The Survivors: Book One

Valentine's Day, 2013

Indiana

1

Using simple hand signals, the Kelly brothers slowly snuck closer to the burned-down campfire and the woman covered in a quilt that slept behind it. The area around them was heavily wooded, the Morgan Monroe State Forest remote even before the War, and there was no glare of moonlight off bald heads to give them away as they stalked the lone female.

They had come far east of their main group to take revenge on the man who'd put them in prison. After those two bloody days, the brothers had gotten back on the move, ferreting out female survivors. They'd found girls and their mothers still huddled in basements after the draft had taken their men, but the waves of energy this woman was sending out had drawn them to her, making them leave the others behind…their bodies, anyway.

Following from a distance to make sure she was alone, when the woman had stopped to change the tire - her third in four days - they'd made their plans, knowing from watching that she would have to rest afterwards. Now she was asleep and they would stay back no longer.

Dean and Dillan had been dishonorably discharged for the rape and murder of a Korean civilian, and they expected no trouble from one woman. They were spies, assassins who excelled at front line infiltrations, and there was only the sound of the cold, Indiana wind howling through the trees as they slipped from rough trunk to yellow grass. Their movements were so alike, they appeared to be only one 6', 220 lb. threat instead of two.

Exhausted, Angela was dreaming of murder, rape, and sadistic torture, the men in her nightmare giving no mercy as their knives continued to flash across the girl's naked body.

"They'll throw us out for this," one of the men worried, sinking his blade deep into a soft, dead breast.

His twin nodded, marking her bruised thigh with an ugly symbol. "We're not going back. We're Mercenaries now. Come on. Her daughter's up."

Angela snapped awake as the alarms in her head blared, told her she'd let danger get too close to run from, and she jerked her gun from its holster. Her wild eyes searched the darkness beyond the dim firelight, but there was nothing in sight except the groves of poplar trees she had eased the Blazer into. There were no sounds, not even a cricket - just the wind and the popping of her small, unevenly-rocked fire.

His cover was good. She found the intruder only by his fast, lustful thoughts, layers of slime overlapping, and she pointed her gun in his direction, not sure she could fire even though the Witch was telling her to defend herself first and ask questions later.