Free The Siege by Darrell Maloney Page B

Mexico.”
         “It’s just a harmless crush. Don’t burst his bubble.”
         “Are you sure? He’s watched this movie a hundred times. And every single time he seems to love her more.”
         “I’m sure. He’ll have crushes on a hundred other girls by the time he’s grown. We could tell him she’s probably dead, or at least way too old for him. But it would break his heart and serve no real purpose. He’s too young to understand the realities of what the world has become.
         “Let’s let him be a boy a little bit longer.”
         “Okay. I hope you’re right.”
         “I’m always right.”
         “Um… sure. What did John say?”
         “We’re going tonight. I’m going to go to bed early, and set my alarm for just before midnight. We’ll be back before you wake up.”
         “Promise me you’ll be careful. Markie and I would be lost without you.”
         “Honey, Nothing’s going to happen to me. I’ll be around to serve you breakfast in bed on your seventy fifth birthday. That’s a promise.”
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    Chapter 1 8
     
         The situation in the compound had rapidly descended into chaos after Martinez and Douglas were shot. Hance suddenly had a near-riot on his hands. Davis refused to go outside at all. Bennett only went out to care for the livestock and produce at the point of a gun. And the promise that Hance would beat him to death if he didn’t.
         The bodies of Martinez and Douglas were left where they fell, four days earlier. They were starting to rot, and the smell began to be pulled into the building through the ventilation system’s air intakes.
         Since there were only four of them now, security had became a major problem. And it would prove to be their downfall, eventually.
         Smarter men would have abandoned their mission and left. They could have snuck back to Eden and tried to regroup and make new plans.
         But finding new reinforcements wasn’t an option. Most of the convicts in Eden lit out for other places when the temperatures finally warmed. There were rumors that federal troops were going to come around and round them up, so they could put them behind prison walls again.
         Hance figured they were false rumors, started by the citizenry of Eden in the hopes it would scare the cons away. And if that was the intent, it worked to some degree. Most of them were gone now.
         The ones that were left couldn’t be trusted. Hance was a hated man in the joint, because he took no crap from anybody. In fact, he was regarded as a bully, and one who would kill even his friends if they betrayed him.
         The problem with being a tough guy is that somebody is always wanting to take you down to enhance their own reputation.
         So sending someone for reinforcements wasn’t an option.
         Neither was abandoning the compound. Now that Hance had a taste for what was there, he wasn’t giving it up. Not even if it cost him his life.
         Since Davis refused to go outside, Hance posted him at the corridor door on the east side of the building. He could see the gate through the door’s window, and was far less likely to be taken out by sniper fire.
         “You’ll work night shift. You’ll also bunk in the first room, right there at that same end of the hallway, so you’ll be close by if they charge the gate during the day .”
         He turned to Bennett.
         “You’ll man this door during the daytime. I still want you to go out twice a day to feed the livestock and water the plants in the greenhouse. Whenever you’re out doing that stuff I’ll see you. And while you’re away from this side of the building I’ll hang out directly above us. I can see the gate from the roof, and will try to cover the gate and the rest of the compound until you return. Don’t worry about