behind her with Zoya in tow. 

We slowly move around the trucks, weapons ready, but kept in a defensive position, directed toward the ground. Zoya sniffs the air and then looks up at me. I notice that she’s not growling.

According to Miranda’s rules, the driver never leaves the wheel and doesn’t turn the engine off. If we need to hightail it out of there, we’ll need him to step on it. The same goes for the truck behind us that pulls the trailer with the three horses I’m supposed to ‘sell.’ 

Three children stand, hand in hand, in the middle of the road. They look like three girls, but it’s impossible to say. They regard us with large, dark eyes. 

“Dear God,” Miranda murmurs. “They look like they haven’t eaten in ages.”

It’s true. Emaciated, with tattered, dirty clothes that looked tied onto them, rather than being actual garments, the three kids cling to each other’s hands.

“Hi,” I say, taking it upon myself to act as ambassador, as I hope I come across as less scary than the soldiers. “I’m Andy. What’s your names?”

No answer, and I didn’t expect any. They looked as if they weren’t used to seeing, or being around, outsiders.

“Do you have your mom or dad here?” I continue and let my eyes scan the surroundings. I try to see if I can detect movements among the six cars that block the road. So far nothing. 

The oldest child lets go of the hand holding hers, and takes a few, apprehensive steps forward. “Do you have any food?” she asks huskily. Looking afraid, she turns her head and looks to the left of the lined-up cars. 

I can tell Miranda notices and now she signals some of her people to direct their attention to that side of the road, by moving her free hand behind her back.

“We do,” I say. Pulling out a few ration bars and some bread from my cargo pant side pocket, I hold them out. “I can come over to you, if that’s okay.”

“Andrea,” Miranda mutters warningly. 

“Just toss it on the ground,” the child says. 

“But the bread will get dirty,” I say, my smile even broader. “I’ll tuck my gun away, if that helps.” I push my Glock back into the holster, and disregards Miranda’s annoyed huff.

“O-okay?” The child backs up until she’s back with the smaller two. 

I bring the food and walk slowly toward the children. The closer I come, the more I can smell unwashed skin and hair. Huge, hungry eyes follow every movement I make. 

“No! Girls, no!” A shrill, huskily female voice echo and at first, I don’t understand what I see. Something comes toward me, on all fours, down the small embankment, and I can tell Miranda, and her soldiers have their weapons trained on the figure.

“No! Stop! Don’t shoot.” I hold up my hands as if that would stop anyone from firing on the woman, because I’m fairly sure she’s a woman. She was dressed in something resembling what the children were wearing, a cloth of some sort, tied around her.

“Keep away from her,” Miranda ordered. “Ma’am. Ma’am! Stop where you are.”

The woman, who was of indeterminate age, fell onto her stomach, her voice reaching shriek level. “My kids! They’re just kids!” 

“We’re not going to harm them,” I say, hoping to reach her. I walk up to the children and give them some water, break, and ration bars. “Easy there. Don’t eat too fast,” I say when I see the kids’ famished expression as they regard my gifts.

“What…are you giving them?” The woman wails.

“Nothing we wouldn’t eat ourselves, Miranda says and approaches the woman together with Martin. Helping her too her feet, they support the woman between us. “Where do you live?”

“Winderly.” It’s as if the woman is starting to either give up. I’m sure she still thinks she and her kids are in mortal danger, but she’s run out of steam.

“Mom is hungry too,” the oldest girl says. “Can she have some bread?”

“She absolutely can. We just have to make sure she’s all right first.” I feel bad for lying, as I know Miranda and the others are more interested in if the woman is signaling someone or carrying a concealed weapon. I doubt it, but I wouldn’t risk Miranda’s life by not checking.

It doesn’t take the others long to make sure the woman’s not carrying. Miranda comes over to where I crouch by the children, and now her smile is gentle and authentic. “Hi. I’m Miranda.”

“I’m Sheila,” the oldest girl says. “That’s our Mom. I mean, she’s my Mom and when Brandy and Cora’s mom went away, she became their mom too.”

“How old are you, Sheila?” I ask.

“Ten. I think.” Sheila looks more like eight. 

“And Brandy and Cora?” Miranda asks.

“Bee is seven and Cora is four.” Sheila sits down on the ground and holds out the water bottle for little Cora. She turns her mussed head away at first, but then her thirst wins, and she drinks from it. Brandy, Bee, does the same, and only then does Sheila drink from it.

Martin has handed over the care of the woman to two female soldiers and now joins us. “Her name’s Minette.” He lowers his voice, so the girls do not hear. “She’s in bad shape. I doubt she’ll last more than a few days unless we help her. She says they’re the only one’s left in their village.”

“Damn. We can’t spare anyone to stay with them, until we get back, and it’ll take too long to use couriers to send for help.” Miranda pinches the bridge of her nose. “We’ll take them with us, in the back of our secondary unit truck. Make them as comfortable as possible, and don’t overfeed them, no matter how they beg. Their stomachs won’t be able to handle it. Apple will be there when we get back to assess them.”

I stare at Miranda and then I act without even considering the repercussions of my actions. I get up and fling my arms around her neck. “Thank you,” I whisper and give her a firm, brief hug. “Thank you for doing this.”

Miranda cups my shoulders, and unless I’m mistaken, she allows her fingertips to caress my neck just inside my collar for a fleeting moment. “Of course,” she says calmly. “It’s what we do, right? Help people?”

It is. And it’s as if I’m finally ready to accept that there are more people like Ogden and his community in the world, who look out for other people, especially the weak ones needing help, and who aren’t about to rest until they’ve reached their goals. Miranda is touch, but not hardened. She regards children with the same look as I bet, she did before the birds. Perhaps with even more tenderness. And then there’s the way she looks at me, who isn’t weak or starving, but who obviously needs help.

The female solders move the children over to the woman as they carry her to the second truck on a stretcher. Martin and Tom, formerly known as Short Guy, get into one of the cars each to help steer them as a few of the other soldiers position the first truck so they can tow them.

I am always so suspicious when things seem to go too fast, and too smoothly. I keep looking at my surroundings, and then, as they hook up the first road to the car where Tom’s at the wheel, munching on a bun as he waist, I drop to my stomach to make sure we’re all right.

“Fuck!” I get up and wave my arms. “Stop! Stop!”

Miranda raises her hand, and everyone freezes in place, especially Tom, who has bun #2 halfway to his mouth.

“Andrea?” Miranda hurries over to me. 

“I thought I saw wires. Under two of the cars, at least. I mean, it can be nothing. Just faulty wires from long ago, but it could be—”

“Something.” Miranda shakes her head. “Tom. Martin. Sit very still while we check further.” She looks furious. “Why didn’t we do this before these fools jumped into the cars? Is this the woman’s gameplan? Was this why she came acting all pitiful with her little starving kids? To lure us into a trap?”

“Hey. Hold off on the conspiracy theories.” I bump her upper arm with my fist. “I’ll go check this out.”

“Andrea. No!” Miranda calls out, but I’m already running toward Tom’s car that is closest to me. It’s an old Volvo, and by that, I mean, it was old even back in the day. I meet his wide-eyed stare.

“Just sit tight. I’m going to check beneath you.” I nod at him, and he is so pale, he looks translucent.

“Jesus Christ,” he says. “We screwed up.”

“We did. Let me have a look.” I’m not unfamiliar with explosives, even if Emma has me beat in that regard as well. I can use C4, when it’s available, and I toss Molotov cocktails with the best of them, but she can do some pretty inventive stuff. Like serial explosions that surround the enemy, and stuff like that.

I see wires under the seat, and they are too new looking, to be from the seat warmer. Someone booby trapped the seats to keep people from moving them out of the way. This isn’t done by the people in the village. Certainly not by a barely functional woman and her little kids. 

Under the car, I see a small block of C4, but big enough to kill anyone in the driver’s seat, or close to the car.

“Andy. Get away from here,” Tom says, his voice shaking. “I just remember I felt a click when I sat down. That might be the trigger. If I move even a little bit…”

“But you won’t. You won’t until I figure this out.” I’m filled with a familiar, nearly comforting rage now. The type of fury I recognize, which gives me laser focus.

“Andrea. How does it look?” Miranda asks from behind. 

Looking back over my shoulder, I see she’s standing about five yards away—but well within a potential blast zone.

“Perhaps a landmine trigger thing under the seat. C4. New wiring.” I push away from the car and stand up. “You don’t happen to have an explosives expert on hand, do you?”

“I do, but not with us.” Miranda’s eyes are narrow slits as she looks between Tom and Martin. 

“Then we have two choices. I could make my best guess and cut, or we’ll make effective use of that stack of yoga mats you have in our truck for some reason.”

“You’re not going to cut anything and blow yourself, and Tom, up in the process. What did you have in mind with the—oh.” Miranda’s expression doesn’t brighten exactly, but she understands my plan without my having to tell her. “I see. Yoga mats, yes, and some duct tape might work.” She goes back to glowering. “And before you ask, no, you’re not the one who’s going to do it. I’ll have plenty of volunteers to choose from.”

I groan, as I loathe to watch, rather than do. “But it was my idea.”

“And a decent one, but you’ll be…supervising.” She marches off to the soldiers awaiting their orders. I don’t hang around, as she does, but hurries over to the first truck and jumps up. I start tossing yoga mats out the back and then curse as I have no idea where they keep the damn duct tape. 

“I should’ve known.” Miranda shows up at the back of the truck, holding up two rolls of tape. “Come and help me.”

We put together enough yoga mats with tape to create two makeshift bomb mats. It will give Tom and Martin a chance at not being perforated by debris if the C4 indeed explodes.

When it’s time for the two volunteers, two burly men, to approach the cars while dragging the mats, Miranda orders the rest of us, and the trucks to get to a safe distance. “Cover your years.”

I cover Zoya’s, as any loud bang will hurt her sensitive ears than mine. I peer around the truck as I have to see this. I think back to when I treated Martin and Tom with disdain, when I took them to the pharmacy storage. Then we all ended up saving each other and making it out of there. They have to be all right.

Wearing helmets, the men step close to the cars, wrapping one set of tape-together mats around their colleagues. They also make sure to put helmets on the guys in the cars. Holding the other part of what we just fashioned, thicker and more rigid, behind them with a firm at shoulder level. The idea is to pull the men out of the cars and then run as far as they make it with the mats covering them from behind. We have no idea if this’ll work, but it’s our only chance. If the guys step out of the cars without any protection, they’ll die if the IEDs go off. 

The men make sure Marton and Tom have their feet free from the pedals. They can’t afford to get tangled. 

I hear the men begin to count down in unison. “Five—four—three—two—one—go!”

They tug Tom and Martin out of the car and I’m so afraid that one of them will trip and fall, my knees are shaking. I feel Miranda grip my shoulder and know she must be going through hell as these four are her men. Her comrades in arms.

They run four, five steps before Tom’s car explodes and all four fall to the ground. I close my eyes at the gravel slicing through the air, but we’re at a safe distance, while the four mean by the cars obviously weren’t. 

I wait for the second car to blow up, but it doesn’t. I look around the truck again, and see that all of them are moving. Using the thick mats as protection, they crawl close to us, and when they’re about ten more yards away from the vehicles, other soldiers approach and pull them to safety. 

Hurrying over, Miranda and I reach them at the same time. Zoya sneezes, but then sniffs Tom over first. He is dirty, and bleeding from his forehead, and so are the others, for being slammed into the ground. It’s more of an abrasive wound, than a proper cut, which is somewhat reassuring.

“Damn, Andy,” Martin says and coughs. “Look at the back of the mats.”

I do, and gasp when I see metal sharpness sticking out of it. 

“Did anything pierce through it?” I ask. “I mean, it’s yoga mats. Not Kevlar.”

“In a few places, one of the volunteers said. “But even if the mats weren’t Kevlar, our vests are.” He takes a deep breath and then drinks some water. “Between our vests and the mats, we seem to have dodged the worst of it.

Miranda studies her men closely, and then nods. “Get cleaned up and bandaged. Andrea. With me. Get your Glock out.”

I do, even if I’m uncertain what she intends to do. Then it’s as if my brain catches up and I understand. Together, we press ourselves to the back of the trucks, just peering around the corner enough to aim for the remaining five cars that haven’t exploded. As it turns out, when the one Martin sat in finally explodes, it takes the other four with it. 

“If that had gone first…” I just stare at the former vehicles that are now just rubble. “I don’t think even twice as many yoga mats would have saved them.”

Miranda is pale. “You’re right. We got lucky—but we were also careless. We cannot afford to be.” She rounds on me, her eyes nearly black. “You, especially, have to stick to the plan and not improvise in a way that puts you in unnecessary danger. Do you understand?”

“Miranda. You know I can handle—”

Leading me around the truck until we’re out of sight from the rest of her soldiers, she glares at me. “I said, do you understand?” It’s as if each word is its own sentence.

I know this isn’t the moment to try and reassure her about my formidable ability to fend for myself. She’s not in the mood to hear that, so I relent. “I hear you, Miranda.” My voice isn’t soft, exactly, but it must convey something that makes Miranda believe me, as her eyes soften marginally. 

“Good.”

She turns as if to go back, but then stops and looks over her shoulders. “You helped save my men by putting your agile mind to clever use again. I don’t mean for you to stop doing that—just that I need to know that you’ll be careful.”

“Same,” I say, as that’s about what I can get over my lips at first. “I mean. You be careful too.”

Miranda nods and then we both go back to see how the men are doing. It’s time to continue toward the farms.