There are three men pointing weapons, and Dalton motions to Theo’s knife with a click of his tongue. “Ain’t no fair fight like this, may as well lower that now, save yourself some trouble.” Then he points to her. “You too, weapons on the ground. Better to show ‘em now, then let me find something later.”
“We don’t have much. Just take what you want and go.” Theo grunts, lowering the weapon because he has no choice when they’re outnumbered.
“Oh, we plan to take everything we want and then some. But, go? Go where exactly? Coulda worked this out like friends. Helped each other, even. We had to go all the way to the cabin and watch that video diary of your pretty blonde friend to get the code to this place. At least I assume that she was talking to you, considering ya’ll came right here like you knew it was waiting.”
They doubled back and tracked them here after stumbling across that cabin and having nowhere else to go. Nora’s nerves crawl right up her spine at the implication of what it means for them to stay.
“It’s getting pretty bad out there,” Dalton continues, shrugging toward his friends. “Bad enough the normal rules don’t apply anymore if this thing is spreading and sounds like it might.”
Her mind races for a way out, as one of the others steps forward, reaching for her face with a sickening wink. “Hey Dalton, how many women do you think are left in these parts? Hell, might not be many live ones left anywhere soon enough.”
She flinches before he can make contact, and Theo lashes out with a punch to the other man’s nose, where it cracks and bends, gushing blood.
“Don’t you fucking touch her!” he growls, right before the butt of a gun slams into his temple, dropping him like a rock.
Her scream rips free before she can stop it. The sound echoes through the center, tangling with the cries of the animals in their cages.
“Think we’ll be taking this whole place, and the lady that comes with it,” Dalton says. “Could be the beginning of the end of the world, after all. Gotta make do. You understand. Don’t think there are enough supplies for all of us, though. Better to cull the herd early.”
He aims his weapon at Theo, who’s dazed from the blow, and all at once time shifts and slows, narrowing her focus to this single point and laying out all her choices before her like a deck of cards. The only one that offers her the barest hint of a chance at saving them both, is the one that sends a shiver of disgust up her spine. Maybe all the parts of her that might panic have been blunted from so much trauma piled up together, even before shecrash-landed in this place, because she has never felt as calm as she does now.
“I’ll stay with you,” she says evenly, raising her chin. “I won’t fight.”
The room stills. She can feel Theo’s gaze burning into her. Even through the blood dripping down his temple, his fear that she’ll be taken from him is clear.
Dalton pauses. “Go on.”
“I can make it good for you. You can do whatever you want with me, just let him live.”
“Honey, we can already do whatever we want with you.”
“Having to fend off someone trying to kick you in the balls or bite your dick off every time you come close is going to get old real fast.”
“That’s the only requirement? Let your boyfriend live?”
She nods.
“See, something tells me you’re gonna fit in just fine with us because that sounds like a real good deal. Take him outside.”
“No!”
“Relax. You ain’t said nothing about letting him livehere. He’s going out like a dog in the kennels. Besides, we’re doing him a kindness. I intend to test out this deal first and I’m betting he doesn’t wanna see that.”
She swallows hard as the other two drag a nearly unconscious Theo out the front door, and then she’s shoved forward, almost tripping on her own two feet.
“On the bed.”
She can do this. She has extensive experience in pretending she’s not disgusted with her partner to protect herself. Done it a hundred times before with her first husband, and if there’s one thing she knows how to do, it’s disassociate. Nora pushes him unceremoniously onto the bed and straddles him, getting a smuglaugh in return and a compliment on how ‘feisty’ she is that makes her want to punch his teeth out.
Somewhere in the background, the commotion must have alerted the animals because the fox begins to chatter and the penguins make agitated little noises, the bars on all the cages starting to rattle. Then she hears Theo scuffling with the other men, and her attention shifts, worry clouding her eyes as her body trembles.
“Get your head in the game, darling,” her opponent scowls.
‘I left a hunting knife under the pillow. Barrow was overrun last I saw, but there could be survivors.’
Gwen’s words in that letter whisper softly, and Nora leans forward, resting her lips close to the other man’s ear, trying not to gag on the smell of his sweat as her hand slips carefully under the pillow behind him. “Do you have a preference for how you want me?”
“On my coc—”
