A sheen of sweat was developing on both of their faces. What type of battle of wills is this?
“If I push any harder I’m going to break his mind. He has strong blocks. Someone powerful trained him,” Josian thundered, looking around as if he would find the culprit in this room.
Lallielle pushed Josian closer. “You have to continue. We don’t have a choice. We need to get out of here safely and for some reason you can’t open a doorway.”
He searched her face for a second before finding whatever acceptance he was seeking.
Reaching down, he wrapped his huge hands around rat-man’s head, who then began to struggle, emitting small whimpers.
“What’s he doing?” I wondered out loud, wincing at the painful sounds.
Lucy, Chrissie and the others had no such qualms. They watched with expressions of satisfaction. There was not a lot of love for old rat-man in the room that day.
Brace answered, his gaze also locked on the pair. “Josian has the stronger mind. He can hack through the blocks to access information.”
The jiggle of fat rolls slowed, until the rodent’s struggles ceased. His eyes rolled back into his head and a puddle of drool emerged from the corner of his mouth. It had taken Josian thirty seconds.
“With anything destructive, there’s always damage to fundamental connections in their mind,” Josian said as he stood, disgust across his features. “He didn’t know much of importance. He’s never met his master, only received orders. He is the bottom of their food chain here. There was one main person who issued his orders, a scrawny black-haired woman ... Patty?”
“Olden!” Lucy and half the compound girls screeched together.
Josian looked at us. I answered for the group. “She was our compound leader. That has to be why that Walker doorway was in our manor.”
“That evil bitch,” Lucy fumed. Samuel held her back from storming straight out the door. “I’m going to kill her.”
Josian nodded. “Oh yes. She’s on my list to be eliminated. But I’m worried about this power accumulation. Until we know more, we cannot confront them head on.”
I was standing close enough now that I could hear him mutter, “Need to talk to my brothers.”
I wondered, just for a brief moment, if he meant actual family brothers. Or if that was more ‘Walkers in the hood’ – buddies – bros.
Lallielle looked around. “Did he have any information that might help us escape?”
Josian nodded again. “There weren’t many people inside the warehouse when he entered this room. If we take off as a large group, we must run forward about fifty yards, and then take a sharp right, between the two large pallet stacks. That’s the exit.”
He issued his command. “No heroes today. Let’s get out in one piece.” He turned back to our more intimate group. “Once we are outside these walls I’ll be able to access the doorways again and get us back home.”
I took the grenades from Josian’s pack and handed them around the room. The girls knew what to do with them.
Pulling the rolled material from my pocket, I opened it to palm two throwing knives. I slid them under the sleeve of my jacket as a makeshift wrist sheath. I flexed my hands – not perfect, but would do the job. I handed Lucy and Chrissie two knives each, leaving the last as backup.
We gathered the girls together.
Josian had no problem capturing the attention of the room. “Alright, everyone listen closely. We’re going to escape now. We’ll exit as one group. I’ll lead and I expect you all to follow.”
I bit back my ‘sir, yes, sir’ which sprung immediately to mind. A sense of energy and life was filtering through the group.
“Wait a few minutes for the grenades to do their jobs,” I reminded them.
Josian hit the lights, throwing the room into darkness. He stepped up and opened the door. Those holding grenades stepped forward, and as soon as they’d been tossed out I slammed the door closed again. We couldn’t run out into that yet.
I gave us as much leeway as I could, but eventually we had to bail.
We bolted from the room, through dispersing clouds of smoke. Josian charged ahead. I was close to his heels, with Lucy beside me. The room was huge, a well-lit warehouse. And it looked like it was currently being used to store thousands of stacked box pallets. Whether from the ‘nades’, or something else, we had a clear path in front of us.
But not for long.
Black-clad security guards began to run in from everywhere. None of them had their guns out yet, so we still had a chance. Plus their hesitation spoke of their wariness in being stampeded by our mob.
I had a glimmer of hope that we were going to make it out unscathed. Then Olden stepped into the end of our pathway, a large machine gun in her hands.
“Machine gun! Take cover!” I screamed before diving off the passageway as the first of the bullets echoed around the cavernous room.