Quaranteam - North West Ch. 13

"About ten, I think?" Mary said. "They've only been through a couple, but I keep trying 911 and it keeps going to a busy signal. What should I do?"

"How long have you been trying?" I asked.

"Ten minutes, maybe?"

I got my shirt on and realized Kyla was also getting dressed. She gave me a look not to argue with her.

"I'm on my way. Get the kids up, go hide in the backyard. Try and get something heavy between you and the house, like a shed or something. And no matter what you hear, don't come out until I call you on your cell, OK?"

"OK," she mumbled. "OK. Please hurry."

"I'm on my way," I said.

Kyla was out the door first, and I paused at the door of the RV as I worked my boots on to look back at Erica and Ivy sitting on the bed.

"Go," Erica said. "Do what you need to do."

"Be careful, mon amour," Ivy said, holding Erica's hand.

Vanessa had disappeared outside as well, and I found her and Kyla in the storage container at the gun safe. I must have missed her grabbing it, but Vanessa was only mostly-naked now with one of my button-down shirts thrown over her shoulders. "Should I go get Dani?" she asked.

Kyla, turning with my DDM4 in one hand and the Remington 700 in the other, shook her head.

"To hell with that," Dani said, stepping into the storage container behind me. "What's going on? Erica texted me." She was dressed in plain grey sweats that she still somehow looked sexy in.

"There's looters or something down at Mary's," I said. "Kyla and I are going to go there, and you're going to stay here and keep a lookout."

I could tell Dani wanted to argue, but when I tossed her one of the shotguns and slid a box of slugs towards her she knew I was serious. You didn't load slugs unless you were really planning on fucking up someone's life.

Kyla and I were in my truck and burning it around the construction site within two minutes. She was in the passenger seat loading the DDM and the 700, my M9 already holstered and loaded at my hip and my granddad's old Model 29 revolver hanging in the open glovebox for Kyla.

"You're using the 700," I said through my gritted teeth as I peeled in a cloud of dust onto the expanded driveway.

"Obviously," Kyla sighed. "I have training, Harri. Not practical experience."

"If things go really bad, you get out of there," I said.

"If things go really bad, I'll be dead anyways," she countered. "If you die, I die. Remember?"

Fuck. I hadn't even thought of that.

If I died, Erica, Ivy and Vanessa would all be bonded to a dead man.

"Fuck," I said.

Kyla finished loading the weapons. "Phone," she said, holding out her hand. When I fished it out of my pocket and handed it to her she thumbed in the password - because of course she knew the password - and started dialling a number. "I'm calling Miriam."

"Shit," I said. "Yeah. Good thinking."

She put it on speaker and the call got picked up in the middle of the second ring. "Harri?" Miriam asked.

"I'm doing something stupid," I said.

"Focus on driving," Kyla told me.

"What's going on?" Miriam asked over the phone.

"Miriam, this is Kyla Bautista. A local woman is in danger from looters and called Harri for help because 911 isn't picking up. We're responding to the call."

There was a moment of pause. "Armed?" she asked.

"Yes," Kyla said.

"Shit," Miriam muttered. "Fuck. Shit. If I could getone full night of sleep. Alright. I'll see what I can do from here, but I can't spin up some emergency response. Do me a favour and stay alive, yeah?"

"I still owe you a beer. Can't die on you yet," I said.

"Fuck you, you owe me a case of beers, a full pizza and a gallon of ice cream motherfucker," Miriam said. "Kyla, you wouldn't happen to have diplomatic immunity as the daughter of an Ambassador, would you?"

Kyla ran her tongue over her bottom teeth and glanced at me, and I shrugged. I didn't know how much Miriam knew about her. "I don't know what my current diplomatic status is, actually," Kyla replied.

"Well... fuck. OK. Do what you need to do," she said. "I'd ask you not to kill anyone, but that would just be jinxing it."

"Two minutes out," I said. I was driving like a maniac, but the roads were completely clear at this time of night.

"Fuck," Miriam said. "Alright. I'll do what I can. Fast and hard, Harri. Don't give them time to figure out what's going on."

"You got it," I said.

Kyla hung up. "Should we go in quiet or loud?" she asked.

Realistically, against an unknown enemy force with unknown skills and equipment, quiet would be the way to go. But my blood was up. I could feel it like lava in the veins of my neck as my heart hammered, adrenaline pumping through me. "Both," I said. "You cut out and take up a position at this end. I'll peel it into Mary's yard and make a show and use the truck for cover. Don't shoot until I do, and maybe we can pincer them."

"Alright," she nodded.

I turned onto Mary's street. It was an offshoot from the highway and the road itself banked around a copse of trees before forming the little neighbourhood. I pulled off on the shoulder and Kyla was out of the cab before I was even at a full stop, shutting the door quietly. As soon as she was clear I gunned the engine, peeling back onto the road and around the bank. After clearing the trees I could see two sets of dull red brake lights ahead. There were a couple of big pickups idling on the street, and a couple of guys were jogging back and forth from one of the houses. They all turned at the noise of my engine roaring and then had to fling up their hands as I flickered my high beams on and off rapidly, strobing them.

They were at Mary's neighbours.

There was no curb or ditch so I veered off the road and went right at them. They shouted and dodged out of the way, scattering, and I didn't give a fuck about how I tore up the lawns. I ran the truck in a tight circle, pointing the headlights back at the trucks, and didn't even take out the keys. I put her in park and rolled out of the door, dragging the DDM with me.

One in each truck, three on the front lawn. An unknown number in the houses.

I came up on one knee and raised my rifle, aiming through the basic bitch precision sight and wishing I'd splurged for something a little more. The guys were shouting, picking themselves up from the lawn. They were angry. One of them had a crowbar, another a baseball bat.

Oops. Looked like they forgot this was America.

I fired a warning shot into the side of the bed of the closer truck. The boom of the weapon was loud and I wished I'd brought earplugs. Baseball Bat dropped the bat and turned around, running for the trucks. Crowbar froze in place, his fight-or-flight response putting him in a momentary shock, so I ignored him. It was Player 3 that I was watching because he was ducking behind a tree and shrub combo on the front lawn and reaching behind his back.

Could be nothing. Could be a gun tucked in his waistband.

I put three rounds into the shrub and side-stepped towards my truck, putting the wheel well between me and him.

Baseball Bat was shouting for the trucks to drive as he hopped into the back. Crowbar decided to run, the crowbar flailing in his grasp as he screamed. The back truck roared to life and started peeling away immediately.

Three guys came out of Mary's neighbour's place, streaming out from the side further from me. Two of them had handguns out and immediately saw the truck and pointed their guns towards me, though I wasn't sure if they could actually see me.

I put a bullet into the gut of one before either of them could get a shot off. The other fired in a panic and a window in my truck cracked. I put four shots down range, two hitting him in the chest while the other two were backstopped by the next house up.

The third was running for the truck that hadn't driven away yet but was honking its horn to hurry up his friends. I peeked around the end of my truck and pulled back quickly as the shrub guy unloaded his pistol at me, the bullets panging off my front grill and shattering the windshield and probably the rear window as well.

"Suck a dick, cocksucker," I yelled.

"Fuck you!" he shouted back.

Boom.

"Aaagh!"

I knew the sound of the 700.

I peeked around the end of the truck again and saw the guy sprawled out on his side, but he still had the pistol in his hand and was struggling to raise it in my direction. I sent three more bullets down range at him and his arms collapsed.

The other truck started to peel away and I seriously considered flipping my firing selector to burst and giving it a spray down as it took off with the squeal of tires, but I already had at least two, and probably three, bodies on me and they were running.

My phone rang in the truck cupholder where I'd left it and I nabbed it quickly.

"Yeah?" I asked.

"One in the backyard," Miriam said. "Looks like he's getting ready to hop the fence into the yard you're in front of."

"Fuck," I said and dropped the phone as I sprinted for Mary's side yard. It was pitch black back there and I dropped the DDM and pulled my M9 as I slammed into the little fence gate and barreled right through the old wood, the latch popping off. I came around the house at a speed walk and raised the pistol just as the fucker was hopping the fence. He had something in his hands. Might have been another baseball bat, or something he'd looted. But I was 80% sure it was a shotgun.

Pop pop pop pop.

He collapsed where he landed.

I closed the distance and kicked the thing away from his hand before anything else, my pistol pointed right at his head. Then I rolled him over and he let out a long wheeze as he died, blood soaking through his rough camo jacket.

I fought the urge to punch him in the face anyways.

"Mary," I called. "I left my phone up front. They're gone. Get the kids inside, stay away from over here by my voice."

Boom.

"Nevermind, stay there!" I called, pivoting and rushing back towards the front. I slowed at the broken gate, sticking to the shadows as best I could and trying to see what Kyla was shooting at. The guy at the shrub was still down, and the trucks were still gone. The guy I put two in the chest was still over on the neighbour's driveway.

A new body was out in the middle of the yard, about six paces from my DDM.

Not a new body. It was the guy I'd gut-shot.

Kyla came jogging up out of the dark, her face graven as she strictly avoided looking at the people she'd shot.

"That's all of them," she said.

I holstered my M9 and went to her, taking the hunting rifle from her and pulling her into a crushing hug. She hugged me back, clutching to my sides for a long moment.

"Hold it," I whispered to her. "The danger is gone, but hold it, OK? Keep that edge for just a little longer."

She nodded, and we separated. I went back to my truck, seeing the bullet holes and the shattered glass, but her engine was still thrumming strong. My phone had stayed on, the call still open, so it was easy to find the glow of the screen.

"Miriam?" I asked as I picked it up.

"I'm here," she said. "You good?"

"Yeah," I said. "Are you watching me on a satellite or something?"

"High altitude drone that I got repurposed from watching the coastline. I still have friends who owe me a bunch of favours," she said.

I just shook my head. "Thanks for the heads up."

"That a lady and her kids back there?" she asked me.

"Yeah. 6 and 4," I said.

"Then no thanks needed," Miriam said. "State Troopers should be there in under twenty. The words 'gunfight in suburban neighbourhood' put you at the top of their list. I'll let them know you're friendlies and not to fuck with you."

"You have that pull?" I asked.

"You'd be surprised what kind of bullshit I can plough through with just a couple of phone calls," she said.

"Thanks, Miriam," I said.

"Don't make a habit of this, Harri, or you'll owe me a lot more than booze and a meal."

"Got it," I said.

We hung up and I dialled Mary.

"Hello?" she asked, clearly a little shaky.

"It's me," I said. "Now you can take the kids into the house. Try to get them in bed, but put headphones on them if you have to because there'll be cop cars here pretty soon. They'll want to talk to you."

"OK. You're sure it's safe?"

"I'm not going anywhere," I said.

Mary took care of her kids while Kyla and I analyzed what we needed to do. We ended up putting the 700 and my M9 on the hood of my truck, which I turned off but left the headlights on, and I left the DDM where it was on the ground. I was sure the Troopers would want the scene as preserved as possible. At one point Mary opened the front door to her place and called me in, and at this point I wasn't caring about the pandemic. I went and hugged her, and then went down on my knees because Thomas barrelled down the hall and crashed into me for a hug of his own. Charlie, the little girl, had apparently gone right back to sleep.

I assured Thomas everything was OK, but told him I needed him to go try and sleep because his Mom was going to be busy for a bit and it was going to be a hard day for her. He nodded solemnly and went off to his room, and I hugged Mary again for a longer time as she gasped and sobbed silently after looking out at the carnage in her front yard. Then I sent her inside to get coffee going, giving her something to do, and I went to Kyla. She was sitting on the open tailgate of my truck, looking down at her hands.

Softly, I took her hands in mine and held them.

"How are you so calm?" she asked.

"Faking it," I told her, and held her hand to my chest so she could feel the hammering of my heart. "I'll have an adrenaline crash in a little bit and start feeling it. Keeping a mission goal in mind is helping."

Kyla nodded, clenching her jaw. She was without makeup and sitting in the back of the truck like that she looked all the world like a college coed who should have been hanging out after a long night on the town. She was beautiful, but I could see the disassociation starting in her eyes a little.

"Hey, stay with me," I said, squeezing her hands. She looked up, her focus coming back as she met my eyes. "Kiss me."

She sat up and wrapped a hand around the back of my neck to pull me to her, and she kissed me hard as she put her other hand to my chest again, feeling my heartbeat. We didn't finish the kiss, it just went on pause as we separated a fraction of an inch to gasp for breath, our foreheads pressed together, and then we were kissing again. I held her waist and her thigh, she held my neck and chest, and we kissed.

We only stopped when the flashing lights and the siren of the cop cars started in the distance. Kyla didn't let go of my neck though and kept my face close to hers.

"I think I love you," she whispered. "You're selfless, and determined, and reckless enough to do something stupid like this for the right reasons. You're everything I want. I just- I wanted you to know that."

"I love you too, Kyla," I said, pulling her to me in a hug as the lights got brighter and the sirens got louder. "You're everything I want and more, too."

We separated and I stepped around the truck, raising my hands and going down to my knees as the two state trooper cars came to a wailing halt and the Troopers came out with sidearms drawn. Kyla was right there next to me, and I don't think anything could have wiped that grin off of our faces.

====================================

Thanks for reading! Votes are appreciated, and comments are even better.

Quaranteam: North West is an ongoing series that will continue to see updates moving forward. If you have enjoyed the series so far, definitely make sure to check out CorruptingPower's main series and other spinoffs. For similar Harem-y themes, you might want to check out my other series currently releasing.

Cheers!

~Break.

====================================