Mills smiled brightly as he accepted the cup, drinking deeply and letting out a sigh of contentment.“Thanks, Sara, you’re a life saver.”She rolled her eyes at his little “joke.” For nearly a year after they met, the sheriff had honestly thought her name was Sara, and she hadn’t corrected him. When someone else they both knew finally did, he briefly attempted to save face by pretending he knew all along what her real name was. So now it had become a bit of a joke between them.“I will never see the point of drinking decaffeinated coffee,” she said, ignoring his jest.“It’s full of delicious proteins.”“I don’t think that’s true.”He chuckled, “Guess you’re too smart for me, kiddo.”Zahra looked past the gate house and out to the part of the external fence that she could see from her position. All she saw through the chain links was what she always saw. More trees. “Any big news over night?”Mills shook his head and took another drink of his coffee. “All stations reported in this mor
Despite Nano’ s request, she didn’t break from her routine. The neighborhood nearest their own gated community was massive, stretching on for miles down the most major road of the area, and it was Zahra’s goal to explore every one of the houses for useful or entertaining loot.To do this, she had devised a way of dividing up the houses, a certain number every day, that gave her plenty of time to give each a thorough search.She came to her first house of the day and raised her walking stick defensively. She started out by making a quick search of the front and back lawns, checking to make sure they were clear, and that no doors were smashed open and no windows broken. Everything seemed safe enough, so she pulled out her lock pick set and went to work on the back door.When she had first found the lock pick set, it had taken her nearly two full days of trial and error to figure out what she was doing with it. That was six months ago. Now she was an old hand at it, and in just a couple
“Uh, yeah. Obviously. What of it?”He stared at her for a long moment. “Did anyone ever tell you, you have a serious attitude problem?”“There’s nothing wrong with my attitude. Maybe you just need to adjust your attitude.”He sighed and lifted the chain back over his shoulder. “Please move,” he said, and started forward again. She didn’t budge, and after a couple steps he stopped again. “What is it you want?” He demanded. “I want to know what it is you’re doing out here all alone. I want to know why your box there is all wrapped up in chains.”“So nobody steals my stuff.”“What stuff do you have that’s so nice that you don’t want people to steal it?”“It doesn’t matter. It’s my stuff, and I don’t want other people to have it.” He started moving again, angling past her. She moved in front of him and he threw his arms out in frustration.“Little girl!” he snapped.“Zahra,” she replied, cutting off his tirade.“What?” he demanded, a little louder than he intended. “My name is Zahra.”
“Nano, it’s okay. He’s not dangerous. If he wanted to hurt me, he had plenty of chances already.”“You don’t know that. You can’t know that! He could just be trying to trick you! Or maybe trying to use you to get in here. He could’ve been watching you for a long time. Maybe he knew you came out every day and wanted to use you to get in here.”“Or he could’ve just come to the door and asked to be let in,” said Zahra.“What if he’s not alone? What if there’s others? Maybe he was just working on a way to get inside so he could get them in. Like a Trojan horse!”“A what horse?” Asked Zahra.“It’s a little before your time,” said Kevin.“Nano, there’s pretty much no chance any of that is true. With the way I met him, there really couldn’t be any others. He wouldn’t even be here now if I hadn’t insisted.”“We can’t take that risk,” said Nano.“Um, if… I’m not invited in, might I suggest you lock the gate?” Kevin motioned to the still open entryway as he spoke, in case it wasn’t obvious what
Kevin nodded his head solemnly.“Nano?” Mills called, not taking his eyes off the stranger. “Open the gate.”Mills, Kevin, Jensen, and the rest of the group, minus Nano who stayed behind to continue monitoring his post, and Zahra, who Mills had demanded go home, rounded the corner of a building and came into one of the best views of the whole town.Mills waved his hand to indicate all that lay before them, like a salesman, and stated, “Welcome to our town.”“It’s massive,” said Kevin, simply. From the vantage point from the crest of the small hill you really could see quite a distance. The towering wall that contained the community stretched out past them until it almost managed to disappear in the distance, barely visible through the tops of trees along the horizon. At one point between here and there, though, the wall dove inward to a smaller, though still quite large gated area. This smaller area was a singular neighborhood, comprising, Kevin guessed, several dozen houses.No, not
Kevin let out a sigh of relief and started nodding his head. “Fair’s fair, sheriff. You’ve got a deal.”“And the rat just came straight toward me across the parking lot. So I kicked it away, and it got right back up and headed straight back toward me. And I was just like, ‘are you serious right now, rat?’ I mean, if it’s going to come straight at me, I’m just going to kick it again, you know?”Kevin sat completely motionless, his spoon in his mouth, hand still wrapped around the handle, staring at the stranger with a completely blank expression. He wasn’t sure if this random story was supposed to be funny or not, but he wasn’t having it. He was in a foul mood. At the station they had made him strip off all of his clothing to make sure he wasn’t concealing any weapons. At the least they had allowed him to shower - in a shower with hot water, even - and had brought him new, clean clothes. And he had to admit, it was actually really nice to wear clean clothes for the first time in a ver
He turned and headed toward the entrance of the building. Kevin was so stunned by the sheriff’s response that for a moment he didn’t move, but not wanting to lose the sudden offer of generosity, he decided it best to quickly fall into step behind the other man.When they reached the guards Mills motioned to Kevin and let them know it was okay for him to enter, and one of the men unlocked the door and held it for them as they passed through, then locked it again behind them.Mills led the way briefly down a couple short hallways and then stopped before a door. He turned to look at Kevin with a solemn expression. “I recommend you be very careful where you stand and move in there. With all your parts.”“What?” Kevin asked, unsure if he had even heard the man correctly.Mills didn’t respond other than to open the door and step on through. Kevin followed behind and then immediately jumped backwards as something lunged at him from the darkness.He bounced into Jensen, who started to laugh.
With that, Mills headed off with Rodrigo, and Jensen and Kevin continued their journey to the station. They hadn’t gone far when Zahra came bounding up to them. “Hey stranger!” she said to Kevin. “Hello little one,” he replied. Zahra did not seem to like that. She crossed her arms and leaned on to her back foot. “I am not little,” she insisted. “Zahra, what are you doing here?” Jensen asked. “I just wanted to say ‘hi’ to the new guy. See how he was settling in. What do you think of our town?”Kevin simply shrugged, but Jensen gave the real answer. “It doesn’t matter. He’s not staying.”“What?” Zahra practically screamed the word. “Why not?”“Because he doesn’t belong here,” Jensen again answered for Kevin. “And where else would you go?” she asked. Demanded, really. Kevin shook his head. “Doesn’t matter. Almost anywhere is safer than here.”“What?” Zahra’s brow knit in confusion. “Shut up!” Jensen hissed, shoving Kevin against the nearby wall. “Sheriff said not to talk about th