Finishing Leftovers

“Garret is in the garage.”

Jose says it like he has been holding the sentence in his mouth all night.

“He locked himself in the Explorer when the guy showed up with his women. I told him to come out. He said he wasn’t going upstairs to die in a glass box. I left him there. I should’ve told you last night.”

Grant goes down.

Garret is in the driver’s seat with the doors locked and a wrench in his lap. He looks like a man who heard a body hit the alley and decided that was the end of his shift. When Grant knocks, Garret jumps hard enough to hit the wheel. He opens the door anyway.

“I didn’t run,” Garret says. “I also didn’t go up. I know how that sounds.”

“It sounds like you stayed where I left you and then hid.” Grant does not dress it up. “You’re alive. The car’s here. Next time somebody comes in the building, you honk. You don’t sit in the dark and hope it works out.”

“I can honk.”

“Good. You’re driving the second car today. Jose has the bus. You follow. You don’t talk to anyone we stop for.”

Garret nods like he got a pardon and a job at the same time.

Upstairs, Mary has the new ones along the wall and Noor sitting for fresh gauze. The table is still in the terrace frame. Grant walks in and notices his rib still hurts. He drinks the coffee Ashlyn puts in his hand and sits on the couch. She sits as close as possible to him, carefully inspecting his injuries while cuddling into his chest.

Viv is the one who says it first, standing there in last night’s clothes, still looking at him like the stairwell is happening.

“He had more than fifty. I don’t know the exact number. We didn’t get a speech. There were a lot of us.”

Grant already guessed that. The man had been fast. Strong. Almost as fast as him, but not fast enough. Over fifty fits.

“Fifteen of his are in this building now,” Grant says. “Nine more from the garage on Third were never his. They were already loose when he showed up. Those and two that were his are still in range this morning. We take all eleven. Then we go toward the river before one of those two from the van becomes the next threat.”

Eve checks the rifle.

“And Garret?”

“He gets one last chance. He’s still driving.”

Nobody argues.

They roll.

The eleven are a route, not a speech.

Jose hates the first stop because it is a laundry with a jammed back door. Two women run between the machines. One throws a basket. Grant takes the basket, then a wrist, then the other one by the dryers while she is still trying to climb the fold table.

“Tess.”

Seventy-four.

“Hana.”

Seventy-five.

Mary writes both names down.

A Honda Civic is three blocks over. Two women in the back seat who thought a locked car was a plan. They fight. One bites Magdalena. Grant claims them in the parking stripe.

“Kira.”

Seventy-six.

“Faye.”

Seventy-seven.

The church vestibule is next. One woman with a hymn book like it is a weapon. She hits Eve in the shoulder with it and tries the sanctuary doors. He claims her on the carpet.

“Simone.”

Seventy-eight.

Two behind a dumpster. The smell is bad enough that even the new senses want to shut off. He doesn’t let them. He takes both, one after the other, while they try to go opposite ways around the bin.

“Danielle.”

Seventy-nine.

“Jo.”

Eighty.

The fire escape woman goes up instead of down. Paige would have liked that. Grant goes up, catches an ankle on the third landing, and claims her there with the alley under them.

“Anika.”

Eighty-one.

The last three are in a basement rec room that still has a dead man’s jacket on a chair. Pool table. Mini fridge. They have a baseball bat and a piece of a cue. They use both. Grant lets the cue hit his wrapped arm because the wrap is already ruined, then he ends it.

“Pilar.”

Eighty-two.

“Cass.”

Eighty-three.

“Gwen.”

Eighty-four.

Mary counts on the paper.

“Eleven. Eighty-four. Grid or river?”

“River. If those two started grabbing leftovers last night, I want them before they get comfortable.”

Jose takes them toward the water.

The access road is holes on the map. Escaped women, still loose, still moving like they have a place in mind. Grant makes Jose stop four times and Garret almost rear-ends the bus twice.

A gas station bathroom. She comes out swinging a soap dispenser. He claims her against the sink.

“Nell.”

Eighty-five.

Boat-storage lot. Chain link. Two on the shoulder who thought a bus meant help, then saw the girls in the windows and ran. He takes all three before they reach the weeds.

“Rosa.”

Eighty-six.

“Quinn.”

Eighty-seven.

“Megan.”

Eighty-eight.

One in the weeds alone, crawling. He hates how easy it is.

“Mei.”

Eighty-nine.

Three under an overpass who split in three directions and still lose.

“Sasha.”

Ninety.

“Dawn.”

Ninety-one.

“Christie.”

Ninety-two.

Seven more holes slide off southeast and drop off the old range. Different road. He files it.

“Later,” he tells Mary. “They’re not at the camp. Camp first.”

The river camp is not a mystery.

Gravel lot. Two metal buildings. The dark van. A second van behind it. A folding table on its side.

Grant has the map open before Jose even stops. Thirty-one claimed. Not loose. Split between two ordinary hearts. One of those hearts is in the open, near the nearer building. The other is inside, behind a metal door, moving in a rhythm that is not a fight.

The thirty are posted.

Roof of the nearer building: one. Corner of the lot: two. Behind the second van: three. Dock side: a line of them with bats and pipes. The access road they just drove up already had two at the bend who turned and ran back toward camp instead of toward the bus. Spread on purpose.

Eve sees the roof first.

“They knew we were coming.”

Grant is off the bus anyway.

The swollen man from the grocery is the one in the open. Worse face in daylight. No crowbar. He has a pipe and six women in a shallow ‘U’ behind him.

The other man is the one inside.

Grant hears him before he sees him. The metal building does not stop much. Not at this range. A cot frame hitting the wall. A woman making a noise she does not get to choose. And the man talking through it, loud, like he wants the yard to hear who owns the place now.

“That’s it. Take it. Dad’s dead and you’re still on your back for a Walsh. You feel that? That’s mine. Say it. Say my name while I use you. Fucking leftover. He didn’t even get to finish with you before he died, and now you’re dripping on my cock. Good slut. Squeeze. You don’t run, you don’t talk, you just take your new owner’s cock like that’s your purpose—”

The woman gasps his name. Grant does not want the name. He gets it anyway. Cole.

Mary’s mouth goes tight.

“He’s in the shed.”

“I know.”

The swollen man sees them and does not laugh.

“You came to the river. Good. Saves us the drive.”

“You grabbed Emma,” Grant says. “Your boss came to my house to kill me. He missed.”

Inside, Cole does not stop. The cot keeps hitting the wall. He laughs once, short, and talks louder.

“Hear that, bitch? Company. You keep your legs open. I’m not pulling out because some asshole learned how to knock. You belong to me now. Tight little camp whore. Dad should’ve kept you on a leash—”

A moan cuts over him.

“Come on. Cum on my dick so they can hear it. That’s how this works. You like that? Yeah you do. You’re claimed. You don’t get to pretend you don’t.”

The swollen one knocks dust off his boot with the pipe, annoyed.

“Cole! Wrap it up!”

From inside: “In a minute, Dax!” Then, to the woman, rougher: “In a minute. You don’t cum first, I do. Mouth if I say mouth. You swallow and you wait until I walk out there and deal with the grocery hero.”

Grant looks at the thirty in the yard. They are not watching the shed. They are watching him. Bats ready. That is the point of the spread.

Mary is at his shoulder.

“Where is your boss now?” she asks, even though she knows the answer.

“Dead,” Dax says. “We felt it. Whole camp felt it. Girls dropped like somebody cut a wire. We spent half the night putting a hand on every one we could catch. Cole took his half. I took mine. That’s why you’re gonna die this time.”

Grant hears it a second late.

Felt it. Re-claimed them. Their father—

“He was your dad,” Grant says.

It comes out flatter than he means.

Dax shrugs.

“Yeah. He was. You killed him. We already did the sad part. Now we keep what he built. Cole’s celebrating. I’m working.”

Inside, Cole curses, hits the last few strokes like he is punching, and finishes loud enough that two of the roof-line women flinch without looking back. A belt buckle. A zipper. The woman says something small and devoted and his.

Cole comes out of the metal building fixing his jeans, hair wet at the temples, the crowbar in one hand like he picked it up off the floor on the way. The woman in the doorway behind him is bare from the waist down, shirt shoved up, waiting for him to tell her to get dressed.

He looks Grant over and smiles with no friendliness in it.

“You’re the grocery guy. I was busy. Sue me.” He tips the crowbar at the yard. “Thirty-one. Ours. You want them, you do what you did to Dad. And we’re not walking up to you to make it easy.”

Grant looks at the thirty-one. Not blanks. Two owners. Two ordinary hearts. Dax in the yard. Cole still smelling like sex.

He does not get those women unless the brothers go down.

“I’m not here to talk about your dad,” Grant says. “You came to my store. You came to my building. You don’t get to keep a camp because you finished a claiming line in the dark and one of you needed to get his dick wet.”

Cole laughs.

“Needed. Sure.” He glances back at the woman. “Pants. Then you get on the line with the rest.”

She does it. Fast. No argument.

“Watch us,” Dax says, and the pipe comes up.

They move together. Not well. Well enough.

The roof woman throws a bottle. It breaks on the bus. Jose yells. The front group comes with Dax. The back group stays put until Cole shouts, then they come too. Organized enough to be a problem. Not organized enough to be an army.

Grant takes the first swing out of the air and puts Dax on the gravel. He gets up faster than the grocery lot. Still ordinary. Still trying to be his father.

A claimed woman with a pipe comes at Mary. Mary has to move on her own. She almost eats the pipe. Zoya takes the woman down instead.

“Grant,” Mary snaps. “If you want them, you have to end the owners.”

He knows.

The crowbar comes for his head. He steps inside it, takes Cole by the shirt, and hits him once, hard. Cole goes down and does not get up, blood pooling on the ground around his head.

Sixteen pulses go blank at the same time.

The woman from the shed is one of them. She looks at Cole’s body, then at Grant, and the loyalty has nowhere to land until he puts a hand on her wrist.

“I claim you.”

“Lila.”

Ninety-three.

Dax screams something that is not a strategy. “Cole!”

Grant is already on the newly freed sixteen. He runs past Dax in an instant. He does not slow down to talk. He gets wrists.

“June.”

Ninety-four.

“Rae.”

Ninety-five.

“Nora.”

Ninety-six.

“Ava.”

Ninety-seven.

“Billie.”

Ninety-eight.

“Laurel.”

Ninety-nine.

The eighth is under the van. He gets an ankle.

“I claim you.”

“Stevie.”

One hundred.

It hits him on the gravel.

The rib goes first. Not just better. Perfect. The cut under the bandage pulls hot and then shuts. He feels the skin close. The blood on his sleeve is just old blood.

Strength comes on top of what he already had. When he stands, the gravel shifts under his feet. More speed comes with it. Dax’s next swing starts and Grant is already past it, past the van, past a woman with a knife.

Then the map blows outward.

Five hundred feet becomes two thousand. The lot. The buildings. The water. The access road. And the seven who went the other way — not close, but marked, a thin line east along the bank.

The enhanced senses are still there. They seem a bit different though. It isn’t too loud or too bright anymore. Plus something new he can’t figure out yet because he needs to focus on Dax.

That is when his claimed start changing.

He feels it go out through the map like a second pulse. Eve shifts her feet and is there a little sooner than she meant to be. Zoya’s next step covers more ground. Lily’s split lip starts to itch and close, slow, not like his arm, but not like a normal cut either. Noor’s collarbone does the same under the gauze.

And the faces.

Eve looks like the years around her eyes got handed back. A couple of the older apartment women on the bus look twenty-one and startled about it. Nobody looks older than that.

Mary does not change.

She was his age in college. She already looked like that. She just stares at Eve, then at her own hands, then at him.

“What did you do?”

“I hit a hundred,” Grant says. It is the only sentence that fits. “I didn’t pick the rest.”

Dax is on his knees next to Cole. His remaining women — fifteen, Grant counts by pulse — have not moved. They are waiting for an order from a man who just watched his brother die on the gravel.

“You killed my dad,” Dax says. “You killed Cole. You don’t get to live.”

“Your dad came to kill me first.”

Dax picks up Cole’s crowbar with both hands. His face is a mess. His heart is furious.

“You’re not taking the rest while I’m breathing.”

Grant hears fifteen pulses tied to that breathing.

He also hears his own arm, already whole under a bandage that does not matter.

Garret honks again, this time on purpose, short, which is what Grant told him to do if something was coming.

Something is coming.

East. On the water road. The seven are not walking anymore. They are in a vehicle. And they are not alone. Another man-shaped problem is with them, moving toward the camp like he smelled an opening.

Grant looks at Dax on the gravel, at the fifteen, and then at Mary.

“Eve. Rifle on him. If he swings at a girl, end it.” He points east. “We’ve got company. I’m not leaving fifteen behind and I’m not letting a stranger walk into this lot.”

Dax laughs with no air in it.

“Dad said the next guy would be worse than you. Guess he got the order wrong.”

Grant takes a step.

One hundred women in his head. A body that will not stay hurt. His women finally carrying a piece of his power.

He watches the new arrival getting closer.

Bring it on.