Elias’s shot took the new gunner’s ear and the rest of his balance.

The man grabbed for the mount and found nothing but hot steel thanks to Zubair.

He dropped like a sack and didn’t climb up again. The horn down the road wailed for cousins who would never arrive fast enough to save the men who already rushed head first into something they didn’t understand.

Sera slid off the truck, her bare feet hitting warm asphalt and puddles of blood.

The heat Zubair laid through the lane danced around her skin like it had learned manners. Luci rose with her, a rumble in his chest that vibrated her shin.

Anselmo watched her like she was a puzzle piece that didn’t fit his understanding of the current world. His face gave away nothing but interest. The calm put him on a list she kept where names didn’t live long.

He was a threat, and there was no way she was going to allow a threat to live long enough to make good on their promise.

"Back," he told his men without raising his voice. They hesitated—momentum pulled them forward as panic left them dumb.

"Back," he repeated, a hair sharper. This time they listened. He had trained them to obey tone more than words.

But Sera didn’t rush.

There was no point.

The second truck tried to reverse away from Alexei’s ice and got itself hung on the lip of the road again, its tires spinning as the rubber screamed.

Elias picked off the driver through the side window; the truck lurched forward for a second before it coughed and died.

Lachlan vaulted the bus barricade and met a man coming over from the other side.

Dark blue, almost black veins strained against the confines of his body as Lachlan’s monster decided it wanted to play with its meal before ending things.

He grabbed the man in front of him by the bulletproof vest, turned him in the air, and bounced him off the van skin hard enough to dent it inward.

The machete went in a clean line across a second throat and Lachlan laughed like a kid on a slide as blood spray covered him.

Two more tried Sera’s side with pistols low and shoulders high.

Luci leapt first.

His weight slammed the closer one onto his back; his teeth closed over a wrist and kept closing until bones snapped under the pressure of a species that never should have come back.

Sera met the second and didn’t waste anything.

She stripped the pistol from his hand with a twist that wrecked the man’s thumb, then jammed the muzzle under his chin and fired once. His head snapped back, his body twitched once, and then he was down for the count.

Stupid zombies twitched on chains, but none of them moved toward her.

The air around the horde got tight and bright with the scent of their creatures, and the dumb things smelled it and wanted no part of it.

Who said that zombies were dumber than humans?

One turned away and chewed at its own shoulder until blood ran, confused by a hunger it couldn’t place.

Zubair stepped past her with both hands up and put a wall of heat between the trucks to keep stray rounds off her back.

A bullet hit the edge and drooled into a copper tear. He adjusted the wall a foot and it turned black in midair, its job done. He smiled without humor at the trick.

Alexei froze the last of the near-bank anchors into the mud, locking the chains in place so they would be as useful as broken teeth.

He didn’t look at Sera; he didn’t need to. He knew exactly where she would be—front, center, daring the world to step into her shadow.

Anselmo used the moment to step into the lane with open hands. "Walk away," he proposed, eyes only on her. "Leave the trucks. Leave the guns. Take your pet monsters and I don’t need to bring more cousins."

She laughed because he deserved that much. "You think I’m going to trade meat for air?" She tipped her chin at the barricade. "Leave your toys. Leave your boots. Leave your bridge. Crawl away if you want to live. Or are you mistaken about what you see in front of you?"

His mouth made a shape that wasn’t a smile or a frown—just a mark he might remember later. "You act like you own this river."

"Now I do," she answered, and Luci’s rumble agreed.

The gun truck’s bed creaked.

A man who should have stayed down didn’t.

He popped up with a sawed-off shotgun and tried for a close shot at her stomach.

Zubair’s heat plate snapped into being between them on reflex.

The blast hit the invisible wall and came back as grit and scraps. The man took his own pellets in the face and fell sideways with hands trying to hold a ruined map of skin together.

"Left, three," Elias called.

Sera moved that way, Luci a half-step ahead.

Two men with machetes and a third with a length of chain came wide, going for speed over caution.

She threw the empty pistol at the lead machete without slowing.

He flinched; it gave her the space to step inside his reach. Her elbow broke his mouth. Her knee broke his thigh.

He wheezed on the ground and tried to crawl. Luci hit the chain man low and took his calf to bone. The last swung wildly and met Lachlan coming back, blue-lit fists turning bone into soft wood.

Sera didn’t watch them finish.

She went for the barricade and climbed the van’s grill with both hands, her bare feet finding rungs where none existed.

A rifle poked out through the cut skin, its muzzle searching for her torso. She grabbed the barrel, yanked, and felt the man inside resist for a half heartbeat.

It wasn’t enough, she was stronger than him. The gun came. She turned it, shoved it back through the hole, and fired three times into the dark, fast.

Shouting stopped on the far side.

Someone tried to open the van’s side door to flank her.

Not impressed, Zubair pressed his palm flat to the steel and left a handprint that bloomed orange. The handle sagged, then dripped.

The man inside grabbed it anyway and left part of his palm welded to the metal.

He howled something about saints, then forgot the prayer when Lachlan tore the door off its last hinge and used it to sweep the floor like a janitor murder.

Alexei leaned into the shack, took in Anselmo, the chains, the ruined radio, the ledger now tucked in his jacket, and the small neatness of a man who liked tidy books. "You should have stayed in bed," he advised, tone almost gentle.

Anselmo’s answer stayed with Sera long enough to mean something later. "You should have joined earlier."