The next storefront, store number four, had a cracked sign that used to read OUTFITTERS.

Half the letters were gone and the sign now read U F ERS, and Sera couldn’t stop the giggle as she read it. For a brief moment, she wondered if the store was as cranky as she was at the General... but that probably wasn’t the case.

Still, a store that was swearing at everyone who entered should have some good stuff inside.

The metal gate hung loose on one side like someone had gotten bored halfway through stealing it and just left it as it was.

Zubair lifted the rail with one hand and shoved the dead weight with the other. The hinges squealed as if they, too, were swearing at everyone who dared enter the place.

Zubair stepped through first, did his normal rounds, and once he was satisfied, he poked his head back out and nodded at Sera.

"It’s good to go," he told her before looking at the people over her shoulder. His eyes narrowed on the threats, but he wasn’t about to stop Sera from having fun.

If she could take on an ice age and prehistoric polar bears, the glossy human woman was nothing more than a joke.

She slipped past his shoulder, tapping it in appreciation before she went inside.

Alexei flowed left, ran a quick lane down a wall of pack as Elias peeled off toward the register and the glass case with knives that hadn’t been sharpened in a very long time.

Lachlan stayed with the bag of things from the third store that would eventually be added to the collection from this one.

Luci padded to the middle and flopped down where he could watch both aisles with a turn of his head, and stare down the men around the glossy woman as if he was deciding which snack looked tastier.

"You took your two stores," the glossy woman called from the hall. Her voice wanted to carry like a bell, loud and authoritative. Instead, it bounced off dead drywall, leaving almost nothing in its wake. "We gave you a third one because I am nice like that. But now it is time for you to stop."

She didn’t come in, but her men did. The one with the pipe, the bat, and the runner with the ratty cap all set up like they owned the thresholds.

Sera didn’t even glance at them. She found several pairs of shoes that she liked. They were completely impractical, but that was almost what she liked the most about them.

Thigh-high boots with stiletto heels, massive brown platform shoes, running shoes. If it was in her size, she took it. Without even looking she tossed it over her shoulder and into the duffel bag that Lachlan swung open on the floor.

The fact that she was using that duffel bag as an entrance to her space just make it that much better. Now, no matter what she threw into it, it could still fit more.

Elias checked all the ’necessary’ stuff like water filters, a coil of paracord, a compass, and a block of magnesium. Most of the stuff he, too, threw into the duffel bag, but he passed the compass that refused to point north to Sera.

She pocketed that broken thing like she was a magpie with taste... attracted to anything shiny.

"Look at us!" Lachlan said with a brilliant smile on his face. "We’ve entered the fourth store and haven’t been struck down yet! What a time to be alive."

"Alive is the plan," Elias returned. "Don’t think that we won’t throw you at whoever is trying to kill us inorder to keep the rest of us alive."

"I would expect nothing less," agreed Lachlan as his eyes briefly caressed Sera’s shoulders.

The glossy woman’s heels clicked twice at the threshold. "I’ll say it slow so that you understand. Two stores. I gave you one more, but now you are done. You settle with me now or you don’t walk out."

Sera reached for a jacket built for rain. It looked cute, like a black dress that flared out at the hips but was clearly a jacket. There was also enough pockets to make her smile.

She shucked into it over leather and brass and rolled a shoulder until it sat right.

"You look like a problem," Lachlan told her, grinning. "It’s a good look on you."

"I am a problem," she answered, checking a sleeve seam for any holes with her thumb. "For anyone who tries to take my things."

Zubair stepped up to the end of an aisle and ran his eyes across the racks to the back door. Service corridor. Shadowed. He didn’t like the shadow. He planted at that mouth and became a door to keep everything out.

"Count your boys," Alexei told the glossy woman without turning. "Keep them on their feet."

She ignored him and lifted her chin at Sera. "You can play queen in your own truck. In here, you listen to me."

Sera slid a machete from a hook, tested the balance, and handed it to Zubair without looking.

He took it like the thing belonged in his fist. His thumb checked the edge, pleased to see that it was sharp enough to easily cut through flesh and bone.

He set it flat on the shelf by his thigh, hilt toward him.

"Last chance," the glossy woman pressed. "I have been extremely kind and polite with you, but even I only have so much patience."

Sera crouched at a bottom shelf and found three sealed tins of camp fuel, a roll of vacuum bags, and a hard case that rattled with a field cook set.

She lifted the case, popped the latches, glanced once, and closed it again.

"Polite is for people I plan to see twice," she told the floor. "I don’t plan on ever seeing you again after today."

Lachlan snorted. Alexei’s mouth twitched. And Elias kept the duffel open like a hungry mouth.

The man with the bat planted his weapon like a cane and leaned on it. "We could just solve this. Your boys come with us. You, sweetheart, join our girls. You’ll be safer with our types of numbers."

Zubair didn’t move. His gaze touched the man and left him cold. "No."

The man grinned at Sera, teeth too white for this world. "You don’t get a vote."

Luci let out a single low note that made the man’s knee bend without his permission. He straightened and tried to laugh. It didn’t come out right.

Sera pulled a second backpack and then a third.

She checked the straps and frames and buckles like she’d been born with a gear list in her head. 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝙬𝙚𝓫𝒏𝓸𝓿𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝙤𝓶

She didn’t need them; they were simply there to maintain the image that all of their supplies were only what they could carry. But still, she had to make it realistic. No one would chose the backpack that would cut her shoulders.

The quiet girl with the binder drifted into the doorway and stayed behind the glossy woman’s shoulder. Her eyes stayed on Sera’s hands again, not her face. She didn’t write. She watched.

"Two stores," the glossy woman said again, sweeter than poison. "You picked leather. You picked candy. This one is ours."

"Nope," Sera returned, mild as a knife laid on a table. "This one is mine too."

She didn’t raise her voice. She didn’t square off at anyone. She just kept working.

The duffel swallowed a stack of dry bags, a handful of fire starters, two headlamps that still clicked on when Elias thumbed them, and a roll of heavy trash liners.

"Stop," the glossy woman snapped, patience finally cracking. "This is theft."

"No," Elias answered, unruffled. "This is shopping without a cashier."

The runner in the ratty cap chuckled before he caught himself. The glossy woman cut him a look vicious enough to peel paint. He dropped his eyes to his boots.

"Time to settle," she insisted, turning her smile on Zubair like charm had ever worked where force would not. "Bring the bag. We’ll count together. It’ll be fair."

Zubair didn’t blink. "We’re not settling with you."

"This is my floor."

"No," he told her. "This is a dead mall."

Her mouth flattened. "You think you can just take and walk."

"Yes," Zubair said. "That’s the plan."

She stepped in, finally. A hand came up, open, for show, like she meant to lay it on Sera’s shoulder and make it personal.

Alexei slid into the space between before the hand found purchase. No threat display. Just body in the way. His eyes were winter.

She stopped with her palm hanging in air. Her jaw tightened. "You think a knife scares me?" she demanded.

"No," Alexei told her. "But you should be scared of what comes after the knife."

The bat man drifted toward Lachlan’s side and set the bat on the toe of one boot. "You play at cute," he told Lachlan. "But you bleed like the rest. And like everyone knows, if it bleeds, it can die."

"Want to bet your jaw on that?" Lachlan asked, cheerful.

A spark ran across his palm, thin as a wire. The bat man took a step back he pretended was a stretch.

"Enough," the glossy woman barked, trying to turn the tide with volume. She lifted her chin and whistled two fingers between her teeth. The sound carried down the hall.