One of the men still on the porch wiped his hands on his expensive wool coat. He was tall, pale, and bean-pole thin. His long, narrow face contorted in a scowl.
Quinn recognized him. It was Mr. Blair—the jerk who’d tried to steal water from the mom and two kids in Friendly’s Grocery a whole lifetime ago. What a surprise.
Wiggins fumbled around in the snow, arms flailing. “You can’t do this! This is against the law! You’re stealing!”
“Like you stole this house from the Marcels, the rightful owners?” Mr. Blair asked, his voice dripping with condescension.
“You have no right!”
Mr. Blair shook his finger at Wiggins. “We have every right. Everyone else is taking whatever they want—including you. No one deserves this place any more than we do. We’re sick of being ignored and left behind to freeze to death. This is it. Society is collapsing, the world is ending, and I’m not going to sit here and take it. I’m not going to let my family starve while you sit here in decadence you didn’t earn and don’t deserve. We’re taking things into our own hands.”
“As of this minute, you’re homeless,” the second man said with a smirk. He was a short, chubby Hispanic man in overalls with greasy hair and pockmarked skin. He worked at the gas station in town, but Quinn didn’t know his name.
A woman strode out of the opened front door carrying a large laundry basket of clothes, personal toiletries, and other sundry items Quinn couldn’t identify.
Mrs. Blair’s lank brown hair was snarled and unkempt, her cheeks gaunt. She was barely recognizable as the prim, sharply-dressed lawyer that Quinn remembered.
She flung the basket’s contents into the snow. Shirts, pants, and boxers fluttered around Darryl Wiggins. A sock landed on his head.
“What are they doing?” Milo whispered loudly.
“They’re taking over that man’s house.”
“That’s wrong.”
“The problem is, that man only has the house because the superintendent gave it to him. It’s not his, either.”
“I don’t understand,” Milo said.
“It’s complicated.” Quinn frowned. “And stupid. Everyone is stupid.”
“That’s your answer for everything.”
“Yeah, well, it seems to fit everything these days, doesn’t it?”
With a roar of outrage, Wiggins clambered to his feet. He wasn’t wearing any boots. Or a coat, hat, or gloves. He had to be freezing.
He lunged forward, still cursing and shouting. He sank past his knees in the snow as he slogged toward the house.
Forced to lift his legs almost comically high, he staggered up the porch steps.
Mr. Blair just stood there, laughing at him. Maybe he didn’t expect a fifty-something banker to throw a solid punch.
He underestimated his opponent. Wiggins was furious. Furious and desperate—a bad combination.
With a savage growl, he launched himself at Blair. He lowered his head and headbutted the man in the gut.
Blair let out a grunt and stumbled back. He tripped over the leg of a snow-covered rocking chair and tumbled to his butt.
“Hey!” Overalls swung at Wiggins and landed a punch to his face. His head jerked back. Blood spurted from his nose. Wiggins turned and slugged him back.
The woman dropped her basket and hurled herself at Wiggins, too. “Leave my husband alone!”
Blair struggled to his feet and rejoined the fray. Four adults kicked, punched, and cursed at each other. Three of them pummeled Wiggins to the porch floor. They kept kicking him, screaming and shouting in pent-up anger.
Quinn couldn’t even see him anymore through the porch spindles and the legs and fists pelting his body.
“We should go, Small Fry,” she said in a low voice. “Let these stupidheads work it out on their own—”
The roar of an engine splintered the air.
From the opposite direction, a snowmobile roared toward them. A second one joined the first.
The man and woman with the sleds loaded with goods jumped back. They jerked their sleds out of the way just as the snowmobiles slammed to a stop in front of the white house.
Two men yanked off their helmets and dismounted. They were dressed in gray camo fatigues and jackets and black boots, with AK-47s slung over their shoulders. They looked formidable and intimidating.
Quinn’s gut tightened with dread.
The militia had arrived.
Quinn
Day Twenty
Anger thrummed through Quinn. She gritted her teeth and tightened her grip on Milo’s arm. She recognized both militia members: Sebastian Desoto and James Luther.
Those two jerkwads had stolen from Gran. Quinn had been forced to stand by and watch as they took half of everything she had—everything they thought she had, anyway.
Luckily, Gran and Gramps had a secret stash hidden in their basement.
Gran still had enough food and supplies to last them a few years. That did nothing to reduce Quinn’s seething hatred for the militia and everything they stood for.
The sooner they were gone, the better.
Quinn wanted them out. She wanted to fight them, if that’s what it took. Gran had told her to be careful, to keep her eyes open and stay watchful. And above all, not to do something stupid.
Quinn had done her best. She was impatient and impulsive by nature. She wanted to act, to do something.
She’d listened to Gran for once, but she was fast losing whatever threads of patience she possessed.
Desoto strode up the porch steps. He was Sutter’s second-in-command. A Hispanic man in his forties, he was built like a tank and sported a military buzz cut and a hard, flat face.
Luther gripped his AK-47 and followed close behind. He was Caucasian, slim but muscular. All Quinn remembered about him was that he was a polite thief, as if manners made their armed robbery palatable. It made her hate him even more.
The two fake soldiers took stock of the situation quickly. They unclipped their semi-automatic rifles, flicked off the safeties, and aimed at the tussling civilians.
Desoto didn’t hesitate. He didn’t give a speech or ask for any last words or even give them a chance to defend themselves.
He jerked Overalls to his feet and flung him against the porch railing. He took a step back, raised the AK-47, and pointed the muzzle at the man’s chest.
Memories flooded through Quinn’s head—Octavia Riley on her knees in front of the courthouse steps, about to be executed. Mattias Sutter standing before her mother, gun aimed at her forehead.
Sour acid burned the back of Quinn’s throat. Nausea swirled in her gut as dismay filled her. She knew what happened next. She’d seen it before.
She barely had time to seize Milo by the back of his coat, spin him around, and shove his face against her stomach.
So he couldn’t see. So he wouldn’t have to watch.
Desoto squeezed the trigger. He fired a double tap into the man’s chest.
The gunshots shattered the air. The sound exploded against Quinn’s eardrums.
Milo clapped his hands over his ears. A flock of birds resting on a telephone wire took to the sky in a startled flurry of wings and frantic squawking.
The force of the blast knocked Overalls’ body backward over the porch railing. From Quinn’s angle, she couldn’t see how he’d landed. He could’ve landed on a cloud and it wouldn’t have mattered. Two massive bullets punched through his ticker meant he was dead on arrival.