No Name glared down at him. “You want to put your fists behind that?”
The shorter man shriveled and threw a glance back at Grace before heading up the stairs in a huff. No Name shook his head with disgust and then began doling out the bowls, shoving them one by one into the cells.
“I’d say thank you for getting rid of that creep,” Grace said dryly as she picked up her bowl, “but you’re also keeping me in a cell and forcing labor, so… not exactly much to be thankful for.”
He didn’t respond, simply finished handing out breakfast, which turned out to be bowls of scrambled eggs and ground meat.
“No hot sauce?” Hawk muttered. “Terrorists.” He scooped a forkful into his mouth.
“Today’s target is the mall,” No Name announced once everyone was eating, leaning against the wall and crossing his arms. “It was an impromptu rescue shelter when everything started to go to shit. We were able to lock it up tight day one, but it’s full to the brim.”
Eddie raised an eyebrow. “A mall? Full to the brim?” He shook his head. “How the hell are we going to deal with that?” he asked, flabbergasted.
“That’ll be for you to figure out,” No Name replied. “It’s going to be a major operation, and you’ll have to get a lay of the land. You’ll be going in with four other civilians.”
“Wait, only eight of us for the whole mall?” Troy exclaimed. “No backup from your trigger-happy mercenary buddies?”
Hawk and Eddie both opened their mouths, and No Name raised his hands.
“I know,” he said loudly to shut them up, “I know. If it were up to me, I’d be going in there too. This is too big. But orders are orders, and orders are to send the eight of you in to do this.”
“Why?” Grace demanded. “I get that we’re expendable to you assholes, but this is just inefficient for your timeframe.”
No Name shrugged, shaking his head. “I don’t know. I just get my orders.”
“Woof woof,” Hawk muttered. “Follow blindly, little doggy.”
Their captor glared at him, but had no rebuttal. “Eat your breakfast,” he said. “We’re moving out in five.”
CHAPTER TWO
Grace sat in the passenger’s seat as No Name drove them out to the mall, the men in the back. She stared out the window, but didn’t really see the landscape passing her by. Her time in the cell was spent thinking of her brother, hoping he was okay, torn between wanting him to mount some kind of rescue and wanting him to just stay away, stay safe.
There was no way out of this for her, or at least it didn’t feel like it in the near future. She would do everything she could to survive, and that was all she could do. There was no real standing up to these men. At least if she was really good at what they were sending her to do, she could prove useful for after.
After. What came after? These thoughts plagued her in her cell as well, in the quiet, when she struggled to sleep. Her body was exhausted after missions, but her mind reeled. These days were nothing but determination and fear and survival, the nights terrible simply for not knowing what the next would bring.
She spotted a line of civilians being offloaded into a processing area, and her gaze perked up, focusing on the here and now. “Where did they come from?” she asked.
No Name glanced over. “We’ve been finding quite a few survivors in Bluffton. They’re transporting them all here.”
“What happens to them all?” Hawk piped up from the backseat. “The ones who don’t get sent off to die clearing out zombies?”
No Name shook his head, and Grace noticed the tight line of his jaw, as if he were reluctant to answer. He didn’t say anything, and that was answer enough. She studied him as he drove, glaring daggers into the side of his head. She wasn’t naïve enough to think that she could gain his sympathy, but there was definitely something about him that was different from the others. He didn’t seem to take pleasure in tormenting them. He didn’t seem to take pleasure in really anything he was doing to them. And by the tense muscles in his upper body at Hawk’s question, she didn’t think he took much pleasure in the whole slavery thing.
But he was still doing his job, still following orders. And that meant he was not her friend, and likely never would be. If he cared about the civilians more than his own livelihood, then he would have done something about it before now, instead of just falling in line.
Woof woof, Hawk had said. Woof woof, indeed, Grace thought bitterly, and turned back to the window.
They reached the mall, seeing several mercenaries standing guard around it and on top of it. She assumed that it was to make sure that the ghouls didn’t figure out how to escape. It boiled her guts to think that they were allowed to just stand outside in the safety, while sending untrained civilians inside to do their dirty work.
No Name pulled up near the front entrance, and a mercenary approached, slinging his gun over his shoulder as they all piled out of the van.
“I’ve done some recon on the roof,” he said, pulling a sheet of paper from his pocket and unfolding it. He held it out so they could all see as they clustered around. “There’s hundreds of those things in there, but the majority of them are in the big department store, here.” He pointed to the giant square on the far side of his crudely drawn map.
Grace pursed her lips. “What are the chances it’s sealed off from the rest of the mall?” she asked.
The mercenary shook his head. “It’s not,” he replied. “The main floor is closed, but
