Quaranteam: North West Ch. 32 (Alpha)

The following story is based on the fantastic Quaranteam series by CorruptingPower over on Literotica. You can continue to expect general themes of light Mind Control, bonding and Harems from the original, but with a slightly edgy and alternative cast.

- - - - -

“So,” Kashm said, leaning back in her chair and kicking her booted feet up onto the desk in between us. “What brings the Lone Ranger and his Lady Tonto into my office?”

We were in the back of the old Lumber Warehouse. I was pretty sure I could see a blood stain on the thin, dusty carpet from when I'd smashed her boyfriend - whatever his name was - in the mouth with the butt of the shotgun that had helped me to survive the encounter. The place was dead quiet, and other than the old hippy-looking dude we hadn’t been greeted by any of the other bikers when we banged on the back door. I’d sort of been expecting to get the chance to actually see their Black Market while it was running for once, but no luck.

Kashm was wearing a shirt I recognised as merch for a local metal band from Portland; a shirt that I knew was also in Erica’s wardrobe of outfits. Kashm hadn’t done the same modifications that Erica had though, so her cleavage wasn’t showing even if it was still hard to miss. She was also wearing that thin leather jacket she seemed to always have on, and I realised it might have been her personal affectation to make herself feel more part of the gang. Bikers were notoriously sexist and the chances of her being able to actually join the gang and wear a cut with the Guns of Thunder on it were slim to none.

“First, that’s racist,” Kyla said as she folded her arms over her chest. “And second, I’m Filipina, so that’s not even the right kind of racist.”

“Oh,” Kashm frowned, raising an eyebrow. “Sorry, I didn’t realise that we were suddenly trying to be all PC at the end of the world. It was a joke, no need to get all testy.”

I let out a short, exasperated sigh and shook my head. “I was hoping to meet with your father, but I assume you can vouch that my end of the bargain’s been handled?”

Kashm pursed her lips a little, eyeing me up, but eventually shrugged. “So far. If the work suddenly dries up for some reason we’ll have issues, but for now, the guys are out on the road and getting paid to do it. You didn’t send me that picture I asked for though.”

“We were a little busy,” Kyla said. “And considering the kids had been recently kidnapped, it would have been a bit of an invasion of privacy to stack on top of all that.”

Our host frowned again, glancing away for a moment before looking back at us. “How many?” she asked.

“Twenty-eight kids, fifty-two women rescued,” I said. “We were too late for some of the women, there were fresh graves. I haven’t got a report about what’s being done about that yet.”

“Fuck,” Kashm grimaced. “And the culty fucks?”

“Dead,” Kyla said. “All of them.”

“You didn’t arrest a single one?” Kashm asked. “None of them surrendered? Those kinds of assholes usually fold like cardboard when they’re cornered.”

“They’re all dead,” I said.

Kashm looked us both over again, obviously re-evaluating things somehow. She took her feet off the desk and sat up, leaning forward as she stared intently. “Is that how things work now, then?”

I glanced at Kyla, who met my look and nodded after a moment. I refocused on Kashm. “The prisons are wiped out,” I said. “If you, or your father or anyone else, knew someone who was incarcerated it’s a 99 per cent chance they’re dead. Guards, prisoners, everyone. And it’s probably not surprising to hear that all the different kinds of cops are stretched thin as hell right now - one of several reasons I could give a fuck about this place. So… Yeah, Kashm. I’m not exactly looking to go out of my way for the legal process when it comes to kidnapping zealot nutjobs, and the legal system isn’t gonna come looking.”

Kashm slowly nodded, leaning back again and chewing on the inside of her cheek as she continued frowning.

“You’re either thinking how you can use that to your advantage, or you’re thinking there’s someone who needs the same treatment,” Kyla guessed.

Kashm hesitated, then sighed. “Both,” she admitted. “Not here in town, but… around.”

I could practically hear Erica in the back of my head, telling me I was sticking my head in the jaws of a lion without needing to. Telling me I was being an idiot and chasing my hero complex again.

“How bad?” Kyla asked.

“Right now? I don’t know,” the busty Persian woman said. “Before? Less than the culty guys, but way worse than us by a mile. My father would have done something about it himself over the years but the connections of connections in our world make it risky to shake things up like that.”

I took in a deep breath and let it out, feeling an alertness settle over me and a comfortable tension in my shoulders like I’d just strapped on the old football pads and wanted to tackle something. “Be more specific.”

“Traffickers,” Kashm said. “Pimps. Not kids, as far as I know - my Dad wouldn’t have given a flying fuck about connections if it was kids. I don’t know where they are now, or if they’re even still alive, but if you’re in the business of cleaning up things the right way… well, let’s just say it wouldn’t take much convincing for me to put in a little effort and make some calls.”

“Make the calls,” I said. “I don’t care about drugs right now, but I’ll take sex crimes all goddamn day.”

“And anyone running protection rackets,” Kyla added. “You can probably tell the difference between someone doing actual security and running a racket.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Kashm said. “Anything else we need to talk about? I’m expecting a call from one of the Shippers to set up another set of runs for the week.”

“I think that’s it,” I said, standing up and offering Kashm my hand. “Good doing business with you.”

“You too, cowboy, though I think you still owe me that date,” Kashm said with a dose of sarcasm, standing up and shaking it. She shook Kyla’s hand as well, and we headed for the door outside, which she opened to let us out. We’d just hit the gravel pad where the bikers generally parked, only one bike there at the moment, when Kashm cleared her throat. “Out of curiosity, you’re together, right?” she asked, looking between me and Kyla. “Not just partners.”

“He’s got a fiancee,” Kyla said.

“Oh,” Kashm replied, raising both eyebrows in surprise. “I could have sworn you two were fucking.”

“I didn’t say we weren’t,” Kyla said, snaking a hand around my lower back and hugging herself to me. “She shares, and Harri can handle all of his girlfriends very well.”

I coughed, choking on embarrassment and trying not to laugh at the look on Kashm’s face.

“But you’re with… whatever his face was called, right?” Kyla asked. “I’m sure he’s… something.”

“Sure, right,” Kashm said. “Something.”

Kyla pulled me away and around the corner of the building before I could find something to say. I was a little thankful because my rational brain was waving a red flag like a madman, but that other part of me was ready to tell the gorgeous, busty woman exactly what I thought of her ‘boyfriend’ and what I would do to her when I made her mine.

“Erica is going to laugh her ass off,” I finally said as we reached the road and started back towards the grocery store.

“Probably,” Kyla smirked.

“You know teasing and tempting that woman can’t lead anywhere good.”

“Says the guy who was flirting with her and being dark and broody in a hot way,” Kyla said.

“I wasn’t flirting,” I said. “And… really?”

Kyla took out her phone and texted someone, getting a response back. “Come on,” she said, grabbing my hand and walking us a little faster towards the green space between the store and the road.

“What is it?”

“They’ve still got a bunch of shopping to do,” Kyla said. “So we have time, and I haven’t gotten a ‘vaccine uptick event’ for a couple of days and I want your uptick in my event, if you know what I mean.”

I was left floundering for words again as I was pulled towards the lightly forested area until I finally managed, “We’re in the middle of town!”

“That’s what trees and bushes are for, Harri,” Kyla said, grinning at me. “Now are you going to fuck me here behind the grocery store like we’re a couple of horny teenagers or not?”

“Well, I didn’t say no.”

*****

I felt like I had so much to do, and the day slipped by so fast that barely anything had gotten knocked off of the long list. By the time we were back from the grocery trip, which had included a run to the Butcher and a stop at the Pharmacy, it was coming up on dinner time. That meant it was time for me to do some grilling while the ladies and Leo sorted through getting all the food split into the various fridges and cupboards in our portable homes, dispensing out the various necessaries from the pharmacy and generally doing check-ins.

One thing that had been on my list was touching base with Kyla on how she was feeling about the raid, but between the meeting and the hook-up in the bushes, I hadn’t exactly gotten to the place to open the conversation.

Dinner was served just as Miriam and Laura came back up from their work down at ‘the Base’ as we were starting to call their corner of the site, and my partner-to-be quietly let me, Kara, Gerty and Tanaya know that she and Laura had tracked down the National Guard Lieutenant that was currently in charge of the Rez. She’d arranged for us to be able to head over there the next day for the three of them to start grabbing stuff from their homes. That led to us making a whole plan about what would be needed to get done - we weren’t going to be able to empty out their places and bring all the furniture and everything out, but we could get more than just the clothes and stuff that we’d done for Erica. Between my truck, and Kara, Gerty and Tanaya being able to grab their cars, we could probably get anything of particular value, either sentimental or monetary. The real problem would be trying to secure the places for the foreseeable future - the doors had all been kicked in during the raid or while the National Guard was searching for survivors.

That led to a whole extra plan of Vanessa scavenging some lumber and us borrowing an extra truck so we could board up the homes where we were done.

I ended up leaving the ladies making lists of what they needed to look for or bring back when I noticed that Dani and Julia had wandered off a bit and were sitting across the yard, talking quietly. Kyla wasn’t the only person I’d wanted to check in on, and their conversation seemed casual, so I decided now was as good a time as any.

“Hey,” I said as I came around from behind them. It was nearing sunset but the overcast sky meant we were getting more of a silvery light than the gold of a clear sunset, and they both welcomed me with soft smiles. “Sorry to interrupt, you guys into something?”

“Not really,” Dani said, checking with Julia and getting a nod. “Want to join us?”

“I was actually wondering if you wanted to go for a walk,” I told Dani. “To check in on how you’re doing?”

Julia chuckled and grinned. “Honestly? Great minds think alike, Harri. I was doing the same thing.”

“Aww, you guys,” Dani said, making a sympathetic face as she pouted out her cute lower lip. Then she looked over at the main group around the campfire pit we’d set back up, and where Aria and India were heading back to the RV they were sharing with Leo. “Actually, a walk sounds good. Let me go change?”

“Sure,” I said.

Julia decided she should change for an evening walk too and disappeared into the 5th Wheel trailer with Dani, and I went and grabbed a light sweater myself. Two minutes later, with Dani now in tights and hiking boots instead of shorts and flip flops and Julia wearing her combat boots to go with her jeans, we set out and decided to head up the hill and check out the lots, then circle back around through a trail I knew that ran off the edge of the property and came back around.

“So you guys are worried about how I’m feeling,” Dani said once we’d cleared the row of vehicles and had the evening to ourselves.

“Concerned, not worried,” I said. “What you ended up needing to do wasn’t an easy thing. And I’m not just checking in on you. Kyla and I need to hash it out too. And I wasn’t exactly forgetting about you, Julia.”

“I’m good, big buy,” Julia said. “I’ve probably seen more action than you.”

“That close up?” Dani asked.

Julia hesitated, looking up the hill for a moment before sighing. “A couple of times, though only one was really that close. It was overseas. Afghanistan. We were doing a rescue Op for a unit of marines that had gotten ambushed earlier in the day. They’d rucked it over ten kilometres through rocky terrain out of a danger zone where we couldn’t get helicopters in because ISIS had gotten their hands on some anti-air munitions. I wasn’t flying on the mission since when we got the call my regular chopper was in maintenance, so I got tapped to be a door gunner. We touched down in the LZ, start loading the Marines, and then the enemy just starts pouring up out of the ground like they’re the fucking bugs in Starship Troopers. Turns out the LZ was right on top of a damn underground cave complex we had no idea about. That was messy, and… well, let’s just say that I had a lot more blood on my hands then than I did this time. Heavy machine guns aren’t exactly delicate weapons.” She shook her head. “I had nightmares for about a month, spoke to the Chaplain who suggested that I should find a way to decompress and I’m still pretty sure he was hinting we fuck. I ended up getting leave in Germany not long after, got absolutely trashed for a weekend, and the next time I got in a gunfight like that it was a lot easier.”

“What about you, Harri?” Dani asked, reaching over and patting my arm. “Erica’s mentioned the last couple of times you had to do this sort of thing, you had to ‘decompress,’ but she didn’t say how.”

I clenched my jaw for a moment, but I knew talking about it openly would help her talk about it, and I cared more about that than keeping up my manliness. “Despite what Erica or Miriam might joke about, I wasn’t some action star in a movie. I was an Army grunt, so I saw my share of action but never as close up like at the church. That changed when I was an MP; I supported a few different raids that ended up with shooting. Only one ever got as intense as at the church, but it was over faster and there weren’t any hostages to account for. Killing people…” I sighed, stopping and turning to look over the ridge and out at the now-pockmarked treelines weaving around what had once been almost all forest. “I’ve heard people say that killing people takes something from you, but I don’t think that’s true. Or maybe it is for some people, but it wasn’t for me. Killing isn’t hard, especially when the training kicks in and the emotions turn off. Doing it with skill is hard, doing it without getting hurt yourself is hard, but the actual… killing part isn’t. I don’t think I’ve ever killed someone who didn’t deserve it, which is more than other Vets can say with confidence, so maybe that helps.”

“And it gets easier,” Julia said quietly.

“It does,” I said. Then I sighed heavily. “The first time, at Mary’s place, it was like all those old practices just locked back into place when I engaged the enemy. My mind was in full Fight mode, I didn’t have time to process emotions until well after the fact, and then I sort of had to have a breakdown once I was in a safe spot because those hadn’t been the enemy, we hadn’t been in a war. They were people like us who made really bad choices that led them to do bad things. That was a lot for me to work through, and Erica, Kyla and Ivy were all - well, let’s just say therapy doesn’t have anything on three women like that making sure you process things. The next time, with the bikers, they attacked us and were even more obviously criminals. And I got shot in the process. That made it a lot easier to process the emotional blowback afterwards. This time… This time is different.”

Arms wrapped around my waist and I felt Dani’s slender frame press against my back as she hugged me tightly. “You did what you had to do,” she said.

“I don’t know if I did,” I admitted for the first time. I’d ordered, and participated, in the execution of criminals that had surrendered. Kidnappers, traffickers, cultist zealots. I still believed exactly what I’d said to Kashm a few hours ago, but there was still that part of me that expected me to be honourable, and virtuous. The little kid in me that wanted to be the hero.

“Don’t start double-guessing it, Harri,” Julia said, moving up to stand next to me and grabbing my hand with both of hers to get my attention. “The situation was fucked from the start, and you didn’t have any proper backup. One year ago, how many FBI agents would have been on that case? There would have been a task force of hundreds of police, federal agents, and whoever else all working on it together. And there would have been a jail to put them in, a court system to prosecute them, and a prison to lock them away in for the rest of their miserable lives. Except in this fucked up world you got four vets and a sociopath soccer mom showing up as a favour, your girlfriend and your friend’s girlfriend. You did the only thing you could do, you solved the problem and served justice.”

“Frontier justice isn’t always justice,” I said.

“Sometimes revenge and justice look like the same thing,” Julia said. “No one of any moral consequence is questioning what happened.”

I craned my neck up, looking at the slowly darkening clouds above us and drew in a long breath before letting it out. “This wasn’t supposed to be about me,” I finally chuckled softly.

Dani stopped hugging me finally, and I let go of Julia’s hand to turn and pull Dani into my arms in a crushing return hug.

“I don’t feel anything,” Dani said. “Not really. I mean, I told you I once shot the head off of a snake at my Dad’s place - it feels like that. I know I killed a thing, and that’s kind of sad, but it’s not like I did it cruelly or anything. It was dangerous, and so was the guy I shot. Plus, I shot him through an outhouse door, so it was kind of… impersonal. And just a little funny, in a dark way.”

“Promise me if something does start to feel off, you’ll tell me,” I said. “Or Kyla or Erica.”

“I will, Harri,” she said. “I promise.”

“And no more taking you into gunfights,” I said.

Julia smirked and snorted. “What a tease, getting a girl a taste of the action and then trying to keep her away from it.”

“I’m not saying I’m looking to get into fights like you and Kyla,” Dani said, pushing herself back so she could look up at me. “But I’m not scared to do it again either, OK? If someone’s threatening our family, I’ll cut a bitch.”

I grinned and pulled her into the hug again, and then opened my arm up and gestured Julia in as well. The brunette gave me a roll of her eyes and stepped in, hugging us both, before we disentangled and started up our walk again so we could check out the lots for the houses and then push on to the trail.

*****

For the first time in forever, I made the drive up to the Rez with Kara in the passenger seat of my vehicle. Back then it was my beater car, not my police truck, and things had been so different in almost every way. I hadn’t been expecting that she’d been feeling the pressure of her elders on our relationship, how she’d been getting a dose of social brainwashing that somehow my family and I represented everything bad that had ever happened to the Band. 

We’d been young, and I’d been in love with the girl I thought I’d spend the rest of my life with. Her friends Sarah and Monica had been in the back seat, probably as unaware as I’d been about Kara reaching her boiling point. How everything would be different in a couple of days.

“I know I said I’d stop, but…” Kara murmured, looking out the passenger window.

“I know, babe,” I said quietly, rubbing her thigh where I’d had my hand on it as I drove. “I know.”

“Kara, cherie, if this becomes too hard, remember we are here for you,” Ivy said from the back seat. She’d insisted to the others that she be one of the people to come help, and I don’t think anyone had the force of will to stop her from claiming the spot. She was sitting in the back next to Tanaya, while Gerty was driving the other borrowed pickup from the site along with Leo, Dani and Erica. We’d maxed out the seats in the two trucks to get the most hands available to help, and the beds were currently stacked with plywood and some two-by-fours that Vanessa had ‘donated’ to the cause.

My construction-oriented partner had wanted to come, but she’d also been keenly aware that the foundations for our new home were being poured and she wasn’t going to let that get fucked up on her watch. I had a feeling the various crews who would work on our place were going to be getting inspections daily.

We made the final banking turn up the rocky hill and arrived at the Rez. The last time I’d been there, leaving with Kyla after the whole incident of arriving too late to save the ladies (not that, looking back, Kyla and I would have been able to handle the whole lot of them by ourselves even if we did show up in time) things had looked a little different. The barrier of cars was gone and replaced by temporary metal fencing that looked like it was made up of panels zip-tied together. The ticket booth that had once formed an anchor for the entry road was replaced by a small checkpoint made up of big concrete blocks and a big military truck acting as a ‘gate.’

I pulled up and traded credentials with the Airman who was on guard, and we were quickly approached by the Lieutenant in charge. She was slight and petite but wore her fatigues like armour and had the sort of tired look that I recognized well. She confirmed we were who we said we were before anything else.

“So you’re just retrieving items from three homes?” she asked. “We haven’t had anyone else trying to come in since we got here. Let alone with official military clearance.”

“We might go to a few of the public buildings,” Kara said, leaning over. She’d introduced herself as a member of the Tribal Elder Board even though she’d technically resigned in protest, hoping it would add some credence to what she was planning. “There are some important documents and historical items that I need to make sure are preserved.”

“Fine by me,” the Lieutenant nodded. “Honestly, I’m not sure what the plan is, but I know we’re pulling up stakes here in the next few days. We finished the door-to-door sweeps for survivors, now we’re just, ah, doing ‘hazardous waste disposal.’”

Worse than some ways to put ‘cleaning out the bodies,’ but better than others.

“I’m… guessing there isn’t much in the way of security being left behind?” Kara asked, her face pinched in pain.

“Not that I’m aware of,” the Lieutenant answered through her mask, obviously wishing she could have given a more satisfying answer. “People over property, right now.”

“We understand, Lieutenant,” I said with a nod. “Do you need anything else from us?”

“Just make sure you sign out with me before you leave, and if there’s some sort of emergency give two shots with your sidearm. We should be able to hear that from anywhere in the town,” she said.

I nodded, and she waved the guard to move the truck so we could get in.

“She could have just given us a walkie-talkie for emergencies, couldn’t she?” Tanaya asked from the back seat.

I’d already rolled up my window, so I shrugged. “Either she doesn’t have any to share, or she doesn’t want to hand things over to us. They’re still all done up in hazmat gear, and from what they’ve seen everything and anything out in the world can cause… this.” I’d pulled the truck forward and we’d started up into the town, and the apocalypse that kept ageing every time I returned here.

We had a quiet drive up to Kara and Tanaya’s places, my two Native partners sombre and crying silent tears as they witnessed what I had to think was the end of an era. The Rez was finished. The Tribe scattered. There might be a few men of the blood scattered out there, having left long ago and somehow still surviving the pandemic wherever they were. Most of the women were partnered, or about to be, and would be spread across the State. The homes, every single one, were marked with the spray-painted crosses from the emergency search teams, marking where homes were empty, or where bodies were waiting to be cleaned up.

I wasn’t sure if anyone else knew how to read them, so I kept my mouth shut when I noticed there weren’t any markings saying there were survivors present. The kids, and few women, who had hidden from the raid and been rescued by the Guard had already been taken away.

When we arrived, we piled out of the trucks and there was a lot of hugging, and some sobs, as they relived what had happened, and absorbed how things were ending, and felt the guilty relief that they were still alive when so, so many others weren’t. The rest of us did what we could to support them until finally the tears were done, and they were ready to start salvaging their past.

There were jobs to get done. While the ladies split up to help gather goods and pack bags, Leo and I got started on prepping the homes to be shut down. The National Guard had already turned off the gas service, but we still shut off the mains in Kara and Tanaya’s places and then started boarding up the windows. It was messy, and if for some reason we ever came back to stay there would be some repair work to get done on the exterior to clean up the nail holes, but it was better than leaving them ready for windows to be broken and the places looted.

Once the Guard pulled out, it was bound to happen. If there was anyone so inclined left alive.

Leo and I finished with Kara’s place first, everything but the front door covered over, and were starting on Tanaya’s, when the cars started to get loaded. Luggage and boxes were piled into the backs of Kara and Tanaya’s cars, filled with clothing and picture albums and keepsakes and anything and everything that had sentimental value. We weren’t going to need things like TVs for the new house - we’d be buying new, and likely at a big discount considering how much more stock stores would have compared to what they could sell. Same with kitchen items that weren’t full of memories after being passed down.

The ladies watched as Leo and I drove the final nails into the plywood that would cover the front doors, and we shared more hugs before following Gerty down and around to her place, partway across town, where we started the process over again. More hands inside, and a slightly smaller place, meant that Leo and I were just finishing up when the last boxes were getting piled in the back of my truck.

“We should split up now,” Kara said, wiping under her eyes after another round of group hugs. “I need to go to the storage centre and see what I can pull out of there, and the Elder Hall. There really are some records I should keep safe. Especially the Treaty.”

“We should go to the Police Station,” Gerty said to me.

“Oh,” I said, then raised my eyebrows. “Oh.”

“Yeah,” she nodded.

We split up, and I followed Gerty in her retrieved car with Ivy in the passenger seat, while Dani, Leo and Erica went with Kara and Tanaya to help with the historical artefacts. The Tribal Police headquarters wasn’t exactly a big building, or particularly impressive - it was squat and looked kind of dumpy, sandwiched at the north end of the Rez in between a short rocky bluff and a thick copse of trees before the land gave way to a decent sized field where the Rez had put up a soccer pitch. We parked in the front next to the three worn Tribal Police cars and got out.

“Do you need to check the cars?” I asked.

Gerty hesitated and then shrugged. “There might be some useful emergency gear in the trunks. First Aid kits and stuff. I’ll grab the keys while we’re inside.”

The first issue was actually getting inside. Gerty had needed to hand over her keys to the building along with her badge and sidearm when she’d been relieved of her duty right before the outbreak had really swept through. The good news, if we looked at it that way, was that we weren’t the first people to come through - the hazy glass panel next to the door had been smashed through and we were able to reach in and unlock the door just as easily as the National Guard searchers had. Thankfully the spray-painted FEMA notes were standardised and the one near the front door told me they hadn’t found anyone inside, and there weren’t any bodies present. I unlocked the door and pulled it open, gesturing for Gerty and Ivy to head in.

“This was where you worked?” Ivy asked, looking around the small, musty lobby. There were empty coat racks near the front and a waiting area that looked like it hadn’t been updated since the 80s. A broad welcome desk separated the entryway from what must have been the bullpen where the cops would have filled out their paperwork or had meetings.

“As little as possible,” Gerty said. “I spent as much time out in the community as I could when I was on duty. Miss Three Winds, the secretary, had been here since before I was born and was kind of an old cunt.”

That made me smirk, and Ivy snorted at the foul language and chuckled.

“I assume we’re here to secure the armoury and evidence lockers?” I asked.

“Evidence should be pretty empty,” Gerty said. “Anything more dangerous than Pot would get shipped off periodically and we didn’t have any big busts in the last couple of months. And anything related to an ongoing case is… well, it’s kind of moot at this point.”

We followed her around the secretary's desk and she stopped at one of the desks in the bullpen, wrapping her knuckles on it as she shook her head.

“Yours?” I asked.

“No, Thomas’s,” she said. “Thomas Redwing. We weren’t a big enough department to have partners or anything, but he was the guy I’d trust if I thought something actually big was happening. I think he got it early on in the outbreak, based on when he disappeared and stopped responding to messages. Good guy. He deserved better.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, coming up behind her and slipping my arms around to hug her to me. She sighed, leaning back against me a little.

“I’d say it’s fine, but it’s not, but I’m not… You know.”

Ivy slipped in and hugged our curvy partner as well, and we let Gerty feel for a moment before she shifted and we backed off.

“Alright. First thing’s first…” she said, heading into one of the few offices. This one had ‘Captain’ on it, along with a sticker of the Washington Redskins team logo.

“Really?” I asked, gesturing to the prominent sticker on the door.

“Oh, the Elders hated that shit,” Gerty said, looking up from where she was opening drawers in the Captain’s desk. “But the Captain was a big football fan and Washington was his team, and he thought it was funny as fuck. Don’t mention it to Kara, she’ll chew your ear off.”

“Wasn’t planning on it,” I sighed.

Gerty sighed as she yanked open a lower drawer on the desk. “There we go,” she said, pulling out a fucking hand cannon of a revolver and quickly checking it. “And it’s fucking loaded too.”

“Jesus,” I said, entering the office. She handed it off to me and bent back down while I examined it. The revolver was big, loaded with 44 magnum, and looked like it had been some sort of a custom piece because there wasn’t a serial number on it and the frame, barrel and grip were all artfully etched.

“Yeah, the Captain was also a fan of his guns,” Gerty said, standing back up holding a half-full bottle of not-inexpensive whiskey. “And his nightcaps. He always said if we had someone in the holding cells and their buddies came to bust them out, he wanted to be ready. I know you get those cowboy jokes sometimes, but my ex-boss really did think he was one sometimes.”

We left the office and Ivy started checking the other desks just in case someone else had a personal sidearm stashed away - or more expensive booze - while I followed Gerty towards the back of the building. There was a holding area and a back entrance that I saw down at the end of the hallway, but Gerty murmured there wouldn’t be anything useful back there and stopped us at what looked like a door to a janitor’s closet. It was secured with a simple punch code lock, and she thumbed in a code and tried to open the door.

It shuddered and remained locked.

“Fuck,” Gerty said.

“Changed the code?” I asked.

“They wouldn’t have been thinking about that when I got fired,” she scoffed, then looked thoughtful for a moment, before shaking her head as she decided it couldn’t be true. She tried the code again and reefed on the door, and it shuddered. “The fuck? I think it’s getting held closed from the inside.

Considering the door opening into the hallway, that would have taken quite the work to get done.

“This is the armoury?” I asked.

“Evidence is that door there,” Gerty said, thumbing to the one across the hall with an identical code lock. Not exactly Fort Knox going on, but then Black County didn’t even have a police station, let alone an evidence locker.

“What’s on the inside?” I asked.

“Bare cinder block walls,” she said. “A cage with the weapons locker, and some lockers with other equipment.”

We worked through what could be holding the door closed and couldn’t figure it out, and if the walls were cinder blocks behind the drywall of the hallway we weren’t just going to Kool-Aid Man it in. The good news was that, since the door opened into the hallway, we had hinges we could work on. The bad news was that the equipment bags were inside the armoury, and I didn’t have any of the tools we’d brought since they’d ended up in the construction truck that Leo was now driving.

It took us a good ten minutes of scavenging around to find an old box of tools tucked away underneath the sink in the men’s bathroom, and armed with a hammer and a screwdriver I managed to knock out both hinge pins.

“You know, I’m just saying, if this were an emergency we’d be fucked,” I pointed out. 

Ivy had finished her search and was leaning next to us in the hallway, watching me work. “Have you two considered that perhaps this room is locked for a reason?” she asked.

I hadn’t, and when I looked at Gerty it was obvious she hadn’t either. I blew out a breath. “Well, I doubt someone boobytrapped the thing, and I assume the National Guard bypassed it since they couldn’t get in.”

Even with both hinges knocked out, the heavy door was stuck in place. I got the claw of the hammer wedged in between it and the doorframe and started to use the leverage like a crowbar. It fought me and then suddenly the sticking shifted with a clatter inside and the door popped out towards me.

Along with the smell of rotten death.

I gagged but kept my lunch down. Gerty started coughing, turning away from the source. Ivy threw her hands over her face and turned away as well, but she only made it a few steps before she vomited all over the wall and carpet.

“Go,” I croaked, waving both of them back towards the front. Gerty rushed past me and I pulled the front of my shirt up over my chin and nose, trying not to breathe as I grabbed the door and pried it further open.

Someone had managed to shift a fairly heavy-looking metal shelving unit partway in front of the door and then zip-tied the interior door handle to it so tightly that I’d actually needed to bend the handle a bit with the crowbar action for the handle to slip out of the plastic bindings. I found out who the someone was when I looked past the shelf and saw the opposite wall of the armoury splattered with the dull brown of dried blood and body fragments. The corpse on the floor, in a Tribal Police uniform, told the story.

I stumbled away, gasping for a breath as I left the hallway. One of the ladies had puked in the waste basket near the secretary's desk, and I found them at the front entrance as they gulped in fresh air.

“Suicide,” I coughed as I caught my breath. “I- It looked like they locked themselves in and didn’t intend for anyone to be able to find them.”

“Why?” Ivy asked, wiping her mouth as tears pooled in her eyes.

I shook my head. “Maybe they saw everything going on and got overwhelmed or gave up,” I said. “Maybe they started to show symptoms and didn’t want anyone else to catch it from them in the end, and they locked themselves away in the most secure place they knew.”

“Fuck,” Gerty sobbed, leaning down with her hands on her knees. “Fuck.”

I put a hand on her back, rubbing it slowly, and Ivy stepped towards me with a quivering lower lip and I pulled her into a hug. Sometimes I forgot how sheltered my Ivy had been from all the awful shit going on, even with Kyla and I dealing with it. And Gerty, despite what she’d gone through… It was never going to be easy to find someone like that, especially someone you knew.

“How do I get into the cage?” I finally asked, once Gerty was back to standing and Ivy had wiped her eyes.

“I can-”

“No,” I said sternly, making her focus on me. “Gertrude, you don’t need to. You don’t need to expose yourself to seeing that, OK? It’s not doing something heroic, it would just be putting yourself through more trauma. I’m detached from who it is. I’ll handle it.”

She worked her jaw for a moment and then frowned. “Don’t you ‘Gertrude’ me,” she mumbled.

“I’ll Gertrude you all I want, you beautiful, bright woman,” I said, pulling her in by the shoulders so I could kiss her forehead.

I ended up going and grabbing the various Febreeze’s that we’d seen under counters in the office first because whatever I pulled out of that armoury was going to have a stink on them. We’d bleach it all when we got back to the camp. Next, I grabbed some boxes and, after dousing a rag with Febreeze to wrap around my head and cover my nose and mouth and donning some rubber gloves from under their break room sink, I entered the armoury while trying to ignore the dead body.

A liberal use of the hammer busted the padlocks on a few of the storage lockers, and I wasn’t too picky about the equipment I grabbed. Anything I thought would be useful went into the boxes. Police tape? Sure. Speed radar gun? Fuck no. Handcuffs? Yes. Utility belts? Yes. Flashlights? Damn straight.

I brought those boxes out to the two ladies in two trips and then went back in for the actual armoury cage.

When Gerty said her boss ‘liked his guns’ I hadn’t realised that was where half of their budget must have ended up. Who needed to renovate the front entrance or the cruisers when you could open up a gun locker and see ten shiny black, fully kitted-out rifles? And each one was a different make and model, like it was some collector’s display. The only similarity that I could see other than the military-black colour was that they all shot 5.56. Another locker revealed a dozen pump shotguns, half designed for rubber bullets or beanbag rounds. Glock 17s and 48s came out of a drawer, along with eight tasers. The last cabinet revealed a trio of bolt action rifles, each set up with what I would have thought of as hunting accessories, and a solid stack of ammo boxes.

“Holy tits,” I said once I stepped back and looked at all of the weaponry in front of me. A few were missing - the shotgun rack had spots for four more firearms, one of which was behind me on the floor near the body. There was space for a couple of missing handguns. Something else had been in the ‘special case’ with the rifles but I couldn’t say what.

There were some empty equipment bags under the work table in the cage and I pulled them out to find they were old Lacrosse duffels for the local team, branded with the Rez’s crest and likely used to haul around their pads at some point. Shaking my head, I started unloading everything from the lockers and into the duffels. At first, I was almost able to forget about the dead body behind me as that scene from Hot Fuzz skipped through my mind - the one where Simon Pegg came out of the police station looking like an Angel of Baddassery all kitted out during the run-up to the climax of the movie. But, as I worked and the bags got heavier and the sheer amount of firepower that had just been sitting here soaked in…

The last thing I did, after piling the clanking and clinking duffel bags outside in the hallway, was fetch the shotgun that the officer had used to end things on their own terms. I gave it a wipe-down scrub with a wet rag, getting as much of the blood that had pooled under it off as possible, and then I left the room and used my body weight to get the door back into position. I jammed the screwdriver into the upper hinge socket to keep it in place and then hammered it down more, wedging it in. Hopefully, that would deter anyone else who came around looking to strip valuables from the police station.

I took that last shotgun into the washroom and gave it another scrubbing in there, with soapy water this time, until it wasn’t leaking any more red, and then dried it off.

By the time I came out with the last of the bags, Gerty and Ivy had finished taking care of and stowing the equipment boxes in the bed of my truck, along with having grabbed the keys to the cruisers and pulling anything of use out of them. I found them with the others, who had come up looking for us. Kyla’s eyes went a little wide as I set down the heavy bags and groaned before stripping off my face covering and rubber gloves.

“We’ve got a problem,” I said to them all, but focusing on Gerty. “When you said your boss liked guns, I didn’t realise you meant like this.”

“Yeah,” Gerty sighed with a sad smirk. “It was a bit much, but he had control over the budget.”

“Wait, are those all guns?” Kara asked. “What the fuck was Phil-”

“The important thing, babe, is that we’ve secured them now,” I interrupted her with an apologetic look. We could opine over the decisions of the dead later. “But he wasn’t the only Boss out there who liked firearms. And who knows how many gun shops, hunting supply stores, police stations… goddamn Wal-marts are sitting out there full of firepower like this, just waiting for someone to come along and scoop them up?”

Kyla blew out a long breath, eyeing the bags. “I guess we’ve got some work to do,” she said.

“I guess we do,” I shook my head.

*****

We got back to the site, and home, a little after lunch - longer than I’d intended to be gone, but shorter than it could have taken. I’d driven back with Erica in the passenger seat, Ivy making her own executive decision to ride with Gerty in her car - I could tell that she was on Emotional Support patrol, and had identified my voluptuous partner as the most in need at the moment. Part of me felt like Ivy was turning into a regular Golden Retriever with her attunement to the emotions of others, but then maybe she’d always been like that and it was taking until now for me to see the depths of it as our family got bigger.

I’d filled Erica in on what we’d found, and we talked through what I was probably going to need to be doing for the next while, along with updating her on the potential word that could come from Kashm on other ‘jobs’ that needed handling.

Erica hadn’t been thrilled about me leaving home so often, because every time I left it was a bit of a risk, but she was clear she understood why and knew it was necessary.

Because at this point, if not us, then who?

Unloading the trucks, sorting things into piles, and then moving them into the proper storage container, was interrupted by the arrival of Laura in the black Humvee. It was, apparently, that time.

I managed not to say anything while she came over to Leo with a smirk on her lips and hooked a finger into his collar, leading him to Dani who she planted a kiss on. Dani threw her arms around Laura’s shoulders, kissing her back enthusiastically right in front of Leo, putting on a show. While the ladies were whistling and making catcalls as the trio headed into the yard and towards their family RV, I bent to the task of shifting… something. I wasn’t really focused on what I was picking up, I just needed to distract myself and preferably hide the grimace on my face.

Laura was going to imprint on Leo, and it should have been me. I should have made it me.

And I fucking hated the fact that I was feeling that way. But I did.

The good news was that I had plenty of work to keep me busy - beyond helping unload and move the belongings of my three latest partners, I had all of the firearms to properly disinfect, clean and stow away, let alone make sure they were in working order at some point. What I was going to do with that many guns, let alone any more that I was going to take off the streets before someone else got ahold of them, I didn’t have a clue.

Of course, my life being how it was, all I managed to do was get the duffels of guns and ammunition into the same storage container as my gun safe before I was interrupted by Vanessa. To be fair, seeing her as she leaned in the entryway of the container and smirked at me put a smile on my face immediately, and I picked her right up off the ground and kissed her as she laughed and slapped my shoulders, demanding to be put down.

I ended up following her up the ridge so I could see the cement foundation of our future house, freshly poured and getting the last of it smoothed out and triple-checked it was level by a dozen cement finishers. The cement truck passed us on its way down the hill. Looking at the expansive, oddly shaped pad, I had to shake my head. It was…

“It’s fucking huge,” I said.

“It’s moderately large,” Vanessa smirked. She was in her usual work gear, looking about as unsexy as she could get, yet her grin made me want to throw her over my shoulder and carry her into the woods. “Seriously, Harri,” she continued. “It’s big but not big. We got sent some of the plans that are being developed for other enclaves like this somewhere else in the country, and the houses are fucking mansions like you’d see a billionaire family living in for some TV show about ridiculously wealthy twats.”

“Twats, huh?” I chuckled.

“Yeah, twats,” she laughed. “This house is going to be a home, not… an edifice. Now come on, check out where we’re going to put the stable-barn-whatever.”

“You hear what you’re saying, right?”

“Oh, shush,” she rolled her eyes, leading me by the hand. “You asked for it, it’s not my fault traditional shit like horses somehow became a mostly rich-person thing.”

*****

“Erica wants you in the RV,” Kyla said offhandedly when I got back down to the camp. She met me out near the vehicles, catching me on my way back to the firearms that needed processing.

“Did she say what for?” I asked with a slight frown. She knew I had shit to get done, and it was better to do it now when I still had the light instead of by flashlight later in the evening. Plus, if she was planning on taking my mind off of things with sex - a very Erica move - I was surprised she wasn’t waiting in the storage container topless with one hand down the front of her shorts.

Kyla gave me a look. The kind that said she wasn’t going to put up with whatever I was about to say next. For someone a decade younger than me, she did that really well. “Harri, go see Erica in the RV.”

I blew out a breath, meeting her gaze with my own and then pursing my lips. “And if I wanted to pick you up, bring you somewhere quiet and absolutely ravage you, darling? Get my hands on that ass of yours and fuck you up against a tree, or the inside of the storage containers?”

She didn’t flinch, just raised an eyebrow. “I wouldn’t stop you, and I’d enjoy the hell out of it, but you’re expected in the RV and while I might be very happy certain other people would not be. Now stop asking questions and go, Harri.”

I closed the distance with Kyla and picked her up by the waist, lifting her light dancer’s body so I could thoroughly kiss her. She immediately held onto my shoulders and even pressed her knees to my sides to keep herself up, clinging like a koala as she kissed me back. When the kiss ended she exhaled and shook her head. “Are you done being obstinate?”

“What is with my lovely partners using fancy words all of a sudden?” I asked with a little grin. “Did you guys start playing a thesaurus game or something? Obstinate from you, ‘edifice’ from Vanessa. What’s next, Tanaya with ‘superfluous?’”

“Sometimes, Harrison Black, you can be so damn stubborn,” Kyla murmured, knowing I was pushing things on purpose. She grabbed my beard and kissed me again, then pushed away and hopped down to her feet. “Now go. Dani and I will start on the firearms, so you don’t need to worry about that.”

“I’m going,” I said, raising my hands in surrender. “I’m going.”

Whatever was going on, it was clearly important enough that Erica had looped Kyla in on it. What it was, I couldn’t start to guess.

Inside the compound, I stopped briefly - very briefly - to check in with Kara, Gerty and Tanaya as they were sorting through some of the boxes and pieces of luggage as they decided what to keep accessible nearby and what could go into the storage containers. All three of them were in a limbo mood with everything that had happened, and I took a little time to hug each of them again and trade a few quiet words of comfort.

When I let go of Kara last, I turned to find Ivy looking at me intently from one of the lawn chairs by the fire pit. She’d been reading a book, it looked like, but she was sitting with her arms crossed like an impatient parent, and when our eyes met she raised both eyebrows and glanced pointedly in the direction of the RV.

“I’m going,” I said, raising my hands once again. “What is this all about?”

She said something in French, fast and with an even thicker accent than usual, so I had no clue what she said. She did it with a grin, so she knew what she was doing.

I got to the RV and decided to knock.

“Who is it?” Erica called.

“A man driven to madness, attempting to answer your summon, of Queen Wifey,” I said through the door.

She laughed, and someone else laughed in there with her.

Oh, fuck, I thought. Did a new partner get delivered while I was gone? That couldn’t be it, right? There was no way I’d get a partner assigned now, after partnering with Gerty, Tanaya and Kara, and with Miriam already the batter up next. Fuck, Miriam would be pissed if this was a new partner.

I pulled open the door and stepped up into the RV, but found all the shades had been pulled closed - they weren’t effective enough to make it dark, but enough to throw a heavy shade over everything. “Back here,” Erica called from the direction of the bedroom.

The door was shut.

The bedroom door was never shut, but now it was.

What did that mean?

I kicked off my boots, shaking my head as I walked up the length of the RV. “Erica, babe, I swear if this is all a prank with Sexy Susan I’m gonna put you over my knee and spank that ass, pregnant or not.”

I opened the bedroom door and was faced with a very naked ass - the very ass I’d been threatening to spank. It was turned up in the air and wagging slowly back and forth enticingly, her pussy leaking a couple rivulets of her juices down her thighs and looking like it had already been teased and pleased just like Erica was doing to the other nude woman leaning back on my bed. Julia was grinning playfully while Erica slurped noisily between her legs. 

The helicopter pilot was stark naked, but as I’d noticed before, she had a distinctive tattoo pattern that made her almost seem half-clothed still with a pair of full arm sleeve tattoos that travelled up onto the tops of her shoulders and into the mandala tattoo that ringed her neck, looking like she had some sort of sexy shawl. She had a smattering of other tattoos, a couple of small ones on her upper right hip, what looked like a date on her left thigh, and a few more on her legs in no discernable pattern. Her breasts had cute little nipples in perfectly circular, dark areolas, and while I wouldn’t have said they were quite as nice as Erica’s, they were still decently sized. The most attractive thing about her was still that playful smile, though.

“You were supposed to come in here to my ass in the air as I ate her out,” Julia said. “But you took too long and I got her to come, so now it’s my turn. You’ll have to wait to see my ass.”

“I’m a patient man,” I said, stepping towards the bed and letting both of my hands take a firm hold of Erica’s butt cheeks and giving her a warm, familiar squeeze. “And it looks like you’re having fun.”

“Erica is always fun,” Julia chuckled, then licked the middle of her lip. “Now who is ‘Sexy Susan?’”

“Oh my God,” Erica said, sitting up. “Wait right here, you’ll fucking die.” She started to get up off the bed, and I caught her arms and hugged her to me.

“Really?” I asked.

“Don’t worry,” she grinned. “You’ve got two hot, Italian broads wanting you to fuck their holes silly, Harri. Sexy Susan doesn’t need your personal touch.”

I rolled my eyes and let her go, and she headed - completely naked - towards the front of the RV where the sex doll was currently ‘stored’ in the copilot seat. We kept the front shades closed unless we were driving, so no one usually went up there.

“Alright, well, you’ve seen mine,” Julia chuckled at her friend’s antics and then focused on me. “How about you show me yours?” She bit the corner of her lip and trailed her fingers across her now-revealed pussy lips, which looked slick and juicy.

“Sounds fair to me,” I said, and pulled off my shirt slowly, making sure to give her the show she wanted. It seemed to do the trick because she groaned lightly and was staring at my newly shredded torso. That look in her eyes felt like it stirred that thing in me, and I growled a little in my chest as I drew in a long breath through my nose, smelling the mixed sexual arousal that had been building while they’d waited for me. I was going to fuck this woman deaf, dumb, and blind, and she’d be mine.

“Meet Sexy Susan,” Erica laughed, coming back into the bedroom and hauling the sex doll with her. Susan was dressed up in the nurse costume she’d originally been brought home in - Ivy having replaced it after we’d had our fun with the outfit back then - and Eric posed with the ridiculous and slightly creepy facsimile.

“Holy fuck,” Julia started cackling, sitting up on the bed. “How? Why?”

“We rescued her from the Sex Shop,” Erica said, tossing the doll on the bed. “Feel her tits, they’re like the best fakes ever. Her pussy doesn’t exactly live up to the same thing, but it’s still kind of fun to play with in a weird way.”

I sighed as Julia gave the doll a double-handed squeeze and started laughing again. Then I shucked off my pants and boxers, and my cock made its grand entrance.

“Holy shit,” Julia said, her eyes jumping to look me over again. She glanced back at Erica. “You weren’t kidding.”

“I was not,” Erica grinned. “Can you fucking believe I waited years to find out he was packing that? And I’m not lying about how good he is with it either. Or his hands. Or tongue. Hell, he could probably get you off using his foot and a peg leg.”

“Depends on the shape of the peg leg,” I smirked, getting up on the bed on my knees. “Now can we push Sexy Susan off the edge? Because I’m not planning on giving her any attention.”

Julia unceremoniously shoved the doll off the side bed. “Done. Let’s fuck.”