Mira and the Girls

Mira hunkered down behind the scorched shell of a car, her pulse hammering in her throat. Lena and Rina pressed in close at her back, their breathing shallow and controlled.

Last week’s raid had stripped the settlement bare—food gone, the last of the other women taken. They’d hidden well enough then. But this place was done. Another raid would finish them.

The low growl of an engine reached her. She lifted her head just enough to watch the eight-wheeled armored truck—twelve meters if it was an inch—roll slowly away from what remained of the outpost. She’d glimpsed its interior once, during a tense barter session: armored walls, a habitation module wedged in the middle like the belly of some mechanical beast. She didn’t know its full layout, what it carried, who drove it. But it was better than waiting here to die.

It was their only chance.

Mira rose, stepped clear of the wreckage, and ran into the center of the broken road, arms flung wide. The truck locked up hard—tires screaming, dust boiling around its massive front axles—and shuddered to a halt mere strides away. She held her ground, chest heaving, gaze fixed on the darkened windshield—defiant and desperate all at once.

Behind her, Lena and Rina emerged from cover and stood at her back, silent and ready.

Mira raised her voice above the idling engine's grumble. “Wait! Hear me out—I have a proposal.”