Free Stranger King by Nadia Hutton Page B

around in concern, pistols out. That made their number nine, not eight. She thought then of Kozol slowly bleeding to death in a bomb shelter and it chilled her further.
    “We need to get out of here,” Calvin shouted, “We’ve been trying to get over the fence, but their snipers keep cutting us off.”
    “The other way is clear. It’s on fire, but the flames flushed the snipers out of hiding and there are fewer people shooting at you.”
    “Great,” one of the men grumbled, “Bloody terrific.”
    “Lead on,” Calvin said, “Get us out of here.”
    Lena led them back through the burning town, wary of the smoke that was building around them. In a fearful thought, she worried the itch in her lungs was more than smoke inhalation, but tossed it aside. She had only been in contact with Calvin and Kozol since arriving, the odds were…
    And yet when she saw Calvin’s ashen face, she started to wonder.
    Her first priority was to get them out of the fire.
    As they made their way into the forest, she called up her compass application on her wrist pad, trying to figure out how to make their way to the bomb shelter. With the grid down, she wouldn’t be able to figure out a precise route so it would have to do. She was lucky enough that the wrist pad still had a charge at all.
    Covering her face again, each of them with a hand on the shoulder in front, Lena led them over the mountain, the smoke rising with them as they tried not to breathe in the ash and soot.
    They cleared the worst of it, the rain making a smoky mist across the sky. She pulled out her compass again and made her calculations. The shelter was only a few hours away and hopefully the other two would already be there.
    *
    Lena was weary as they entered the shelter, Charlotte closing the heavy door behind them. The others went immediately to the ration pile, drinking water so quickly that one vomited in the corner and apologized profusely.
    Lena went over to Kozol’s side, Calvin’s face paling as he saw Kozol’s poor condition. Charlotte said softly, “I’ve done the best I can, but I’m not a doctor.”
    “I am,” a young woman called out from the refugees. She was fairly short, skin like sandalwood, eyes like molasses, her black hair buzzed close to her head. She walked over to them, pulling back Kozol’s bandage with care as she examined the wound.
    She looked over at Calvin and said, “I need some assistance. Will you help me?”
    “Gladly,” Calvin replied.
    “Then go over with the others and get them something to eat. You’re making me nervous.”
    Calvin grumbled and did as she asked. The doctor then turned to Charlotte, “I see you’ve been treating it with alcohol. That’s good, but continued use will cause an infection because of the sugars. I need something cleaner than that. I will also need a knife and a needle and thread. I’m sure you should find something to do the trick here.”
    “You’re just going to take the bullet out?” Lena asked.
    “The wound will heal better without it. He hit mainly tissue, which is lucky. His stomach muscles might never be strong again, though. If we had a full surgical team, I could do something. But this is what I can do to save his life.”
    “Are you a surgeon?”
    “OB-GYN,” the woman laughed. “But you’d be surprised what strange injuries you see at a free health clinic. I’ve seen my share of gunshot wounds before. My name is Janiya by the way. That way you know what to yell at me when it turns out we all have plague.”
    “Do you think any of us do?” Lena asked.
    Janiya shook her head. “It’s hard to know. I doubt it. I don’t even know if it actually exists or if it’s just mass hysteria. People tend to lose their heads in chaos. They also seem to love any excuse to shoot each other. That’ll stop when bullets become a bit more scarce.”
    “We have a stockpile,” Lena said, “It’ll serve us until we get to the base. We can figure it all out there.”
    Kozol looked