“What?” J.B. asked worriedly.
“Adrenaline. Just a little shot. It may just jolt her out of this.”
“And if it doesn’t?”
Krysty shrugged. “We sit back and wait. Just the one shot, no more. That’s what she said.” Krysty opened Mildred’s shirt and pulled out one arm, the muscle still taut despite her state. The veins in the crook of her elbow stood out like a relief map.
Krysty wet her lips, dry with nerves. “Dean, look through Mildred’s pockets and try to find a shot of adrenaline. She must have some, otherwise she wouldn’t have told me about it or how to inject it. And let’s hope it wasn’t in her satchel.”
THE WARRIORS WERE SWIFT, silent and sure. This was their land and they knew every last inch of it. They picked their way across the foliage and roots in pitch black, using the darkness of their skins as extra camouflage. Their clothes were blacks, browns and muted shades of green, perfect camou for the woods in both light and dark. They carried their blasters across their backs and holstered, sure of themselves not to need them in hand at this time. The blasters were a motley collection of Glocks, Heckler & Kochs, and Colt handblasters that had been looted and garnered over the year before skydark by their ancestors, who had bargained and bartered for a stockpile of ammo that was still extant.
They didn’t often encounter outsiders on the island. It was a difficult place to get to or to get away from. So their community had been insular, aware of the outside and yet protected from it. Their ancestors had soon become wise to the problems of inbreeding, so the community was kept small, the breeding between them strictly monitored to keep any such problems to a minimum. It could be done if a people had discipline, and a cause.
They had such.
Yet despite the lack of outsiders to test them, they were a disciplined and slick community. Much of their meat was farmed, but some came from the wildlife on the island. And that wildlife was as likely to be predator as prey. The outsiders had been lucky to arrive on that stretch of beach at that time of day.
Perhaps not so lucky.
The warriors usually hunted with knives or bow and arrow. Rarely did they use the precious ammo, except in their practice, kept to a carefully worked minimum. They were sharp with both forms of chilling.
So when word had reached the ville that there were strangers landed on the south shore, the warriors had soon been ready and had tracked the strangers, keeping their distance.
The outsiders hadn’t spotted them, although the albino had seemed aware of something out of the ordinary. The others seemed to pose little threat. Two of them seemed hurt, two were either young or female and two were unconscious. One of these had since come around, but the other was a sister, and was still out.
Why did they have her? What could they want with her?
The strangers had moved away from the fire they had built and were clustering around her. The woman was leaning over the sister, tearing at her clothing. She had already handled her in a way that was undignified, and they talked of her in coarse terms—their whole language and mode of speech coarse.
Barbarians. They could only mean the sister harm.
They ripped her clothing, and now one of them— the young one with curly hair, not the older curly haired, one-eyed stranger—was rummaging through a jacket, looking for something. He produced a package, which he unwrapped to reveal a needle.
They were going to use it on the sister.
The warriors exchanged hand signals, their eyes attuned to the darkness by long nights on patrol. They moved around to circle the clearing, their progress swift and silent. At a signal from their leader, repeated rapidly from man to man, they moved forward, blasters ready.
“Wait!” Jak barked, suddenly turning as Krysty was about to plunge the needle into Mildred.
“What?” she snapped, feeling her hair tighten as danger suddenly signaled itself near.
“Men closing,” Jak returned, palming another knife so that he had one in each hand. “All around.”