Zubair hadn’t moved since the first cage door had swung open and the zombies flowed out of it.

It was almost amusing, the moment where the stupid zombies took one look at him and his team before turning around and attacking the humans.

In fact, they had done half the work for him, ripping through the raiders like they’d been waiting years for someone to open the buffet.

Trucks burned where fire caught fuel lines. Screams tangled with gunfire. The field outside the barn looked like some hand had turned the world upside down and shaken it until nothing landed where it was supposed to.

But there were still a few trucks that hadn’t burned yet.

And not all the men in it ran.

They regrouped fast, yelling over the chaos, shoving the last stupid zombies off the cab so they could aim at the barn.

At her.

Zubair’s eyes cut toward Sera.

She was standing still in the middle of the barn, one hand on Luci’s ruff, the other loose at her side, watching everything like it was a play she hadn’t decided the ending to yet.

She was calm. But it was the calm of the coming storm.

And clearly, the raiders hadn’t learned yet what that calm meant.

Zubair finally moved, rolling his shoulders back. Heat licked his palms before he even asked for it, small curls of orange running along his fingers like they were eager too.

The last of the raiders raised their rifles, wanting to kill him and take what was his.

But Zubair didn’t give them the chance. 𝒻𝘳𝘦𝘦𝘸ℯ𝒷𝘯𝘰𝑣ℯ𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝘮

Fire leapt from his hands in a clean line, racing across the dirt like an accelerant had been poured down, waiting for someone to fall into a trap.

It hit the lead raider before he saw it coming. One second he had a gun. The next second he was nothing but screaming heat and dropping metal.

The others fell back, shouting orders, kicking dirt, firing wild into the smoke curling off their own man.

And not a single bullet ever reached the barn.

Zubair twisted his wrist, and the air between the raiders and the barn shimmered like a mirage.

Heat turned every bullet soft before it made it ten feet. Melted lead hit the ground in fat gray drops, hissing like insects in the grass.

The raiders hesitated then.

It was in that moment where the men realized that maybe they didn’t bring enough guns to the fight they started.

Zubair stepped forward, his eyes narrowing on his target.

Not fast. Not loud.

He just walked through the heat already rippling off him, eyes on the men who’d thought aiming at Sera was free of charge.

One of them yelled something about falling back. Another shouted about holding the line.

But none of them sounded sure.

The fire gathered at Zubair’s shoulders like it wanted permission.

And he gave it.

Flames tore across the nearest truck, ate through the tires before the men on the roof even thought to jump. It slammed onto the rims with a scream of metal and then went up through the hood, swallowing the cab before the driver could open the door.

Two men bailed off the roof, rolling in the dirt, trying to smother clothes already fused to their skin. Zubair didn’t spare them a glance.

Another tried to swing the mounted gun toward the barn.

Zubair burned the barrel in half before it turned.

The man made a sound like disbelief before he made one like pain.

Someone fired anyway—sharp panic-pulls on the trigger, wild shots cutting the air three feet to Zubair’s left. He didn’t bother moving.

Heat bent the air again.

The bullets didn’t make it through this time either.

Zubair kept walking.

The last raiders broke then. He saw it in the way they looked at each other instead of him, the way they backed toward the tree line without giving the order to retreat out loud.

One dropped his rifle and ran.

Another followed.

Zubair lifted one hand and cut them both down before they cleared twenty yards.

Fire climbed their backs like it had a grudge, and maybe it did.

The last man standing froze with his rifle half-raised, eyes big behind whatever passed for goggles in this part of the world. Smoke rolled off the burning trucks behind him.

He didn’t run. Didn’t shoot either.

Smart.

Zubair tilted his head once, a small motion toward the ground.

The rifle hit dirt fast.

Zubair closed the distance slow, every step measured, like the earth hadn’t already gone red around them. Heat roared in his blood, crawled down his arms, ready to finish what it started.

But Sera’s voice came from the barn.

"How about we keep him alive?" she purred, her body unnaturally still. "After all, food tastes better when it is salted with fear."

Zubair stopped close enough to smell the man’s fear under the smoke.

It wasn’t mercy that kept him from burning this one. It was Sera’s order.

The man went to his knees when Zubair shoved him there with one hand. He didn’t fight. Didn’t even look like he remembered how.

Zubair turned away only when Elias came out to bind the man’s wrists.

The fire stayed another second before Zubair pulled it back.

Smoke curled off the field in black columns. Metal popped and collapsed under its own weight. Tires bled into tar where they’d melted into the dirt.

The stupid zombies were gone.

What was left of them had wandered off once the screaming stopped, like whatever held their attention had snapped with the last heartbeat on the field.

Zubair didn’t trust it would last.

He scanned the treeline while Elias dragged the survivor toward the barn. Alexei followed, rifle up, watching for anyone else with a death wish.

Lachlan kicked one of the fallen rifles on his way past and grinned like he liked the gift.

Zubair didn’t smile.

He watched Sera instead.

She stood where she’d been the whole fight, Luci pressed to her side, one hand tangled in the dire wolf’s fur. Her eyes tracked the flames, the smoke, the dead men in the grass.

She didn’t look away when one of the burning trucks finally went quiet with a last hollow pop.

Zubair wondered if she was waiting to feel something.

He wondered if he should.

But all he felt was heat rolling under his skin and the steady hum of a promise kept: no one aimed at her and walked away whole.

Not while he was breathing.

Elias shoved the captured raider into the dirt near the barn wall. The man stayed down. Smart again.

Zubair leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed, heat still lifting off him in small waves. The last truck groaned into itself out in the field, flames chewing the last bits of metal like gristle.

The air smelled like burned rubber and worse things under it.

Zubair didn’t mind.

He looked at Sera one more time before he went to stand behind Elias. The man on the ground would talk. They always did.

And if he didn’t...

Zubair flexed his hand once, the heat answering like it was listening.

He didn’t need words to finish the thought.