"There. You see?" I hand Amy the heavy weapon. "Simple enough. Look through here. Line up a head with the crosshairs. Pop."

She holds the rifle like a bouquet. "I don't like guns," she says, pouting.

"What's your opinion on being eaten alive?"

At first Amy balks, every inch the American princess - then she sees my eyes. The rifle shifts in her hands. "Okay," she whispers. Now she's holding it like a club. Better than nothing, I suppose. I move her hands to where they're supposed to be.

Amy gets herself acquainted with the rifle. Tinct! She's pulled the trigger without knowing it and looks up at me in sick dread. The barrel is pointed right at my heart.

I give her a big smile. Her own answers weakly.

I drop to my knees and continue cleaning my pistol on the cloth laid out at our feet. "Jean says we're safe from the all sides but North East - there." I point to where the catwalk was. We're in a clearing a few miles back from the house and up on a rise. A good vantage point - past the treetops we can see in all directions. The forest peters out to bare grass on the south side. Jean says the villagers always stay on their side of the river, now, close to the church. An underground passage leads from the church basement to a castle far off in the distance. I can barely see it - like a pencil sketch on the parchment sky.

My ward peers through the scope. She's eighteen if she's a day, pretty like all American girls expect to be. Despite her pampered looks and perfect nails, I see a hardness in her. Waiting.

"When did you get infected?" Snap-click-tinct-click. My gun comes together in a matter of seconds.

She scans the horizon and says nothing for a moment. Then she lowers the gun and averts her eyes.

"When they grabbed me, I guess. They knocked me out." She tucks her hair behind her ears. On her left temple is fading purple welt. "I didn't even see them coming."

"Now you can," I say.

She figures it out in a few seconds. When she takes up the rifle again, her grip is steady. "Right," she says curtly.

Jean pointed us to the clearing and slunk off in the opposite direction to check his traps. If anything comes from the south, we'll hear it. I don't trust him - call me a cynic, but anyone who poisons me gets a big fucking X in my book - and him lurking about alone in the woods makes me edgy. Could be he's gone to get reinforcements. Could be he's setting traps for us. Could be a lot of things. Most of them unpleasant.

Sun is beginning to set. Overhead the clouds take on rust in their shadows. The sound of the river is a dull hum on the edge of hearing. Wind whispers through the trees - animals scuttle through the undergrowth.

I do my best not to think of Leon. I fail. Shit, Leon. Holy fucking shit.

I have a slight headache. Tension or infection? Jean says there's time. And if I believe anything it's that he's in the same boat as I am.

I chuckle. Amy looks at me suspiciously.

"Fucking aliens, man."

Amy does not smile back.

Snap!

I twig breaks a few feet down the south side of the slope. Amy spins, gasps, and pulls the trigger on her empty rifle. Tinct!

A heartbeat and I crouch with my gun aimed at the trees. Nothing.

"Come out, Jean," I growl.

There's a rustle to the right and Jean steps out from behind a tree with his hands up.

"A little jumpy, no?" He wears a great big grin as he saunters up the slope. "The perimeter is secure. I can't see any aldeanos. Must all be at a party. You can put that down now," he says as he reaches the peak.

I stand and keep my pistol out. "You were gone a long time."

He claps me on the shoulder. "It's a big place, my friend."

"I want to go home."

Amy holds the rifle in one hand and looks like she's about to drop. In a moment Jean is at her side; he takes her arm, rests the back of his hand against her forehead - doctor stuff, man stuff. The rifle falls down and they don't even notice.

My team. Jesus.

Amy's faint passes; she pales but stays conscious. I think she's beginning to discover something about herself - something no one expects of a papered president's daughter. Her eyes come over defiant. She ties her hair back tight with the cloth used to gag her.

We sit in a circle, and lay it all out. Jean retrieves a tattered map from his vest and traces our possibilities.

"We need to get to the castle. Quickest way is the church basement - tunnel leads straight there. Trouble is, we have no way of getting to it from this side. Someone cut the bridge."

I raise an eyebrow. "Someone doesn't fancy being lunch."

Quicksilver smile. "Perdón. We have a few options. If we make our way down here -" his finger moves from our position on the map down the south side and swings east "- we can cross over on the lake. There were some aldeanos on a boat earlier, just two. They dumped something in the water." He hesitates.

"What?"

He shakes his head to clear it. "No es nada. Must have been the undertow."

I lower my voice. "What?"

"It was a body. It disappeared as soon as they dropped it. I think... I think there might be something in the lake."

We talk for half an hour. Jean gives us each some extra ammo and a few grenades. We can cross the lake, take the old mines to a reserve in the castle keep. Jean says to expect heavy resistance.

"These the same mines where they found the eggs?"

Jean nods silently.

Amy hardens the more we speak, but says little herself. The slack stiffens out of her back. She pulls the rifle on her lap. Cold, rusty light bounces off the clouds. A killing light. By the time we reach the mines it'll be night.

I like the dark.

We're moving. I take point and Jean brings in the rear. Amy runs with the rifle in her arms like an action hero. Three infested people with gun-barrels out. All we have to lose is our lives.

Shadows deepen in the forest.

Soon, we catch sight of the lake.