The First Move

Eve leaves before the sun is fully awake.

Two of them, like Grant said. Jaycee goes with her because ten percent is a head start, not armor. The mile tracks them all the way to 12th. Leanne’s point is already awake. Grant feels the three of them stack in the store and does not follow.

He is on the couch with a coffee Ashlyn worked on early so it would be perfect for him. The plywood is still on the terrace. The building sounds like two hundred forty-one people trying not to sound like two hundred forty-one people.

Mary comes out of the bedroom in one of his shirts and nothing else. She looks at his face and knows he has the map open.

“North lot.”

Grant takes a second with it.

He doesn’t like what he sees.

Thirteen points that used to sit on a separate road are inside the bigger camp now, tagged next to a man with a presence heavier than Harlan and heavier than Dale. He counts twice because the number is ugly.

“Dale’s there,” Grant says. “He went to them. And it’s over three hundred. Three-ten, maybe three-twenty. Packed. Sitting. Both men in the middle of it.”

Mary’s coffee stops halfway.

“That’s not a look. That’s an army.”

“They’re not on the road.”

“Yet.”

He shrinks the map down to the tower so the rest of the city stops arguing with him. Noah is a dull star on six. Cindy is under it. Grant does not listen through the floor.

Ashlyn hovers. Priya brings actual food. Noor has three pages of names and a pen that is already dying. Magdalena answers watch questions because Eve is not here.

Grant eats because Mary watches until he does.

Eve’s point turns around. Coming home. Leanne stays put. No honk.

Mary sits on the counter.

“You wanted to look from far away. You looked. Three hundred is why you do not put shoes on.”

“I know.”

“You’re restless.”

Eve comes through the foyer with dust on her pants and Jaycee behind her.

“Leanne has the store. I told her Harlan’s gone, about North Lot, and that the tower is closed. She said if somebody shows she will honk and she won’t open the door and if you get yourself hurt again she is going to be pissed. That’s a quote.”

“Tell her the number changed,” Grant says. “Dale went there. They’re over three hundred. She treats anything from upriver like a gun.”

Eve’s mouth flattens.

“Glad I didn’t know that on the walk.”

“Two on the roof. Two in the lobby. Rotation. Noah’s door stays shut. If he opens it for a trade, you close it.”

“Gladly.”

The room thins. Watch assignments. Harlan’s girls are learning what they should be doing.

Mary waits until it is Grant and her alone in the room except for Ashlyn pretending to wipe a counter that is already clean.

“You didn’t sleep,” Mary says.

“I slept some.”

“No you didn’t. Come here.”

It is not a suggestion.

He stands. She pushes him onto the couch and does not go to her knees this time. She pulls her shirt off and drops it. She is completely naked.

Ashlyn makes a small sound at the counter.

Mary glances over.

“You can stay or you can go. If you stay, you take your clothes off and you do as I say.”

Ashlyn stays. Her top comes off first. Then the rest. Small perky breasts, hard nipples already. Bare feet on the floor.

Grant’s new ears make the building too loud. He narrows it. Mary’s pulse. Ashlyn’s. The fridge.

Mary straddles him on the couch, knees outside his thighs, and kisses him like she is starving for it. Her mouth is warm. Her bare breasts press his chest. He starts fondling them. Her nipples are ready. She makes him pinch them and then slaps his wrist when he does it too gently.

“I’m not glass,” she says against his mouth. “My body is yours and I want to feel your fire.”

“I know. I just don’t want to be like the others.”

“You aren’t. Now take your pants off.”

He does. She wraps her small hand around his cock, already hard. She strokes him slow, watching his face, checking that he is here and not thinking about a map.

Ashlyn kneels on the cushion beside them because nobody told her what to do. She leans in and licks the head when Mary points. Wet. Slowly. Then faster when Mary’s hand in her hair says so.

Grant’s head drops back as a small sound escapes his breath.

Mary lifts up, takes him from Ashlyn’s mouth, and sinks down in one long slide. Tight. Hot. Wet enough that it does not hurt and tight enough that it still makes him swear. She lowers herself to the base and stays there, full, breathing, tits in his face.

“Look at me,” she says.

He does.

She rides him. Hips rolling, thighs working, the wet sound of it in the foyer while two hundred people listen to it through walls. Grant holds her ass and lets her set the pace until she grabs his wrist and puts his thumb on her clit.

“There. Don’t get lazy,” she smirks.

He rubs where she put him. She clenches and moans once, wrecked, and then her hips quiver on him. She then leans down with her forehead on his, swearing into his mouth, as her orgasm overtakes her.

Ashlyn watches, her hand between her own legs, two fingers, getting messy. Mary pulls off Grant with a wet sound and pulls him toward the edge of the couch.

“Her turn. You don’t finish yet.”

Ashlyn climbs on facing him. Smaller. Tighter. She has to work to take him, her mouth open, and when she does she makes a noise she tries to swallow. Grant holds her hips so she does not drop too fast. Her breasts are small enough that she has to make an effort to lean forward so they can reach his mouth. He quickly sucks a nipple and she clenches.

Mary sits beside them, her legs open, and puts Ashlyn’s hand on her still soaking wet pussy.

“You don’t just take,” Mary says. “You give too.”

Ashlyn’s fingers slide into Mary. Mary’s head knocks back on the couch. Grant thrusts up into Ashlyn in short strokes. The ten percent speed boost makes her hips snap sooner than they used to. She orgasms fast, surprised, and clings to his neck.

Mary kisses her temple.

“Good. Off. I want him back.”

Ashlyn slides off, shaking, and ends up on the floor on her knees because her legs are weak. She licks his hard shaft, tasting both of them, and Mary pulls Grant’s hand between her thighs. He feels her wetness so eager for him.

“In me,” Mary says. “Now.”

He stands. She turns on the couch, chest down, ass up, feet on the floor. He steps in and pushes into her from behind in one thrust. Deep. She fists the cushion and pushes back. He holds her hip and the back of her neck and fucks her like a beast.

Ashlyn moves to his balls with her tongue until she backs off to breathe. Then he moves faster and deeper in Mary. She reaches under herself and rubs her clit. She comes again with her face in the cushion and a scream she doesn’t even try to hold back. Her entire body shakes wildly from pure ecstasy.

Grant lasts through that and not much more. Mary feels it and looks back.

“In me. Don’t you dare pull out. Mark me as yours.”

He pushes deeper one last time and fills her pussy. He comes so hard that his knee hits the couch. Mary keeps him there until he is done twitching, then lets him slide out, a wet line of his seed down her thigh.

Ashlyn’s tongue hungrily laps at his cock after, cleaning it thoroughly, until Mary tugs her hair and says enough.

They end up sitting together on the floor because the couch is a mess.

Grant’s thoughts come racing back. The building. The stairs. 12th. North lot — Dale inside it — still sitting. Over three hundred tagged to that camp.

Mary puts her head on his chest. Ashlyn curls against his other side, all of them still naked.

“That,” Mary says, “was not you relaxing.”

“No.”

“You still want to do something.”

“Yes.”

“You can’t wait, can you?”

He looks at the plywood.

“They watched us last night.”

“I know. They can watch. They’re not on the road.” She sighs.

Mary’s fingers draw a useless shape on his stomach.

“When they come, they will come prepared. So we need to be ready when they do.”

Ashlyn’s voice is small against his ribs.

“Are we really filling every floor?”

“Yes. Empty rooms get our people. Watch on the lobby and roof. Store stays Leanne’s. One room stays Noah’s until he touches someone who isn’t Cindy.”

Eve’s feet reach the foyer, stop, take in the clothes on the floor, and keep going toward the stairs without a comment.

Grant opens the map one last time, just to prove it is still nothing to worry about.

He is proven wrong.

The knot has pulled loose.

Over three hundred points are off the water and on the road. The two men in front. Dale’s smaller presence next to the heavier one. Not a slice. The camp. Moving inland. Not fast. Fast enough that if Grant keeps watching he can see the front of it near the shallows Harlan died in.

Mary feels his chest stop.

“Grant?”

“They’re coming,” he says. “All of them.”

Ashlyn sits up.

Eve is already turning around in the hall.

The mile keeps drawing the line toward town.

Toward 12th first.

Or toward the tower.

He can’t tell which until the next bend in the road.