Disclaimer: Claiming I own them won't make Valve release Episode 3 any faster, so...they're not mine.
Flood
Nick wasn't sure when it happened, when they got separated, and he found himself well and truly alone. They'd just crossed over into the town proper, Ellis whooping obscenities at the sugar mill behind them, Coach unsteady on his feet in the rising water and muttering for the kid to shut up, dear Lord, just make him shut up. That was when the storm—shit, if it wasn't a hurricane, he didn't know what was—picked up into a whirling gale. Rain and wind whipped through his jacket with razor-sharp precision, dragging across wounds new and old. A shingle narrowly missed taking off his ear; he half expected to see a zombified Auntie Em flying by, next.
He thought he'd heard Coach booming out a warning over the rattling wind to stick close, but by then Nick couldn't see much beyond the trigger of his sub-machine gun. Like any sane man in the middle of a hurricane in the zombie apocalypse, he yelled for the others to follow him and then headed for cover, elbowing open the door to an abandoned trailer and diving in. Two Infected curled up on the kitchen floor went down to some well-placed bullets moments later.
Then he waited.
Rain and leaves gusted in through the still-open door, and Jesus Christ, but he thought he could hear the roar of an encroaching horde over the storm. (Thunder and lightning, it seemed, pissed the zombies off as much as they did Coach's bum knee.) Still, all that worried him less than the fact that no one had followed him inside. Nor could he make out any sounds of gunfire, or human voices.
Shit bitch son of a whore.
He had to close the door in the face of the ever-increasing tempest and a few zombies who somehow managed to sprint through the flood. What he dearly hoped was just the wind shook the trailer on its piss-poor foundation and took off chunks of siding. "Where the fuck is everybody?" His voice came out in a whisper, harsh and fast, as he reloaded his gun. Down to his last clip, naturally.
Where the hell was Rochelle? She'd been right behind him, practically standing on his heels. Unlike Ellis, she had the sense God gave her to keep close, keep everybody within sight.
Nick peered out through the gaps in the plywood nailed over the window. A sinking feeling had gotten into the pit of his stomach. If she'd gone to fetch Ellis, he was going to throw that boy to the next Tank he saw. Anyone stupid enough to break away from the group in this weather deserved what he got.
The storm only seemed to grow worse as he watched, until water ran down the window in sheets and he couldn't see a thing, not one goddamn thing. Still, Nick stood in the dark, soaked straight through and shivering, and waited for some sign of life from outside. Water trickled down his sleeves and that stupid gas can strapped to his back and dripped down onto the linoleum. The trailer reeked of mildew, and somewhere under his feet, he felt the floor shift under rising flood waters. Not the most disgusting place he'd found himself in over the past few days—that prize went to the shithole swamp village, no question—but it was close.
Still he waited, and listened. It wasn't like he could do much else. And at least he wasn't getting any wetter while he did it.
Somebody up above the storm clouds must have been watching him and feeling particularly sadistic. The wind let up for a split second, as if sucking in its breath for a truly spectacular gust...and in that instant he heard the shrill, clarion shriek of a startled Witch.
"Goddammit." The sharp intake of breath and tightening of his hand on his gun were simple instinct by now. The sugar mill had taught him that.
It took him a moment to realize that the Witch wasn't after him; the cry had come from somewhere farther up the street. Someone else had pissed her off.
Any sane person would have just stayed put. The Nick of a few weeks ago would absolutely have sat his ass down until the screaming stopped. Maybe lit a cigarette and played some solitaire while he waited. Of course, zombie apocalypses had an odd way of changing a person's habits. Nick kicked the door open—a zombie that had been standing in front of it got sent flying backwards, its nose caved in—and ran out into the blinding rain.
The storm still raged at full force, meaning he could barely see where he was going. The muddy water swirling around his shins didn't help. It occurred to him, too late, that this was by far the stupidest idea he'd ever had: in the rain, he could walk smack into that Witch and never see her. Then where would he be? Nobody was going to charge out and save him.
Too late to turn around now, though. The trailer was long out of sight, somewhere down the street. He was now in what might pass for an upscale neighborhood in Hicksville. All the homes were up on stilts, in case the nearby river ever burst its banks. Yeah, why didn't we guess this crapsack town would flood?
His foot glanced off of something underwater, something soft and squishy; he stumbled. The water around him churned a brighter, reddish brown. Shit. Shit shit shit.
It took him a moment to fumble with the flashlight taped to his gun, made slick from so much rain and mud, and turn it on. It illuminated little beyond his suit pants, formerly white but now a color closer to the water churning around him. At any other time he would have stopped to curse out that tragedy. Now, he just slipped the muzzle of his gun below the water's surface, grimly poking and prodding around for the body.
It wasn't Coach, he knew that much. Too small. That left Ellis or Rochelle—or your garden variety zombie, so argued the one shred of optimism he hadn't managed to kill. But with the way his luck had been going...
The body had been caught on something. With a wrench and a sickening pop, Nick worked it free: the gray, haggard face of a Witch floated up to greet him. The snarl still frozen on her bloodied lips nearly made him leap backwards. "Jesus Christ." He hadn't realized just how much fear and anxiety he'd been carrying around until he let it out in one shaky exhale.
Somebody had killed the Witch. That was good, right?
Nick paused to catch his breath and glance around. The wind at least had died down, for now, but rain still came down relentlessly. It weighed down his clothes and ran into his eyes, blurring his vision, not to mention freezing him solid despite the humid air. The container of diesel on his back had at least settled itself in the hollow between his shoulders—sort of a cumbersome, highly flammable shield, really.
Under the storm, quiet prevailed. He couldn't even make out the shambolic forms of any zombies, lurking in the distance. It was the most alone he'd been since this clusterfuck had started; since he'd woken on that Savannah riverboat to nothing but death and silence.
Being alone had lost its appeal.
Nick shook the mud and blood from his gun and stepped around the Witch's corpse. He didn't dare call out for any of the others—they probably wouldn't hear him, even if they were close, but every zombie in town would. They always did.
As he passed the house's wooden front steps, Nick stopped, considered his options, and then started up them. The flood latched onto his shoes and threatened to pull them off entirely as he broke away from the current. He spotted something dark smeared on the deck, like blood, but that wasn't so unusual these days. Besides, he needed ammo—all he had now was the last clip in the sub-machine gun and six bullets in his Magnum, snug against his hip—or a fresh gun. Maybe some alcohol, for drinking or for molotov making, whichever he felt like.
The house's front door was ajar, gradually giving way to rot in the humid air. Somehow, the wind hadn't taken it off its hinges. The front windows were all boarded up, though, and the roof looked intact. A better-than-shit sign, usually.
Nick pushed the door open, gun and flashlight leading, and tried to step inside as quietly as his sodden shoes would allow. All he could hear was the rain patterning down on the roof. In the dark, the flashlight illuminated the front room—a kitchen and living room all in one, judging by the furnishings—only in piecemeal glimpses. So it naturally came as some surprise when the barrel of a shotgun butted up against his sternum.
"What the f—" He leaped back, the curse lost to a renewed gust from the storm. His feet slipped on the wet deck outside, and only some quick, ungraceful flailing of his arms kept him from tumbling headfirst over the rail and back into the water. A few stray bullets from his gun peppered the air; his finger had squeezed on the trigger as he'd tumbled backwards.
As soon as he was steady on his feet and convinced he hadn't accidentally summoned every zombie within fifty feet, Nick eased forward into the house again. Zombies don't use shotguns. "Ro?" he tried again, quietly. Lightning flashed—close, close enough that thunder resounded through the streets almost simultaneously. "Ellis, if that's you, I swear I'll punch you all the way back to—"
"Nick?" Rochelle's voice sounded weary and ragged, barely a whisper over the steadily increasing rain, but more than welcome. "Sweet Jesus, I don't know why I thought you were a zombie." The shotgun wavered and then clattered to the floor.
"It's the suit; it fools people," he shot back: sarcasm to mask his relief. Another gust of wind, following fast on a thunderclap, shook the house around them. Nick shut the door and locked it—for all the good it would do. Despite the foul weather and the agitation it caused them, the Infected somehow always knew exactly where to find them. If they couldn't break through the door, they'd just tear apart the roof.
"Where the hell'd you go? Off playing with Witches? I thought we learned better than that—" The tangential rant about Ellis' tripping and landing on a Witch in the cane field because Jesus Christ, that boy could not watch where he was going, died in his throat when he finally caught her in his flashlight beam.
Rochelle had overturned the kitchen table to use as an impromptu barricade, but she was using it more to prop herself up than anything. Her knees were tucked up near her chest, making her look far smaller than she already was, and her dark skin had taken on a paler, ashen quality. The wood floor all around her was slick with blood.
"Jesus." Nick swallowed hard, his mouth suddenly running dry. "What happened?"
"Witch happened," she answered around a cough. Her face contorted into a brief, ugly expression of agony. "I backed into her in the storm. Never saw her."
"Well, you sure did a good job of killing her." Nick moved around the table and to her side. It was with some small measure of relief that he found the blood on the floor had mingled with rainwater, creating bright red pools—and the impression there was more blood on the ground than there really was. "You mind if I have a look?"
Rochelle shook her head once, twice. With his flashlight held between his teeth, he knelt down behind her, finally saying to hell with getting yet more blood on his suit. Somehow, the gas can hadn't shielded her—though neither had the Witch's claws punctured it. Which was just as well; there was no way in hell he was making that trip again. She'd gotten it off her back and pressed a dirty and now blood-soaked rag in its place. Nick kicked the plastic container out of his way.
An ominous lightning flash, close enough to light up the whole room as bright as day, accompanied the rag as he peeled it away. So too did a hiss of pain from Rochelle, and a string of curses from Nick.
It was bad: three long gouges, halfway up her back, starting just right of her spine and winding around to her side. Her t-shirt was ripped too, the bright pink fabric sporting a few new reddish-brown stains.
"You quit cussing," Rochelle murmured. Her fingers curled and uncurled against the edge of the table. "Must be worse than I thought."
Nick sucked in a breath. "I can't see your ribs. It's not all bad." He thought he heard her chuckle, weakly. The bleeding had just started to slow. Or maybe that was that last pesky shred of optimism talking. "Can you walk?" The storm was still raging outside, but he didn't feel like lingering.
"You wanna carry me?" was her immediate retort. Then, more softly, "This needs stitches. I know it does. Where's Coach? And Ellis?"
"I was hoping you'd know." Nick panned his flashlight over the room, looking for anything resembling first aid. He'd brought a kit with him off the boat, but used it—all of it, down to the last bit of gauze—on Ellis, after that incident in the cane field. "I lost track of them in the storm."
"Damn." The word came out as a soft sigh. "We're gonna have to go find them," she continued, gripping the table as if meaning to stand. "I guess I can walk—"
Before he was even entirely aware of what he was doing, Nick grabbed her by the shoulders and pushed her back down to the floor. Whether he hurt her in the process, he didn't much care. "No, here's what we're gonna do." He deliberately talked over her muttered protests. "You're going to stay right here, and I'm going to search this place for some first aid. Then once I get you back in one piece, then we go find Coach and Ellis. Hell, they're probably at the Burger Tank by now, waiting and wondering what's taking us so goddamn long."
Or at least he hoped they were. He wasn't so sure he'd wait, not in this weather, and with this many zombies around. But he drew that line of thought up short, taking his Magnum out of his belt and pressing it into Rochelle's hands. "Hang onto this, just in case. It's only got six bullets left."
"Great. That'll help," he heard her grumble as he stood. Whether she was being sincere or not was hard to tell.
From that main room, the house broke off into a short series of dark, narrow corridors and white craftsman doors, all of them closed but not a one locked. With his gun in one hand and flashlight in the other, Nick searched rooms one by one. The windows at the back of the house hadn't been boarded up, and in the murky, green light outside he could make out the forms of a few Infected stumbling through the rain. He turned the flashlight off, searching those rooms in the dark, and kept well away from the windows.
Mostly all he found was junk: moldering clothes and trinkets. Looters had taken anything that looked remotely valuable when the infection first hit. He did stumble across a few bodies—bastards lucky enough to just up and die from the virus, maybe—in one of the bedrooms. The stench of decay almost defied description, but Nick gave the room a thorough search anyway. Where there were uninfected dead bodies, there were usually guns and ammo.
He struck gold in a dresser drawer someone in the house had converted into a miniature gun rack. Most of the guns had been taken by others passing through, leaving only a few pistols of varying calibers behind. Nick, working on a hunch, pulled the drawer all the way out. It hit the floor with a thunk that drew a wince out of him and a tentative, distant, "Nick? You okay?" from Rochelle.
At least his hunch had held true: duct taped to the back of the drawer were a dozen boxes of shotgun, pistol, and Magnum ammo. God bless the paranoid rednecks. He ripped all of the boxes free, jamming them into his pockets for now. After a moment's thought he picked up the remaining two pistols, too. If he couldn't find a use for them, Rochelle would.
That left the problem of first aid, one solved by raiding all the house's medicine cabinets. Taken together, the supplies left in them formed a whole kit. Nick brought them all back to Rochelle wrapped in an old t-shirt. "Looks like today's your lucky day." Blood and water soaked through what was left of his shoes as he knelt down behind her. She hadn't moved much; the Magnum was balanced on the table, and she kept it aimed at about head height on the front door. "Any zombies?"
"Not yet." Her round face was pinched in concentration. "I think the storm's letting up, but they're not quieting down out there."
He looked around for a good place to set his flashlight, settling on the kitchen counter beside them. "Well, they can probably smell all the blood you got all over the floor."
The look Rochelle shot him over her shoulder implied that, had she been in better shape, he would have gotten a slap for that. He offered her a thin-lipped grin in return. What did she expect, an apology? "That shirt's gonna have to come off, sweetheart."
She nodded, hesitantly lowering the Magnum. A zombie groaned outside—just on the other side of the wall, from the sound of it. "I'll need some help."
"I can handle that." The ragged edges of her shirt were clinging to the wounds; rather than draw out the pain, Nick just ripped them clear. Rochelle muttered a thin string of curses under her breath, even as she slipped the shirt up over her head.
Somehow, it ended up in Nick's hands. He draped it over one of the table legs. His suit jacket followed moments later, just as soon as he pried the gas can from his shoulders. Neither really deserved to end up tossed on the floor, collecting blood, or so he thought.
The Witch's claws had sliced almost clean through one of the straps to her bra, too, gouging at the flesh underneath. Nick unhooked it without pausing to ask permission. "You know," he said, fishing around for a bottle of iodine, "most girls make me buy 'em dinner and a few drinks before the clothes start flying."
Rochelle made a strangled noise somewhere between pain and exasperation. "If you're not going to behave, Nick, I can wait until we find Coach to get this taken care of."
Nick chuckled wryly. "I can behave. Relax." There had been no clean cloths to speak of, so he tore off a bit of the bandages and poured the iodine onto it. "This'll sting like hell, by the way." He gave her a few seconds to brace herself—never let it be said that his bedside manner was that bad—and then started to clean the wound.
Those few seconds' warning were, apparently, not enough. The next thing he knew, Rochelle had all but sprung off the floor and launched herself back into him. Only a last minute fumble kept him from falling flat on his back. Her hands ended up gripping his thighs, her chipped fingernails digging in so tightly spots started to burst across his vision.
"Son of a bee-sting," he thought he heard her murmur, somewhere near his ear. He could barely hear her over his own string of curses.
His hand covered hers, trying to pry her nails loose. No luck. Her skin was warm under his, and still damp from the rain, with half a dozen bruises and scrapes under that. "Ro," he managed through clenched teeth, "let go." Not that he wouldn't have enjoyed this under other circumstances, and if she hadn't been using a death grip.
"Shit—sorry." She let go immediately, and some of the feeling started to come back into his legs. "That hurt," she added as she picked the Magnum back up and trained it on the door again.
"I figured," he grumbled back, resisting the temptation to remark on the bruises he was going to have, thanks to her. "Guess I should be glad you didn't just shoot me." He picked up the iodine again—most of it had spilled on the floor, and the bottle hedged on empty. "You ready?"
He watched the slender curve of her back as she straightened, muscles tensed and bracing. "Yes. Ready." The words were punctuated by another clap of thunder from outside. Nick, working a bit more carefully this time, chose not to take that as a bad sign.
He'd finished cleaning out the wounds—now a bright, irritated pink, and still bleeding—before she spoke again. "You think Coach and Ellis are all right?"
"Maybe—hang on; I'm gonna start in on the stitches." He picked up the sutures and tried to decide on a good place to start. "To be honest, I didn't think they'd make it this far."
To her credit, Rochelle didn't flinch much when he began stitching her back together. Though he did feel her back did rise a little under his hands as she sucked in an unsteady breath. "You didn't?"
He would have laughed if he hadn't been trying to concentrate. "Hell, I didn't think Ellis would make it out of the hotel. Coach...I gave him until the city limits. Or maybe the food court. It depends."
She chuckled once, briefly. "What about me?" Her voice had grown higher and thinner with pain. "Let me guess...you didn't even think I'd make it off the roof."
A good guess, actually. He wondered if she'd ever tried gambling. Truth be told, he hadn't thought much of her at first: a nice ass to watch on their way up the stairs, sure, but that didn't do much against zombies. And she'd been loud and brash, like Ellis, though with seemingly more common sense. He'd given her until they got out of the hotel.
Of course, that was before he'd seen her get a Charger off Coach with nothing but a fire axe and some choice swear words.
"I gave you longer than I did both of them," he answered after a lengthy pause. "How's that?"
She glanced back at him, a smile tugging at her lips. "Sounds to me like you're hedging your bets, Nick."
He spared her a smirk and tried to concentrate on the stitches. Rochelle was not the sort of woman who got conned easily, if at all, something he'd figured out long before they left Savannah. Not that he didn't give it his best shot, now and then. He enjoyed challenges. Especially when they didn't involve zombies.
A renewed downpour outside drew his attention away from her—as did the sudden, unmistakable sound of glass shattering, at the back of the house. "Shit."
Rochelle raised the Magnum. "Keep stitching. I'll shoot." The exhaustion had left her face all at once, replaced by grim determination.
"Whatever the lady wants." He did stop to hand her some more ammunition, at least, and reload her shotgun. She'd only had one shell left in it. He went back to stitching—on to the second gouge now—by the time the first wave of Infected came running down the hall.
It went against every instinct he had not to immediately grab a weapon and start firing. They were just feet away, and Jesus, they ran so fast.
Rochelle, bracing herself against the kitchen cabinets with one arm, stayed calm and picked out her shots. They were clustered so tight in the hallway that it was hard to miss.
Only when she had to stop and reload did he pick up the shotgun and open fire. Bodies went sprawling and a fine, bloody mist gathered in the air. It complimented the ringing in his ears nicely.
It took only a minute for the zombies' numbers to dwindle down to nothing. One lone straggler came charging down the hall, hollering something not quite words, but not quite sheer animal grunts, either. Rochelle, the Magnum reloaded, dispatched him with a bullet between his glowing eyes.
"Nice shot," he murmured.
Her reply was, at first, terse. "Hurry. There'll be more of them." But then her expression softened and she added, "Thanks."
More zombies wandered in, individually and in groups, as he finished up the stitches. No doubt the gunfire had attracted their attention. Rochelle kept one of the pistols he'd found—less recoil, making life easier for them both—and picked them off as they came.
Finally, the last of the bandages went on, hiding both the wounds and his amateurish stitching. "There you go, Ro." As an afterthought, he tugged her bra back onto her shoulders and hooked it back together.
A faint blush seemed to color her cheeks as she turned, slowly. "Thanks, Nick. I—well, I owe you one."
"Actually, that makes three you owe me." He stood, wiping the blood off on his pants leg. One day, that would stop killing him a little inside. "But I'll waive it just this once if you'll let me take you out to the Burger Tank."
She laughed—a real, genuine laugh—and eased her shirt back on. "Burger Tank? Classy, Nick. Really classy."
He shrugged his suit jacket back on, and then the gas can. He picked up hers, too, looping the rope around his wrist. She watched him do it but didn't register any protests. "Hey, come with me to Vegas and I'll show you a real good time." Next came the Magnum, tucked back in under his belt, and the shotgun. Last was the flashlight.
Her brown eyes lit up with a hint of silent laughter. "Still not classy enough for me. Sorry." She took the proffered sub-machine gun—and then surprised him by taking his hand and pulling herself to her feet.
"The lady's hard to please," he remarked with some amusement. Still unsteady on her feet, she had yet to let go of his hand. "Ready when you are."
"Then let's go." She let go of him and took a few tentative, wincing steps toward the door. Only when she was more sure of her footing did she step outside.
Nick followed close at her heels, partly for support, in case she stumbled. And, as they stepped out into a storm still blazing with some sort of singular vengeance, he wanted to make sure he didn't lose sight of her again.
Their hike—of just a few blocks—proved slow and more grueling than a marathon. The flood swirled up past their knees now, bogging them down. Rochelle's back wouldn't let them take to the rooftops, though, and Nick wasn't keen on being that visible anyway. Whenever the storm whipped itself to a total frenzy they were left blind and directionless—and often besieged by riled up zombies.
Through it all, Rochelle kept hold of his sleeve so they wouldn't be separated, and tried to keep her gun steady. Nick had to admire her tenacity, really. He just hoped it would pay off.
"I don't see the boat." Rochelle squinted into the middle distance, shielding her eyes with her hand. The rain had let up just enough for them to see the Burger Tank on the other side of the street, and the churning river just beyond. "Or...well, anybody."
Nick hoisted himself over the drooping fence to land at her side. "Dammit, I am not going back and searching—"
The crack of a rifle and a boyish whoop interrupted him.
"Well," he corrected himself, "at least Ellis is still here. Lucky us."
Rochelle ignored his sarcasm and set off across the street at what had to be a painful jog. "Ellis! Ellis!"
Nick arrived just in time to see a bedraggled blue baseball cap peek over the lip of the restaurant's roof. A hunting rifle and the rest of Ellis followed soon after.
"Ro! And hell, you brought Nick with ya! How about that?" His wide grin belied all the scratches and bruises on his face. Not to mention the bandages that ran along his upper right arm, disappearing under his shirt before emerging briefly along the side of his neck: the product of that earlier entanglement with a Witch. "Me 'n Coach were just gonna fire up the Burger Tank sign, use that to signal Virgil. And the both of you, too—at least 'till you came along just now."
Nick peered inside the restaurant's dark, flooded interior. "How? There's no power." Moron, his tone added, though Ellis didn't seem to catch the hint.
"I got the generator up and runnin' again." Ellis pointed to the generator, now lofted up on cinder blocks beside the restaurant's long-missing front door. It wasn't just running—it practically purred, oblivious to the muddy water rising around it. All right, so Ellis could be useful sometimes. Maybe even clever. Nick would give him that much.
"Coach is with you? You two are all right?" The relief in Rochelle's voice was palpable.
Ellis lowered a ladder down to them, answering cheerfully. "Well, sure. I got lost in the storm a bit, but then Coach found this rope and a grappling hook. Stuck it to my overalls so I wouldn't wander off." He held up the grappling hook in question to illustrate his point.
"It started out as undignified, then got funny, then went back to downright undignified again." He hefted the grappling hook over one shoulder, grinning. "But now I'm gonna use it to rope me a Tank!"
Coach appeared behind him with an armload of molotovs and another hunting rifle. "Boy, what'd I tell you about that hare-brained idea?"
Ellis took a few of the molotovs from him, seemingly unphased. "Actually, you thought it was pretty damn funny. Last time I brought it up, you just laughed."
"He was laughing at you, Overalls," Nick felt the need to point out. "Not with you."
Ellis didn't seem to realize the distinction or at least shrugged it off, going on at some length about his plan to rope a Tank and then do...something with it. By the second sentence, Nick had already tuned him out in favor of helping Rochelle up the ladder, murmuring, "Ladies first."
Rochelle rolled her eyes and clamored up, albeit slowly. Coach was waiting at the top to help her up. "You all right, little sister?"
"I'm still in one piece," she answered wearily. "I'll tell you the whole story when we get back on the boat."
That seemed to satisfy Coach for the moment, because he nodded to Ellis just as Nick pulled himself onto the roof and then up to his feet. "I'm gonna get these two some more ammo and a few of those pipe bombs we found. You wanna light that sign up?"
Ellis darted for the control panel with an expression on his face like a kid at Christmas. The rain began to pick up again, a cold wind lashing at them with no signs of easing up soon. Even the sudden burst of florescent light from the sign overhead did little to dispel the gloom. If anything, for Nick at least, it made his mood worse: the Infected were like goddamn moths to flame when it came to bright lights. They'd be swarming any second now. Ellis was already laughing, his rifle cracking as he picked off a few nearby zombies.
Nick glanced over at Rochelle. Exhaustion showed on her face again, dark circles just barely visible under her eyes. Some of her tightly coiled hair fell out of its bun to frame her face. He wasn't sure if she'd make it to the boat or not, and wasn't willing to start making bets on it.
Still, when she noticed his gaze, she glanced back at him and smiled. Then Coach handed her a crudely built pipe bomb, and that smile changed to a wicked grin.
A smart gambler always knew when to call: she'd make it.