“Jessica?” I ask as she drags me out into the open.

“We have to hurry,” she says. Then she lets go of my arm and turns on her heels. “They plan to leave without us.”

“Leave? Where to?” I ask, looking back over my shoulder to Pops.

“To fight the last wave boss! Come on, let’s go!”

“That’s what I wanted to tell you,” Pops says, raising his hands. “We’re ready to go help Mike. William and I found some more volunteers. But I wanted to talk to you and convince you to stay here, you had enough fighting for now.”

Derek and Carter stand a few steps away, looking at us. Neither one says anything. Emily is back at my side, also silent. I look to them for…I don’t know, some guidance? An opinion? I ponder the offer Pops made, but despite everything, despite how physically tired and mentally drained I feel, I want to go.

“I’m coming,” I say eventually.

“You’re not,” Pops protests. “This time, I insist.”

“Look, Pops. I’m scared shitless, I’ll admit. But it’s my little brother, I can’t not go.”

I leave out the detail that a small part of me actually wishes to fight again. To feel more of that adrenaline, more of that rush.

“God damn it, Jack! Just do as I say!” Pops pleads. “You’ll get yourself killed.”

“No. We’re talking about Mike. If I’m not there and anything happens to him, I couldn’t…” my voice breaks and I swallow dryly. “I won’t be able to live with that.”

“And if anything happens to you, do you think I could live with it?” Pops retorts. “You need to stop. At least for now.”

“I’ll stop when everyone is safe. Jessica, lead the way.”

----------------------------------------

We march towards the eastern barricade, where the volunteers are gathered. Pops tries to stop me for the first few minutes, but I point at the devastation we couldn’t clean up yesterday. More of it will happen if we don’t repel the siege, and for that, we need as many able bodied fighters as we can muster. Myself included.

He lets up after that, though I can tell he isn’t happy with my decision. But he doesn’t have to like it, he just has to accept it.

People come out to face another day, and a few start following, slowly forming a crowd behind us. They ask about what’s going on, if we’ll take out the last boss, what they can do to help. The others let me answer, so with a sigh, I get to it.

Some ask us to check for relatives or friends in the other safe zone, and I get a few more search and rescue quests out of it.

The fighters that volunteered — about a hundred men and women — wait for us on and around the barricade as we arrive. It’s William, a bunch of his officers, a few veterans like Pops, and a slew of civilians. They’re all checking guns, counting ammo, and doing other final checks. Mixed among them are a bunch of Jessica’s pets.

The crowd follows a few steps behind us as we near them. William shakes his head, trying to hide a smile as I approach him to talk.

“Isn’t that, like, half the defenders here?” I ask.

I sweep my eyes over them to get a feel for our forces, and I don’t see a single person under level 15. They’re about half and half novice and adept classes, though I don’t find a single master or expert class among them. We have few of those to begin with, and as far as I know, I have the only expert class in our little town.

The novice class guys already broke through level 20 for the most part, but the adept ones are already lagging behind by 5 to 10 levels.

“About three quarters, actually,” William says.

“Too many. If we all leave, who will defend the people here?”

“The siege is almost over,” William answers. “We barely saw any monster activity last night, it’s like most of them went away when you killed the second boss.”

He’s probably right, I know it. The majority of the monsters likely left the area and joined up with the wave boss that’s about to attack Mike’s safe zone. But I still don’t like it.

“Any of you guys coming?” I ask our group, and they all say yes. “Jessica, I’m thinking it would be better if you and your pets stayed behind to help here.”

“Fuck that!” Jessica blows up. “I’m coming, no ifs, ands, or buts.”

“Jessica…”

“Plus you need my pets to get there faster, not everyone can run a mile a minute like you.”

I turn to William for help, but he shrugs. Not his circus, not his monkey. I sigh.

“Get the volunteers to double and triple up where they can. We’ll use as few pets as possible to get us there, the rest stay here for protection. Are you happy with that compromise?”

“Happy enough,” Jessica says. “If we’ll need reinforcements, I can always recall them to me.”

I nod. “Leave Polly here too, just so we’ll have a way to communicate.”

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“On it, boss.”

She goes to spread out the new instructions and redistribute her pets, leaving me with nothing to do for the meantime. I look through my inventory, but I don’t have much of anything left in there. A few more hammers and knives, the sledgehammer and crowbar, and a few more bits and bobs like the roll of duct tape, a lighter, and a sleeping bag I looted.

I check out my progress to the next level-up as well, and even though I’m only level 4, I need an insane 88708 experience in total to reach level 5. I only have about half of that, a generous chunk of which came from the skunk.

I probably won’t level up again during this siege even if I kill the last boss and all its minions myself.

“Did Kurt make more mines and bombs?” I ask, closing out all of the tabs to clear my interface.

William nods and gives me the numbers. We have another sixty mines and about a hundred pound bombs, but no more boom rods. Those are just too expensive to waste time on them for now. But even so, I’m impressed.

“How’d he manage to step up production that much?”

“We gave him a few more men,” William answers. “I also found someone to make the triggers separately, that helped the most.”

“So are they more reliable now?”

William shakes his head. “They’re still shit.”

The preparations are done a few minutes later, and we’re ready to roll. Luna, the giant puppy, comes to me. Emily climbs first, and to my surprise, William hops on as well.

“I have something to talk to you about on the way,” the man says when I shoot him a suspicious look.

“I’m more worried about the poor animal,” I say. “Emily and I already push her in terms of weight.”

“She can ride with me,” Jessica says, pulling up on Cookie.

Emily doesn’t want to, I can tell. And since I don’t want to push her away yet again, I keep pressing the others.

“Yeah well I want to talk to her about something on the way, so whatever you have to say, let’s do it now.”

William frowns, and we stare at each other for a long moment.

“William…”

“I’d rather do it in private,” he says.

I wave a hand at the empty buildings around us. “Lots of private places to pick from.”

“Jack—”

“For fuck’s sake, just hop off already. This isn’t negotiable.”

His frown deepens a notch, but he finally does it. He gets off of Luna, and we walk away together until we’re out of earshot from the others.

“What is it?” I ask.

He goes around me in circles, checking the area for others.

“We’re alone, so stop beating around the bush and start talking.”

“It’s…about what’s been going on.”

“Elaborate, cause I don’t think I follow.”

He takes a few seconds to think before he speaks. “The people, the survivors, they’ll need someone to guide them. Stelver needs a new leader after this.”

I scowl. “And let me guess, you’re hoping to talk me into it?”

William nods sheepishly. “Pretty much.”

“Thanks, but no thanks. You’re a better pick, anyway.”

“Fuck no,” William laughs. “I was already about to step down as chief of police and retire, I’m not taking on another leader role.”

“Don’t fuck us like this, Willy. People already know and trust you, you’re the best one for the job.”

“I wanted to propose Tom for it,” he says. “But he doesn’t want to either, and you’re better anyway. People know you too, and just look around you. Look at your little parade from yesterday, or hell, look at how many people gathered here to go with you. You stepped up at every occasion when they needed you, so they trust you, alright.”

I groan. As much as I like people, as much as I like helping them, I don’t think I’d like leading them. It’s a bit much, especially with everything going on. All of Stelver looking up to me — hell, even a fraction of them doing so — is more than I can handle.

I go to flip William off, but I stop as realization strikes me. I remember his behavior so far, all of the shortcomings in his leadership that I needed to fill. That he let me fill. Was this his plan all along, to do a poor enough job that someone else would need to step in and take the reins from him? To create the conditions for another leader to rise up so he wouldn’t have to do it?

“Come on, we’re all waiting on you two!” Jessica shouts. “If you didn’t kiss already, get to it! We’re in a hurry!”

“Shut up, Jessica!” I yell back. Then I turn back to William. “This isn’t settled. We’ll talk more about it later.”

“Got it, boss,” he says with a shit eating grin.

I drop it for now, but we’ll definitely circle back to it later. With a bit of prodding, I’m sure I could convince William to do it after all. Or if not him, someone else. There are many people that would be better fit for the role than me.

We return to the others and I go to jump up on Luna’s back, but Derek and Carter stop me. They spin me around to face the crowd, which hasn’t yet dispersed.

“Speech! Speech! Speech!” They chant.

“No, stop that,” I whisper aggressively.

“Dude, you have to,” Derek whispers back. “They all gathered here to see us off, and you’re the one that started it. We’re following you, so you have to give the speech.”

I want to tell them to fuck off. That it’s a waste of time we can’t afford right now, and that I’m not good with speeches in the first place. But then I look around, and I see all eyes on me. The crowd, the fighters, my small group of friends, all of them stare at me in anticipation.

I sigh and open my mouth to talk. Just something short and generic, I can do it. I can manage that.

“We don’t have time, so I’ll keep it short,” I get started. “We all lost something to the monsters and to the system. Family, friends, safety. In some cases, our humanity. The world as we know it is gone. Us as we know ourselves, that’s gone. But we’re still here, and we can still fight. That’s something no monster or system can take away from us.”

I pause and gauge the reactions. The crowd murmurs, looking back and forth between me and the other fighters. William gives me a thumbs up.

“So we’ll head out and we’ll do just that. We’ll fight, and we’ll save others. I can’t promise that any one of us will return safely, but I can promise this. We’ll give those monsters hell! We’ll show the system what us humans are really made of! We’ll kill the final wave boss and break the siege! Then we’ll do it again and again, as many times as it takes! We’ll do it for those who fell, for those who are still here, and for those that will come after us!”

The crowd’s murmurs grow and erupt into cheering. Derek and Carter pump their fists in the air, shouting hell yeah! over and over again.

I turn and yell, “let’s go!”

They grin like idiots. I’m somewhat pissed, but I grin as well.

“If you two make me do that again, I’ll kill you. That’s a promise,” I give them a piece of my mind.

Then I climb on Luna and ride off, with the other fighters following me.