Elias’s tone didn’t change. "On my shot."

Zubair watched the roof rifle tick one last useless figure-eight. The shot Elias fired off was fast and to the point.

The man folded off the truck roof like someone had pulled a wire through his knees. He hit hard and didn’t get back up.

Everything else moved at once.

Cutout muzzles in the van skin hammered the lane. Sparks skittered off the lead truck’s hood as bullets flew through the air without purpose.

Zubair had already laid heat through the metal around him, and the rounds hit and slowed like they’d driven into thick mud. One flattened, stuck, the smoke of the mini explosion of still able to be seen in the air.

He gave the hood a breath more warmth and the next two rounds mushroomed before they could punch.

"Down," he said without raising his voice. Elias slid lower in the seat, rifle already angling to the second cutout.

Pablo on the barricade swung his rifle toward the windshield.

Zubair lifted his hand an inch off the rim and pressed his palm to nothing. The air between the muzzle and the glass flickered.

The shot cut in and died, heat shaving its speed until it hit the windshield like a knuckle rap. The glass starred and held.

"Neat trick," Lachlan chuckled behind them.

Alexei’s door opened on the second truck. Cold walked out ahead of him and a slice of road went slick gray-blue from ditch to ditch as ice covered every surface.

Two men who had begun to fan right lost their footing and went down hard, rifles clattering across the ice. One tried to crawl and spun in place like a beetle, rage and panic making him stupid.

Zubair didn’t spare them more than half a glance. Anselmo hadn’t moved when the shot dropped his roof man. Now he did: a small pivot, a look at the shack, a single finger flick at Pablo that said keep pressure, I’ll fix it.

Then he turned away, calm as a man stepping off a bus.

Sera laughed under her breath and lifted her chin. "Don’t let him get bored."

Zubair’s jaw tightened. He moved.

The first step took him out of the truck.

The second set him on the lane line.

Heat ran down his arms and into his hands until the air rippled up off his knuckles.

He didn’t push it wide. He kept it close, tight, the way you hold a blade if you don’t want to nick your own.

Pablo panicked.

He saw a man walking the lane while bullets were still punching the van’s cutouts and did what small men did when a plan bent: he emptied half a magazine into the shape that scared him most.

The shots died a yard out, metal slumping to useless coins and falling at Zubair’s boots. One sang on the asphalt. Another stuck to the sidewall of a burned-out tire like a cheap magnet toy.

Behind Zubair, Elias cracked the second cutout—it blew a piece of its own ragged mouth back in and the muzzle vanished.

Alexei put a slick under the leftmost leash pole and the base shifted in its socket. The nearest stupid zombie lurched, chain went tight, and the pole dropped six inches with a thump that shook the mud.

Zubair lifted his left hand and let heat creep along the bus door hinges Lachlan had pointed out.

The pins softened and slid open.

Lachlan hit the door with his shoulder and ripped it off the rest of the skin like a man opening a stubborn gate. He hurled it at the barricade. It hit two men and took them to the deck in a rattle of chain-link and rust.

Anselmo made the shack in four long steps.

Zubair clocked him without turning his head—white shirt, that neat belt, the way he kept his arms close so no one could see the exact moment his right hand went for the holster.

The shack door shoved against its wedge and swung.

He was gone?

Not yet.

A flash of movement at the lane edge like someone was trying to be a hero. He came off the bus’s fender with a knife low, jaw tight, aimed for Sera’s door. Luci hit him first.

The crunch of the man’s arm breaking under the dire wolf’s mouth was distinct. The knife skittered under the truck. Sera never looked away from the bridge.

Zubair walked faster.

Pablo backed up on the pickup’s hood, his boots clanging against the hood.

He brought the rifle up again.

Zubair lifted his palm and cooked the front sight off. It winked bright and drooped like taffy.

Pablo stared stupidly at the melted bead, then at Zubair, and fumbled sidearm from waistband to hand.

Bad draw.

Weak wrist.

Zubair flicked two fingers—heat ran the length of the slide. The oil inside flashed and seized. The pistol locked halfway and bit Pablo’s hand. He screamed and dropped it. 𝓯𝙧𝓮𝓮𝒘𝓮𝙗𝙣𝒐𝒗𝒆𝓵.𝓬𝓸𝒎

Elias clipped the far-side shadow in the shack slit when it leaned too far. The echo rolled under the truss.

Alexei sent a lazy wash of cold along the van’s roof—frost bloomed and slid into the cutouts. Someone behind the holes coughed on their own breath turning to ice.

The leashes cried out as the stupid zombies threw themselves to the ends of their chains until you could hear necks grind.

One collar had ridden up a spine enough that the thing’s head wagged loose. It didn’t understand that it had already lost. It only wanted forward. The chain sang against iron. The pole bent another half inch.

"Anchors," Elias reminded without taking eyes off his sight line.

Zubair stepped to the edge and reached for the mud where the shackles were pinned. It was easy to burn skin. It was harder to heat steel sunk two feet in wet dirt without turning the dirt to boiling paste.

He kept his focus like a bead on a wire, pushed heat into bolts and plates only.

The first anchor glowed dull and then brighter. The soil spit as water flashed and fled. The weld popped with a dissatisfied crack. The whole leash assembly heaved two inches toward the river.