“It’s my fault,” I sob into Silver’s neck.
“We are mercenaries,” Silver says. “We expect death, court it. We have lost men before. We may again.”
“No! No more!”
I can’t bear it. Grief is tearing me apart. All my life, everything I have loved has been taken from me. I did not know Tore long, but I did love him. I loved him because he was my first. Because he branded me with his body, left his seed inside me. Because he never took any shit from anyone, and because in the end, he died for me—and I know what it means when a man lays down his life for a woman.
“Shhh,” Silver comforts me. “We’re not going to die any time soon. That’s why we are down here with you, not up there fighting. We’re going to look after you.”
“You have to promise me you won’t die.”
“I can’t promise that,” he says gently. “But I can promise you that none of us are going to forget what Tore and Keanau and Zen and Cowboy did for us.”
“They died and I didn’t even know their real names. I didn’t know... anything about them. They died for nothing!”
“Not for nothing,” Pharaoh interjects. “We came for you, Trissa. We came for the virgin with the blonde hair, the sheriff’s captive. We came to take his life and claim you for our own. We never expected to be successful in one endeavor, let alone both. There was a reason seven of us set out. We knew we weren’t all going to make it back.”
I try to take a deep breath and calm myself. “You came to die?”
“We came to chance our luck,” Alexios adds, drawing closer to me. “There is nothing in this world for a man anymore. There is no meaning to endless battle without home or family. We swore a long time ago that we would find a woman and make her our own. That she would bear our children and we would protect her and them. We took the contract on Dallas. We should have foreseen the invasion, if not the betrayal.”
“So you think... you think the people who sent you to kill the sheriff also sent soldiers to kill you?”
“Would you keep men around who have proved themselves willing to murder for money?” Alexios smirks the question. “We’re a tool in the hands of desperate men, one they want to melt down when the deeds are done.”
“We didn’t realize how quickly the word would travel, and how swiftly the other city states would act. That was our mistake, not yours,” Silver agrees. “Four survivors out of eight is not a bad number.”
In more civilized times and places, what he is saying would be a horror, but he is right for this time and this place. Half of us are still here. Pharaoh has made a swift and strong recovery. I suspect, though I do not know and will not ask, that Alexios and Silver used the bulk of the antibiotics on him, while giving Tore most of the painkillers. In the end, it was all they could do to ease him out of this world and into the next.
Their explanations make sense, but my guilt still writhes in my belly.
“I am sorry,” I apologize to Pharaoh. “It was the dress...”
“Stop,” he says. “This is not your fault.”
“If I hadn’t...”
“The sheriff sealed his own death when he took you. He should have been more careful. This war is not because of you. It is because of men who must conquer all they encounter.”
I smile a little, but mostly because I am glad to hear him speak. The strength in his voice is encouraging. His wounds will still take time to fully heal, but they will heal.
“I need to know your real name,” I say, crouching next to him. “I don’t want you to die, and I don’t even know who you were.”
“Oren,” he says. “And I have no intention of dying.”
“Neither did Tore. Neither did any of the others...” I am starting to get upset again.
“We are mercenaries. We court death. And we should have been more careful. Stop blaming yourself. There is no blame here. There is only life and death, as there always has been.”
He is so perfectly stoic. It is an attitude Alexios and Silver seem to share, and it makes them strong. I can see them grieving their friends. But they are not breaking down. It is not making them weak. They accept their losses and appreciate what they have all the more.
Now what?
That becomes the question. Now there are four of us. Now there is a war raging. Now the cities that were once safe are in chaos, and there is every chance the war will spread. Houston and San Antonio will leave themselves open to attack by sending troops to Dallas, and other cities will take advantage.
We discuss this and many other things and come to the conclusion that this could easily be the catalyst that plunges the entire country back into conflict.
“Don’t you dare feel guilty for that,” Alexios points his finger at me sternly before I can begin to proclaim my blame.
“We move,” Pharaoh says. “We find somewhere remote and fortified and we gather our strength. We let the war unfold. We see what comes of it in the end. We do not let the sacrifices our brothers made be in vain, by wasting what we have now.”
“But where do we go?” Silver asks.
Finally. A question I can answer.
“I know.”