“These are my brothers.” Yue said simply. The one thing they’d all agreed on was to let her do the talking. Drew was too hot headed, and LeBron was a tad too introverted. Plus, LeBron was doing all he could just to stand up with the pain he was in. Doing a lot of conversing was out of the question.
“I see. Interesting. Which one do you love more?” The man asked.
“I’m sorry. I love them both. They’re my brothers.” Yue repeated wondering what this slimy little top hat wearing used car selling piece of garbage was getting at.
“Let me put it this way. Tell me which one gets to live. You have three seconds.” The man had pulled out a pistol and was pointing it at LeBron. He waggled his eyebrows and pointed it at Drew then moved the barrel back and forth.
“Kill me you little bitch!” Drew took a big step forward getting right in the man’s face. The pistol came to rest on Drews forehead. Drew slapped the gun away. Before the man could react, he dropped to his knee and went for the top hat wearing guy’s leg. He caught the huge guys knee in his face and was laid out flat on his back. LeBron was tossed on top of him a second later when he took a clumsy swing at top hat. Two men from the crowd grabbed Yue by the arms to keep her from jumping in.
“Well that went sideways pretty fast.” Top hat said pointing the gun down at Drew and LeBron who were working on getting disentangled. A smile was playing across his face as he watched the two of them. He put the pistol back in his holster and addressed Yue once again.
“I’m Blaze. I’m happy to meet you.” The man emphasized the word ‘you’ while grinning mischievously. “Sorry I couldn’t help it. I love a good pun.” A few people snickered. Yue wasn’t sure if they knew her name was Yue or if they were just sucking up to the boss. She was pretty sure at this point that Blaze must be the man in charge. She was also sensing that under all of the schtick lurked a cunning mind.
“Are you planning on letting us go?” Yue asked. Blaze let the awkward silence build up. He acted as if he were pondering her question for the first time. Yue waited with her hands restrained behind her by men she couldn’t see. She was doing her best to look calm and collected. On the inside she was vibrating with a mix of cold fear and red-hot rage.
“No. We’re not planning on letting you go. We’ve lost well over half of our clan in the last month. There should be another three trucks in this convoy. We need fresh blood. Your little family seems like it might be a good fit. We like the odd and we love the foolishly brave. It seems to me that three adopted kids from different races may fit the odd mold. Individually you’re not much but together you’re unique. We find strength through diversity and all that good stuff. I honestly would’ve had a hard time believing it if Charani hadn’t showed me your driver’s licenses. Your brothers already showed me they’ve got the guts to fight for their family. Maybe not a lot going on in the brains department though.” Blaze finished glancing down at Drew and LeBron who were both in obvious pain.
“Before all this happened, we were talking about how we needed to find other people to work with. This could be perfect.” Yue tried hard to inject enthusiasm into her voice. She was thinking fast. Given the general weirdness of what was going on choosing to walk away wasn’t going to be an option. If they couldn’t walk away, then the next best thing was going to be to try and go all in. They’d earn trust faster that way which would be useful if they did decide to make a run for it. Maybe this freak show would work out to be a decent place to hang out in the apocalypse.
“That sounded super fake, but I’ll give you a ‘B’ for effort. You really think you can bullshit a bunch of road gypsies?” Blaze didn’t bother waiting for an answer. “Here’s what we’re going to do. You and the brother without the broken face are going to stay in this truck reporting to Charani. We’re taking the black kid with the broken face to our trailer. We have a doctor there who can take care of him. If you guys decide to make a run for it, we’ll feed him to the lion. Do what you’re told, and you’ll be fed and have a safe place to sleep at night. I don’t think you’re going to find a better offer than that anywhere else anyway.”
“You still have a lion?” Drew asked from a sitting position down on the floor. He’d have thought they’d have gotten rid of all the big cats.
“You got me. We ate the lions and the tigers and the bears. Oh my. Only fresh meat we’ve had in a while. Both of our trainers were zombified early on so we couldn’t do much with the big fleabags anyway. You good with the deal?” Blaze said redirecting his attention to Yue who was obviously the spokesperson for the sibling trio.
Yue nodded her head in agreement. The three of them were shuffled back to their crate to spend the night. One of the unbreakable rules was that once the sun went down the doors didn’t open again until the lead truck ordered it.
“So, we’re like Gypsy assistants now?” Drew asked. His face was covered in flecks of the dried blood he was trying to wipe off with his shirt sleeve.
“Better than being the people
