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"Well, shit" Juan took a deep breath His keen eyes flicked to Katie

"Where’d you pick ’em up?"

"Emorton was overrun It looked like the whole toas turned They weren’t too messed up so they were fast," Katie answered "I’m Katie, by the way This is Jenni and Jason"

"I’m Juan," he answered and shook his head "We lost athem off the perimeter before"

"We learned from our et overrun," Travis said

"What are you going to do?" Katie glanced toward the barriers then back at Travis

"We’re going to secure soive them shovels and soainst the outer perih their skulls, jumble up their brains We took out around a dozen that way before we lost a man the last time But we didn’t have the safety lines the first tied with sorrow

Juan shook his head and looked up at the darkening sky "Good thing we got the lights set up And if the grid goes doe’re on backup power…" He shook his head again "This is a fucked up situation"

"Just get son of trouble, we yank the bait in front of the zoonna cohed heavily "Okay I’m on it"

Jenni waited on the stairs with Jason She felt anxious at the conversation and Jason looked unnerved Katie looked the opposite She seemed comforted by the words of the two men Jenni slowly realized it was because Katie felt that at last there was a working plan of action

Travis clapped Juan on the shoulder "Keep ned tone and walked off

Travis turned and instead of resuhtly touched Katie’s arm "I want to hear about what’s up with you How you ended up here"

"Sure, but let’s eat" Katie gave hiry"

With a nod of his head, Travis took hold of her ar back for a second to watch Juan order several men off the construction of the wall, then she followed Katie and Travis inside She felt moody all at once and couldn’t help it

As he had proh food up in the co hall Jenni and Jason al up plates Katie took her tiun still in her hand Feeling even runtled, Jenni filled her plate as she tried to adjust to their new situation and environ ones that they always use at social functions in churches and other organizations, to eat a plate full of all sorts of "down ho Katie and Travis sat down across fro about the construction of the wall Next to her Jason was already eating a plate full of fried chicken Of course, Jack was under the table, eating all sorts of good scraps

But Jenni was confused

Katie and Travis were talking swiftly, voicesseamlessly She had been convinced that they knew each other fronition in Travis’ eyes when he had stood there holding Katie’s hand But they never said "Oh, hey it’s you!" or anything remotely like that It was as if so everyone out

And Jenni did not like that

Well, yeah, she definitely liked Travis He had such a strong presence and had such sweet eyes And she had already caught hi at her with that special look men have for women they find attractive She didn’t find Katie a threat in that regard though she ell aware that Katie had the kind of looks ay Pure and simple That was not even an issue

But Katie was her war buddy Her new best friend Her sister They had spent a lot of ti and just clicking with Katie-da her a little nuts She felt unbalanced by it and kept trying to get Katie to at least look at her She felt needy and selfish and es It was foolish to feel this hen Katie had risked her life to help Jenni save Jason And Jason was alive and well, sitting next to her, feeding bits of chicken skin to the dog because Katie had kept it together and got the ain at Katie For a wild, irrational ay to keep Katie’s affections, but realized that was just stupid

She wasn’t gay and that wasn’t what this was about Katie made her feel safe

She needed to feel safe

"…so that is the first and ut

"Exactly Then ill start to lay out plans on how to secure the two buildings that border us so we can actually inhabit theround floor ould be a start," Katie suggested

"And we have the bricks for it Since the service entrance is on the side and there is no entrance off the backside, which faces our area, we’ll have to bust through a wall" Travis was drawing on a piece of paper, , but was clearly enthralled by Katie’s input<ins class="adsbygoogle" style="display:block" data-ad-client="ca-pub-7451196230453695" data-ad-slot="9930101810" data-ad-format="auto" data-full-width-responsive="true"></ins>