44.

Vicente woke up instantly, the predawn light softening the darkness in their room. Gabriella was a soft, warm, presence against his chest, her hair bundled up under his nose with strands somehow stuck in his mouth.

She had never been one for cuddling at night before all of this. Said he was too hot, that she couldn’t sleep like that. She had slept every night with his arms around her since that awful night when the System came. Vicente wasn’t going to complain about his wife’s desire to be closer to him.

Even if he woke up every morning with his arm asleep.

Vicente wiggled his arm out from under Gabriella, got up and started dressing. He heard the door open and close as Santiago left to go with his friends to scope out downtown. He stared down at the floor towards where the front door was and had to work to keep a smile off his face.

How could a father be so proud? Every time he saw his son standing there in front of the dangers of the world, he could feel his chest threatening to burst. Fear and joy and pride all mingling together as his little boy risked his life.

He dressed quickly and efficiently, the lack of light not hindering him in the least. He still marveled at it. How all his little aches and pains had disappeared. He felt like he was twenty again. Better than when he had been twenty. Strength and vitality that far surpassed what he had been like in his prime.

It didn’t make up for the horrors of the world, but it was a nice spot of sunlight in an otherwise terrible storm. It was mind boggling for him to see his little girls strong enough to pick up a truck. He remembered them struggling to walk, pudgy legs trembling to hold up their weight like it was yesterday. Yesterday he had seen Bianca pick up a truck near the front by the engine block and curl it repeatedly as a bet.

He walked down the stairs of his new house. It wasn’t a home yet, not like their old place. It was becoming a home though. Pieces of art were going up on the walls, Gabriella’s paintings covering the walls of the front room. He was slowly pulling together a decent kitchen with the proper utensils. Bianca had shoes she had taken from abandoned houses scattered around. Yesi had diagrams and sketches of the area on the coffee table and kitchen table.

Santi was the one that worried him. He had nothing. Everything he had was kept in his small, spartan room. There was no sign of his personality, of his habits, or hobbies. A room full of stolen clothes and a nightstand filled to bursting with the strange wooden coins and relics.

Santi had tossed that riftheart to Yessenia last night like it was a trinket, not caring at all for its apparent value. Vicente had been noticing it more and more, the boy put no value on things anymore, but he clung to the people around him like they were a liferaft at sea. It was in the quiet moments when there was no fighting and he could just sit still. Vicente could see the yearning, buried so deep in his boy’s eyes, the happiness in his smiles as his family talked around him. It was strange.

Similar to when someone found something they had thought lost forever.

Vicente shook the thoughts free of his head as he left the house. His boy had some secrets, but he would tell them when he could. In the meantime, Vicente had a breakfast to make for the people. They paid him for it, but if it wasn’t for Gabriella’s insistence he would have done it for free.

He walked to Hestor Norriega’s house. It was Hestor who had brought out the chickens with them and kept them through it all. He had a small thriving business selling the eggs to those who wanted fresh food. Hestor was sitting in the open garage with a steaming cup of coffee in his hand as Vicente walked up. The other man called out to him in Spanish.

“Good morning, Vicente. How are you doing?”

“Good, Hestor, and you?”

“Old and fat, my friend.” Hestor had thinning iron gray hair and was lean as a rail with a glorious thick mustache that was still onyx.

“If you’re fat, I fear what I am,” Vicente shot back with a laugh.

“You’re normal order?”

“Yes. The hens are still laying?”

“Yes, more than they ever did before. I swear they’re getting bigger too.”

“The hens or the eggs?”

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

“Both!” Hestor said with a booming laugh as he got up and led Vicente around the back of the house. The yard was full of well constructed hen houses with chicken wire fences wrapped around them, isolating the houses from each other. Dozens of oversized hens pecking around at the dirt.

A big bucket of chicken feed sat on a table and Hestor grabbed a handful and tossed it around the pens. The hens hurried toward it, pecking at the ground for their food.

“They're hungry all the time now and they start losing weight if I don’t feed them constantly.”

“They’re big.”

“Eggs are still good. Same price too.” Hestor reached over and pulled up a basket filled with eggs. Vicente pulled out a single wooden white coin and handed it to the man with a smile.

“Two hours or so and the food will be ready.”

“Thanks, Vicente. Gabriella’s tortillas are just as delicious as my mother’s were.”

“It’s a pleasure, Hestor.” Vicente took the heavy pail and walked away from the heavy pail and walked away. It took a half hour to get the rest of the groceries. Potatoes, flour, dried beans, lard, and everything else needed to keep running a restaurant. He had to take a liberated shopping cart that by the time he finished his trip around the neighborhood was groaning under the weight.

All of the food was supposed to be under Marisol’s control, but lots of people had taken to looting abandoned houses and trading what they didn’t need or couldn’t use. They filled the houses right behind the crafters, rows of homes filled with people hawking jars of peanut butter and found clothing.

The boys, Tristan and Chad, had taken to hunting some of the great wheeling birds that populated the edge of the town. They were easy to hunt and were heavier than any birds that flew that Vicente had seen. Closer to turkeys than chickens.

He traded away another of the wooden coins for a pair of the birds and a promise of a free meal. He didn’t have the ingredients to feed Chad, but once he did, he owed the man about twelve plates of food. Tristan was a big fan of his food and came by twice a day.

Vicente was walking back to the house, his heavy cart easy to push even with its heavy load. Vicente really did enjoy how much stronger and sturdier he was than he had been. It wasn’t like he had been a weak man, his job had ensured that, but this was different. It was so easy to be strong here, just a thought after a level and a direct increase to his strength and endurance.

Lot easier than spending hours in the gym everyday.

He saw Bianca, Cameron, and Gabriella walking around the squat building they called Homebase. They were talking to Santi’s friend Dexter, laughing and smiling. It eased his heart to see his love smiling like that. He waved to them as he kept pushing the cart towards the house. Gabriella would be right behind him to help with the food prep.

As he stepped up onto the steps of the house he heard a crash and the shattering of glass. The sound of flesh striking flesh and a muffled cry of pain echoed out and Vicente felt his heart leapt into his throat as adrenaline surged through his veins. He abandoned his cart and raced up the steps, smashing the door apart in his hurry into the house.

He heard another cry from the kitchen and raced through the house, jumping over the coffee table and slid into the kitchen. Men stood around, dressed roughly and with their weapons sheathed.

Abraham stood in the center of the room, blood dripping off his knuckles as he looked down at a slumped figure on the floor. Blood was spreading out in a pool around Yessenia as she cried softly, tears mixing with blood as tried to squirm away from him. Abraham raised his leg up and the world slowed.

Vicente lunged forward, moving as if he was in molasses. His heart was in his throat and a scream of rage and pain was boiling out of him as he tried to get there. Part of his mind registered the blank looks of the men in the kitchen, the bored gazes as they stared at him like he was nothing more than an insect.

Abraham stomped down on Yesi’s knee, bone snapping with a painful crunch as Yesi screamed in pain, tendons in her neck stretching out. Vicente’s fist impacted Abraham’s neck with the strength of a hammer. He felt his knuckles break, the pops thin and distant as he slammed into the man. It was like hitting a statue as he felt his bones shift as Abraham didn’t twitch.

“Ohhh, Vicente. You should have stayed out of this,” Abraham said in a bored voice. Vicente never slowed, his small belt knife coming free and ramming into the Abraham’s side, under his ribs. The blade dug a half inch then stopped and Abraham sighed as if he was annoyed.

There was a blur of movement and then overwhelming pain as he was thrown into a cabinet. Wood crunched under him, the cabinets splintering as he felt something wrong in his chest. He looked up, his sight wavering and blurry as something ran over his face. Blood, it was blood.

Abraham stood looking at him for a moment before turning to look at Yessenia again. His face tightened into a grimace of distaste before he leaned down over her.

“Where is the riftheart. I know Santiago gave it to you.”

“Fuck yourself,” Yesi cried, more in pain that defiance.

“Boss, we found it!” a voice called from upstairs. The crashing of furniture had been a distant sound to Vicente, but he understood. The bastards were stealing it for themselves.

“Santi will kill you for this,” Yesi spat out, rage burning in her eyes as cradled her shattered knee.

“I have plans for your upstart brother. Just like I do for you. Grab her, we’ve got to go.” Abraham motioned at his men and a pair raced over, grabbing her under her armpits and dragging her up as she screamed in agony.

Vicente rose, a jagged splinter of wood in his hand as he roared in rage, the pain and anger mingling into a violent storm. He stabbed down, aiming for the soft eye of the man closest to him who was holding his little girl. The wood pierced the eye and the man screamed, shrill and painful.

Another overwhelming blow hit him to the side, throwing him away again. He blasted apart a wall and landed in a tangle of broken limbs. He couldn’t breath, his chest not rising as he struggled to get back up. He had to save his girl. His arms weren’t listening. They didn’t move and the world was growing faint and pale.

“Daddy! Daddy! NOOOOOOO!!!!!!” A cry so faint that he could barely hear it. Vicente struggled and struggled, finally getting to his knees as the world swayed around him. His little girl needed him, he couldn't stop until he got to her.

“The strength of a Father’s love. It’s admirable,” Abraham’s voice came from somewhere above him as all the light in the world faded away and Yessenia’s voice echoed in his ears.