Once deep in the trees and back in Brigand territory, Dani stopped and rubbed her face with her hands. She took a deep breath and allowed the remainder of her anger at Xan to pass. She grinned. Punching him for his insult had felt great. She knelt and scratched Brody’s ears and neck. He twitched his skin and used his rear leg to scratch harder at a place on his neck.
“Flea check and more food for you tonight, big guy.” She kissed the top of his head. “If you can intimidate people with your ribs sticking out, you’ll be a brute with more weight, right?”
His tail disturbed the leaves near his rump as it wagged.
A high-pitched scream brought Dani to her feet. She wasn’t far from the old Standpipe and park. If the MP families hadn’t left yet, she wasn’t far from them either. Careful to remain quiet, she jogged toward the noise. Another scream made her feet move faster, with less regard for stealth. Dani reached the tree line and swore. The three Brigands she’d passed on the trail were attacking the women and children.
One woman was on the ground and not moving. One of the Brigand men was pinning the other woman to the ground, while the other two men were tying up three of the children.
“Quiet,” Dani hissed at him. She scanned the area for the fourth, the oldest, child but didn’t see him. With the men occupied, she slipped around the park, moving closer to the woman on the ground. Still unnoticed, Dani shrugged out of her pack, left the trees, and knelt by the woman. She had a lump on her forehead. Dani shook her shoulder.
The woman’s eyes fluttered open, and she gasped, recoiling from Dani’s touch.
“I won’t hurt you,” Dani said softly. “Get in those trees”—she gestured behind her—“and circle that way. When you reach the road, go across it and stay in that direction until you reach the barracks.”
“My son.”
“I’ll find him and send him to the trees to meet you. Okay?”
The woman nodded.
“Hey!” one of the men shouted.
“Shit. Go, lady.” Dani dragged the woman to her feet and shoved her in the direction of the forest. Dani approached the men with her hands up. The three younger children shrieked and cried, and Dani still didn’t see the taller boy. The man—who, Dani now saw, had been preparing to rape the other woman—ended his efforts as Dani approached. He re-zipped his trousers, pulled the woman up by her hair, and kept her on her knees while he stood. The woman wept, but Dani kept her eyes on the men. Brody growled as he walked beside her.
“Gentlemen, not a good day to start a war with the MPs.” Dani’s eyes scanned the area, weighing options, looking for things she could use if the men decided to fight instead of leave the remaining woman and children alone. She proceeded through a mental list of options like Gavin had taught her.
“They’re in our territory,” the man holding the woman said.
The children screamed, and the noise almost pulled Dani’s attention from the men. Almost. “Yeah,” she said, eyes on her opponents, “but you’re fucking with MP families. There will be hell to pay for this, and I don’t want to welcome an MP raiding party because of you three pricks.”
“Shut up!” the man screamed at the two wailing girls he held, which only caused more crying.
“Why do you need the kids, anyway?” Dani asked.
“These three will trade for a lot of food and weapons to the right person,” the third man said. “The reasons for their interest are their business.” He yanked the young boy closer to him by the back of his shirt and grinned.
Sex slaves. Dani’s stomach turned at the man’s sneer. Movement behind him caught her attention, and she saw a young face peering down at her from a broken window embedded in the brickwork around the water tower. You picked a terrible place to hide, kid.
“Since you let the other woman escape, we’ll take you instead,” the man keeping the woman on her knees said. He struck her and she fell, unconscious.
Brody leapt forward with a vicious snarl and sank his teeth into the man’s arm. His actions altered Dani’s attack plan; she charged the man holding the two girls instead. She slammed her boot into his groin, and he released the children to hold his crotch as he crumpled.
Brody was keeping his Brigand busy, so Dani only needed to deal with the final man holding the young boy. He released the boy, and to her surprise, the child ran to her and clung to her leg. She struggled to dislodge him from her leg, and the man grinned. She didn’t know someone so little could be so strong, and she didn’t want to hurt him.
“Freakin’ leech.” Dani pried one of his arms free. When she looked up to locate the man, he’d closed the distance between them and was bringing his fist down toward her head. She twisted and almost avoided the blow, but his fist clipped her cheek. The boy wailed and remained attached to her leg. With her balance skewed and her ability to move freely compromised, Dani fell. She scrambled away from the approaching man and finally managed to peel the child off her body. She turned him toward the trees and was relieved to see his mother crossing the field to come back.
“There’s your mom. Go.” Dani gave the boy a shove. He recognized his mother and started running toward her.
The man’s shoulder caught Dani in the side as she stood. They crashed to the ground in a tangle. She rolled and slammed her right fist into his unprotected left side, the same way Gavin had done to her so many times before. He grunted with the impact and swung for her head. She turned her body so the blow hit the back of her shoulder, then struck the same spot on his ribs several times before rolling back to her feet.
He cursed as he stood and held one hand against his aching side. “I’ll kill you for that.”
Brody’s teeth found the back of the man’s thigh, and he howled with pain. He spun to dislodge the dog, and Dani leapt onto his back. She wrapped her arms around his neck, hanging on as he whirled in a circle. She tightened her grip, and his steps faltered. Once he was on the ground and not moving, she unwound her arms.
Brody’s first victim had fled, the man Dani had kicked remained whimpering on the ground, and the third man was now unconscious from her choking him. Dani wanted to take a moment to rest, but she instead went to the woman still on the ground. The two girls clung to their mother and flinched when Dani approached, though their fear lessened when Brody began licking their faces.
“Your friend is waiting for you,” Dani said. “Go back to the barracks.”
The woman nodded and winced at the movement.
“Yeah, bitch of headache, I know, but you have to leave. Wait just inside the trees, and I’ll send the last kid. Okay?”
The woman nodded again, and Dani helped her stand. She watched them move across the field toward the trees for a moment, then headed for the Standpipe.
She stepped through the doorway that was missing a door and looked up the long, winding row of broken steps.
“Hey, kid. This place is a death trap.”
A board creaked from somewhere on the stairs that Dani couldn’t see. She poked her head outside. The two men still lay on the ground, though the one that had taken her kick to the crotch was moving more now. Dani checked the nearby forest. The two women and three children were leaving.
“Wait! Ugh. The idiots forgot the last kid,” Dani said with a grumble. She returned her attention to the interior of the Standpipe. “Kid, c’mon. Your mother is leaving your ass.”
“Neither of them is my mother,” a voice said from above.
“I don’t care. They’re leaving without you. C’mon down.”
“I can’t.”
“Look, I know you’re scared—”
“I’m stuck.”
Fuck! Dani closed her eyes and passed her hand through her hair. If she was going to get the kid back home with the two MP families, she needed to hurry. A missing MP child following a Brigand attack would create a shit storm she didn’t want to be anywhere near. “Uh, okay. I’ll come to you.”
She stepped around the leaves and other debris that had blown into the entryway after years without a door. Garbage left by Brigands who had slept in the Standpipe crumpled beneath her boots as she moved along the inside portion of the brick wall. The first few steps of the spiral stairs leading around the tower to the uppermost level were gone. Brody leapt past the gap and started up the stairs before she could stop him.
“Brody!”
He continued his climb.
“Ugh! Hey, kid, my dog is coming up first, but he’s harmless.”
“My name is Oliver Jackman. My dad is an MP.”
“Wonderful. Dad’s an MP,” Dani said, unable to keep the sarcasm out of her voice. “I’m Dani. The hound is Brody. I’m coming up.”