"How much we got left?"

Melissa rummaged through the suppy sack. She shook her head, tossed it aside. "Enough."

"Doesn't look like enough."

"Shut up, Tyler, ya don't think I ain't fuckin aware of that?" The Khan leaned back, using one of the closed bedrolls as a pillow. "Won't really matter if we can't get out of here, anyway."

The two other Khans shifted their gaze down the quarry, to the shredded leather vest of their old friend. It'd happened too fast for any of them to stop him; a combination of psycho withdrawal and the dehydration that came with too much jet had taken a toll on her immune system. Frankly, Melissa had been surprised that any of them had lasted longer than a day. They weren't exactly fiends, but, you know, your body gets used to having such and such on a weekly, daily, basis and you start losing it.

It was supposed to be simple, run the package from Primm, say hi to pops, and get the hell out of there. She'd thought it odd that the quarry was empty of workers, didn't think the NCR gave them days off. They'd crashed there that night before meeting with her dad, and, well, when they woke up, there was an Alpha, a Mama, and a shit ton of baby deathclaws hopping around in the limestone.

She'd been stupid, and she'd lost one of her own as a result. And now they were all good as dead. None of them would say it, but fuck knows they were. Couldn't leave their ledge, couldn't cook, definitely couldn't sleep in peace. She didn't know why they didn't just stick their pistols in their mouths and call it a day, and if they hadn't been Great Khans, they definitely would have resorted to that sooner.

A thud sounded down in the quarry. That one they barely noticed.

But then a second sounded.

And a third.

By the fourth one, the three were grabbing at their binoculars and scopes, trying to find the source of the sounds.

"Lissa, the alpha. S'dead."

"NCR?"

Melissa shook her head. "Nah. They've been sittin' on this place for a week, longer, maybe. Independent, I'd say." She relaxed back into her bedroll. "No point fussin', doubt they're looking for us. If they manage to clear the quarry we can make for a spot closer to Sloan, sound good?"

It felt like hours before the thuds stopped echoing around the valley. The Khans had just started packing up their things when footsteps crunched up the narrow path to their camp. They were up in an instant, guns raised. Melissa saw the sniper rifle before she saw the woman's face.

"Trace?"