Elias checked fields of fire with the rifle snug to his shoulder, sighting across the pad, through the gate, and into the trees beyond.

He didn’t look at her, but Sera knew he had counted the rounds in three guns and the magazines in two vests by sound. He tucked himself behind the short wall of the scale house and rested the barrel on a chipped sill.

Sera hopped down and walked the line once, checking the little things no one ever wanted to admit mattered. Small things like pebbles that would roll under a heel, a patch of oil slick enough to break balance, a pile of mouse droppings that would stink when kicked and give away position.

She didn’t know why she sometimes fixated on the small things, or why they always screamed ’danger’ in her head. Instead of trying to justify her actions, she simply toed those aside. Luci tracked her left hip and kept his shoulder against her side like a heartbeat.

She flicked her wrist and brought a small metal tin out of her space and both Luci and her creature hummed in happiness. Opening the lid, homemade bear jerky hit her palm.

She flicked a piece into Luci’s mouth without looking and tossed a second to Lachlan as he crossed. He caught it, sniffed, grinned. "What flavor?"

"It’s the flavor of food," she returned. "If you don’t want it, others will."

"Delicious," he complimented between teeth. "My favorite flavor."

Alexei drifted to her side, eyes on the road mouth, knife loose in his hand like it belonged there more than any ring ever would. "Any chance this tail is just curious?"

"No," she answered. "In this world, zombies are safer than humans. Curious men honk. They wave. They ask for sugar. I’m willing to bet that these ones want the truck, the guns, and me. It appears that the General isn’t giving up."

"Honesty looks good on you," he murmured, then angled away to his mark. "And there is no way anyone would see you and not want you."

She put the tin away and pulled a flare instead. It was encased in orange plastic, the cap still sealed. She balanced it on the broken concrete lip nearest the gate and set a second six feet off to the right.

Zubair saw and nodded to himself, already calculating how to make flame talk at the right second.

"Two engines," Elias warned across the radio, his voice tight enough to mean contact. "Light truck, then heavier."

"Positions," Sera ordered, and the word wasn’t loud, just absolute.

Lachlan dropped behind an auger leg and balanced his machete across his thigh like a tennis pro waiting for serve.

Alexei slid into a crouch behind a stack of pallets gone soft at the edges, his eyes level with the gate, and his breath even.

Zubair settled one hand on steel, the other open to air, weight set to push forward. Elias pressed cheek to stock. Luci sank onto his belly and went statue still, his ears twitching with every new sound, and his tail quiet.

The light truck flashed between cottonwoods and hit the road mouth with too much confidence.

Its driver clocked the open gate and the empty yard and gunned it like he’d win a prize for getting there first. The tires met Alexei’s frost line and lost their grip, just like Elias wanted.

The truck entered the yard sideways, the driver overcorrecting, causing the tail end of the truck to whip around, the bed bucking.

The second line of ice caught the back wheels not a heartbeat later.

The whole vehicle spun like a carousel horse letting go. It kissed the scale house corner with its rear quarter and came to a rest facing the wrong way, engine still running, driver’s mouth a shape that would be a curse if he had time.

The heavier rig behind it braked hard in the trees, trying not to t-bone his friend.

Elias put a round through the right headlight anyway. Glass powdered and exploded. The driver flinched and yanked the wheel left.

The rig ate a sapling and shoved through brush, bumper scraping fence where it sagged.

Lachlan moved next.

He flowed out from behind the auger leg and crossed the pad in three long strides.

The light truck’s passenger had his door half-open and a boot on the gravel when Lachlan introduced that boot to the machete’s spine and pinned him in the hinge.

The man yelped and threw his hands up too late. Lachlan chopped once more and moved on, his eyes already on the driver trying to find reverse with fingers that couldn’t stop shaking.

A punch through the window, one pull on the collar, and the driver met the door frame with his forehead. The truck hiccupped and cut.

The heavy rig tried the gate at a half angle and found the first frost line with its front tires.

It didn’t spin; it slid.

Alexei lifted his hands with a small flick and added a smear under the rears. They skated like a curling stone.

The bumper caught the edge of the pad. Weight shifted. The driver panicked and stomped the accelerator. The tires spun into smoke and then into black. The truck didn’t move.

"Three more behind," Elias called. "Distance is thirty seconds out."

Sera grabbed the first flare, snapped the cap, and struck the tip.

It woke with a hiss and a spit of red that turned orange and steady.

She set it back on its edge and lit the second.

Zubair cupped both with his palm, and the flames tipped away from her and leaned toward the heavy rig, obeying him like the world did when it wanted to keep its eyebrows.

Heat crawled the gravel in a slow line that reached under the rig’s oil drip and found purchase. 𝓯𝓻𝓮𝙚𝙬𝓮𝙗𝒏𝙤𝒗𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝒐𝓶

A small ribbon of fire licked upward and kissed the belly.

The driver smelled it and threw his door open, but the yard kept its own rules, and the man ran right into Alexei’s knife hand coming out of shadow.

Alexei didn’t hurry. He never did. The body folded to the gravel with soft disrespect.

The third engine note arrived; lighter, eager.

Elias stitched two rounds across its hood as it hit the mouth. The driver woke to the idea of dying and tried to buy time with brake pedal.

The truck stalled itself with panic and rolled to a stop neat as if he’d meant it. Lachlan jogged forward, spun the machete in a quick circle that took a wrist off the steering wheel without touching fingers, and ripped the door off its hinge to get at the rest.

He laughed like this was a sport and he’d finally found the right league.

Sera didn’t bother watching the details.

Instead, she listened.

A fourth engine cut up the back road and hesitated. Men shouted to each other in ways that tried to prove who was the bigger boss.

The heavy rig’s belly fire licked at hoses now. A line of diesel sighed flame like a mouth chewing. Zubair lifted his free hand an inch.

The flame held where it should and didn’t wander.

Controlled.

Precise.

"Tires," she snapped.