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"Where did you learn Spanish?" Katie whispered at one point

"My Mom was Mexican," Jenni whispered back

"Oh"

"My Dad was Irish," Jenni added

"So you’re a lazy drunk," Juan quipped and waged his eyebrows at her

"I a to kick your ass," Jenni said with a surly pout

The Juan thing: she wasn’t sure what that was about A part of her was sure she hated his guts, but another part of her really got off on their arguments It was too much fun And, she had to admit a stress reliever

Neither one of them really took the insults seriously It was just, well, she wasn’t sure A way to make life more fun maybe

Finally, just when she and Juan had started to play rock, paper, scissors, and it seemed a stalemate was inevitable, Mike came in

"Two more They cliht onto a spike and it took his head right off The other one stood on the truck and tried to jump past the spikes She ended up iood," Mike said

Katie turned to the Mayor He slowly nodded under her intense gaze

"When the sun rises, we’ll kill thereed?’

Jenni looked toward Travis, who nodded "Yeah, agreed"

Juan stood up slowly and said, "Okay, so we have no ain We won’t always have guns or ammunition We need to be able to defend ourselves other ways"

"Absolutely," Katie agreed

Travis nodded wholeheartedly "The guns ht"

Jenni stood up and stretched "Just tellsurprise there"

Jenni gave him her snarkiest look

2 Tinkerbell of Death

"I don’t like this," Katie said as she stood beside Jenni

Jenni shrugged "We have to be able to hit the ones that are out of view frohed "Yeah, but why you?"

"Cause I volunteered Besides, I get to be harnessed up," Jenni grinned

"Kinda like a deadly Tinkerbell of death!"

Katie laughed and watched as Juan rigged up Jenni Mike had also volunteered to take up a forward position on the front line They would be positioned on the dirt trucks directly in front of the fort Any zombies up in that area were not visible from the sentry positions If Nerit had been at the fort, she probably could have taken them out from the top of city hall, but no one had sniper-like skills

Jenni kissed Katie’s cheek then swatted at Juan’s hands "Hey stop feelingyou on?"

"Uiddy and excited It always felt good to be doing so that she actually enjoyed Each tie for her dead children

Katie hugged her onceto be on one of the platforun had been recruited for this task Mostly hunters and a fewthe sentry posts now

"Be careful, Mo hi a y quizzical look, not sure what to make of the harness that had her hooked up to a pulley system that Juan had created in the first days of the zoht it was a weird kind of leash for huled him up for a moment

"I’ll be okay I promise"

"Ready?" Juan asked

Mike and Jenni nodded

They were hoisted up into the air and suddenly the horde of zombies swam into view

"Kinda wished they didn’t smell so bad," Mike said stoically

"Yeah," Jenni said, and wrinkled her nose