Claire woke to thunder and screams.
The battered woman did not move as thunder shook the hotel over and over again. She was in a pitch-black utility room on the third floor, for easy access Richardson had said, and laying on a bare cot. Time had no meaning in the dark, so she measured it by beatings, feedings and rapes.
"I am Claire Marie, of The People, always and forever," she repeated to herself for the thousandth time as the screams faded in and out.
Now the harsh crack-crack of rifle fire was drowned out by the earsplitting chatter of some kind of automatic weapon and it was getting closer.
The door burst open, spilling harsh and blinding light onto Claire's cot, and Richardson stood framed in the door. He was pointing something at her.
"That crazy fuck's not going to get you!" he screamed and then jerked as a hand pulled his head back.
Someone pushed him into the room and closed the door behind them.
"Oh god! My legs! I can't feel my legs!" Richardson moaned in the darkness.
A glow stick, at least a foot long, was suddenly thrown across the room. Several more were thrown until Claire at last could see who had sank the knife deep into Richardson's lower back.
It was Achilles.
"Achilles," Claire moaned, struggling to rise but found she didn't have the strength.
Achilles didn't look at her as he tied Richardson's hands together. He was dressed in black, tactical gear of some kind, with...
That can't be a grenade launcher strapped to his chest.
Some kind of automatic weapon dangled from his left shoulder and a handgun rested in a holster at his hip. It was definitely not something she would expected from The People's greatest warrior.
Well, maybe that's why he is.
Now Achilles was bending over her tapping a syringe. He stuck it in her arm and seconds later time started moving right again.
"Achilles," Claire clutched him around the shoulders tightly and didn't even flinch when he returned the pressure. She knew that he would never hurt her. "I knew you'd come for me."
"Always," he said, "Can you move?"
"Yeah," she said, surprised that her body didn't hurt, "What did you give me?"
"A little epinephrine/painkiller combo that someone cooked up. We've got gear and a mule waiting outside. We've got to move fast. I think I killed everyone but some of them might be hiding. They won't last long when the zombies get here though. I blew four or five holes in the damn building." Achilles turned to stare down at Richardson. "But first, what do you want to do with him?"
Claire gazed down at Boss Richardson as the man glared up at them through the pain and the blood that he was always so glad to inflict on others.
"Too bad we don't have anything to impale him with."
Achilles grinned and unslung a duffel bag he had on his back. He quickly twisted together a seven foot tall spear with a wicked looking point.
"You were saying."
"Uhm, now it's my turn?"
Achilles and Claire both laughed as if it were the funniest joke ever uttered by a human.
Boss Richardson began to sob.