On principle alone, Shorty couldn't be allowed to live. Sosuke Kitahara nodded, then lowered his voice. "How bad is your leg?"
The bolt had left Mrs. Yuigahama's thigh numb. The pain was bearable so long as she kept that leg still; the moment she lifted it, fire raced up her nerves. She knit her brows, jaw tight. "I'll manage. What… what will you do with him?"
"Leave that to me."
Twilight was already falling. Darkness would turn any light or sound into a beacon. Sosuke knew he had to get her home fast.
"Stay put and be careful. I'll be right back."
He glanced at the crumpled Shorty.
"B-bro no, sir, sir!" Shorty scrabbled backward, heels plowing the dirt, babbling for his life. One exchange and he'd been knocked out cold; now his weapons were gone and his courage with them. He wasn't stupid. He knew when he'd picked the wrong target.
He also regretted, bitterly, taking his time. If I'd just done it in the field instead of playing coy… carrying her out ate up minutes I didn't have…
Sosuke crossed to him without a word, face unreadable.
"Sir! I was wrong I swear I was wrong. Please, let me go. I won't come back. Take my pack food, smokes, wine. Killing's illegal! You're a good guy; good guys don't do this, right?"
Shorty's voice shook. The calm in Sosuke's earlier threat still squeezed his lungs.
Sosuke looked him over then drove his boot into Shorty's gut.
"Kh !"
Shorty folded, drooling as the air blasted out of him. Sosuke caught the back of his collar one-handed and dragged him like a sack, head thumping over hard ground, straight out of the corn toward the road.
Back where she stood, Mrs. Yuigahama blinked. He was… gone. Just gone. The cold metal in her palm the pistol told her she hadn't dreamed any of it.
Sosuke hauled Shorty to the end of the lane, skirting two zombies without breaking stride, and flung him onto the asphalt.
He didn't speak. His boots clicked a slow, even beat heavy with pressure.
Zombies, roused by scent and sound, wobbled closer, keening for meat.
Sweat streamed down Shorty's face. He understood now: the man wouldn't simply kill him. He'd feed him to the dead.
Panic shattered his restraint. "What did I do that's so wrong? I wanted a woman! I'm a man! This is the end of the world there is no law. Since when is wanting a woman a crime?"
He raged at the dust and the dying light as if fury could stitch a code back over the earth.
Sosuke stopped pacing. His silence was worse than any reply.
Noticing the pause, Shorty lurched onto his knees. "Listen fine! We came from a shelter, a real one. There are lots of us. If I don't go back, they'll come looking and then none of you will "
His scream ripped the dusk. Sosuke's heel snapped one thigh like dry kindling. A second crack answered on the other leg.
Shorty sprawled, raking his fingers in the dirt. In his periphery he saw the young man's eyes devoid of mercy, forged in blood and survival. He'd seen that look only once before: in his boss's gaze.
"Let them come," Sosuke said, each word flat with iron. "Then they'll learn who they shouldn't have provoked."
His foot slammed Shorty's jaw. The joint popped; blood flooded his mouth. No more words.
As blood slicked the asphalt, the nearest zombies went wild, howls pitching higher. That was enough. Sosuke turned and left him to the teeth.
…
Mrs. Yuigahama waited, worry gnawing. She couldn't walk on the injured leg; every attempt sent agony stabbing up her thigh. A distant scream made her flinch. She tried to hobble toward the sound pain lanced her and she gasped, sinking back.
Wind rustled. A shadow filled the gap between rows. Relief fluttered over her face when Sosuke stepped through only to vanish as he took in her pallor, the sweat beading at her brow, the bitten lip.
"I told you not to move," he said, frowning. "You'll tear it worse." His tone was scolding; the concern beneath it warmed her all the same.
"I… I was worried."
"No time to linger," he said after a glance at the sky. "I'll carry you back and get that bolt out."
He slung Shorty's pack, bent, and lifted her. She gave a small cry part pain, part embarrassment then wrapped her arms around his neck. She wasn't the sort to quarrel with necessity.
"Your name?" she asked, holding on.
"Sosuke Kitahara."
He brought her into the old house and laid her on the bed. Cotton, alcohol, boiling water. "We can't leave an arrow in a wound," he said. "I'll have to work fast. I'm afraid it will hurt."
Numbness had deadened most of her thigh; shame prickled sharper than pain now. She ducked her head. "I'll try."
He fetched scissors.
"What are those for?"
"To cut."
He realized only then how the words sounded. Today she wore sheer flesh-tone stockings under her slacks; the glimpse of a slim, beautifully shaped calf muscle fine and smooth beneath nylon threatened to tug his gaze higher.
"Can you… take them off?" he asked, then immediately added, "It'd be easier."
"J-just cut them."
She covered her face with one hand. Stripping in front of a boy her daughter's age was beyond her.
He smiled faintly, knelt, and snipped carefully. The nylon parted to reveal white skin mottled with ugly bruising; the bolt had punched clean through the outer thigh. Her grit is something, he thought. Not a single real cry this whole time.
He steadied her calf with his left hand heat and silken give through the stocking while she trembled, lip caught between her teeth, eyes squeezed shut.
The cold scissors grazed torn flesh. She gasped. "Ah "
"Sorry. Here?"
"Mmm…"
"I'll be careful."
Few things set a heart racing like freeing a full, shapely thigh from sheer nylon. He forced his focus tight, cut the stocking back from the wound, and exposed the clotted, blood-slick arrow shaft.
"If the bleeding won't stop, will I… die?" she asked, trying for lightness and failing.
"I'm pulling the head next," he said. "You'll need to grit through it."
He fetched a pillowcase, twisted it into a roll. "You must hold on," he said, seriousness sharpening his voice. "Bite."
It was her own pillowcase unwashed for who knew how long. She balked; he met her eyes. "Do you want that leg? If not, say the word."
She shivered, then clamped down on the cloth.
He sterilized the blade in flame, tore wide strips from her ruined slacks, and boiled them. Her eyes widened at the first rip; then she settled, understanding.
"Alcohol," he warned. "It'll sting."
She hummed assent, lips tightening on the roll. He snapped the shaft on both sides, then worked with swift, sure hands.
Her breath quickened; her fingers found his shoulder and dug in, nails biting through fabric. Pain wrung small, helpless sounds out of her honest, involuntary, almost musical despite the hurt.
He kept moving clean, draw, flush, bind. Minutes later, the bloody arrow lay on the tray; the wound was doused and wrapped in sterile cloth.
"All right," he said at last. "Rest and let it knit. No weight for a while."
He gathered the soiled strips to burn no need to invite monsters with the scent. On the bed, Mrs. Yuigahama looked spent, a fine sheen of sweat on her brow. Their eyes met. Color rose in her cheeks.
"Thank you," she said quietly. "I owe you again."
Sosuke smiled open, sun-bright in a way that felt startling in this world.
She had stood steady under many a hungry stare, but something in his gaze unsettled her clean, direct, unguarded. Her heartbeat stumbled, to her own surprise.
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