Terminator Salvation - From the Ashes

direction Orozco had just nudged him, he would end up with the burro between him and the main group of teens.

That might at least give him a chance to draw his Colt and even the odds a little.

But no, that wouldn’t work. Even though the burro might block shots coming from that direction, Kyle would still be exposed to the kid with the revolver standing down the street.

Unless Orozco was planning to block that line of fire with his own body. Was that what the little push had meant? Was Kyle supposed to duck into shelter, and try to take down as many of the attackers as he could before one of them got Orozco? Or him? Or Star?

There was another tug at Kyle’s arm, even more insistent than the first.

“What?” Kyle bit out, glaring at her.

Her eyes met his evenly, her hands tracing out a single word. Empty.

Kyle frowned. Empty? What was that supposed to—?

And then he got it, and his eyes lifted from Star to the gun pointed at them from down the street.

To the gun, and the faint hints of light he could see peeking coyly through the revolver’s cylinder.

The gun was empty.

Kyle looked back at the gang leader, still bearing down on Orozco. Was his gun empty, too? The kid was holding it low, pointed at Orozco’s waist instead of his chest or head, too low for Kyle to see if its cylinder was also empty.

But it almost didn’t matter. The minute the boy reached them and got his hands on either Orozco’s Beretta or Kyle’s Colt, he would have a loaded gun. If Kyle was going to do something, he had to do it right now.

The kid was nearly there, his free hand reaching toward Orozco’s holster. Setting his teeth, Kyle took a quick step to his right, ducked down behind the burro’s side, and yanked out his Colt.

“Freeze!” he ordered.

The gang leader’s head snapped toward Kyle, his eyes burning with surprise and rage, his gun swiveling toward this sudden new threat. As he did so, Orozco took half a step forward.

And in a haze of motion that Kyle never did completely figure out, the gang leader was spun 180

degrees around, his gun hand yanked up behind his back with the revolver pointed harmlessly down the street, and Orozco’s left arm snaking its way around the kid’s neck to press tightly against his throat.

“Like my friend says,” Orozco said. “Freeze.”

“Let him go!” the gunman down the street snarled, jabbing his empty revolver threateningly toward Orozco as he and his friend unglued themselves from their positions and charged toward the would-be victims.

There was a sudden muffled crack from the direction of the gang leader’s twisted arm. The kid cried out in pain, and his revolver thudded onto the broken pavement. An instant later, Orozco had released the kid’s wrist, drawn his Beretta, and had his arm crooked around the front of the leader’s face with the gun pointed toward the two incoming teens.

“We only say freeze twice,” he warned quietly.

The boys came to a sudden halt.

“Join the group,” Orozco invited them, twitching the Beretta’s muzzle toward the five who were still spread out in front of him. “Put the gun on the ground first.”

Silently, the two teens complied. Orozco’s Beretta followed them the whole way over to the rest of the pack, and now there were seven sets of hate-filled glares washing at Kyle over the muzzle of his Colt.

“Here’s how it’s going to work,” Orozco said into the brittle silence. “You’re going to put down your weapons— all of them—and you’re going to walk away. And you’re not going to come back.

Ever.”

The leader began cursing. Orozco tightened his grip slightly around the other’s neck, and the swearing abruptly stopped.

“That’s the easy way,” Orozco continued. “The hard way is that we make sure you don’t bother us again by killing all of you.” He cocked back the hammer on the Beretta. “Right now.”

Kyle felt sweat gathering on the back of his neck. He’d seen Orozco use this same threat on other gangs, and so far all of them had backed down.

What if this one didn’t? Would Kyle be able to cold-bloodedly open fire on other human beings if they decided to make a fight of it? Even to save his own life?

Beside him, he felt Star brush his arm…and with that, all the questions and indecision faded into a cold determination. Because he wouldn’t just be protecting himself. He would be protecting Star.

And whatever it took, he would do that. Whatever it took.

Maybe the other teens saw the subtle change in his face. Maybe they didn’t, but had just finished running the odds. Whichever it was, one of them took a deep breath and dropped his knife onto the pavement. A moment later a second followed suit, and then a third, until all of them were standing unarmed, looking forlorn and a little ridiculous, as they continued to glare with impotent rage.

“Good,” Orozco said. Removing his arm from the leader’s throat, he gave the kid a shove toward the rest of the group. The kid stopped a couple of feet in front of the pack and turned around, adding his glare to the others’ as he clutched his wrist.

“I suggest you head south,” Orozco went on. “The population density goes down as you get closer to NukeZero, so there should still be places where you can carve out a home for yourselves.

And the radiation should be well below danger levels by now.”

“Like we care about that when we’re starving to death,” one of them muttered.

“There’s still plenty of food to be had for the scrounging,” Orozco assured him. “Or you can starve, if you’d rather. Makes no difference to me.”

Abruptly, Kyle heard the sound of running feet coming from his left. He turned, to see Wadleigh and three more Moldering Lost Ashes men appear around the corner, rifles and shotguns at the ready.

The teens saw them, too, and with that the last thoughts of resistance or treachery crumbled away. They might be vicious and depraved, but the fact they’d survived this long proved they weren’t stupid.

“But wherever you go,” Orozco went on, “please believe me when I say that you have no future in this neighborhood.”

The leader’s eyes came reluctantly back to Orozco.

“Yeah, we got it,” he bit out.

“Good,” Orozco said. “Now go collect whatever you’ve got in your flophouse and hit the road.

I’ll give you half an hour. After that, if we see any of you around here again, you’ll be shot on sight.”

“Go to hell,” the leader muttered. But the words had no fire behind them, only dull resignation.

“I’m already there,” Orozco said grimly. “So is everyone else. Save your strength for fighting Skynet and the Terminators, not your fellow humans.”

The kid snorted. “Right.”

“I’m serious,” Orozco insisted. “You like leading? Fine. We need leaders. But lead a Resistance cell, not a gang.”

The kid just grunted and turned his back. Pushing his way through the rest of the group, he stomped back into their flimsy ganghouse. One by one the others followed, some of them glancing at Orozco as they went, others ignoring him completely.

They had all disappeared inside by the time Wadleigh and the others arrived.

“You okay?” Wadleigh asked, panting as he trotted to a halt. “The sentry signaled that you were in trouble.”

“We were, but we’re not anymore,” Orozco assured him. “Thanks for the timely arrival. Made it much easier to convince them to vacate the premises.”

“Let’s hope so,” Wadleigh growled. “What about that stuff?” He gestured at the knives and revolvers scattered around the street.

“We’ll take it with us,” Orozco said. “Kyle, you and Star go gather everything up. You can put it in that extra bag on the burro’s harness.”

“Sure,” Kyle said. Gesturing to Star, he holstered his Colt and grabbed the bag. Walking around the burro, he