Zubair lifted his hand and pinched heat into a narrow column between the barrel and the sight.

The man who thought that Sera would be an easy target felt his cheek blister against the stock of the rifle in his hands.

He jerked reflexively and blew a chunk of scale house out of a window frame instead of Sera’s heart. Elias answered with one neat shot through the captain’s shoulder.

The rifle dropped.

The man staggered behind the door and tried to use it as shield.

Zubair curled his fingers and the edge of the door got warm enough to brand. The captain gave it up and rolled to the undercarriage.

Zubair flowed right.

A hunter broke cover to keep him honest.

Zubair shaped heat tight around the man’s rifle. Fingers stuck to the grip as skin went tacky and then raw. The man screamed and threw the weapon.

It peeled skin with it. Zubair left him to the scream; Lachlan finished him by walking past and tapping the back of his head with the butt he’d stolen.

"Two more at the trees," Alexei warned. He iced the dirt at their ankles and they went down in clumsy kneels. Elias collected them with single shots that didn’t waste second rounds.

The dogs were down to one—the smallest, too scared to be smart when its Alpha was killed. It tried to back away and got confused by its own leash dragging.

Luci watched it with the steady hate only a dire wolf could possibly have for a thing men twisted out of itself.

He didn’t move.

Sera didn’t give the word.

The little animal backed to the bumper and crouched there shaking, smoke lifting from its singed ruff.

The captain under the ninth truck reached for a boot pistol.

Zubair stepped to meet him, put one heel down hard on the wrist, and leaned weight. Bones and gravel ground together.

The man grunted and tried to kick. Zubair caught the heel, twisted, and heard tendons complain. He crouched without hurry, hand hovering an inch off the captain’s throat.

"You’re herding us," Zubair observed. It wasn’t a question so much as a truth measured out of angles, timing, the way the tail never closed all the way. There was always pressure to keep them moving, but never enough to actually try and kill them. "You’re pushing us south. Toward a place."

The captain clenched his jaw and spit blood. "You’ll go the way everyone goes. We don’t need to mark the route anymore. It marks itself."

"What’s at the end?" Zubair pressed, thumb a breath from the man’s pulse.

"Nothing for you."

Heat pooled in Zubair’s palm, not flame, just a weight that pulled sweat out of skin. "What’s at the end?"

"Judgment," the captain rasped, trying for menace and hitting religion. "And a gate you don’t open."

"Wrong answer."

He pushed the heat just enough to blister.

The captain squirmed, then arched.

Alexei walked up slow as January and crouched on the other side of the bumper, knife idling in his grip.

"You could tell the truth," he suggested in a voice that made honesty sound like a warm bed. "We still kill you, but your last words wouldn’t be boring."

"The General," the man gasped, almost choking on the title. "He owns the bridge that matters. He owns the roads that matter more. You’ll choke before you see him."

"So you are herding us," Zubair repeated. Not a surprise. A confirmation that scraped his molars. "Why?"

"Because she’s worth it," the captain hissed, eyes cutting past Zubair’s knee toward Sera without meaning to. "A woman like that buys an entire year worth of supplies for a city."

Heat crawled the steel under Zubair’s boot. He didn’t move it. "You looked at her like property," he murmured. "Big mistake."

Sera’s shadow fell over both of them then. She didn’t speak. She didn’t have to. The captain’s mouth flattened like he understood hierarchy at last.

"You want her alive, da?" Alexei asked, almost bored.

Zubair weighed it. Information had a price.

He could extract more, but every second held risk, and the yard had taught him enough today when it came to dealing with the General.

He felt the watcher’s tickle—the sense you get when a distant scope eats light. Trees made too many answers. The captain’s breath smelled like cheap liquor and dog food.

"No," Zubair decided, and pressed. 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝕨𝕖𝗯𝚗𝚘𝕧𝕖𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝕞

The heat shut the man’s voice off halfway through a curse.

It didn’t take long.

It never did, if you knew how to pull the body the right direction.

He let the wrist go. The hand flopped open, palm angry red where his boot had pinned it.

Lachlan had three men zip-tied with scavenged cable ties by then and looked annoyed there weren’t more to stack. He propped one against the truck bumper and peered into the ninth’s cab like it might hide a birthday.

"Anyone want a map?" he called, triumphant. "The glove box fairy delivered."

Elias kept the rifle up and backed in a slow swivel, eyes scissoring between treeline, road mouth, and the angle beyond the bins where a new line of dust might announce cousins. "We leave," he urged. "Now."

Zubair nodded.

He spared the frightened last dog a glance. It had pressed itself to the bumper so hard its ribs showed in scallops.

He lifted his palm half an inch and took the heat out of the air entirely in that little square, a tiny cold spot in a hot day. The animal relaxed a fraction and blinked at him like it didn’t know what kindness was.

He hated that.

He hated men who did it to things that trusted.

"Loose it or leave it?" Alexei asked, knives quiet again.

"Loose it," Sera answered, finally giving the smallest nod. "No chains. It chooses."

Alexei flicked a wrist. The chain collar’s clip popped.

The dog flinched, took one step, then another, then ran for the gap in the fence without looking back.

Luci watched it go, its tongue hanging out of its mouth, its breath steady.

Zubair straightened.

The fire he’d pushed into the bins, the gravel, the trucks eased back into the sky so the yard felt like a place again, not a punishment.