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Quinn brought the shot gun up and placed it against her forehead. In a cold voice he offered, “Or you could tell me and I won’t kill you.”

The woman squeaked and tried to scoot back away from the barrel of the gun. “OK, OK! I’ll tell you! You don’t have to get nasty. They found a bunch of kids on the highway a few days back. They were stranded in their school bus. Skull brought them back here. He was going to ransom them back to the town for supplies. That’s where Dog came from. He’s the sheriff’s son and he mouthed off a lot so Skull was having some fun with him.” She let out a giggle at the boy’s torment that made Quinn want to vomit.

“Where are they?” he asked menacingly.

Once she told him where the kids were he turned the gun around and hit her in the head with the stock, knocking her out. Quinn had never hit a woman in his life and was raised to always respect and protect them but he made an exception for this one. She wasn’t a woman to him but an animal.

Back in the main room, the others had spread out to check all the other areas and make sure they were alone. The boy hadn’t left Alex’s side and clung to her hand. He had told her his name was Luke but that was all Alex could coax out of him. Cooper had taken his shirt off and handed it to Alex, who put it on the boy to cover his damaged body. He seemed to snuggle into it and curled up against her. Everyone came back into the room reporting that the place was empty.

Just then Quinn came back in. His face was pale and his hands shook. He took in the two bodies on the floor with satisfaction and then looked to his friends.

“I need some help guys. We need to grab as much water as possible and come out to behind the house. Can someone go out front and keep watch? We don’t want to be taken by surprise if the rest of the gang comes back.” Quinn waved them to follow him.

Cooper went out front to keep watch and check on the camper and truck. The rest followed Quinn back through the kitchen. They all stepped over the unconscious woman and stopped to grab water bottles from the stack of cases piled in the corner. Quinn told them what Sheila had said to him about the kids and that he had gone out to the shed where they were being kept.

“When I opened that door, the wave of heat and the stench that rolled out almost knocked me off my feet. I thought they were all dead but the fresh air must have revived them because they started to move and groan. I pulled them all out into the shade. They need water badly.” he finished and raced out the back door, arms filled with water bottles.

When Alex saw the eight kids leaning against the shed in the shade, she felt the tears start to roll down her face. She couldn’t understand how anyone could do these horrible things to children. The sadness she felt at killing the three bikers left her and her heart hardened on the spot. She wished she had killed them all.

They were careful to only let the kids have small sips of water between wiping them down with the cool water. They carried them one by one into the house. Josh dragged the two bodies out of the main room and they placed the kids on the couches. Dara found a box of granola bars in the kitchen and once the children started to perk up she passed them out with orders to eat slowly or they would get sick. Other than being dehydrated and overheated, none of the kids seemed to have been abused. Luke had taken the punishment for being the Sheriff’s son and for his feisty attitude. Alex left Luke in charge of monitoring his friends water intake and spread out with the others.

They took all the supplies they could find and piled them by the front door. Cooper had been told of the children and he was checking the white van out to see if it would run. They didn’t have room in the truck and camper to take everyone with all the supplies. The van turned out to work and had been used by the bikers to bring the children here from their school bus. Cooper backed it up to the front door and they started to quickly load the loot as fast as they could. They knew the rest of the gang could return at any time. As they finished loading and were getting the kids moving, Josh came running in.

“You guys aren’t going to believe what I just found in the basement!” he said excitedly.

They all rushed after him except for Dara who stayed to help the kids into the van. She had gathered all the pillows and blankets from the house and used them to pad the hard metal floor they would be traveling on. After their ordeal, she wanted to try and make them as comfortable as possible.

Luke had told them what town they were from and after checking the map, found it was on the highway they had been traveling on before the bikers stopped them. It was an hour’s drive to get there so Dara put in water and easy to eat food for the children. It had been decided that Dara would drive the truck, Alex the camper and Josh the van. Quinn would ride in the back of the truck, armed and ready if they encountered any of the bike gang. Cooper had ripped the vent from the top of the camper and was to be another armed look out.

They would not be taken again.

The sight that greeted, Alex, Quinn and Cooper in the basement, brought them to a standstill. Two of the walls were covered in racks that were filled with what looked like assault rifles and cases of ammunition. The bikers had all been carrying sawed off shot guns or hand guns, so this many rifles was a shock. The other two walls and a few tables in the middle of the room had all kinds of drugs. There were bags filled with the white powder of cocaine, plastic tubs brimming with different coloured pills and tablets, huge bags full of marijuana and other things that they didn’t recognize. After a few minutes of shocked silence while they took in the contents of the room. Quinn sprang into action.

“Grab as many guns as you can. Stack them in your arms and get them upstairs. Josh, grab that hand cart and let’s load up all the ammo cases we can. We do two trips and then we need to get out of here.” he said as he rushed forward and started to pile guns into Cooper’s arms.

“What do we do about all that stuff?” Alex asked, waving at the drugs.

Without looking at her, Quinn replied in a cold determined voice “We burn it. We burn the whole place down.”

When they brought out the first load, Dara had the children settled in the back of the van with the door still open. She did a double take when Alex walked past her with an armful of guns.

“Head in and help the guys while I get this stuff loaded up. I’ll keep watch on the kids and the road.” Alex told her over her shoulder.

They had already packed up the rest of the supplies so it was cramped in all the vehicles. Alex had to shove the guns anywhere she could fit them. The ammo boxes had to go into the van so they covered them with the blankets and pillows for the kids to sit on. After the second load was brought out and packed away, Quinn took two of the gas cans and went back inside. Everyone else loaded into their vehicles and got ready. Before Dara closed the van’s back door she explained to the kids that it would be dark and get hot in there but it would only be for a little while and then they would be home. She told them they could bang on the wall connecting to the driver’s compartment if they needed too and they would stop. The children were either still in shock or very brave because they all just nodded before she rolled the door down.

Quinn came through the door backwards, leaving a trail of gas. He threw the empty gas can back through the door and turned to check if everyone was ready. He caught site of the motorcycles. One of his friends had trashed them all. They were nothing more than a pile of chrome and rubber, never to be ridden again. He laughed with pleasure and turned to his waiting friends.

“Alex, Josh, you guys move out to the road and wait. I’m going to light this up and then Dara and I will take the lead. Josh, keep the van and the kids in the middle. Cooper, be ready. If you see a motorcycle just open fire, don’t wait. We will get these kids home.” he declared and waved them out.

He pulled a road flare out of his back pocket, lit it and threw it through the open door. He ran over and hopped into the back of the truck and grabbed a shot gun he had placed there. As soon as Dara saw that he was settled she pulled out to the road and got in front of the van. They had only gone half a mile when something in the house exploded and they could clearly see a black column of smoke rising. Dara watched the smoke in her side mirror and had a disturbing thought. She had opened the back sliding window before they left so she could talk to Quinn and she yelled his name through it to get his attention.

When he came close enough to hear she asked him, “What about that woman, Sheila? Was she still in there?”

Quinn shook his head. “I threw her into the shed where the kids were with a couple of bottles of water and a knife to cut herself free.” he answered with indifference and turned back to scanning the road.

Dara gave a sigh of relief. There was a difference between defending themselves and others and flat out murder. She shook her head. She should have known that Quinn wouldn’t have crossed that line.

She watched the road ahead with apprehension. After looking at the maps they had seen that the only town close to the gang’s base was the one they were headed to so they guessed that it was the town the rest of the bikers had gone to. They had decided that they had a two and a half hour window before the gang made it back and found the destruction they had left. After discussing what to do if they met them on the road, they had all agreed that with the children riding with them and at risk in a shootout, it would be better to try and avoid them.

After about fifteen miles, Dara turned down a dusty gravel road and continued on it for a mile. She then did a U-turn to face back the way they had come and shut the engine off. The van and camper had a harder time turning around but after some back and forth they finally got lined up behind the smaller truck. They all got out and Dara rushed to open the rolling door on the van to give the children fresh air. She explained what they were doing and told them to sit tight, stay in the van so they could leave quickly and stay quiet so they could hear when the motorcycles went by. Once again, none of the kids answered her. They just sat blinking owlishly at her in the bright sunlight. Only Luke responded with a thumbs up.

Dara joined her friends at the front of the truck where Quinn was trying to figure out one of the assault rifles. After turning it over a few times, Cooper stepped forward and took it from his hands. He smoothly and competently ejected the magazine, turned it around and punched it back in. Next he pulled the cocking handle back. He then calmly handed it back to Quinn.

His friends were all staring at him in disbelief. “What? It’s not a big deal. My old man always let me go with him to gun shows. They always had a shooting range set up and there was a gun dealer there that he knew. He always demonstrated different types of guns and let me hang out with him. I got pretty good with one of these. I can show you guys what to do if you want.” he explained to them. They were still staring at him so he kept talking. “It might actually be a good idea. If these guys come after us, we don’t want to be in a prolonged gun battle. These babies are really easy to use. You just point and spray. We could annihilate them in seconds. None of them were carrying these, just shot guns and hand guns. It would be no contest.”

By the time he was done his face was bright red and he was beginning to wish he had kept his mouth shut. Cooper stared at his feet in misery as his friends looked to one another. It was Alex who stepped towards him and took his hand. He looked into her smiling sea green eyes and she said, “Show me.”

Cooper had been showing them how to reload the guns and where the selector and safety was. He explained what the gun dealer had told him about shooting them. The gun barrel tended to rise as you shot it, so start aiming low and keep correcting down if you could. They all wanted to practice firing but knew that they had to stay quiet to hear the motorcycles going by. They had been on the side road for twenty five minutes when they heard the rumble of engines in the distance.

Dara ran to the back of the van and looked inside. Most of the kids were slumped down. Some were sleeping and others were sipping water or eating.

“Okay guys, we’re going to be leaving in a minute. We are taking you all home and we’re going to be going fast, so I want you all on the floor and try and brace yourselves in case we have to swerve around cars.” Dara said with a smile as they started to scramble down onto the padded floor. She gave them a cheery wave and pulled the door down, flipping the latch so it wouldn’t open while they were speeding down the road. She ran back to the truck and scanned ahead.

They couldn’t see the highway from where they were parked but she could hear the engines very well. Dara had to remind herself to breath as she waited for the noise to fade in the distance. They waited a few more minutes to let the bikers get further down the road and then she jumped in the truck and they all started their vehicles up and slowly made their way back to the main highway. They turned right onto the paved road and quickly started to accelerate. They had to weigh the cost of safely getting around car crashes with the certainty of being chased once the gang discovered the ruins of their home. They all knew without a doubt that the bikers would come after them. It was whether or not they would make it to town first which was in doubt.

The three drivers went as fast as they could and tried to move around wrecks without slowing too much. Cooper watched behind them from his perch half out of the air vent on the roof of the camper. He had stacked cases of water and other solid items to stand on. Quinn was watching the front and sides for any trouble. They made good time but the ride felt endless with all of their nerves strung tight waiting for the bikers to catch up to them.

Quinn was looking back when he felt Dara start to slow the truck. He turned around and saw that they were approaching a roadblock. There were cars pulled across the road three deep and an old bus was in the center of it all. There were men on top of the bus, all armed and pointing their weapons at the lead truck and more behind the cars blocking the road.