“No, but they hit hospitals when they were empty,” I reminded him.
His eyebrows shot up. “You’re leaving blood for them to hunt?”
“Something like that,” I said, waving him off when he went to ask again. “Dude, we’re not telling you all our shit either. We’re not friends.”
“I’d like to be friends with you,” one of the guys chuckled, a few whistling as well.
I ignored it and focused on Chris. “We’re not trying to come in or cramp your style. We just want to be smarter than the idiots who annoy us and hope you’re not fucking crazy like Fort Knox guys.”
“So what are you asking for then?” he pushed.
“You cool if we clear out New Orleans and some of our friends set up there? That’s far enough away to not be your turf, right? We’ve not raided in Texas and we won’t. We do want to use Houston like we do LA and Denver. We’d prefer you not shoot down the planes if we do.”
“What about giving us electricity too?” someone called out.
“Shut it,” Chris warned, but gave me a look like he wanted the answer too.
I sighed. “We’ve been in touch with a few settlements, but we haven’t been that friendly yet. I have some issues with how most of the settlements treat women, having had to fight my way out of being chained up to make babies and one trying to make me a sex slave. So we really didn’t come to get all in your business, but to sort of make it clear we’re staying out of Texas and stay out of our turf, but…”
“If you’re giving power and helping, you don’t want to help assholes,” he finished for me, wincing when I nodded. “No one’s being forced, that’s for damn sure, but I can’t control people’s beliefs, nor should I. If people want to preach, let them preach as they help the community. We have over a million people here and we keep everyone safe, not sane.”
“That’s fair, but I don’t think I’m the type of girl to give electricity on the first date,” I replied. “And giving it for free would be stupid as that would lead someone to come up to our turf and try to take things after we kill all the corrupted. Let me be clear—that would be stupid. We can be peaceful neighbors, maybe even friendly ones, but we’re not open to strangers any more than you are.”
“Fair enough,” he agreed.
“But as a sign of good faith and an understanding between leaders, I will give you an electric semi with solar array for you to use to raid San Antonio or anywhere in Texas. Call it payment for being on your turf in Houston, even if it’s for killing corrupted.”
“Mexico you can raid later, but we’re leading the corrupted up to LA a bit at a time from there and will eventually start getting them out of South America that way,” James added. “It’s easier than flying the jets further to where we don’t know who’s got what trying to shoot us down.”
“So you’re clearing all of North America?” Chris asked, sounding like he wasn’t buying it.
“We’re working on it, but we’re being smart about it so we don’t lose any more people,” I answered, not ready to show our full hand. “Are we good? You cool with this?”
“Yeah, we’re cool with this,” he promised. “Is San Antonio cleared?”
I blew a raspberry and looked at Kristof. “Is it?”
“Not yet,” he answered. “We stopped after El Paso since we didn’t want to risk your crazy if you were crazy. We’ve been pulling them from Mexico south from here, but starting Monday, we’ll be getting all of the corrupted in Texas to Houston in groups we can handle. If you’d like, we’ll tell you when it’s done, but El Paso is cleared now.”
“That’s too far of a trip to risk if the surrounding area isn’t cleared,” I argued. I gave Chris a serious look. “You know no matter how many we clear out that there could always still be that random stray that got locked in a closet or whatever. We’re not getting blamed for that or if people just pretend everything’s fine now.”
He nodded. “Got it. It’s still a huge help and so is the truck.”
“Cool, well, nice to meet you. Glad we took the time to say hi and we’ll be in touch soon. I gotta see who can drive down a truck. I hope it goes without saying not to shoot them.”
One of the other guys on his side snorted and I just shrugged. Hey, they had greeted us with a lot of guns, so it sounded like a valid concern.
“So does this peaceful and maybe friendly relationship include an invite to see your settlement and what you’re building?” Chris asked, obviously getting there was more to us than he was seeing.
I gasped. “Invite a man home after a first date? Chris, I’m truly insulted.” I chuckled, not even able to keep up the ruse.
“She’s more the type to shoot you if you misbehave,” Darius told him.
“Is that so?”
I shrugged. “He scared the shit out of me and I had guys chasing me since I was on my own. I mostly stick to killing corrupted, but now and again, I’ve had to protect myself.” I turned my head towards Darius but didn’t meet his eyes. “I did apologize.”
“And it’s long forgiven but I still love that story.”
I nodded I heard him, focusing on Chris again. “There is something you’ll need if we ever take this relationship from peaceful to friendly.”
“What’s that?”
“An open mind, Chris. It’s the apocalypse and nothing will be as it was
