The first cow-catcher hit the median wrong.

Its front wheels dropped into the gully and the driver tried to power out. However, all he managed to do was spin a trench into gravel.

The second learned from the first and rallied earlier, but Zubair stole a sliver of his future by nudging the truck half a foot right so the man corrected again and again until he over-steered himself into the ditch.

The third kept his head, bounced across, and came in hot for their rear quarter.

"Behind," Elias said, and Alexei had his hand out before the word reached Zubair’s ear.

The flatbed riflemen had found their range; one bullet shaved a curl of paint from the door. The cow-catcher reached for their bumper like a hungry mouth.

Sera lifted her hand.

It was nothing, just a small movement, an old habit of a woman trying to get someone’s attention without calling out for them.

Luci went still, his ears high as he seemed to vibrate with excitement.

Zubair didn’t look, but Elias felt the way he eased the pedal, not to slow, but to leave space in front for whatever Sera had already decided to do.

At least she didn’t go through the window this time.

Instead, she went up.

The roof caught her palms, the hood caught her foot, and then she was moving over steel like it was rock.

The wind took her hair causing it to flow behind her like some sort of superhero cape. The light from the sun stamped a bright line across her cheekbone, and then she was gone from the cab.

"Show-off," Alexei chuckled, shaking his head affectionately.

The cow-catcher driver saw her at the last second and had the thought all men have when the world didn’t quite seem right. She’s too fast...close...it’s not possible. But by the time he came back to himself, she was on his hood.

He braked, which was an honestly human reaction, but one that was also entirely wrong.

Because the truck behind him didn’t.

Momentum and physics made the decision for them.

Sera set her palm flat against the cow-catcher’s grill and smiled into the windshield.

The driver lifted his hands, because bodies with terror in them want to show surrender even to a thing that doesn’t accept it.

She put her other hand through the hot mesh where the hood had been patched thin and there was no longer a windshield to protect the driver from small projectiles or smaller women.

Her fingers closed around his throat as she crouched in front of him, her shiny black eyes taking in the drop of sweat on his brown, the way his Adam’s apple bobbed up and down as he swallowed with fear.

"You really should have put on your seatbelt," Sera purred as the man’s face started to turn both red and white at the same time.

Flinging herself backwards, she pulled the driver out of his seat, through the non-existent window, and let him drop to the hard ground behind her.

Without a driver, the cow-catcher slewed and kissed the guardrail with its whole snout.

Metal folded with a screeching protest and the truck behind tried to swerve and found it impossible.

The two massive vehicles tangled together, the momentum from the one behind causing the two of them to circle around, clearing everything in their path...

And killing what was once living.

The road ahead cleared as if it had never been blocked at all, and the driver of the first cow-catcher never had a chance to know what hit him.

"Good," Zubair said, not to anyone in particular, and pressed them through the gap that carnage had cut.

"Patterns," Elias said, mostly to himself.

He angled the mirror, counting the different kinds of courage and stupidity rolling in behind. "They’ll stop using the cow-catchers. I’m guessing that they will go for the long hooks next. Try to harpoon a frame, drag us sideways."

"Hooks," Lachlan repeated, delighted. "Like pirates. I always wanted to be a pirate. Do you think that there are any zombie pirates on the open seas?" He let out a loud gasp causing everyone to turn around and look at him.

"Whatever you are thinking," grumbled Alexei under his breath. "The answer is neyt."

"Oh come on," grumbled Lachlan, crossing his arms in front of his body as Sera dropped down onto the roof of the moving truck. "Think of how fun it would be. I could get a parrot!"

"You are a parrot," replied Alexei as he rolled his eyes.

"You’d eat the parrot," Sera called from the roof, and Elias heard the grin in her voice through the wind.

"Only if it asked nicely and tasted like chicken," came Lachlan’s reply.

The hooks came as predicted—two lines cannibalized from tow rigs, barbs welded on their heads.

The trucks that carried them didn’t try to be clever. They bellowed up on both sides with drivers leaning out of windows to throw, timing their cast with the bounce of the road.

Zubair didn’t let them have the rhythm.

He feathered the brake a fingertip’s worth and the first hook bit air an arm’s length short.

Then, he kissed the accelerator a heartbeat later and the second hook thunked into the tailgate too high. It failed to find something to grip onto or into, and tore down with a spark shower, leaving nothing but a scorching line on steel.

The throwers swore in two different dialects of the same mistake.

"Again," Elias said, because repetition was an animal instinct too.

They tried again and met the same result. Zubair, who hated waste, didn’t even smile. "Want to know what the definition of insanity is?" he smirked looking over at Elias as the throwers got ready for a third throw.

Elias smirked back at him and shook his head.

But the throwers never had the chance to see if the third time really was the charm.

A rider on a dirt bike—braver than his gear—made the choice for everyone.

He took his path far out into the field, arcing wide, standing on the pegs as if higher would make him able to aim better.

He had a glass bottle in his hand with a rag stuffed in its mouth and a lot of hope in his eyes for someone looking to die.

He didn’t aim for the windshield. Instead, he threw the Molotov at the tires.

Elias exhaled for a moment, rolling his eyes at just how predictive the raiders were, and said, "Left tire."

Zubair twitched his wrists a degree.

The bottle smashed against the asphalt far enough left that the flames flashed harmlessly and fell behind like a bad idea apologized for too late.

Sera slid back down the windshield and peeled into the cab through the open window without looking to see if anyone was ready to catch her.

Alexei was. There was never any doubt between him and the Psycho that Sera’s well-being came first. Even if they weren’t ready for it, they would never not catch her.

She landed with a palm to the back of Elias’s headrest, a knee thumping the seat, and more blood on her dress.

"Hungry?" Lachlan asked, purely to be a bastard.

"Full," she replied with a shake of her head, which took more weight off Elias’s shoulders than the death of a dozen dead riders.

"Good," Zubair echoed, faint as a habit.

The next trick wasn’t from the trucks.

It came from the flatbeds—smoke pots pitched forward so they shattered and rolled.

The road ahead filled with a sudden, opaque gray that swallowed the lanes whole. If you drove into that blind, you drove into whoever wanted you there.

"Soft shoulder," Elias said.

"Right," Zubair answered.

They hit the smoke and dropped two wheels into the gravel in the same breath.

The truck shuddered for a moment, and then the tires found a line of firmness that allowed Zubair to finally breath again.

They rode it like a rail.

Behind them, a rider guessed wrong about where the road ended and the ditch began.

The sound of his bike becoming many pieces was brief and music to their ears.