Warren could feel the tension in Jimmy’s muscles. The older man had risen to prominence before the apocalypse precisely because he could read dangerous situations like this.

What had seemed like an easy sell had become something very different.

The short, scrappy girl glaring with the force of a thousand suns spoke volumes. This “Mel” saw how badly she was outnumbered, but there wasn’t a shred of fear to be found.

Nothing he could use as leverage.

This encounter was starting to feel like that werewolf all over again. A fearless beast that viciously took out several of his men.

An entire plateau was off limits because of that rampaging beast that shattered weapons as easily as bones.

There were no levers that Warren could use to get his way with this group. Mel would fight, purely for the sake of it. He had seen vicious dogs like that before. You’d think they were loyal allies until they snapped. There was something there, a cobweb of self-restraint holding back the beast that men had thought tamed.

Normally there was a rival family member, a boss, a street leader, a handler, somebody Warren could reason with to call the dog off. The way the others looked to this girl told him there was nobody who would call her off if she decided to slip her leash.

Jimmy was blinded by the small pixie of a girl. At barely five feet, Jimmy clearly saw her as a pushover. To continue the tired dog-based analogies, he clearly thought she had more bark than bite.

Warren knew better. He could see that she yearned to back up her strong words with something definitive.

It was still seven against one. He had judged the others accurately. They were a broken mess. They should have been an easy grab. Safety and numbers for doing a simple job.

He had recruited cornermen with less effort than this!

This isn’t Boston, he reminded himself. Your crew is gone. You’re vulnerable until you can reach this next threshold of power the Mages keep talking about.

Warren gently pushed Jimmy back and stepped up to take his place. The idiot would get himself killed sooner or later, and constantly having to step in to calm him down wasn’t having the effect it usually had.

It only made Mel angrier.

Warren was no coward, but he understood that this was a fight both himself and Mel would prefer to put off for another day. It was clear the others were under her protection, and that there would be no swaying her.

A pity, she could have been a lieutenant easily, Warren thought to himself.

He was about to smooth things over when Mel aimed a snide remark at Jimmy.

“Daddy going to bail you out of trouble again?” she said with a sinister grin.

Warren groaned internally. Jimmy was a hothead. Always had been, but he was loyal to a fault. He glanced at Warren’s stern features and backed off.

A boss was nothing if they didn’t have the loyalty and respect of their family members. If Warren wanted to rebuild his network bigger and better than anything he had in Boston, without fear of the feds or cops butting in, he needed to be careful here.

“What? No snippy remarks?” Mel asked. “Gonna let Daddy over here hold your balls too? I can see how badly you want to give it a go. Do it. Give me an excuse to humiliate you. I’m begging you.”

“Jimmy, go cool off,” Warren snapped before the man totally lost it.

He didn’t realize how close he was to death.

Warren might not understand a lot of this new world, but he could tell that Mel was at least near his own strength. Worse, she had a temper that made Jimmy’s look like a child’s tantrum. If Warren didn’t need Jimmy’s loyalty, he would have found it fun to let him get eaten alive by this pixie-looking girl.

You could offer her Jimmy’s position, he thought to himself, then immediately dismissed it. Mel would never go for it. She had made that abundantly clear, and then he’d have to handle Jimmy.

“We don’t need to be enemies, Mel,” Warren said, forcing a smile onto his face. This had gone about as bad as possible. He needed magical users, but the cost of taking these people would be too high.

Later, once the family and yourself are stronger. Look at them. She’s the only thing holding them together. Eventually they’ll break or she’ll grow tired of playing babysitter.

Warren could wait to take everything Mel had. All he needed was time. Only then would she possibly be vulnerable enough to recruit.

And if not, he wouldn’t mind growing stronger by cutting her down.

He couldn’t get enough of the power offered by this new world. Warren greedily sought any source of it whenever the opportunity arose. The stuff was in everything, from loot to aspects.

But Warren’t was stupid. He knew a losing battle when he saw one. Even outnumbered, he couldn’t take on Mel and win.

It was still difficult to control himself.

“You going to take a long walk off a short pier?” Mel asked.

“Not likely.”

“Then I don’t see how we can be anything but enemies,” Mel said. She threw up her arms. The explosive motion had Rick and Kevin both reaching for weapons before Warren held out a hand to stop them. “Wow. Jumpy?”

“You aren’t exactly making this easy,” Warren told her.

She smiled. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

Despite Warren’s grudging respect, he wanted nothing more than to unleash his Mayhem aspect on this upstart. The lack of respect was almost too much for him to ignore.

If I was younger, I would have happily choked the life out of her, no matter the cost to me or my men.

Fortunately, he was wiser and older. He had seen too many friends die or get sloppy and get caught. There were no cops anymore. No rules but the rule of strength. And yet, he wasn’t absolutely confident he could kill Mel before taking too serious a wound himself.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Healing was too hard to come by, and the healing he could access only closed up wounds. It was like having a magical EMT in your pocket, nothing more.

He had to admit, a coat of rippling blood was far more off-putting than anything his aspects could do. Just one more and you’ll reach Copper. She can wait that long.

“Tell me something,” Mel said, the commanding tone in her voice grated like nails on a chalkboard. “Why is it men always resort to tyranny the moment structure and order shits the bed? What is it in your makeup that makes you think basic bitch dictatorships are anything but a fool’s errand? Are you just dumb as bricks, or do you really think that this time, you’ll be on top ? You’re worse than college girls with uggs and pumpkin spice the moment a leaf hits the ground.”

Warren gritted his teeth. “Society has always been broken,” he told her sharply. “The strong have always been on top. Once they started ruling, they changed the way the game worked. They said ‘this land is ours and these are the laws you need to live by’ while ignoring their own. You think society was good? It was a mess . People like me lived in the cracks, watching good people get bilked by those with power and money. You’d have to be braindead to not make a grab for the crown the moment the old guard died.”

Mel grinned. “Finally, some truth.”

Taking a deep breath to calm his nerves, Warren couldn’t help but feel like he’d somehow lost that exchange. He needed to save face in front of his men. A hand raised and clenched into a fist. “You want to talk about truth?”

Mel’s smile did not slip an inch. In fact, it grew.

What does that bitch know?

“Problem?” she asked sweetly. “Looking for your friends, perhaps?”

Warren could feel cold sweat drip down his spine. No, she couldn’t have taken out his snipers. Not this little thing. They were perfectly hidden. Even the most observant man had walked right past them within inches.

Warren made the motion to fire warning shots again and nothing happened.

“If you killed them–” he started to say.

Mel laced her fingers behind her head, striking a pose of utter disrespect and aloofness. “Untwist your panties. I didn’t kill them because I didn’t know what was going on. I’m not a psychopath.”

Could have fooled me.

Getting his breathing under control, Warren took a gingerly step back. Losing a little face would be worth it to get out of here. His desire to recruit Mel warred with boiling hatred. In another life, he would have loved breaking her in, turning her from a wild animal to a loyal attack dog.

He let a little respect slip into his voice, “The offer still stands. You could join us. I’d make you a Captain immediately. You’d have control of your own group.” He motioned to the others. “Take them with you if you like. You’d be treated like a Queen. With your skills and my manpower? We’d be unstoppable.”

Mel laughed so disdainfully that Warren nearly summoned his sword right then and there. She wiped a tear from her brilliant green eyes. “You’re barking up the wrong tree, buddy.”

Warren spread his hands out wide and kept them there, the signal for retreat. He kept his gaze on Mel, knowing that the only reason she wasn’t throwing herself at him in a suicidal frenzy had something to do with those PTSD-ridden people behind her.

“You can’t blame a guy for trying.”

Mel snarled. “ Watch me. ”

Warren nodded. He recognized the signs. This was taking too long. She must be getting suspicious that he had more people coming.

If only! With a few more men, they might have been able to take them. Now their guard would be up. They had stumbled upon the area entirely by accident. Even if they could find it again, there was too little to gain going to war with Mel.

Warren had seen Rambo. He didn’t want a fantasy equivalent playing out with him as the villain. Not until he had more power at least.

“We’re leaving,” Warren said.

Mel’s look of disappointment spoke volumes. She summoned a strange, double-bladed spear in her hand and pointed it threateningly, trying to provoke a fight. “If I see any of you near me or my friends again, I won’t just kill you. I’ll kill every single one of your so-called Captains and Lieutenants. Anything you build, I’ll tear it down. Then I’ll come for you. Pass it around.” She shrugged. “Or don’t. More fun for me.”

Balling his fists up in rage, Warren kept a tight leash on his emotions. That she was trying to provoke a fight now that she knew it was just four against one was obvious, but Warren couldn’t figure out why unless she really was crazy.

Or she has aspects that trump yours. This isn’t as simple as whoever has more guys or more guns. Look at her. This world is hers. She understands it on an instinctual level.

Once more, Warren’s sense of self-preservation eased his temper back down. He felt a brief pang of loss for what could have been. She was smarter than she looked and had the power to back up that mouth of hers.

The moment he had relinquished the least bit of ground, she had seized it and used it to diminish him in front of everybody. The only response would be to fight or flee, further playing right into her hands.

I’ll remember this, Warren promised as he backed away slowly, his men copying his movements. I don’t know when, or where, but I’ll find you again. And you’ll regret every word out of your mouth.

The added humiliation washed over him as his men had to carry his downed snipers away.

Mel’s laughter followed them into the forest.

Nobody spoke for nearly a mile as they marched deeper, directly away from the camp.

Eventually, Jimmy exploded. He tossed down Eric’s unconscious body and rounded on Warren. “You should have let me kill her!”

Warren was ready for it. He used [Ironclad]. Plates of shiny silver metal sheathed his entire body until he resembled a medieval Iron Man. His enhanced strength caught Jimmy around the throat and lifted him off the ground with one arm.

“You idiot!” Warren barked at him. “Is this the thanks I get? I just saved your goddamned life! She would have gutted you like a fish, leaving you to bleed out at her feet. You think I should have let you fight her? How about I kill you right now and save her the trouble?!”

Jimmy’s eyes bulged and his face turned an ugly shade of puce, but he had enough sense to try shaking his head.

Warren dropped him to the ground, turning his back on him. He vented his rage by punching a tree, blasting through the thick bark and toppling the tree into the forest.

Jimmy retched and coughed behind him.

I’ve seen those eyes before, Warren thought, I can’t shake the feeling like I just managed to pull my head out of a lion’s mouth.

The feeling of relief only added to his mounting rage. He spun on his men. “If any of you ever go near this camp or that bitch again, I will personally kill you myself. They are not worth our time. Just like the werewolf! Got it? If we’re going to win this competition, we can’t waste valuable hours in petty conflicts. We’re moving on to the next plateau immediately and putting this area of weaklings behind us.”

Jimmy rose to his feet, averting his eyes and rubbing his red throat. “But after we get stronger…?” he asked hopefully.

Warren put a fatherly hand on Jimmy’s shoulder and playfully shook him. “When we are stronger, we’ll crush them. All that matters is what happens at the top. We’ll return and crush every person who dared to disrespect us. Until then–” His grip intensified, eliciting a whimper from Jimmy. “–we leave them alone.”

This entire competition would be theirs by the end, but only if they played smart. While Mel and her pals spent days hardening their defenses or finding a new place to hole up, Warren’s family would be killing monsters and gaining more Battle Points and aspects.

He looked back toward the direction of the encampment. So long as that group of broken individuals anchored that crazy bitch in place, nothing could threaten his rule.