The Next Bend

They are moving faster.

Grant sees it while he is still putting his pants on. The whole column is on the grocery road, not the tower. Three hundred something. Two guys out front.

He counts the tags.

Dale has over a hundred. The other man has the rest. Over two hundred on him. Together they look like one army.

Leanne is in the store with only her small group. They are an easy target.

Mary pulls a shirt on.

“They’re going to the store.”

“Then we get there first. Jose. Bus. Now.”

Jose is already on the stairs with the keys. He looks sick.

“That’s a lot of people coming.”

“That’s why you’re driving and not arguing. Eve, roof. Zoya, lobby. Magdalena, traps. Mary—”

“I’m coming.”

“Fine. Ashlyn, foyer. If Noah opens that door, slam it. Garret, garage. Don’t hide in the car.”

They take the bus like they stole it. Jose does not talk. Grant stands behind him and watches the mile. The column is fast. Not as fast as a bus that ignores lights.

They beat them. Barely.

The lot is empty when Jose hits the brakes. Leanne is at the door with a bat.

Grant is off first.

“Everybody on. Now. Don’t pack. Don’t lock. Just get in.”

Leanne doesn’t ask questions. She yells.

“Olivia. Jaz. Paige. Now. Leave the cans.”

Paige grabs a crate. Mary takes it and throws it back inside.

“Food stays. You don’t.”

They pile on. Jose is rolling before the last one sits. Grant looks back.

Headlights. The front of the column coming around the far corner as they leave.

Dale in the lead truck. The other man next to him.

“They saw us,” Mary says.

“Good. Then they know the store’s empty. They’ll come here.”

Jose takes a corner too hard. Somebody in the back hits the floor. Leanne holds the seat.

“How many?”

“Over three hundred. Dale’s got a hundred twenty-four. The other guy’s got more than two hundred. He’s my level. Maybe a day longer.

“And you thought the smart move was to pick us up and bring the war home?”

“The smart move was not letting them take you first and then come to our home anyway.”

Leanne nods once, like she hates that he’s right.

The tower is still theirs when they roll in. Eve on the roof. Zoya in the lobby. Traps set. Grant turns the bus sideways behind the garage door.

“Up. Lobby’s a kill box, not a greeting.”

They make it to the second floor when the map changes.

The army is on their block.

Dale gets out first, trying to look like he belongs in front. The other man gets out second and does not have to try.

Grant goes to the glass.

The stronger man looks at the building like he has done this before.

He doesn’t shout. Grant hears him anyway.

“Hey kid. You took Harlan. You took Walsh and his boys. You emptied the store before I could. Such a busy little bee. I’m Holt. This is my river. Come down by yourself or I come in and tear the building apart.”

Grant opens the front enough to be heard.

“It’s not your store. It’s not your building. You can leave.”

Holt almost smiles.

“Dale. Knock.”

Dale forces his way through the locked front door with a pipe and a chunk of his hundred plus behind him.

Grant meets him in the lobby.

It is not a long fight.

Dale swings. Grant steps inside it. Dale shoots him in the side. The hole shuts. Dale tries a knife. Grant takes his wrist and hits him in the face, then the throat, then once more.

Dale goes down on the tile and does not get up.

A hundred twenty-four points go blank.

Not the whole street. Just Dale’s.

Those women stagger. Holt’s over-two-hundred do not. They still have an owner.

Grant and Holt look at the same loose pack at the same time.

Grant knows that look. He just learned it on a dock.

“Don’t,” Mary says.

There is no time for hesitation.

Grant wants them. The blast goes out from the lobby.

Holt’s goes out from the sidewalk.

Two rings. Two pushes. Dale’s women lock in two clumps, some toward Grant, some toward the man on the street. A few in the middle get pulled both ways and then fold to whoever’s ring hit them first. Names stack on both sides in the same three seconds.

“Rae. Yours.”

“Kit. Yours.”

Grant does not hear Holt’s names. He feels the holes close on the wrong side of the map.

The map updates.

Two hundred ninety-six.

Holt’s weight ticks up with him. Two hundred ninety-eight. Almost three hundred. Both of them.

Holt laughs once, short, from the sidewalk.

“You learned that last night too.”

“Yeah.”

“Cute. Now we do it my way.”

Holt’s own people hit the lobby. Pipes. Bats. Two rifles. Grant cannot claim them. The leftover handful of Dale’s who missed both rings run every direction. Some up the stairs.

Mary takes the left door with a bat. A pipe catches her arm and she swears. Zoya on the right. Leanne fights like the store is still behind her. Jaz goes down and gets up.

Holt walks straight through his own line like they aren’t even there.

Grant meets him in the middle of the lobby.

The first exchange is too fast for the rifles.

They hit and are across the room before the sound of it finishes. Mailboxes crumple. The bench leaves the floor. Holt is as strong as Grant and has had a day longer to live in it. Grant is as fast as Holt, but has only had a night. They miss each other by inches that would have been miles yesterday.

“That all you got, kid?”

Grant does not answer. He moves.

They take the lobby apart. A punch from Holt puts Grant through the directory glass. Grant is back on him before the glass hits the tile. They slam into the stairwell door hard enough to split it and do not slow down on the stairs.

Tight space should have helped somebody. It doesn’t. They are a blur on the concrete. A hit, a wall, a rail, a landing. Grant’s women flatten against the sides and move out of the way because getting between them is how you die.

Holt kicks Grant down a flight. Grant hits the turn, comes back up the same flight, and they meet in the air. The landing loses. Dust. A crack in the slab.

Holt’s knife comes out. Grant sees the hand start before the blade does and still almost eats it. The point opens his shoulder. The hole shuts while they are still moving. Holt tries again at the throat. Grant catches the wrist and they spin into the wall hard enough to leave Holt’s coat in the aftermath.

“You popped yesterday,” Holt says, not even breathing hard yet. “I popped the day before. I’m twice your age and I served two tours in combat zones. You have no idea the shit I’ve seen and done. I’m on a whole different level than you, kid. You don’t get to be loud in my town just because you had a good night.”

Grant headbutts him. Holt headbutts back. Both scalps split and shut.

They fall over the rail to the next landing. Grant lands on his feet. Holt lands on Grant. The knife finds Grant’s side. Grant yells and throws Holt through the stair door onto three.

Women scatter. Holt is already up. Grant is already on him. They run the hallway without meaning to, bouncing off doors. Six is down the hall. Noah’s door. Grant cannot look.

Holt gets a hand on Grant’s neck and puts him through an apartment door that is not Noah’s. Empty room. They wreck it. Holt is stronger in a clinch. Grant is faster when there is space. The room does not have space.

Holt slams him into a counter. Tile breaks. Grant’s spine lights up and the heal eats it. Grant puts a knee in Holt’s ribs and hears one go. It starts to knit on Holt the same way. They both feel that. Two hundred against two hundred. A day apart. Nobody is giving up.

They fall out the window.

Three floors. Holt hits the side lot and rolls. Grant lands in a bush and claws his way out in a flurry. Night vision makes the darkness unnoticed by them both. They meet again in the open and finally have room to use speed.

It looks like nothing from the roof. Eve will say later she could not track their blows. On the ground it is worse. Grant throws a punch that would have ended Dale and Holt is not even there. Holt throws one that would have ended Harlan and Grant is not there. They connect enough that both of them start to show it. Lip. Eye. A limp that lasts three steps and then doesn’t.

Holt gets the chain off a truck in the street. He wraps Grant’s arm and tries to plant him. Grant lets the shoulder tear rather than give the neck. The healing pops it back with a sound Holt hears. Holt blinks. Grant uses the distraction and puts Holt into the side of the box truck hard enough to fold the panel.

Holt comes off the truck with the knife again.

This time it goes into Grant’s stomach.

Holt leaves it and punches the handle.

Grant’s knees dip.

The lot tilts.

He pulls the knife out. The hole dumps blood and starts to close too slow. He has hit that limit before. On a dock. In four feet of water.

Holt sees it.

“There it is.”

He comes for the throat.

Grant thinks about the inch Harlan gave him.

He does not give Holt his throat. He gives him the truck step. Hands in Holt’s coat, head into metal. Once. Twice. The third time the step rings and Holt’s knife-hand goes slack.

They are not fast anymore. They are just heavy.

Grant hits him in the throat. The face. The throat again.

Holt’s calm is gone. He is a man on the asphalt trying not to die.

Grant hits him until his body softens on the ground.

Then twice more, because Ray got up, Dax got up, Harlan almost did, and Dale didn’t get the chance.

Holt still isn’t moving.

Over two hundred points go blank. Two hundred ninety-eight, if Grant is counting Holt’s side. Not Dale’s. Those already dropped in the lobby, split between them. Holt’s. The street and the stair and the third-floor hall fill with a second wave of women who don’t belong to anybody.

Grant cannot stand up straight. He does it anyway.

The blast sits in his hands.

“Get down.”

Mary is in the lot somehow. She drops. The ring around him locks. Holt’s leftovers inside a hundred feet freeze. Names in a pile.

“Wren. Yours.”

“Paz. Yours.”

“Delia. Yours.”

The rest of Holt’s people are already past the ring. Street. Stair. Six.

Grant takes a step and his stomach reminds him it is still knitting. He looks at the knife on the asphalt, Holt’s, bloody, simple.

“I really need to learn how to use one of those,” he says.

Mary stares at him.

“That’s your takeaway.”

“Keeps ending up in me. Might as well know which end is which.”

She grabs his arm.

“You can’t chase that many like this.”

“If I don’t, they hit every floor.”

“Then we hold what you just got and we stop the stair. Eve felt it. She’s coming.”

Leanne looks at Holt on the asphalt, then at the building.

“You brought them here.”

“I know.”

The map shows runners going every way.

Dale’s leftovers. All of Holt’s.

And one bunch — thirty, forty — going straight up.

Toward the penthouses.