Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

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         MAIN FORCE PATROL – INTEL DIVISION (MFP-ID)      

         **CLASSIFIED DOSSIER – EYES ONLY**           

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          ASSET PROFILE

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FIELD NAME:    “MAIDEN”

REAL IDENTITY: REDACTED    

OPERATIVE ID: MFP-GHOST-07 

STATUS: DEEP COVER         

ASSIGNMENT TIER: BLACK     

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[...REDACTED SECTIONS...]

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PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION              

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• Height: 5 ft 5  

• Hair: Dark blonde, shoulder-length, worn loose or braided  

• Eyes: Green  

• Identifying Marks / Scars:  

  - Ribcage (left) – laceration (combat incident)  

  - Wrist (right) – surgically corrected fracture from untreated field break during early cover operation  

• Piercings: Bilateral **tragus piercings** – stylistic integration for cultural blending  

• Implants/Mods: None  

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               ATTIRE PROFILE                

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Subject adopts **nomad-style aesthetic** consistent with fringe drifter and gang courier profiles.  

Apparel blends functionality with disguise—practical and deconstructed.

• **Leathers:** Worn brown patch set, modified for fit and durability. Custom tailoring suggests self-alteration. Subject replaces on approx. **six-month rotation**.  

• **Helmet:** Matte metal dome-lid with full **interchangeable visor**—minimal shine, non-reflective.  

• **Boots:** Brown **multi-buckle boots**, armored at shins and ankles with low acoustic resonance soles and high grip.  

• Optimized for **cross-terrain movement**—lighter than standard biker-grade protection.  

• **Field Gear:** Standard-issue survival pack, camo netting, field kit, go bag, weapons (undocumented).  

• **Suicide Tabs:** Field-issue vials stored in inner belt flap. **Appears expired**—agent has not requested new issue.  

  → **NOTE:** Flagged for stability reassessment. Psychological detachment or disregard for survival protocol possible.

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        VEHICLE ASSIGNMENT – CUSTOM BUILD    

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**Model Codename:** “Gravedancer”  

**Type:** Custom interceptor – **hybrid tarmac/off-road special**  

Chassis: Modified ex-MFP pursuit frame + stripped tracker suspension  

Paint: Matte soot-black, non-reflective, no emblems or tagging

**Modifications Include:**  

• Sand-cooled turbo intake  

• Emergency Hot Start 

• Off-grid battery power cell  

• Expanded fuel tank  

• Surgical crash pack (exp edition - Morphine Syrettes, burn dressings, self amputation kit, surgical grade wire to be included)  

• **Emergency Alert Beacon** hidden within **fuel cap housing** – beacon status: **FUNCTIONAL**  

→ Emits encrypted distress ping to command net if triggered (undetected by standard gang scans)

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[...Remaining dossier sections unchanged...]

Filed by: Lt. Rhodes – MFP Intel Division  

Reviewed and Sealed: Commander L Simpson  

Status: ACTIVE // HIGH-RISK // MONITOR CLOSELY

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The engine purred beneath her, solid, strong, the only god damned thing in her world that was still dependable. 

She could hear her breathing within in the confines of her mat black skid lid. Hear it above the throb of the engine, above the ceaseless roar of the wind as she powered over the black top, sharp little gasps of adrenaline fuelled terror.

She didn’t look back.

Didn’t need to.

She knew they were coming.

The low rumble in the distance wasn’t thunder, it was engines.

The gang, Toe Cutter’s gang had made her. Jesus he had seen her fucking naked. They weren’t going to stop. They would run her down relentlessly like a fox before hounds. They were so good at it. She’d seen them do it before, a passive observer as the gang had systematically wiped out their rivals. Merciless. Efficient. Distance had almost made their violence into an art form, almost.

But this wasn’t framed by distance, by stealthy observation, this was immediate and so very, very deadly. And the worst if it? The worst if it was that she’d been binned.

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           MAIN FORCE PATROL – INTEL DIVISION (MFP-ID)       

              **CLASSIFIED DOSSIER – EYES ONLY**           

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        EXTRACTION / OUT REQUEST STATUS      

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**Date Logged:** [REDACTED]  

**Subject Request:**  

Requested full withdrawal and reassignment, citing fear of exposure during surveillance of the **Toe Cutters**.  

MESSAGES RECEIVED 

> “Shit. Shit. I’ve just had a close one. I’ve lost my basic kit. I need to come in. Repeat I need to come in.”

> “I’ve been made, repeat I’ve been made, they know I’m deep cover.”

> “..they set me up, I only just got out, I need extract.”

> “Do you hear me. I need fucking extraction. I need out or I won’t get out alive.”

**Command Response:**  

Request denied. Asset deemed **too deep** to safely extract without tipping off gang hierarchy.  

Backup ghost operative not available. Surveillance must continue. 

Asset expendable

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She had requested extraction, begged for it and all she’d got back was the repeated message. 

Extraction denied.

And then HQ had gone silent.

She’d had dialled in to listen to the garbled crackle of the last message, over and over again, as if maybe this time the voice would say something different.

"Compromised. Abort. No lift. You're on your own."

The words echoed in her mind, louder than her engine, louder than the hammering of her heart.

They lied. 

They said they wouldn’t leave anyone behind.

Bullshit.

The world was going to shit, falling apart and she had still trusted them. Trusted MFP to come save her arse when they could barely hold the cities together.

It was stupid. But it was all she knew. 

She gripped the throttle tighter, fingers stiff inside her cracked leather gloves. The outback wasn’t the place for sentiment. 

Out here promises were made of sand. 

The moon was rising, painting the patched tarmac silver grey and removing her one advantage. She’d been riding dark. With no lights and her bike and her gear built to minimise reflections she had hoped to slip past any outriders and ride for the boonies, seeking safety by getting lost in one of the many small towns that dotted the fringes, but they had been closer than she’d thought, sliding out of side roads, appearing from behind the tumbled down buildings of broken down, drought failed farms. It had taken her longer than she felt like admitting to realise they were herding her. Pushing her deeper into the desert, further away from cover, further away from help. They’d planned this. The watcher had become the watched

She was their target now.

She wasn’t afraid of dying.

But not like this.

If they caught her, they'd make it last.

So she rode harder.

“Not me.” She muttered to herself. “Not tonight.”

Her eyes narrowed, scanning the shadows ahead, looking for cover. A ridge. A gulch. Anything where she might lose them. 

Or maybe she’d just keep riding until she found something she could ride off of. At least that way would be quicker.

But either way she had to keep running….

Chapter Text

Toecutter. He was the end and the beginning. She was deep cover MFP. A ghost rider. Active surveillance reporting back on the nomad gangs and the scoot jocks whenever they emerged from the wastes, pushing into Sector Six in search of fuel or pressing on into the boonies to snatch and grab or burn and run. 

Most of them were road scags, ferals, white liners heading for the ultimate burn out, but Toecutter’s gang they were different. They moved with purpose. They were organised, ruthless and ferociously loyal. She’d seem them tear through settlements, taking what they wanted. Their violence extreme, but contained, released precisely when required to get what they wanted or when anyone dared to cross them. Screams mixing with laughter, the smell of blood mixed with the tang of hot metal and burnt rubber. 

The freedom of their controlled madness frightened her, yet she couldn’t look away from it because she also found it fascinating. 

Toecutter fascinated her. 

His madness was a living thing, an energy that pulsed through his every movement, every word. He was a force of nature, unpredictable, brutal, theatrical, indulgent, magnetic. The others they followed him not just out of fear, but out of a devotion born from the man himself.

She had watched him longer than she should, got closer than she should. Blurred the lines. She should have left when she had the chance. Now it was too late. 

She hadn’t been sure that they had made her at first, she was good, you didn’t stay alive if you weren’t, and she was a veteran, a deep cover that had survived past the five year mark. The average life span of a ghost rider was three years. The majority, those who didn’t meet their ends at the hands of the ferals spied on, crashing out their deaths either tarmac induced or self inflicted. They were actually issued with suicide pills. They were supposed to use them as a last resort, when they’d taken an unsurvivable spill way out in the badlands, or if they were facing a brutal death at the hands of the gangs they spied on. The gangs weren’t shy of making an example of a deep cover bronze, leaving their ruined and broken bodies strung up somewhere they would be guaranteed to get some attention, but she knew many ghost riders simply slipped a pill one day when the loneliness born from their complete isolation became too much. 

She thrown her pills away years ago. They were too much of a temptation after a day of white lining. 

Perhaps that was why she had stayed too long circling the fringes of Toecutters gang, a need to feel connected to something.

They’d set a trap for her. Not a fatal one or she wouldn’t be there now. Just a test to see if she really was there, or if they were imagining the constant presence on the edges of their vision. 

She didn’t know who they got to ride out, but they’d hit her with a classics bait and switch and she’d been too road drunk to notice. When she rode up into the small town they’d taken over, she’d been lucky enough that one of them had been a little too keen, the edge of a wheel peaking out around a broken down wall, a momentary aberration. Anyone else would have missed it, but she had slammed the bike around, foot in the dirt, twisting the wrist to send it fishtailing away from the wall of bikes that appeared behind her, opening up the engine to exit the trap before it slammed shut. They were close behind her when she had spotted a gap in the endless barbed wire fences, fanging it through and across the scrubby fields and away. Her bike had been purposefully constructed for both the black top and the rough, theirs weren’t. She rode hard, keeping off the roads until she felt safe enough ease back on the throttle. She had headed to a place she knew, a hidden inlet cradled by steep cliffs. The road to it a barely noticeable track concealed by thick trees that lead to a rough rocky slope that she could scramble down to the secluded beach - her sanctuary. 

She left her bike hidden amongst the trees draped in the camo net from her kit, picking her way down to the shore with just her go bag. 

She built a small but fierce fire of salt dried driftwood and for the first time in ten days heated her rations properly. 

Then the rare comfort of fresh brewed coffee, it’s heady scent mingling with wood smoke in the fresh salty breeze.

And after the last of the embers had died - she stripped.

The waterfall beckoned, a narrow ribbon spilling down the cliff side, its shaded pool of water the perfect antidote to the ingrained grim of the road. 

Her nipples hardened painfully as the cold of the water bit into her naked skin, but she welcomed the temporary discomfort washing away the sweat, the dust, and the exhaustion. 

For a brief moment nothing else mattered. Not the world going to shit around her or the constant threat of death and violence, not Goose and his desperate desire to keep her safe, to turn her into something she wasn’t, something she could never be. She was just a body in the wild, something free, something untamed. 

She felt like she could stay there, within that moment, forever…if only the water wasn’t so damned cold.

She hauled herself upright for a last cathartic plunge beneath the falling water, letting it pummel her head and shoulders.

Then -

Movement caught her attention. She couldn’t see clearly within the cascade, but there was something, someone, a presence on the shore.

She stepped from the tumbling water, shoving her soaked hair clear of her face. 

He was there.

Wading through the surf that broke around the rocky headland.

Naked.

She had never seen him like this, his body lean and taut, muscles shifting lazily beneath sun darkened skin. Water beaded on his chest, glistening in the sun.

For a moment neither of them moved. 

They simply stared at each other each with the same dumbfounded expression as if they had just happened upon something utterly unreal, a ghost or a god just wandering in the wild.

And then the spell was broken as she plunged across the pool to scrabble up on to the rocks, her feet slipping and sliding across the wave cut platform to snatch up her boots and jacket. Heaving herself up the rocky slope as Toecutter pulled himself from the water to give chase. 

She could hear him blundering his way up the rocks behind her as she reached her bike, abandoning the camo net to the forest floor. She pulled on her boots, headless of any twigs or leaves still stuck to her feet. By the time she had zipped up her jacket, she could see him through the undergrowth, muscular thighs powering his bulky frame forward with impressive speed. She pulled her gloves from her lid, cursing as her fingers suddenly seemed to rebel, refusing to sit themselves in to proper locations. Clumsily she pulled the lid over her head, tamping it down with a slapped hand to the top as she was swung her naked leg over the seat, kicking the stand away and praising God, The Devil and the MFP for her sweet start button. Pre fuelled, no key required, just flip the top, push it in and go. She was through the trees and onto the tarmacadam before she dared look back. She should have just carried on, opened the throttle and burnt rubber, but as he rose into view, climbing the slope through the trees, she stopped. Flipping her visor she stared back at him. He was breathing hard, his long curled hair tousled by the wind coming in from the sea. Naked. Glorious. She didn’t need to be a biologist to recognise the growing erection he sported. He had stopped and was standing, panting for breath and staring at her half naked figure, straddling the same bike that had been ghosting his gang, with a burning intensity. He raised an arm, pointed at her, his voice carrying as he called out.

“I see you! I see you little mouse!”

She didn’t know what it meant but she hadn’t like the way his voice, powerful and deep had made her cunt clench, the seat beneath her naked flesh feeling slicker than it should.

She hit the gas, leaving him standing there, arms crossed staring down the road after her. 

When she looked again, he was laughing.

She’d ridden half naked for over a mile, the wind stinging her flesh. Her cheeks burning hot with guilt and humiliation. When she’d stopped, pulling over in gravelled a lay-by, she had barely been able pull of her helmet before she vomited. Hurling everything she had eaten onto the tarmac. She was still shaking from the adrenaline when she tugged some spare clothing out of her panniers. She didn’t carry much, the bare essentials really, and she was already mourning the loss of the go bag. How could she have been so stupid. So fucking lax. She always packed her stuff before she washed, everything neatly stowed in the go bag ready to take off if anything felt sus. Except nothing had felt sus. She hadn’t been aware of his presence until it was too late. Stupid. Stupid. She berated herself until an image popped into her mind unbidden. The clothes she had left behind. The t shirt was nothing special, but her underwear, it was there for him to find, to pick up, to fondle but strangely it wasn’t as disturbing as the thought of him handling her patched leather trousers. She’d worn them for so long they felt like a second skin. They were a part of her, so much so that she was convinced that if he put his hands on the smooth leather, she feel his fingers pressing against her, and if he pressed his face into them, if he inhaled….no that was too much. She wasn’t going to think about that. She wasn’t going to get wet at the thought of him stroking himself to completion as he sniffed and the worn leather crotch. 

It was too much. Everything felt too close. Too loud. Even the sun, beginning to settle onto the horizon, felt too large. She puked again. Dry heaving as there was nothing left to come up. It was time to get the fuck out. She knew that. She’d hole up for the night and make a break for the one of the towns in the boonies, phone in an extraction request. A week fucking Goose would set her right, except, she reminded herself, that wasnt going to happen. She smiled at the memory of him. Nothing got The Goose down. When his muscular arms were wrapped around her she felt safe, but last time they’d lain together, in the sweaty darkness of her room out the back of the road house, he had begged her to quit. “Come be a regular, babe. I worry about you out there. Christ, every time I get a radio message about a ghost being cactus, or that the meat wagon is out scraping some hoon off the road, I think it’s you. You’ve been out there too long. You’re turning into a throttle junkie. We could do a Max, blow the whole thing, hit the road and enjoy life.” She’d known it was bullshit right then, because Max bailing had driven Goose into a silent rage.  Whenever she had asked him about what happened to his best friend, Goose only ever said the same four words. “He quit, I didn’t.” The truth was they were both lifers. They were going to die chasing those white lines. So she’d told him it was time to call it quits. It hurt. But he didn’t argue. When she’d woken in the morning, spread eagled on the bed, sore from a night of aggressive passion, despite the break up, he was gone. 

She spent the night in a broken down barn far enough from the highway that she would hear them coming, drifting around sleep, but never quite getting there. When the dawns light crept through the cracks in the sun warped wood she had fired up the bike and headed for the first chance at civilisation, a small beach town on an isolated isthmus. It had a scattered population, a grease rat scrappies and a beach front shop which served teas and ice creams. A shop that had a phone kiosk outside it. She didn’t even try and disguise her arrival, just pulling up beside the battered phone booth and dialling her handlers number. She left her message. Had a cup of tea. Called again. Had another tea. Called again. She was nervy. She hadn’t seen any sign of Toecutter’s crew,  but she couldn’t shake the feeling she was being watched. She called again and when there was no response waiting for her she had left her message and bailed. Uncomfortable with the way the skinny grease rat with the slicked back hair had watched her go. She continue up the coast to the next town, avoiding the main roads, doubling back when she felt that instinctual burning between her shoulder blades that told her she was being watched. By the time she made the next call she was desperate. Still no reply message. She had to just keep riding, heading for the borderlands, except, that was when they had started to herd her away from safety. By the time she had received the request denied message she was deeper in than she had been for a long time, a last chance town on the edge of the nomad zone. The gang had been on her tail lights the whole way. Her one chance had been to out flank them, use her bikes off road capabilities to skirt around wherever they might have encamped and then the moon had betrayed her and their bikes had appeared in the distance pushing her further and further into the outback. 

When her bike began to misfire, it’s fuel running too low, even with her expanded emergency tank, she had known the end was near and the moment the engine had spluttered, coughing out its last breath of fuel, the trap had snapped shut. She had barely swung her leg off the seat when they were on her- bikes circling forming a wall of hot metal. She wouldn’t be running anywhere. The circle finally stilled, engines revved to fever pitch until at some unseen signal they were cut. Then they were off their bikes and laughing and hooting and circling her like a pack of wild dogs. They didn’t attack, not really, there was pushing and shoving, her helmet was pulled off, dragged the dead bike away, the knife slid away from its sheath in her boot.

Then he was there.

Toecutter

The pack parting as he prowled towards her, his wild eyes gleaming beneath his tangled hair.

“My, my, my…..” his voice was like silk wrapped in razor wire, “I do believe we have caught the little mouse that was hiding in the shadows. Watching us, hmmm? Did you like what you saw Little Mouse.” His hips jutted forward with the last words, the message to her clear.

She kept her face blank, eyes on Toecutter.

“Just passing through.” She replied keeping her tone even.

The gang roared with laughter.

Toecutter tilted his head to one side, stepping closer. “Liar.” He said as his fingers traced the patched leather of her jacket. “You’re the little mouse who has been sniffing around us in the dark. Sniff, sniff, sniff.” He leaned in close to her neck and inhaled, deep, long, running his nose along the flesh.

“I know what you smell like Little Mouse.” His voice was low, husky, his grin wide, all teeth and madness. “You smell like Bronze!” He yelled out to the baying crowd.

Her heart was pounding in her chest her breath coming in short fast gasps as rough hands seized her arms, twisting them painfully behind her back. She struggled, but it was useless. She was outnumbered, outmatched.

She knew what came next. Pain and then eventual death. 

They dragged her to a rusted out warehouse on the outskirts of the nowhere that they had brought her to bay.

Once inside, as if by some unseen agreement the gang dispersed into the darkness, leaving her alone with him. 

He circled her like a vulture his fingers always busy, ghosting across her cheek, trailing across her shoulder or tracing the curve of her spine. He looked at her like a predator who had finally cornered his prey, his eyes sparkling with unspoken intentions. 

The worst part of it was the way the sensation of liquid heat was pooling low inside her. 

Toecutter stopped, standing so close behind her she could feel the heat from his body, his voice hot in her ear.

“What am I going to do with you Bronze. What am I going to do to MY little mouse.” 

She didn’t answer. Couldn’t. Not when his touch sent shivers throughout her body. When she was struggling just to keep her thighs from pressing together to ease the burning tension that was building between them.

He chuckled, stepping in front of her, titling her chin up with one hot finger. 

“You’ve been watching me….but I think you wanted to be caught…hmmm?”

She swallowed hard, “you’re insane.”

His grip on her chin tightened enough to make her pulse jump. “Ahh, but madness is just another kind of freedom isn’t it Bronze?” 

He held her head firmly, forcing her to look at him, to look into hid eyes as he spoke, his voice low, serious, honeyed. 

“Tell me, have you ever been FREE little mouse?”

His lips hovered over hers - taunting, teasing.

She should have hated him. Should have spat in his face, clawed his eyes, fought to the moment of her death, but when his mouth finally crashed against her, all fire and possession, she moaned against his lips, opening her mouth to welcome his probing tongue. 

Toecutter growled, shoving her back against a rusted table. His hands were everywhere - gripping, exploring, claiming. She arched against him. Her nails digging into his neck and she pulling him back into the kiss. He pulled back enough to shed his top layers before he tore off her clothing, his fingers trailing over her bare skin, probing, squeezing, exploring causing her to squirm with delight. 

“Look at you” he cooed at her, his voice thick with dark amusement, “A Bronze writhing beneath the devil.”

She gasped as he bit her neck - sharp, possessive. Her body betrayed her, answering his hunger with her own. She pulled him down into her, biting his shoulder with her own feral need. 

When he pushed her down, began to strip her of her boots, her trousers she struggled, a reflex action because deep down she knew she shouldn’t want this, want him. But it was momentary, easily stilled by his sharp look and when he eased himself out of the confines of his trousers, his fully erect size eliciting a gasp of anticipation from her, she opened for him with no force or persuasion needed. 

She moaned, lost in absolute pleasure as he surprised her by kneeling and worshipping her glistening sex with a tongue that was both strong and immensely talented. 

In that moment, with the world falling apart and Toecutter devouring her as if she was the last thing worth taking -

She let herself fall…

…into madness…

…into him…

AFTER

She lay against him, her breath still ragged, her body marked by his touch as Toecutter traced lazy patterns along her sweat damped thighs, his voice low, almost affectionate.

“You could run….but we both know you won’t.”

She didn’t answer him because she was afraid he was right, 

The law had never made her feel like this. 

Free, and somehow, finally whole.

Only him.

And she wasn’t sure she was ready to let that go.

She wasn’t even sure if she could. 

Chapter Text

The night was cold. A stark contrast to the heat of Toecutter’s naked body and the feverish madness she had lost herself in.

She knew had to run.

Even as she lay draped in Toecutter’s strong arms, his fingers still tangled in her hair, she knew that she couldn’t stay. But she also knew that he would never let her go, not after what had happened. Not after he had claimed her.

Carefully, she eased herself away from him. He didn’t stir. His breathing remaining slow and steady. He was lost in a satisfied sleep. Around them, the gang lay sprawled out sleeping, exhausted from their revelry. She knew this was her only chance to get away but she was naked, without a vehicle and deep in dangerous territory. She didn’t bother hunting for her clothes, they were long gone, even her boots had disappeared somewhere, so with careful silent steps, she slipped out into the shadows. The outback stretched before her, endless and merciless. The distant remains of her bike were useless—stripped, emptied, left to rot.

But she didn’t need wheels.

She needed distance.

She ran.

The moment Toecutter woke, he knew. The warmth of her body was gone, the scent of her body was fading.

His little mouse had run.

He sat up, his movements slow, deliberate. Stretching, reaching for his leathers. All round him, the gang began stirring, sensing the shift in the air.

“Where is she?” Bubba muttered, rubbing sleep from his dark eyes.

Toecutter grinned.

“She thinks she’s free, Bubba.”

His voice was calm, almost affectionate as he stood.

“Hunt her.”

The gang sprang to life. Engines roared, the air turning thick with gasoline and dust.

Toecutter took his time, stretching like a great beast before the kill. When he stepped out into the desert he inhaled deeply, catching her fading scent on the wind.

Oh, she had run far.

But not far enough.

The roar of engines rumbled through the night they were chasing her down like a hungry wolf pack. 

Her lungs burned. Her legs ached. Her bare feet were bruised from  running. She went to ground ducking into the ruins of a car dump, weaving between the rusted-out hulks.

They were getting closer.

A spotlight swept across the broken landscape, searching, and she pressed herself against a wreck, her breathes sharp and quick. Then the engines were cut and the lights went out. She strained her eyes staring into the darkness. The moon had set now, hiding her, but making it near impossible for her to spot any movement.

Everything was silence.

It was too quiet.

“Where are they?” She muttered to herself. 

There was a whisper of movement behind her and before she could react a hand shot out, tangling in her hair.

She barely had time to gasp before she was slammed against the rusted hood of the abandoned car.

A familiar chuckle rumbled against her ear as Toecutter pressed himself over her naked body, his free hand running up the side of her thigh, fingers pressing deep into her bare buttock. 

“Oh, my little mouse,” Toecutter purred. “Did you really think you could run from me?” 

She thrashed, but his grip was iron, his bulky body pressed tight against hers, pinning her down.

“You ran so well,” he murmured, his voice dark with amusement. “I enjoyed the chase.”

His lips traced along the curve of her throat, the kisses he placed there slow, possessive.

“Shall I reward you, hmm?”

A shudder ran through her. Right then she hated him, hated him because of the way made her own body betray her.

His lips ghosted over her ear. “Or shall I punish you?”

A slow, wicked smile spread across his face as he felt her tremble beneath him.

“Ahh…” His grip in her hair tightened pulling her neck back towards him, the tight pain in the roots of her hair making her moan.

“That’s what you really want, isn’t it little mouse?”

He pulled her up by her hair, steering her out from between the wrecks with it as she frantically grasped at his wrist to ease the pressure. He whistled, high pitched and short and the night exploded with light as the bikes headlight blazed on. She was surrounded, naked, humiliated as the gang whooped and laughed, cheering their victorious leader.

But Toecutter didn’t even notice them.

He only had eyes for her.

His runaway.

His Bronze.

His.

The journey back was a blur of roaring engines and dust. She sat in front of Toecutter on his bike, trapped between his strong thighs, his arms caging her in. The gang howled around them, celebrating the successful hunt. Her capture.

But she wasn’t afraid.

Not anymore.

Somewhere between her running and the chase, something had shifted. The fire between them had turned into something else—something primal. She had run. She had to make a token effort to maintain her sanity before even that was stripped away. But she knew that some deeper part of her had wanted to be caught.

And now, she could be his.

Not just because he had taken her.

But because she could now admit that she had wanted to be taken

Back at the warehouse, its rusted metal and graffiti-covered walls revealing it as the centre of their kingdom of chaos, Toecutter had dragged her inside, his grip firm but not cruel. The rest of the gang whooped, jeered and laughed, slapping their leader on the back.

“She ran good,” Bubba grinned as he lit a cigarette. “Maybe she is one of us after all.”

Toecutter stopped in the center of the room, turning her to face him. His wild blue eyes burned with something unreadable.

“My little Bronze,” he murmured, fingers brushing over her cheek. “You still think you belong to the law?”

She lifted her chin. “I don’t know where I belong anymore.”

He grinned. “I do.”

He gripped her hair again, tugging her head back as his grip tightened, his voice turning low, rough. “But first, there’s the matter of your punishment.”

A ripple of excitement ran through the gang and they formed a loose circle around the pair. 

She swallowed hard, her pulse racing—not with fear, but anticipation. Toecutter’s lips curled in amusement. He could smell her arousal, her hidden desire. He leaned in, his breath hot against her ear. “You’ll take what I give you, little Bronze. And when I’m done, you’ll beg me to keep you.”

Her knees weakened, but she held his gaze.

“Prove it.” Was all she said in reply.

Toecutter began to circle her, his movements slow, deliberate and she shivered—not from cold, but from the raw hunger in his eyes.

“You ran,” he murmured. “That means you need to be tamed.”

The first smack came fast—a sharp stinging slap across her backside that made her gasp.

The gang whooped, but Toecutter ignored them.

His focus was only on her.

He hit her again and again—the slaps controlled, measured. Just enough to send a thrill of pain and pleasure racing through her veins. Sharp, fast, open handed slaps stung her buttocks, the meat of her breasts, her face, her thighs, her nipples. He moved so fast she never knew where the next blow was coming from or where it would land. Whichever way she turned to avoid a blow or to curl away in pain opened her up to another point of attack, another round of stinging slaps. Her skin was on fire her nerve endings burning with the heated pain of the blows and when he managed to land a blow across the front of her pussy, his fingers grazing over her swollen clit, she couldn’t hold back a moan, falling to he knees of the dirty concrete floor in a gesture of surrender that was not lost on him. He pulled her back up to her feet, holding her tight against him with one muscular arm as he dragged the fingers of the other hand over the heated skin of her buttocks. 

“Do you feel that?” he murmured, his fingers moving over her flesh, rubbing away the sting. 

“That’s me claiming you. Breaking you free of all those rules, all that Bronze bullshit.”

She bit her lip a fire of arousal burning through her.

He had stripping her down in every way—not just her body, but her will. And the worst part?

She wanted it.

She wanted him.

Toecutter chuckled, reading her perfectly. “There’s my good girl. You took your punishment so well. Now for the pleasure.” He took her by the hand and whistled in that curious way, dispelling the watching gang, leading her through to his lair. 

Then he gave her pleasure so intense it shattered her completely.

She surrendered to him, lost in the way he touched her—rough, demanding, worshiping. He took his time, making sure she felt everything. He tasted her, feasting from her sex like a starving man at a banquet, his powerful, talented tongue exploring her inner recesses. He opened her with his thick fingers, one, two then three, stretching her beyond what she thought possible. When he entered her he pulled her up onto her knees, pressing her shoulders down into the blankets and bedrolls. Plunging his rigid length into her in one single motion. The sensation of him bottoming out in her, her pussy lips stretched wide around him bringing her pleasure so intense she cried out, begging him for more, heedless of those who might hear. When he pulled out she felt empty, bereft, until he lay back, his handsome form stretched out for her to take. She straddled him eagerly, easing herself back onto his impressive prick and began to rock, to grind herself onto him with abandon. He gripped her hips and helped her to chase her pleasure, slamming her up and down as the bliss sapped her strength. By the end, she was boneless in his arms, marked, trembling, filled with his seed. By the end she was his.

She had been dozing in the afterglow, her body buzzing with a mixture of pleasure and pain, when Toecutter roused her, scooping her up, cradling her naked form against his own. He carried her back out into the main body of the building. The gang was all there, gathered in a circle around an old oil drum, flames flickered inside, visible through the holes in its sides. 

He lowered her to her feet and nodded to Bubba Zanetti who stepped forward holding her bundled clothes and her boots. He took his place between them his handsome face showing no emotion.

Toecutter smiled down at her. “You have to make a choice, you can be Little Bronze or Little Mouse, but you can’t be both. Join us, be the one who you truly were meant to be. Throw your clothes into the fire burn away your past.”

Bubba turned towards her, proffering the pile of clothes, the slightest of smiles playing across his lips. She took them with only the slightest of hesitations, casting them into the flames, surprised by the cheers of the circled gang. As soon as the noise had died away Bubba reached into his jacket and pulled out a wicked looking knife handing it to Toecutter who took it, pressing the sharp edge into the flesh of his palm without hesitation, the blood welling up dark and thick. He then held the knife out toward her, handle first. Her breath hitched. 

“What’s this?” She asked.

His face was serious as he told her, “A ritual. The old ways. Blood for blood.”

She hesitated—but only for a moment—before following Toecutters example, slicing into the meat of her hand.

He pressed their hands together. The warmth of his blood mingled with hers, sealing something deeper than wounds.

Toecutter’s grin was wild, victorious.

“Now, you’re mine,” he murmured, brushing his lips against hers. “Forever.”

The gang roared in approval.

She looked up at him, breathless, shaken… but whole.

Because she knew, finally, exactly where she belonged.

With him.

In the fire.

Forever.

Chapter Text

After the bonding ritual the gang had celebrated late into the night. Toecutter had kept her close ever since, his touch possessive, his presence undeniably magnetic.

It was strange how quickly she adapted to this new life. Within weeks she had almost forgotten what it felt like to be a bronze. She had never worn the uniform, but her old clothes, the ones she had worn while on her totally immersive duty had be burned away, and with that loss, she had been born anew.

They had given her new clothes to choose from, a pile appeared without a word, on the bed rolls and cushions that served as Toecutter’s bed.  She didn’t ask where they came from—who they had belonged to before, or what had happened to them, it was just nice not to be naked anymore. She chose a black tank top, black patched riding leathers, and heavy boots with someone else’s blood still crusted in the tread, and a jacket made of soft brown leather, elbows armoured, its fur collar echoing Toecutter’s.

She wasn’t given a weapon but she had asked Toecutter anyway, the first day she’d been allowed to be clothes, while she ate the hot meal she’d been given at a place that was now hers beside the fire. He’d not mocked her for the question and told her simply that that would come later, when she’d earned it.

Later, curled in his arms, her newly acquired clothes abandoned beside their bed, she had asked him what really mattered to her.

“When do I get a bike?”

She had felt more naked, more vulnerable, without a bike than without clothes. She had spent years on two wheels eating up the white line, without she didn’t feel whole.

He’d laughed, his lips curling up into a smile as he pulled her to him, mouthing his way down her neck, across her shoulder, taking her breast in his large hand, lips closing around her nipple as he teased it with his teeth. 

Releasing the hardened bud he pulled her head up to look into his eyes filled with promise. “You’ll ride again, my Little Mouse. But for now—you’ll ride with me.”

And she did, sitting behind him, her arms locked around his thick waist, her head always resting against his broad back, inhaling the scent of him, the scent of a madman whose gang had razed her old life to ash and rebuilt it in freedoms she had yet to truly fathom.

She learned their ways, learned the gang like she learned the roads—by feel, by instinct, by careful observation.

Loud and proud, Cundalini was the gang’s medic. From what she could piece together he’d been a final year medical student on an orphan scholarship. He’d had to work to support himself and with too much to do in too few hours he’d found himself addicted to uppers, downers and anything else he could get his hands on. When he’d crashed and burned there had been no one to catch him until he found himself on the road, broken, unwanted until Toecutter gave him a home. Now, mostly, clean he was good with a needle and quick with a joke and one of the few who could mouth off to Toecutter and walk away laughing. It was Cundalini who had carefully applied the hand poked burnout tattoo to the back of her neck. The spot chosen by Toecutter so that he could admire it while he took her from behind.

Bubba Zanetti was the flamboyant Cundalini’s exact opposite. As Toecutter’s second-in-command, he was sharp, cool, quiet. He had eyes like a wolf and he didn’t miss a thing. He didn’t say a lot but he spoke volumes with his eyes. A single look could stop an argument or pull an apology from even the most stubborn of the gang. She watched the way the others deferred to him when Toecutter wasn’t around. There was great power in his silence. 

Mudguts was a pretty boy with wild streak, like a child, he seemed to have virtually no sense of danger, but he was one hell of a rider and could coax a bike into feats that didn’t seem possible.

Clunk looked like the kind of man who could rip someone’s spine out with one hand, broad as a boulder, but closer to a child than a man thanks the spill he’d once taken and metal plate now imbedded in his skull. He knew every inch of a bike like it was holy scripture. He startled like a deer if she said his name too loud and turned bright pink when she thanked him for filling her canteen.

Diabando was wild, fearless, and strangely polite. He called her “miss” and always offered her his arm when she dismounted. He was clever, his ability to pick out a weakness in a defence or flaw in a plan, was remarkable.

Starbuck didn’t look much like it, heavy set and bearded, he mostly communicated in grunts, but he was the most spiritual of the gang. He had a pannier full of books, knew the constellations of by heart and told her she was the person tarot cards were invented for. She didn’t feel she could ask what that meant.

And then… there was Johnny the Boy. 

She didn’t trust him.

He watched her the way a snake would watch a mouse, except there was no hunger in his eyes, only hatred and spite. He hated her because Toecutter wanted her. Because she hadn’t screamed or fought when Toecutter had claimed her. Because she’d been accepted by the others. Or maybe just because she was still alive. 

She’d seen him, watching from afar as part of her former life. Before her becoming a part of the gang, Johnny seemed only to exist to worship Toecutter, his devotion, adoration and desire, clear to see even at a distance. He had clung to Toecutter like a lost dog—snarling at everyone who came close, licking the boots of the one who fed him. And Toecutter had treated him like a favoured pet, albeit one he kicked hard occasionally. But now Toecutter barely glanced his way. That status shift was palpable and Johnny looked knew it was all her fault. He knew she had taken something that had belonged to him.

The others kept eyes on her too, she knew they were waiting to see if she’d bolt again, but their glances were wary, curious. Johnny’s were calculated. She could tell he was planning something, and she knew that when it came, it wouldn’t be loud or direct, it would be covert, malicious and vicious. So she watched him carefully and kept close to Toecutter. She knew he wouldn’t dare try anything in front of him. 

They had ridden to a camp close to a vehicle graveyard intent upon stripping out some parts. It was part of her old stomping ground and it felt strange to be back there. She wondered if there was a deep cover out there watching her now. They would have to be damn good for her not to spot them. But then, had she even been logged as missing? Had MFP just closed her file and forgotten her.

Just before dawn she’d stepped away from the camp to pee, careful to check that Johnny the Boy was snoring on his bed roll. Starbuck was on watch, he nodded as she passed him, dressed only in Toecutter’s shirt, it was clear she wasn’t going far. She had been with them long enough now that he didn’t even bother to ask where she was going. She didn’t go far, just enough distance so that she could squat down behind a car and not be heard.

That’s when she found it, the message scrawled in the dust on the side of the rusted out car.

Meet me. Alone. You know where. G.

She knew who it was. She knew the damn handwriting, 

Goose.

Her heart clenched in her chest. She should have ignored it, turned around and headed back to the camp, but deep down some part of her needed to see him again, even if it was just once.

The ruins of an old gas station stood empty at the edge of the tangled motorised corpses in the early morning light, the faded sign, that clung on to its one remaining hook, swaying in the hot wind. It was a place they both knew. Memories of stolen moments of passion amid its broken down walls surfaced and she found herself uncharacteristically tearful. Could she really say goodbye to him. She approached cautiously, hand resting on the knife at her hip.

Then—

“Didn’t think you’d come.” His voice brought a warmth to her cheeks.

She turned and Goose, handsome as ever, stepped out from the shadows, his leather MFP jacket dusty from the road, his blue eyes burning with something between fury and desperate longing.

“You look different,” he muttered. “Wilder.” The way he looked her up and down suddenly made her feel defensive and she crossed her arms. “Why are you here, Goose?”

He exhaled sharply. “To bring you home.”

She laughed bitterly. “Home? Where is that, Goose? The MFP? The back of some shitty fucking roadhouse? The world’s falling apart. You think you can save it? Save me?”

His jaw tightened. “I know who you were before they got to you.”

Her pulse jumped as he stepped closer.

“I loved you,” he said, voice raw. “I still do.”

She swallowed hard.

“Come back with me,” he pleaded. “Before it’s too late.”

She looked deep into his beautiful blue eyes, remembered the pleasure of their bodies tangled, chasing their pleasure with the same wild abandon they chased the white lines with. For a split second, she wavered.

Then—

A slow clap echoed from the shadows and Johnny the Boy emerged, his grin sharp as a knife.

“Ahhh, the knight in shining leather,” Johnny drawled. “Here to rescue the pretty, pretty lady.”

Her stomach dropped.

“What are you doing here, Johnny?” she demanded.

He smirked. “Followed you, of course. Figured I might have some time with you alone.” His sneer, the way his eyes raked over her semi naked firm made her feel violated. 

“I didn’t think ol’ Goose here beat would me to it.”

“She good Goose? She worth it? Nice an tight?…ha!” He spat “not so tight now Toecutters stretched her wide open, eh?”

Goose’s expression darkened. “You little shit.”

Johnny just giggled. “Ohh, someone’s jealous,” he taunted. Then his grin twisted into something darker. “You hate that she’s Toecutter’s now, don’t ya, Bronze?” “You couldn’t best him on the road and now you can’t best him in the bed.”

Goose lunged but Johnny was faster.

The knife flashed—quick, brutal and Goose staggered back, clutching his side.

“You’re too old Bronze. Too old and too slow.”

“You think you think she’d leave him first you? he sneered at Goose “You? A fucking worn out, used up Bronze. You aren’t even fit to like his fucking boots!”

Goose’s hand trembled on his wound, blood seeping around his fingers, his breathing ragged. “You’re fucking insane.” He said hus gaze flicking between her and Johnny.

Johnny tilted his head, his grin widening. “No, mate. I’m loyal.”

Then Johnny turned his wild gaze on her.

“But what about you? Where’s your loyalty you bitch? You belong to Toecutter.” His voice was almost reverent. “And I find you sneaking off to this Bronze!”

She shivered. Not from fear or the cool of the morning air on her bare legs—but from the terrifying truth in his words.

She had made her choice the moment she let Toecutter claim her.

The MFP was her past.

Did she belong to Toecutter?

However damned she now was, she knew that Toecutter was her future.

And Goose…

She met his eyes and saw the hope dying in them. He saw the truth in her before she even spoke.

“I’m not going with you, Goose.” The words felt bitter in her mouth. She had never wanted to hurt him.

His face twisted, pain and disbelief warring in his expression. “You want him?You love him?”

She exhaled shakily. “I belong to him.”

The words sealed her fate.

Johnny chuckled. “Wrong choice, love.”

She turned on him. “Shut up Johnny, just shut the fuck up!”

“Toecutter’s favorite little pet.” he spat the words at her. 

She saw the madness blazing in his eyes and it was clear to her just how much he hated her.

“You ruined it,” Johnny whispered menacingly, stepping closer. “Before you, he needed us. Me.” His eyes flickered with something unstable. “But now? Now it’s just you.”

She tensed. “I’m not taking him away from anyone.”

Johnny laughed closing the distance between them. “Oh, but you are. You think he even sees us anymore? Bubba, Cundalini, Mudguts? Me?” He sneered. “No. He only sees you.”

She looked towards Goose, uncertain what to do to calm Johnny’s fury.

And that’s when she felt it—

The prick of a needle against her neck.

Her breath hitched. “Johnny, don’t—”

But the world was already slipping away, her vision blurring as the drug took hold.

The last thing she saw as she collapsed into the dirt was Johnny’s wicked grin as he stared down at her, hypodermic in hand.

“Nighty-night, love.” He crooned at her.

Then came the darkness.

Chapter Text

She woke to the hum of an engine. Her body felt stiff, her mind sluggish. Cold wind lashed at her naked skin and her head felt heavy. She couldn’t move her legs or arms and she realised that her body was bound. Opening her eyes she finally understood, she was on a bike, no, she was bound to a bike, to the rider. a skid lid had been placed on her head, and through the visor she could see it quite clearly that it wasn’t Toecutter’s bike, it was Goose’s.

Her stomach dropped as she realised.

No. No, no, no, Goose what have you done?

She struggled, but her limbs were too heavy, her muscles refused to cooperate.

“Easy,” Goose called out to her, tightening his grip on the handlebars. “You’re safe.”

Rage flared inside her. “Safe?” She screamed at him. “What the fuck did you do, Goose?”

“I didn’t do anything,” he shot back at her. “Your friend did.”

Her blood turned cold. Johnny. The injection. 

That snake.

He had knocked her out. Given her to Goose because he wanted her gone, more than that, he wanted Toecutter to think she had run. 

Goose risked glancing at her, his expression torn between concern and anger. “I don’t know what kind of sick game they’re playing, but I’m getting you out of it. You don’t belong there.”

She gritted her teeth trying to force her body to wake up. “You don’t understand, Goose.”

“I understand just fine,” he snapped. “They brainwashed you. But it’s not too late. I can save you, I know I can”

She struggled harder, the adrenaline surging through her veins starting to wake her nerves and muscles.

“Turn this bike around,” she growled.

Goose’s jaw clenched, concentrating on the black top ahead. “Not happening.”

She twisted, throwing her still numbed body around as much as she could, making the bike swerve violently.

“Fuck!” Goose cursed, catching the bike as it twitched from her frantic motions.

She fought against her restraints, desperate to get free. If she didn’t stop Goose—if Toecutter thought she had betrayed him—

He would never forgive her.

And Johnny?

That little bastard would be right there, whispering poison in his ear.

She had to get back. She had to…

She wasn’t sure how Goose managed it, but she felt the needle jab into the meat of her thigh.

Son of a bit….

She didn’t know how long they had been riding. She had lost all track of the time, drifting in and out if consciousness, hovering somewhere between the roar of the engine and the wind tearing at her skin. They could have been riding for hours, days maybe—she wasn’t sure because everything blurred together in the drag of motion and the dull throb of whatever both Johnny and Goose had drugged her with.

When the bike finally shuddered to a stop the sky had turned from pale amber to the bruised purple of dusk, the last rays of the dying sun glowing brilliantly on the horizon. The KZ’s engine was still ringing in her ears, even as it cooled, ticking softly like a dying clock as Goose freed himself from the rigged up harness he had created. He heaved himself off of the bike, pulling his sawn off shotgun from its rack. Staggering before catching himself against a half-collapsed brick wall. The building he had pulled the bike to a halt next to was some kind of long abandoned ruin, a skeleton of brick and iron, all rust and broken glass, the roof sagging inwards at a dangerous angle.

Goose released her from the back of the bike, dragged her bound body over his shoulder. Grunting with the effort and nearly falling as he staggering across the floor. When they reached the back wall he dropped to his knees, gasping, easing her down to the floor beside him. He fumbled at the strapping around her ankles, binding her legs together, leaving her hands already bound.

“We’ll rest here,” he said. “At first light, we ride out of this fucking wasteland.”

“Let me go, Goose, please.” she rasped, desperate to end things before it got any worse

“Don’t,” he snapped. The word echoed too loud in the hollow space. He rubbed at his face, sweat-slick and dirt-smeared, then slumped back against the wall his shaking hand pressed against his side. He was bleeding. She could smell the coppery tang of it.

“Please, Goose. You’re bleeding. I can help.”

His eyes flicked over to her—bloodshot, wary, ringed with exhaustion and full of bitter disappointment.

“No,” he said flatly. “I Don’t trust you.”

“Goose, I’m not—” Her voice cracked. “I’m not brainwashed.” 

He glared at her. Bitterness mixed with anger, daring her to say another word.

She bit back the words she had wanted to say, there was no point. She knew him well enough to know when he had made his mind up.

They lapsed into silence. Dust floated in the air, glowing in the last of the orange rays that slanted through the broken windows. Her wrists ached. Her throat was dry. She shifted closer, knees scraping the floor.

“If I was brainwashed,” she said gently, “don’t you think I’d be trying harder to kill you?”

He looked at her again. This time less sharp, a trace of the old Goose visible at last.

“When I heard you were gone, declared KIA, I…I couldn’t..I wouldn’t believe it. Not you. I just took off. I had to find you. Find out if…Then when I found you, I don’t know what they did to you, the way you looked at him—that Toecutter freak—like he was the damn sun. That’s not real. That’s… engine grease on the brain.”

He pulled a bloodied rag from his jacket pocket and pressed it to his wound with a hiss. It did little to slow the flow.

“I used to think you were so smart,” he added after a beat. “I saw it in your eyes. You understood the world and you looked at it like you could take it apart and rebuild it with your bare hands. But now… now you look at me like you don’t know me anymore. Like our time together, those words we shared mean nothing, like I’m the enemy.”

She didn’t, couldn’t answer right away. Her throat was tight, and not from thirst.

“I…I don’t look at you like the enemy, do I.” she said, so quietly he almost didn’t hear.

Goose let out a bitter laugh that turned into a cough. “Sure you do. They twisted you up. You just don’t see it.”

Goose wiped sweat from his brow. “You don’t have to say anything,” he murmured. “I know you don’t believe it yet, but I will get you out of this.”

He meant it.

She looked at him, at the man she had once, maybe still did love. 

She saw the pain in his eyes. He thought he was doing the right thing.

But she had never been in more danger in her life.

Because if Toecutter caught them now, he wouldn’t be merciful.

She leaned closer, her voice trembling.

“Untie me, Goose. I can stop the bleeding. I know how.”

He stared at her his jaw tight, a muscle ticking in his cheek.

And then he looked away.

“Rest.” It was all he said, before he pulled the shotgun up onto his lap and closing his eyes.

Outside, somewhere in the distance, something clattered—a pebble dislodged or the building settling, she couldn’t tell, but the latter certainly worried her. It felt like a strong breeze could bring the building down on them.

“Goose, did you hear that?” she whispered.

But Goose didn’t answer. His head had tipped forward, chin against his chest, breath ragged. Exhaustion and blood loss had taken him under.

She waited, straining her ears, heart pounding but the sound didn’t come again.

Maybe it was just the building settling. Or maybe…

The drugs were pulling her under again. Her head lolled then snapped back up again, as she tried to keep her eyes on the shadows outside the door. But her vision doubled and the shadows swam before her, becoming indistinct blurs.

She didn’t see the movement in the darkness. 

She didn’t know how long she’d been out but the next time her eyes cracked open, the world was colder, darker. Her limbs refused to move.

A hand clamped over her mouth.

She jolted, or tried to, but her body wouldn’t obey. 

Her breath caught in her throat as a face hovered inches from hers, grinning and pale in the darkness, eyes wide and glistening with madness.

Johnny.

He was crouched over her like a malevolent spider with a knife in his hand—a huge, jagged thing with notches along the edge. It glinted in the moonlight that was slanting in through the broken window.

“Wakey wakey, Little Mouse.” He hissed at her, his breath on her skin making her shudder. 

“Don’t scream. Not just yet, yeah? You’ll wake the knight in shining leather.”

She whimpered against his hand, heart slamming into her ribs. The drugs made everything slow, syrupy. Her limbs were useless, deadweight.

Christ he was going to kill her.

He pressed the knife to her cheek, the metal cold, not cutting—not yet—just letting her feel it. His face was too close, too wrong. He didn’t blink. Didn’t seem to breathe.

“Everything was so good before you,” he whispered, voice sweet and cracked like glass as he traced the knife blade down her throat. “You spoiled it. You poisoned it. You’re rotten. I should cut you out. Cut out the poison.”

She felt the tip of the blade pressing up into the flesh below her jaw, waiting for him the thrust the metal forward, for the suffocating death of choking on her own blood.

Behind them, Goose groaned.

It was barely a sound. Not much more than a stir of breath and the creak of fabric, but Johnny’s head snapped up.

His smile vanished.

In a blink, he was gone—melting into the dark like smoke, silent as breath.

She lay there, eyes wide, heart screaming. Her skin prickled with sweat as the cold air bit at the damp spot where the knife had last rested.

She waited. Listened.

Nothing. Just the soft wheeze of Goose’s broken sleep. The distant moan of wind.

No Johnny.

Had he been real?

She didn’t know.

The drugs pulled at her again, soft and relentless. Her body ached to follow. As the darkness dragged her back under she wondered if it had just been a dream.

The next morning, Goose was up before the sun had fully risen.

“Don’t run,” he warned, his voice raw as he reached for the bungee cord wound around her legs. 

“I won’t,” she said, softly. “Goose. Jim, I’m not going to fight you. Right now the only safety there is for both of us is to get the hell out of here. Whatever else, we can sort out later. But right now, you need to be able to ride, properly. Let me help you.” 

She held up her bound hands to him, they were cinched so tight enough that her circulation burned.

Her head was clearer now, the drugs finally leaving her system, it made the reality of what she was facing so much worse.

She had seen Toecutter hunt before.

She knew his ways.

He didn’t lose. Distance was their only salvation. 

Goose looked her in the eyes.

It took one more breathless “please” before he pulled out his knife and snicked the plastic. Blood flowed back into her hands turning pins and needles into burning pain. 

“We need distance,” he said, swinging his leg over the bike. “Come on.”

She hesitated.

A whisper of warning crawled up her spine.

If Toecutter thought she had run, that would be bad enough, but if he found her riding with Goose, with a Bronze, voluntarily. She didn’t want to think about it. 

But she didn’t have a choice. She picked up the helmet he had left for her, pulling it over her head her finger caught a small scab underneath her chin, a pin prick wound, a wound left behind by the tip of a very sharp knife.

So climbed on behind him and they rode.

For the first ten miles, everything seemed fine, then the bike shuddered.

Goose frowned, adjusting his grip. “What the hell?” Was all he managed to say before the engine sputtered—then died. A split second later, the back wheel locked up.

The world spun.

The ground rushed up to meet them.

She felt herself thrown from the bike, her body slamming into the dirt and rolling hard.

Then—silence.

A groan.

She pushed herself up, dazed, her shoulder throbbing, the skin on her bare thighs, knees and toes burning with gravel rash. She heaved off the crash helmet. Dust filled the air.

And Goose…

He wasn’t moving.

Her stomach twisted.

She scrambled toward him, heart hammering. “Goose?”

He lay on his side, one leg twisted at an unnatural angle, his face was pale, breath ragged.

“Fuck,” he hissed through gritted teeth. “My leg.”

She swallowed hard.

A broken leg.

That meant he wasn’t riding out of here.

That meant he was trapped.

And then she heard it.

Engines.

Distant.

Steady.

Coming closer.

Her blood went cold, she looked up at the road behind them and there they were, a line of bikes on the horizon.

The pack was closing in.

They weren’t in a hurry, they were riding slow and easy, and even at a distance she could tell that at the head of the pack was Toecutter.

She turned back to Goose, her chest tightening.

He was barely conscious, pain dragging him under, unable to ride, unable even to walk.

He didn’t stand a chance.

Not against them.

Not against him.

She exhaled shakily.

There was only one way to stop this.

Only one way to save Goose from what she knew would be coming for him. It meant offering herself back into Toecutter’s hands and hoping, praying he would be merciful.

She rose slowly, dusting herself off.

Waiting for the pack to arrive.

Waiting for him.

They circled them, revving engines and spitting up dirt, riding perilously close to her and the prostrate figure of goose. 

They finally ceased moving, engines running as they rolled to a stop. 

Toecutter sat astride his bike, his head tilting towards her ever so slightly, watching her with unreadable eyes. 

His wild grin stretched across his face.

Because he had won. Again.

She felt her pulse hammering against her ribs but without hesitation, without looking back at Goose, she started walking toward the pack. Toward him. 

The moment she stepped toward the pack, the engines cut. Silence fell over the wasteland. Dust swirled in the air and ever step toward him felt heavier.

Behind her, Goose groaned, still barely conscious. His leg was broken, useless. If Toecutter wanted to make an example out of him, there would be no stopping it.

She only had one chance to save him.

She reached Toecutter and, before he could speak, before the fire of his wrath could fully rise—

She dropped to her knees.

Her voice came low and raw. “Please.”

A ripple of amusement passed through the gang.

Toecutter’s brows lifted, his lips curling slightly. “Please?” he repeated, voice lilting. “You beg me?”

Her throat felt so dry. “It wasn’t me,” she said quickly. “I didn’t run.”

Toecutter exhaled through his nose, swinging his leg off his bike with slow, deliberate ease.

“Didn’t you, though?” he murmured, circling her.

The others watched, waiting.

She took a shaking breath. “Johnny,” she whispered. “It was Johnny. He knocked me out. Gave me to Goose. I swear it—I never wanted to leave you.”

Toecutter stopped in front of her, crouching, tilting her chin up with a gloved finger.

His blue eyes burned.

“Do you think me a fool, my lovely?” he whispered.

Her stomach clenched. “No.”

Toecutter’s lips twitched.

Then his fingers tightened on her jaw—hard enough to bruise.

“Then prove it,” he growled shoving her away.

She didn’t hesitate.

Scrambling towards him her hands slid to his belt, her forehead pressing to his thigh in silent submission. “I belong to you,” she whispered. “Only you.”

A shudder passed through him.

A slow inhale.

Then—laughter.

Low, dark, pleased.

He released her, his fingers trailing through her hair. “Mmm,” he purred, “that’s a start, my sweet.”

Then his gaze flicked past her.

To Goose.

And the fire in his eyes burned hotter.

“Tell me, my pet,” Toecutter mused, stepping past her toward the wounded officer. “If you belong to me…” His fingers flexed at his sides. “Why should I let him live?”

Panic shot through her veins.

She scrambled up, hurrying after him. “He’s nothing,” she rushed out. “Nothing to me, nothing to us—just a dying Bronze.”

Goose stirred weakly. “Fuck… you,” he slurred.

Toecutter chuckled. “Such spirit,” he mused. “And yet…” His boot pressed against Goose’s broken leg.

Goose screamed.

She flinched.

Toecutter leaned in, his grin widening.

“Tell me why I shouldn’t snap his pretty neck,” he murmured.

She forced herself to move, stepping between them.

“Because his life isn’t the price you want,” she breathed.

Toecutter’s eyes flicked to her, curious.

She swallowed dropping down to her knees again her hands raised in supplication. 

“You want loyalty,” she whispered. “I never betrayed you and I will prove mine to you.”

She pointed an accusing finger at Johnny. She raised her voice so the whole gang could hear. “He betrayed you. He hates me. He wanted me gone. He wants me dead.”

Toecutter studied her.

Then—his gaze flicked over his shoulder.

Straight to Johnny.

The younger gang member tensed. “Boss—”

“Johnny, Johnny, Johnny,” Toecutter sighed, shaking his head. “You gave her away.”

Johnny’s jaw clenched. “She was ruining everything.”

The gang tensed.

There was a crackling shift in the air.

Toecutter’s smirk returned.

“You hear that, my lovely?” he murmured, running a hand through her hair. “He thinks you ruined everything.”

Her blood turned to ice.

Johnny took a slow step back.

“You wouldn’t,” Johnny whispered.

Toecutter’s gaze turned wild. “Wouldn’t I?”

Then his fingers curled in her hair, yanking her head back as he whispered in her ear—

“Wouldn’t you?”

Her breath hitched.

The message was clear.

Toecutter would spare Goose…

If she gave him Johnny’s blood.

Johnny saw it.

His eyes widened.

Then he ran.

Johnny fled into the ruins, his boots pounding against the dirt. It was his only choice. He stood no chance on the road, on his bike, he would have been brought down in seconds. They were far better riders than him.

Toecutter let him go a wicked grin spreading across his face. 

“Oh, this will be fun.” Was all he said before he turned to the gang.

“Diabando, Mudguts. Trash the bike, leave the Bronze. We’ll handle that later.” His grin sharpened. “The rest of you, cut Johnny off, but leave him alone. No one touches him. He’s mine.”

As the rest of the gang pulled out and, Bubba and Mudguts proceeded back up the road to salvage anything worthwhile from Goose’s spilled bike, Toecutter wormed his fingers into her hair pulling her to her feet. She knew better than to resist, to put her hands around his to ease the pain in her roots.  Even if she hadn’t done so willingly, she had still run and he was angry with her. He pulled her close, running his nose and lips over her, scenting her, tasting her. 

“You smell of him.” He spat the words at her as he pushed her away, and her cheeks burned with shame. But there was something else there, a fire inside her that burned with a strange fury. She was more than this. More than just a broken toy he could be petulant over. In a second she had her own fingers tangled in his curls, pulling his head down towards her face, when he brought up his arm she blocked it with ease. Her face an inch from hers as she hissed her words at him.

“Then make me smell of something better.”

He wasn’t expecting the kiss, she could tell from his momentary hesitation, but he returned it with force, their lips mashed together, their tongues battling, until they were forced to separate, gasping for air. For once Toecutter looked rueful, glancing at her shyly, then he held out his hand and led her to his bike. Behind them Goose groaned. She didn’t know if it was pain or sorrow at their  display. Either way she didn’t, couldn’t look back. If Goose was going to live, Johnny had to die, and nothing could distract from that, not even the burning embers of love she felt for her broken hero.

Goose woke to pain. His leg was screaming. He gritted his teeth, forcing himself upright. The country stretched around him—empty. The gang had gone and only one set of tracks led away from the scene. Johnny’s.

That little bastard had set this whole thing in motion and now he was running.

Goose hissed as he began crawling his way to the wreckage of his bike. He splinted his leg, using scraps from the wreckage. It wasn’t much, but it would hold. Then he went in search of his shotgun. It wasn’t on the bike, he hadn’t expected to be, but the cradle had clearly been torn off as the bike had tumbled. If he was lucky the gang, caught up in their thirst for violence, would have missed it. They had and Goose made up his mind. He wasn’t dying here.

Not like this. Johnny was out there and it was time to finish it, whatever happened afterwards, he was going to make sure that Johnny arrived in hell before he did.

Goose tracked Johnny to an old refinery, the skeletal remains of machines casting long shadows.

Johnny was inside, pacing.

Muttering to himself.

Freaked out.

“Fucking Toecutter,” Johnny snarled. “Fucking her.” He kicked a rusted canister, sending it clattering. “Should’ve let the Bronze have her, should have fucking slit the bitches throat last night —”

Click.

Johnny froze.

“Hey, Johnny,” Goose rasped.

Johnny spun around, wild-eyed. Goose stood in the doorway, a makeshift crutch in one hand, shotgun in the other.

“You should be dead!” Johnny shrieked. 

Goose bared his teeth. “Yeah? Well, so should you.”

Johnny lunged.

Goose fired.

The shot hit low, tearing through Johnny’s guts.

The younger man staggered back, wheezing, blood dripping between his fingers as he clutched at his abdomen, trying to hold his guts in.

Goose limped closer.

“You gave her away,” Goose spat. “You sold her out. And now look at you.”

Johnny screamed, pulling his knife—desperate, panicked—

Goose didn’t let him get close.

The second shot took the top of his head off.

Johnny’s body crumpled, the blood pumping from the doubly fatal wounds. His legs kicked feebly for a few second before he gave out a phlegmy sigh and then there was nothing but silence.

Goose exhaled shakily, lowering the gun and sliding to the floor.

Then—

Engines in the distance. 

The pack had encircled their prey and were closing in. Except, their prey was lying in a pool of his own gore, his body slowly cooling. Goose knew what was coming wasn’t going to be pleasant. If he’d had another shell he would have ended it. But he didn’t, so he let the shotgun fall from his grip and lay back in on the dirty concrete floor waiting. 

Chapter Text

The road shimmered under the rising heat, and Goose lay sprawled across the blacktop like roadkill, one leg twisted awkwardly, his skin beginning to burn beneath the white hot sun. The blood that stained his side and pooled beneath him forming a black crust as it dried. He twitched once, maybe in pain, maybe in a protest as his beloved bike was torn apart, but he made no sound.

Diabando and Mudguts, the two bikers that had been left behind, stood beside the ruins of the motorcycle. It had been expertly and methodically destroyed. Fuel lines cut, clutch cables torn out, tank punctured, tires slashed, wheels destroyed, gauges smashed, chassis and chrome twisted and snapped like bone beneath a sea of bootprints.

“Nice bike. Shame, really,” Diabando muttered, wiping his greasy hands on a rag, while admiring their work. 

“The Bronze bastard didn’t deserve it,” Mudguts snarled, spitting in Goose’s direction without actually casting a glance at him. “He won’t be needing it. Not goin’ anywhere.” He snorted out a dark laugh, “but hey, he’s got the crows n’ the ants keep ‘im company.”

They didn’t leave him any water.

Didn’t speak to him.

Didn’t even look him in the eye.

Just mounted up, kicked up gravel, and left him in the dust.

“We’ll come back for you later,” Diabando one out called over the roar of his engine, already halfway down the track. 

“Dead or alive,” Mudguts howled out as he lit the bike up chasing Diabando down the highway.

Far ahead, the main pack had gathered ready to begin the hunt. Johnny had betrayed Toecutter, there would be no mercy. They were chasing down one of their own and it was a serious business. There was none of the whooping, hyped up energy of a normal hunt. Both engines and men were silent.

Bubba Zanetti, always the strategist, stood at the center of the group of men, a creased map flapping in his hand steady hand. His expression was cold, clinical. 

“He went that way, out towards the old refinery” Bubba pointed southeast, toward the low hills. 

“We’ll draw the circle wide.” Cundalini circled the area on the map with a pointed little finger.

“We sweep in slow. Go careful. We want him contained.”

The others nodded, acknowledging Cundalini’s command everyone of them silent for once.

“We’re not losing him and we don’t kill him, damage him if you must, but keep him alive. Toecutter wants to grind his bones.”

Bubba’s voice sharpened. “Each of you holds the line. You let him slip through, I will know.”

Then engines revved, helmets were snapped into place and the hunt began.

Toecutter had taken a different path, leaving the gang behind he carved down the highway, with something other than the hunt on his mind. 

Something much sweeter. 

Little Mouse

She was pressed up tight against his back, her bare thighs clutching the bike, wearing only his oversized shirt that fluttered like a parade flag as they rode. 

When he had complained that she smelled of the Bronze and betrayal her reply had surprised him.

“Then make me smell of something better”

He had listened and he intended to take her up on the offer.

He found the right place—a forgotten hollow of red stone and scorched grass, hidden from the road but open to the sky. He killed the engine and sat still, astride the bike for a long moment, letting the engine and the quiet settle. He had formed a plan. Something to  tease his Little Mouse, to test her faith in him, to underline the pleasure that her total trust would bring. When he finally climbed off the bike and strode among the stones, she followed him without question. 

In the centre of that quiet place he turned to look at her. The sun had transformed her hair and skin turning it golden, like some ancient statue of a long forgotten goddess. She returned his gaze, looked him directly in the eyes. There was something in the way that she looked at him that made his skin itch. She didn’t fear him. Not the way the others did. She looked at him as if he were an equal, not her master. 

She stood among the sun shimmering stones and observed him. The sun illuminated him, his hair a halo of curls, his stature casting a shadow in more ways than one. Here, alone in the wilds, she felt a primal desire for him. Not just a need to feel him inside her, to taste him, to lose herself within him. There was something more. She wanted him. All of him. She wanted to own him and be owned by him. To burn like a twin soul.

“Take it off,” he growled the words at her.

“The shirt. It reeks of bronze. That scent doesn’t belong to you.”

When she hesitated, he moved towards her his hands rough but sure, tearing the shirt apart, stripping it from her, baring her to the elements. He trailed his fingers across her skin, around her stiffening nipples, across the swell of her breasts. She couldn’t stop trembling—but not from fear.

Toecutter took a step back, sliding his jacket from his shoulders, letting it fall to the dirt before his hands drifted to the heavy leather belt around his waist.

“Turn around.” An order, not a request.

Her breath caught but she obeyed without question.

“What are you doing?” She asked as she heard the leather slip free. She wanted to look, desperately, but she kept her eyes facing forward.

“Testing your faith.” He whispered into her ear as he bound her wrists together behind her back, the leather belt tight but not cruel.

“Now,” he said, stepping in front of her, “kneel.”

She did. Slowly, carefully, her knees digging into the cracked red earth.

“I want you to convince me,” he murmured, voice low and strange, his eyes gleaming with a ferocity that made her nipples ache and her thighs press together.

“Convince me that you’re mine. That you choose me. That you love me.”

That word.

Love.

It hit her like thunder. It wasn’t what she expected. Not from him.

It stunned her—until it didn’t. Until she felt it burn through her like fire, as raw and wild as the man before her. She poured it out in words, in movement, in desperate, frenzied motion, begging him to come closer, to give her what she needed. 

But he didn’t move, didn’t say another word. He was going to make her work for it. 

She began to shuffle her towards him, her knees scraping over the dirt. When she thought she might be near enough to reach him, she leaned in trying to get close enough to nuzzle her head against his thigh, to feel the warmth of him, to smell his must. Her goal was within her reach, she could feel the heat of him, her lips almost grazing over his tented arousal. Then he took a large step back. She tumbled forward, crashing to the ground, unable to break her fall. The hot dirt pressed up against her naked breasts as she looked up at him, her body on fire with arousal, desperate for his touch. 

“Please,” her voice was already ragged as she lay there panting with desire.

“Show me” was all he said, taking another step back, placing himself even further away from her. 

She squirmed awkwardly. With her hands tied behind her she couldn’t easily get back up onto her knees. She knew that getting to her feet wasn’t an option. That wasn’t what he wanted. 

She finally managed to get a knee underneath her, levering her body back up into its crawling position. She shuffled forward, desperate to close the distance. But as she neared him he in stepped back again. Her moan of disappointment transformed into a moan of desire as pulled off the shirt he wore, the tanned skin of his broad chest golden beneath the sun. 

She shuffled forward again, desperation making her clumsy. Her knee landed on a loose rock and pain shot up her leg as she sprawled sideways. He didn’t help her. He watched impassively as she struggled in the dirt. Her skin was sheened with the sweat of her exertion and her arousal. 

She lay panting in the dirt, watching as he took his time to remove his boots, setting them aside before he undid the top of his leather trousers. He did nothing else. He didn’t remove them. He didn’t even touch the zipper, just stood there, arms crossed watching her, tempting her. 

It wasn’t as easy to get back onto her knees this time, when she finally managed she shot him a desperate look, her eyes begging him not to tease her anymore. He took as step forward, opening his arms to beckon her with a single thick finger curling in the air. She didn’t need any further encouragement, shuffling painfully closer, inch by inch. She almost had him. She was so close as she leaned in once more, praying she would feel the smooth leather on her cheek at last. But he stepped away again, timing it perfectly so she crashed down into the dirt once more. She howled, actually howled in frustration. Anger beginning to replace desire, her breath coming in hot little puffs. “Enough” she wailed, “please Toecutter, that’s enough.” He smiled at her, reaching down, his fingers tangling within her hair, hauling her back to her knees. 

“It’s not enough, Little Mouse, but it is a start”, this time his stayed still letting her nuzzle at his thigh, letting her cheek, her nose, her lips press against the erection straining against the leather. 

“You know what to do.” He said as he pulled her into him, grinding himself against her. 

He didn’t help her. She had to undo his zipper with her teeth. She should have found it humiliating but it just turned her on even more. She wanted to make him happy, she wanted to taste him and she wanted the pleasure she knew that he would give her as a reward. 

He finally took pity on her, easing his impressive length out for her.

She took no encouragement to try and swallow him down, but he held on tight to her hair, holding her back.

He took her chin in his fingers, forcing her to look up into his eyes. 

“This is an exercise in trust Little Mouse.” He told her his voice thick with lust.

“I will trust you to take what I give you. I will trust you not to fight me and you will trust me to let you breathe.”

In that instant she knew what was coming. She would have to trust him completely, to let him take complete control. 

“Do you understand? Do you trust me?” He asked her, completely serious, his eyes locked on hers.

She nodded and opened her mouth, thrusting her tongue forward, gazing up into his eyes, obedient, desperate. 

When he eased himself into her hot sweet mouth he groaned. He could feel her suction as she desperately tried to draw him down further into her, but he just kept his length still, laying heavy on her tongue enjoying her desperation. 

Gripping the back of her head he slowly began pushing himself forward feeling her throat constrict around his length. He eased himself back and forth a few times before he pushed his full length in deep and held it there. Feeling her swallowing around him becoming more desperate as it became impossible for her to breath. He could see her eyes watering, but she didn’t pull back, didn’t fight him. Her trust in him was total. He pulled out completely letting her breath. 

She coughed and spat thick saliva into the dirt. Her throat and jaw already ached but she opened her mouth once again and presented her tongue locking eyes with him, her gaze unwavering as he eased himself into her mouth again. She slid her tongue around his length, trying to give him pleasure, even as he cut off her air again. This time he stilled inside her longer, and panic swelled in her chest as darkness began to cloud the edges of her vision. When he withdrew she whooped in air, gasping desperately to fill her lungs. Thick ropes of saliva were hanging from her mouth, she could feel them sliding onto her breasts. She wasn’t sure if this was punishment or foreplay, but she wasn’t going to let him beat her. She pulled herself back upright, opening her mouth for him once again. When he entered her this time he began to slowly fuck her face, enjoyment taking over from punishment. She lost herself in trying to pleasure him, desperately sucking him into her, working him with her tongue, eager to please as she squeezed her thighs together in an attempt to relieve her own desires. His pace picked up as he chased his high and she did her best to bring him to completion but just as she thought he was going to cum he stilled, deep, deep in her throat. She swallowed around him desperately, refusing to give up, or to back off. He had released her hair, she could back away at any moment, but she wouldn’t. She wouldn’t give in, wouldn’t be beaten by him. As her nostrils whistled in desperation, and the blackness on the edges of her vision swarmed inwards, it was Toecutter that gave in.

“Enough,” he finally pushed her away, staggering back a step as his legs almost gave way. 

“Please, Toecutter, please don’t tease me any more.” She couldn’t help but whine. Her pussy was throbbing with desperation and she could feel the slick of her arousal trickling down her inner thighs. 

He dropped down onto his knees beside her, pulling her over to him as he lay down in the dirt, pressing in close, whispering into her ear, telling her how good she did, how well she had proved her trust, and how she had earned her reward. 

In one swift movement he snatched her up, swinging her over him as if she were mounting a bike, except it wasn’t a bike seat she was lowering herself onto. Toecutter’s strong hands fastened onto her waist as he dragged her up to his head, forcing her to straddle his face. He pulled her down onto his mouth. He nipped at her lips with his teeth, tugging at them, grazed her clit before sucking it hard between his lips, before probing her with his thick tongue. 

With her arms tied behind her back, and Toecutter holding her waist, she had no control. She couldn’t ease herself away from the pleasure, she couldn’t keep her full weight from pressing down on him. But that was what he wanted. Just as he had taken her to the edge with his cock lodged in her throat, he now did the same to himself. He forced his face up between her thighs, smothering himself, consuming her, drowning in her juices as he worshipped her, his goddess, until his breath burned in his lungs and he was finally forced to lift her moaning and writhing body up enough to suck in much needed air. 

Three times he smothered himself within her folds, paying her back for each surrender she had given him, dancing around her orgasm but never giving her the realise.

When he lifted her up the last time she begged.

“Please, Toecutter, please don’t tease me any more.”

He gave in, pulling the belt from her wrists, scrabbling out of his trousers before pulling her to him, embracing skin to skin, arms and legs tangling. 

She kissed his mouth fiercely, tasting herself on his lips. She bit his neck, arched into his touch, begged him and demanded from him and gave herself without shame.

They crashed into each other devouring and surrendering by turns.

Equals.

When they were done, they lay together, panting in the dust, bodies slick and trembling.

Toecutter rolled away first. She watched him as he retrieved her clothes from the pannier on his bike—they had been neatly folded and packed with care.

He tossed them to her meeting her eyes with a serious look.

“Last chance, Little Mouse,” he said. “No more running. No more looking back. That life is gone. Your life is with me now, as my bride.”

She didn’t answer. She didn’t need to.

She just reached for the clothes.

They were dressing in silence when Diabando appeared, on foot, breathless, sweating. He leaned in close to Toecutter whispering something urgent. She watched as Toecutters’s jaw clenched, his eyes flicking over to her, his expression dark. 

“Time to ride,” was all he said.

The sound of engines filled the refinery, echoing through the rusted husks of machines long abandoned. The gang were waiting, engines revving as they arrived. She sat behind Toecutter on his bike, her arms tight around his waist, but her mind consumed with what was to come. 

Toecutter had made his demands, he would allow Goose to live if she gave him Johnny’s blood. She wondered if she had become a monster, because she knew she would end Johnny’s life without a moments hesitation, without any regret.

Then she saw the crumpled body.

Johnny, dead, his body blasted by gunshots and close, bound to the skeletal remains of a refinery tower, Goose.

Their eyes met.

And everything—everything—came crashing down. 

Barbed wire bit into his flesh, pinning him to the metal. His arms were stretched, in a grotesque parody of a crucifixion, his body sagging against the twisted metal.

Goose wasn’t struggling.

He wasn’t begging.

He just watched her.

The way he always had.

Her stomach twisted.

The gang cheered as they stopped, some already dismounting, eager for the show.

Toecutter slid off his bike and stretched. When he turned to face her his grin was lazy, but his eyes were sharp.

“Come, my lovely,” he purred, offering his hand. “You have a part to play.”

She took it, sliding off the bike, her legs unsteady.

Toecutter led her toward the refinery’s heart, The others fell in behind, murmuring, waiting.

Goose’s gaze never left her.

But she couldn’t—wouldn’t—meet it.

Toecutter stopped before the broken officer, tilting his head.

“A tragedy, isn’t it?” he mused, running a gloved hand along the barbed wire. “A Bronze who should’ve died days ago… and yet, here he is.” He turned, locking eyes with her. “And poor Johnny dead with no glory, shot down in the dust. Both have suffered because of you.”

She swallowed.

Toecutter’s voice softened, becoming honeyed. 

“You are the flame they are drawn to, the reason they burn. You wanted the Bronze spared. You begged for his life and I agreed, his life in exchange for Johnny’s.” His fingers trailed up her arm, slow, possessive. “But that deal has been undone.” 

She knew what was coming.

The moment stretched—hanging like a blade about to fall.

Toecutter turned to Bubba and held out his hand.

A knife was placed into his palm.

He turned back to her, smiling, he her the handle.

“Johnny did wrong but it was for us to punish him. Not the bronze. There must be bloody for blood,” he said simply.

Her breath caught.

The gang murmured. Some grinned, eager to watch. Others studied her with unabashed curiosity, watching, waiting to see her reaction.

Toecutter leaned in close, his voice was like silk. “Show me,” he murmured, “that you truly are mine. Make things right.”

She took the knife.

Her fingers curled around the handle.

A lifetime ago, she had trained for moments like these—to be decisive, to follow orders, to do what was necessary.

But not like this.

Not to Goose.

The man who had once whispered sweet promises to her in the dark.

The man who had held her, kissed her, believed in her, made her feel like there was something good in the world.

Toecutter exhaled sharply, watching the confusion and indecision cloud her.

“Do it,” he said his voice rough and urgent.

A challenge.

A demand.

A plea.

Her fingers trembled.

She took a step forward—

And stopped.

She couldn’t.

Toecutter’s gaze darkened.

His fingers dug into her arm, his grip bruising. “You hesitate?” he breathed. “After all I have given you? Even now you can’t give up your past. You can’t, won’t, obey me?”

The gang shifted restlessly.

They could smell the weakness.

Toecutter’s fury came like a storm—fast, violent. He wrenched her around, dragging her close. “Do not insult me,” he snarled against her ear. “You will prove yourself, or you will learn what it means to defy me.”

She gasped, feeling the knife pressed hard into her palm.

The air was thick with anticipation.

She had to act, but she couldn’t just kill Goose because Toecutter wanted her to, because he was jealous of the way that she looked at the other man. She wasn’t a slave, a mindless acolyte. Whether he knew it or not, Toecutter wanted her as something more than a possession—he wanted an equal.

And if she wanted to save Goose, she had to give him that.

She had to give him something worthy.

Her mind sharpened, focusing.

The pack respected strength.

Not mercy.

Not love.

Strength.

She pulled herself free of Toecutter’s grasp and walked to where Goose hung, her boots slow against the dirt. When she reached him, she lifted her free hand to his face.

Her fingers brushed his cheek, tender, reverent.

Goose’s breath hitched, his eyes hollows of love, regret and despair. He wouldn’t beg her not to kill him. He would sacrifice himself to keep her safe.

She let herself feel him—really feel him—one last time.

Then she leaned in, pressing a soft kiss to his cheek.

A whisper of something that had once been.

Then she turned.

She faced the gang, the knife gleaming in her grip.

And she begged.

“Spare him,” she said, her voice strong. “Let him go.”

Toecutter’s head tilted, amusement flickering through his eyes. “Let him go?” he echoed, like the idea was foreign.

“Yes.” She swallowed hard, forcing herself to meet his gaze. “As a wedding gift.”

The gang stirred, murmurs rippling through them.

Toecutter’s grin spread, slow, deliberate. “A gift,” he mused. “For you.”

“Yes,” she said, stepping closer to him, knife still in hand. “Let me have this. Just this one thing.”

For the first time, uncertainty flickered in his expression.

She pressed forward, desperation curling in her chest. “Please, Toecutter.” Her voice dropped lower, softer. “You have me. You own me. What more is there to prove?”

Toecutter exhaled sharply, considering.

Then his grin sharpened.

“Someone must pay the price for Johnny the Boy,” he said in a voice that would brook no argument. “Blood for blood.”

Her stomach dropped.

Her fingers tightened on the knife.

There was no other way.

So she gave him blood.

By taking her own.

Before anyone could move, she turned the blade and drove it deep into her own side.

A sharp, clean thrust—through muscle, through flesh.

A gasp rippled through the gang.

Toecutter’s eyes went wide.

Her knees buckled, but she stayed standing, clutching the hilt as pain bloomed through her body, white-hot and searing.

She trembled, swallowing back the agony. “There,” she rasped, looking up at Toecutter, her vision blurred but her expression strong. “A price paid.”

Toecutter stared.

For the first time, truly caught off guard.

Bubba cursed. Mudguts swore. The gang shifted, uneasy, unsure how to react, waiting for Toecutter to give them their cue.

She had done something none of them had expected.

She had offered her own blood. 

She had balanced the books.

Toecutter’s lips parted, his chest rising with a sharp inhale.

Then—laughter.

Low, breathless.

Then deeper, richer.

He laughed like it was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.

“Oh, my love,” he murmured, stepping close, catching her as she swayed. “You are magnificent.”

His hands curled in her hair, his breath hot against her forehead. “You bleed for me,” he whispered, reverent. “You understand.”

She sagged against him, struggling to breathe.

“Is it enough?” she gasped.

Toecutter exhaled slowly.

Then he turned, looking at Goose.

“Cut him down,” he said.

Bubba hesitated. “Boss—”

“Cut. Him. Down.”

The order was final.

She barely heard Goose hitting the ground.

Darkness was pressing in at the edges of her vision.

But as Toecutter pulled her against him, cradling her like something precious, she knew—

She had won.

Chapter Text

The moment the wires were cut Goose’s body pitched forwards tumbling head long towards the dusty concrete floor. He barely managing to get his hands and knees under him, as he crashed down, avoiding landing face first in the dirt. His body was wracked by agonising pain as his broken leg, unable to take the weight, it buckled and twisted under him.

But that didn’t matter. 

The pain didn’t matter, the discomfort didn’t matter, the humiliation of being hung up like a fucking trophy didn’t matter. 

The only thing that did matter was the frail figure who was currently cradled in Toecutter’s arms.

She was his saviour and his damnation. 

Why on earth had she done it? Why had she offered herself up in his place? 

God help him, but he couldn’t think of any other reason other than that gentle touch of her fingers on his face, the whisper of her lips as she kissed him. It was a message without words. That she had never stopped loving him, but that his love had simply been eclipsed.

He heard her give a small moaning gasp as she sucked in air and he watched in what felt slow motion horror as her hand, still holding the knife—instinctively, reflexively—pulled.

The blade came free from her flesh with a sickening wet sound and the wound, no longer sealed by suction and steel, gaped open.

Blood flowed.

Not the slow trickle of a shallow cut or theatrical red ooze of a ritual wound. No, this was arterial and it was relentless. It came in waves—dark and pulsing, running down her side, spattering on the flood beneath her like scarlet rain. Her body jerked like she had been shocked once, twice, then it appeared to collapse in on itself as the tension of living left her body. The knife slipping from her grasp, to land with a dull thud beside the growing pool of blood that was rapidly spreading beneath her. 

Toecutter’s large hand had clamped over the wound instantly, as if he were trying to hold her together and he bellowed “CUNDALINI!” his voice bringing the gangs makeshift medic running. But with his hands slicked with blood Toecutter couldn’t keep hold of her limp body and she slipped from his grasp, her body crumpled like a marionette with its strings cut, hitting the dirt in a boneless heap. Her breath was coming in short, shallow gasps and her skin had already begun to pale. 

“NO!” Toecutter roared as he lunged toward her prostrate body.

The gang, rowdy only seconds before, stood frozen watching their leader with wary eyes. They knew the fury of this man. The havoc he could wreak in anger would be doubled or tripled in grief.

Cundalini shoved past the others and dropping to his knees beside her. His hands pulling the clothing away from the wound, his fingers growing slick with the crimson of her blood.

“She’s bleeding out,” he snapped, his usual easygoing manner gone. “Someone get me cloth—anything—NOW!”

The others scrambled into action. Starbuck tore off his shirt, pressing it into Cundalini’s waiting hands, who wadded it up against her side, applying lifesaving pressure.

She let out a weak, choked sound, her body twitching beneath his touch.

Goose, had been trapped in that wire for hours—his limbs were numb, his strength drained but through that, and even through the fog of pain that enveloped him, he knew. She was dying. 

He pulled himself up from the floor where he had collapsed, heaving himself forward so that he could reach her. So that he could just be by her side. 

“You need a pressure dressing..” He could barely get the words out, the pain of movement dragging the breath out of him. “…my bike…there’s a kit…emergency medical….It’s got stuff in it…help her clot.”

Toecutter shot him a look that threatened death.

“Stay out of this Bronze,” he snarled at Goose, “it’s your fault she is bleeding! If she dies…” he didn’t complete the threat. He didn’t need to. They both knew what would happen if she did. But Goose wasn’t in the mood to be threatened. He been close enough to death too many times today to give a shit about it now. 

“If she dies it’s because you’re too much of a fuckin’ prick to listen.” Goose shot back at him.

Goose heard a number audible inhales from members of the gang.

Nobody spoke to Toecutter like that, nobody, let alone a Bronze.

“I already fuckin’ told you. There are drugs to help her clot. On. My. Bike. Right now you are pissin’ away her life by ignorin’ me. Every fifteen minutes she bleeds like this her chances of surviving, of making it through this, drop. You wanna stand around and measure dicks while she loses another pint? Or do you wanna send one of your men to go and get the shit she needs?”

Cundalini shot him a sharp look of warning but nodded at him knowing the truth of what he said.

“She needs it boss,” was all he said, too busy adding more wadded fabric to the bundle he was holding against her, her blood already soaking through it, seeping up between his fingers.

Toecutter glowered at both men, his face a mask of fear and hatred and Goose thought he had pushed him too far. But then Toecutter surprised him. He dropped down to a crouch beside her, one of his hands tangling in her hair, the other hovering over her cheek, as if touching her too hard would shatter her completely. His voice, when it came, was low and dangerous.

“Fix her.” 

It wasn’t a command, it was a threat. 

Cundalini gritted his teeth. “I’m tryin’, boss, I’m trying’.”

A muscle in Toecutter’s jaw twitched as hissed through clenched teeth. “Then try harder!”

But Cundalini wasn’t a miracle worker. 

“Boss, I need those drugs.” 

Toecutter nodded once, before going back to stroking the unconscious woman’s hair with an intense tenderness.

“Mudguts,” Cundalini called over his shoulder, before directing his words at Goose. 

“He’s fast, tell him where to look, what to bring back.” 

The lean, dark eyed biker who’d spat at his helpless body as he lay on the tarmac, edged forward. He didn’t meet Goose’s eyes but he nodded in understanding as Goose told him what to get and where to find it. 

As Mudguts turned to leave Toecutter shot an arm out, catching hold of the biker in a vice like grip. “Hurry!” He hissed the word before releasing Mudguts, to sprint out of the refinery ruins.

“I need more blood to work with!” Cundalini snapped, as he pressed fresh fabric over the already blood soaked cloth he held tight to her side.

“She’s bleeding out too fast, if I can’t get more into her she won’t have enough left to keep her alive!” His usually calm demeanour cracking. 

There was silence, cut only by the sounds of the gathered gang shifted uneasily, aware of the tension but unsure of what to do or how to help.

Goose forced himself to sit up straighter doing his best to ignore the way his broken leg screamed in protest.

His voice came out rough, but firm. “You can give her mine.”

Toecutter’s head snapped toward him.

“We share the same blood type,” he told them. “It’s not common. You’ll be lucky to find another match out here.” He swallowed, struggling to keep his body upright. “You can check out our med tats if you need to, you’ll find them in our right armpits, B-.” 

Goose grimaced in pain as he shifted to offer his arm but he didn’t, wouldn’t, back down. 

“I can keep her alive.” It wasn’t a statement, it was a promise.

Cundalini hesitated, then looked at Toecutter.

“He’s right,” Cundalini admitted. “She needs blood, and fast.” He exhaled sharply. “If he’s a match…It’s the only way.”

Toecutter remained silent, but Goose saw his hand tighten its grip on her hair. When his gaze flickered over to Goose, something ugly passed through it.

Goose knew why. It was the blood. 

Toecutter hated the idea of his RIVALS blood flowing through HIS woman’s veins.

The thought of it burned in him. Goose could see the war waging behind Toecutter’s eyes—the possessiveness, the hatred, the deep, primal need to keep her his. But there was something else too.

Something buried deeper.

Fear.

The very real, very sharp terror that Toecutter was feeling at the thought of losing her.

Goose met his gaze head-on, exhausted but unwavering. “You can hate me all you want,” he rasped, “but if you don’t let me do this, she dies.”

A tense silence stretched between the two men.

Then—

Toecutter moved, fast, faster than a man of his size had a right to.

He snatched hold of Gooses arm, his grip on the other mans wrist bruising, his gaze never leaving the MFP officers pale blue eyes. 

“Do it,” was all he said, but Goose could hear the trace of desperation below the words.

Cundalini didn’t hesitate.

Goose barely had time to register what was happening before members of the gang, were lifting him, none to gently, closer to her. Starbuck pressing against the wound with all his might as Cundalini began digging through his pack for what he needed.

It wasn’t pretty

It was the roughest of road transfusions. A length of rubber tubing stretched between the two of them—one end jammed into a needle located into the crook of Goose’s elbow, the other pressed against a thick-gauge cannula buried in Little Mouse’s arm. A rusted clamp served as a crude regulator, barely slowing the thin red stream that pulsed between them.

Goose sat propped against a rusted barrel, pale and sweating, one arm stretched out across his legs, jaw clenched to try and keep himself awake. He barely looked any better than the girl whose life he was trying to give back, drop by drop.

But the knife wound in her side was still oozing, even beneath the layers of gauze and pressure bandages Cundalini had jammed into place. Every time she exhaled, the blood leaked anew—slow and steady. As much blood as Goose was giving her, she was losing it just as fast. He body was like a clock winding down.

As the crude transfusion continued, Goose let his head fall back against the barrel as exhaustion and his own blood loss washed over him, dragging him to the edge of collapse.

Toecutter stayed crouched at her side, his hand never leaving her, but restless, moving from her hair to her cheek, to her forehead then back to her hair. Goose knew it for what it was, the only outward sign of the desperation he felt.

Goose blamed the blood loss, but he couldn’t help but feel the connection between the two of them. They sat in silence, tied together by the woman who lay between them. Linked by love, by blood and by something else, something neither of them could quite name.

Cundalini sat cross-legged in the dust, beside her, watching the bastardized nightmare of a transfusion—no proper filters, no compatibility test, he hadn’t even had time to properly sterilize the needles, he just had to swill them in whatever alcohol he could find.

He knew he had one job. 

To keep her alive.

Keep her warm. Keep the blood flowing. Hope you’ve done enough. 

He kept repeating it to himself like a mantra as he checked her vitals over and over again, unable to think of anything else to do. 

Goose’s voice was low, barely audible, but Cundalini caught it.

“She’s cold.” He said

“I know.”

“She’s slipping.”

“I know, man, I know.”

The silence stretched between them. There was nothing more either one of them could do, save listen to the wet drip of her blood and the rattling of her breath.

Then—

A Throttle. Running on full wide.

A roar ripped through the air outside as an engine at full revs came screaming toward the refinery. Then a hard, panicked braking and gravel skidding as the engine was cut followed by the angry shriek of steel and the sound of metal and rubber crashing to earth.

A bike hitting the ground.

Boots thudded.

Then Mudguts came bursting through the refinery’s rust-bitten door—

He was breathless, his sweat covered face was wild with urgency. A battered MFP crash pack clutched to his chest like a newborn.

He dropped to his knees beside Cundalini and shoved the pack forward.

Cundalini didn’t hesitate. He tore it open with blood-crusted fingers, scattering contents: sealed syrettes, clotting gauze, vials of morphine, a single shot of antibiotics, TXA, needle kits, gloves, tape.

Goose tried to sit forward, wincing, gesturing at the spilled contents. “There—that’s the TXA. You need that first. Morphine too. She’s in shock.”

Mudguts was already sorting, snapping off seals, handing Cundalini whatever he needed in a practiced, rapid-fire, rhythm.

“Her pressure’s in her boots,” Goose murmured, staring at her face. Her eyes were sunken. Her skin like wax.

His eyes flicking to the stained blade lying across the floor. Dirt, blood, rust. God knows what else. His stomach turned.

Cundalini jammed the TXA into her thigh. Next came the morphine—a smaller dose than usual. To help keep her lucid if she came back. If.

“It won’t stop the bleeding,” Cundalini muttered. “Not really. I need sutures and clamps and somewhere clean to work. This shit’s meant to hold someone together ‘til evac. Not fix a gut wound in the middle of a fucking tomb.”

It was Goose who gave them hope then. 

“We just need her stable enough to get her to somewhere, to something better.” 

Goose’s arm had gone numb. His vision swam from blood loss and pain but when Little Mouse stirred pulling in single breath deeper than the rest, subtle twitch of her pale fingers.

Cundalini leaned in. “Hey. Hey, Mouse. Stay with us girl. We’re workin’ on you. We’ve got you.”

Her eyelids fluttered.

Goose leaned closer, voice hoarse. “It’s me. It’s Jim. I’m right here with you. You gotta keep fighting, you hear. Don’t leave. Not now. You hear me? Don’t leave.”

Toecutter, leant to press a kiss onto her pale, clammy, forehead, whispering his plea to her, over and over like a prayer. “Stay, stay, stay,”

She didn’t answer them, but she didn’t fade either. She was strong and she was fighting.

But the blood kept flowing.

And Goose kept thinking: This place isn’t clean. The wound isn’t clean. The world isn’t clean.

He looked at her, and knew—

His blood might be enough to keep her breathing.

But blood alone wouldn’t save her.

She lay motionless, her breathing shallow, skin pallid, the ground around her littered with discarded dressing packets, and used styrettes, the blood that had soaked in still stained the dirt where she lay, but the flow from the wound had, at least for now, ceased.

Cundalini worked with steady, capable hands, his face a mask of concentration as he monitored her pulse and the sluggish rise and fall of her chest.

Goose was pale and drenched in sweat, leaned heavily against the rusted barrel, his head lolling on his chest. He had given too much blood way too fast, but he wouldn’t stop, wouldn’t pull away. He was determined not to fail her. And Toecutter watched him.

The gang’s leader had barely moved from her side, his usual easy arrogance stripped away, leaving something raw in its place. His hand was curled loosely around hers, his fingers twitching every time her body convulsed in another fevered shiver.

Bubba crossed his arms. “This ain’t workin’ boss. We can’t stay here with Johnny stinking up the place, the boys are getting twitchy.”

“He’s right, boss. This place is a freakin germ factory. She has an open wound and she already needs antibiotics. More than this single dose shit”, Cundalini muttered, not looking up. “Heavy duty, broad spectrum. Clean water and omewhere she can rest without breathing in rust and oil.”

Toecutter’s gaze flicked up, sharp and dangerous. “Then get it.”

Cundalini huffed. “Oh, sure, let me just pop down to the nearest clinic. Maybe they’ll throw in a warm bed and a cuppa tea.”

“Cundalini,” Bubba warned.

“He’s right,” Goose murmured, his voice hoarse. “She won’t last the night out here.”

Mudguts ran a hand through his greasy hair. “Even if we had the meds, look at Goose. He’s gonna drop dead before we even get her patched up proper.”

Goose forced a weak grin. “Not dead yet.”

Toecutter’s stare was dark, unreadable. “But close.”

A silence stretched between them, thick and heavy.

Then—Toecutter moved, he stood surveying the scene.

“We take her with us,” he said, voice iron. “Find somewhere safe.”

Bubba frowned. “Where?”

Toecutter exhaled sharply. “The depot.”

A ripple of surprise moved through the gang.

The old truck stop depot.

It was on the outskirts of their territory, abandoned, hidden. A place they had stashed stolen goods before. A place with a few supplies, including—if they were lucky—antibiotics

Cundalini wiped sweat from his brow. “It’s our best shot.”

Toecutter turned to Bubba and Mudguts. “Get the bikes ready. We move in ten.”

Bubba hesitated. “Boss, she ain’t in any shape to ride.”

“Then we carry her.”

Goose swallowed, his own head spinning. “I can—”

“You can barely sit upright,” Toecutter cut him off. “You’ll ride with Bubba.”

Goose wanted to protest, but the moment he tried to move, his vision blurred, black spots dancing at the edges.

He hated it, but Toecutter was right.

He couldn’t fight him.

Not this time.

Not when she was slipping further from them by the second.

She shivered violently in the dirt, her skin slick with sweat, her body burning up.

Goose clenched his jaw. They had worked together to save her once.

Now, he had to trust that they could work together to save her again.

Chapter Text

The bikes roared over the cracked tarmac, kicking up dust as they sped toward the depot. The wind howled past them, hot and dry, but Toecutter barely noticed.

His focus was on the woman tucked between his arms.

Little Mouse.

There had been no discussion, Toecutter wouldn’t countenance anyone else carrying her. So they had wound her in one of the bedroll cloths, cocooning her limp limbs before curling her around Toecutter’s torso, fastening her to his body. She was cradled in front of him, her limp body pressed against his chest, her head lolling against his shoulder. He could feel the heat radiating off her as the fever burning through her veins. 

Cundalini had bound the wound as tight as he dare, hoping the clot would hold, but the constant jarring movement of the bike was working against him.

He felt it before he saw it.

The warm slickness seeping through the fabric of his clothing.

She was bleeding again. 

“Damn it!” he snarled, raising his arm to signal to Cundalini, riding close by. The moustached biker nodded once, acknowledging the command before he slid his bike up beside Toecutter’s, neither rider slowing. Goose sat slumped on Cundalini’s pillion. His hands were cuffed and looped through the side of the bike, securing him in place. Cundalini had only half-joked about it—”Don’t want ya toppin’ off like a sack of spuds, mate.”

Goose had grunted in response, too exhausted to argue.

Now, as Cundalini’s bike levelled up to Toecutter’s and the scent of fresh blood filled the air, Goose’s head jerked up. “She’s bleeding again, isn’t she?”

“Yes,” Toecutter snarled. “And if we don’t stop, she’ll bleed out before we even see the depot.” His voice raised to sure he was heard. 

Cundalini called it.

“We need to stop—now.”

Toecutter pulled the bike to a halt. The others skidded to a stop alongside him.

Toecutter barked out his commands, sharp, fast, “Cundalini, you’re with me, the rest of you—find something we can use get her to the depot.”

Mudguts hesitated, they were way out in the rough country, useable vehicles would be thin on the ground, and well guarded. “Boss—”

Toecutter roared his reply, “Find me a truck. Now!”

Bubba gave a sharp nod, wheeled his bike around, and took off. Mudguts, Diabando, Starbuck, and Clunk followed barely a second later, disappearing into the heat haze that rose, shimmering, off the highway.

That left just four of them.

Toecutter. Cundalini. Goose.

And her.

As the engines faded into the wasteland, Cundalini was already moving, yanking his medical bag from the side of his bike and dropping to his knees in the dirt as Toecutter laid her down as gently as he could. 

Goose could see that as Toecutter did so, his hands were shaking.

Beneath the cocoon had been wrapped in the was bandages were soaked through, and her blood was dripping onto the cracked tarmac.

Goose watched from where they had left him, now tethered to Cundalini bike frame, his own skin pale, his lips pressed into a thin line, as Cundalini tore the bloodied bandages away, examining the wound. His hands were steady, but his face was grim. He cursed under his breath as the wind tugged at the bandages as he worked, applying pressure, trying desperately to slow the relentless bleeding. His hands were slick with her life’s blood, fingers warm and sticky in the dimming light. 

She was slipping away, her body weak and trembling beneath his hands.

Goose, still bound to the bike, gritted his teeth. “How bad?”

“Worse,” Cundalini muttered. “She’s fading.”

Toecutter’s breath was coming hard and fast through his nose. 

“Fix it.” It was a command not a request.

“I’m doing everything I can!” Cundalini snapped.

“I can’t stop the damn bleeding, I need sutures. Without them the wound just keeps tearing open every time she’s moved. Right now I need to get her off the road, so I can re-bandage her and keep the pressure on, but it’s the infection that’s doing the real damage. If we don’t get some decent antibiotics into her soon, she won’t make it.”

Goose shifted, straining against the cuffs, his gaze locked on her face. She was barely conscious, her breathing shallow, skin ghostly pale except for the feverish flush on her cheeks.

“She’s strong,” Goose said quietly, almost to himself. “She’s still fighting.”

Cundalini let out a sharp breath, pressing fresh cloth against the wound. “She’s got more fight in her than half your gang put together.”

Goose knew he was right and he just hoped that it would be enough to help her survive, enough to save her.

Toecutter said nothing but goose saw that his grip tightened on his knee, his knuckles going white with the tension.

Cundalini hesitated before he spoke again, “I admire her, y’know? Her guts. Her loyalty.” 

He swallowed. “If she dies…”

The words trailed off, unfinished as he glanced up at Goose. 

Goose understood. He knew what the biker was driving at, if she died there would be no mercy—Toecutter would burn the whole damn world.

She let out a small, pained whimper, her body twitching beneath Cundalini’s hands. Her fevered eyes fluttered open, gazing upwards, unfocused.

“Shh, shh,” Toecutter murmured, brushing blood-matted hair from her forehead. His voice was gentle, so unlike the cruel, theatrical man the world knew him as.

Goose watched the way Toecutter leaned closer, the way his touch softened.

“I’m here.” His words tenderly offered to the prostrate woman were barely more than a whisper.

Goose understood now, knew, that this wasn’t just about chasing down a prize, about possession, about the illicit triumph of “turning a Bronze”. 

This was real. 

And with that revelation burning in his mind, Goose saw something that truly worried him in Toecutter’s eyes. It wasn’t just obsession reflected in his wary gaze. But fear. Toecutter was terrified of losing her and that made him dangerously unpredictable.

“Where’s that damn truck?” Cundalini muttered, pressing harder against the wound as fresh blood seeped between his fingers. 

“We’re running out of time.”

Toecutter was silent. Too silent.

He sat cross-legged beside her, his hand resting against her fevered forehead. The wind whipped at his coat, his hair wild and unkempt, but his face was unreadable.

Then, finally—

“She’s not dying here, Cundalini, do you hear me?”

Cundalini looked up sharply. “And what do you suggest? Magic her back to life?”

Toecutter’s nostrils flared. “If I have to.”

A strangled sound came from Little Mouse—a breath, a whisper, barely there.

“T-too…cutter…”

Her fever-bright eyes barely focused on him, and Toecutter leaned in, pressing a bloodstained hand against her cheek. “Shh, dove. I’m here.”

Goose turned away, jaw tight. The sight of them together, of her seeking comfort in the arms of the man who had stolen her away, made something burn in his chest.

Cundalini ignored it all, refocusing on his work, “She’s burning up, I need to cool her down boss…” Cundalini tailed off clearly unsure how to tackle what he needed to say, so Goose said it for him. 

“He needs to strip her, to dampen her skin, let the wind do the work for us. You gonna have a problem with that?” 

Toecutter stared at Goose, his eyes flint hard, his response cutting to the quick of the matter “do you?”

Goose let his head drop back against the seat of the bike, staring up at the sky.

There was no time now for jealousy or pride.

He had fought for her.

Toecutter had fought for her.

But none of that would matter if they lost her now.

The sun had almost vanished beyond the jagged horizon, and the eastern sky was turning a deep, bruised purple. A cold wind snaked across the highway, rustling the brittle grass that lined the cracked tarmac.

The gang was long gone.

Too far to hear. Too far to return before dark.

And she—she was dying.

Cundalini had cooled her. Cutting the clothes off her, carefully sponging her naked skin with water soaked rags, saving her from a life threatening fever spike, but now, with the air cooling as the sun disappeared below the horizon they faced a new battle.

Cundalini pressed down hard on the bandages, his hands slick with blood. “She’s too cold,” he muttered, frustration leaking into his voice. “Damn fever’s got her burning up on the inside, but her skin’s like ice. She’s not regulating her temperature anymore.

Goose shifted weakly still cuffed to Bubba’s bike, he wanted to help but he was too drained to do anything more than watch. 

“Do you need more blood? Take it”

Cundalini shook his head. 

“So what do we do?” Goose asked his voice desperate.

“We need a fire,” Cundalini said firmly. “She needs warmth, or she won’t last ‘til morning.”

Toecutter’s gaze snapped up from Mouse’s silent form to fix Cundalini with a menacing stare. “Then build one.”

Cundalini scoffed. “With what? My extra set of hands?” He shook his head in disbelief at the request. “I can’t leave her—I’m the only thing that’s keeping her from bleeding out.”

Goose exhaled, his breath shaky. “I can—”

“You can barely sit up, mate,” Cundalini cut him off. “That leaves him.”

He jerked his chin toward Toecutter.

Toecutter stared. “You want me to—”

“Yes,” Cundalini snapped. “You wanna keep her breathing, then do something useful. Find wood. Scraps. Anything that’ll burn.”

Toecutter didn’t move.

Didn’t speak.

This was beneath him.

He was a king of the wasteland, a storm of chaos and blood—not some lowly servant gathering firewood.

And yet—

He looked down at her.

Her breath was barely there, her skin pale even beneath the fever’s flush. Her body trembled weakly, trying to fight, trying to hold on.

For her.

His stomach twisted, the unfamiliar sensation of fear crawling under his ribs.

He didn’t lose and he wasn’t losing her.

Not to this.

Not to death.

Without another word, he stood, turned, and stalked into the darkness.

The badlands stretched before him, empty and vast. The wind was his only companion and it howled through the ruins of the dying world, rattling rusted metal and twisting the skeletons of the remains of what had once been trees.

He moved through the gloom like a shadow, eyes sharp, fingers twitching. He found broken branches, scattered scraps of old furniture—anything that would burn. His hands curled around the brittle wood, snapping pieces free, shoving them under one arm.

With each step, his thoughts darkened.

If she died—

If she was taken from him—

The world would burn.

He would see the roads slick with blood, the towns reduced to ash. Every lawman, every Bronze, every wretch who had ever dared to stand in his way would pay the price.

And the Bronze?

If she died, he’d make sure that Goose watched the world suffer and bleed before he let him die.

His grip tightened around the wood.

But what if she didn’t die?

What if she lived?—what if she lived but chose to leave him?

His stomach twisted again.

He hated this.

Hated the way that she had carved herself into him, slipping into the spaces between his ribs, embedding herself into something he’d long thought untouchable.

He couldn’t lose her.

Not to death.

Not to Goose.

Not to anyone.

He swallowed hard, his breath sharp in the cold air.

Then, shaking off his thoughts, he turned back toward the road, back toward her.

Toward the only thing that mattered now.

He would keep her warm.

And he would keep her alive.

One way or another.

The fire burned bright against the darkness, crackling hungrily as it consumed the broken wood Toecutter had gathered. The heat spread over Little Mouse’s fragile form, casting its flickering light over her pale skin, warming the deathly chill that had settled over her.

Toecutter crouched beside her, her naked form had been wrapped up in his bed roll and he had draped his coat draped over the top. 

His fingers brushed the damp hair from her fevered forehead. She didn’t react, but at least she was breathing.

Not enough.

Not nearly enough.

His eyes snapped to Goose, who lay slumped against the bike he was fastened to, pale and exhausted but alive. His posture was slouched, exhausted, but Toecutter knew that the Bronze never let  his gaze never stray far from her.

“She needs more blood,” Toecutter said suddenly, voice low, commanding. “Give it to her.”

Goose didn’t even hesitate. “Take it,” he rasped. “Take all you need.”

Cundalini, kneeling beside the woman, stiffened. “No.”

The word landed like a gunshot.

Toecutter’s head whipped around. “What did you say?”

Cundalini met his gaze evenly. “I said no.”

For a long moment, nothing moved except the fire, the flames licking hungrily at the air.

Then—

Toecutter stood.

The shadows twisted over his face, firelight flickering in his wide, furious eyes. “You refuse me?”

“I refuse to kill him,” Cundalini shot back, undeterred. “She needs more than a few road transfusions to survive, and Goose is already too weak.”

Toecutter stepped closer, looming over him. “She’s dying.”

“And so will he be, if you keep bloody draining him!”

The gang leader’s hand twitched, balling into fists at his sides. “You think I care—”

“You should care!” Cundalini snapped, fire meeting fire. “He’s the only reason she’s still alive! If he drops dead, she follows! You want that? You want to lose her because you were too damn stubborn to listen?”

Silence.

Tense, heavy silence.

Goose coughed weakly, shifting against the dirt. “He’s…right.” His voice was hoarse, exhausted, but firm. “If I give her more now, I won’t be able to give her anything later. You want to save her, Toecutter? Then let him treat me.” Goose nodded towards Cundalini.

Toecutter’s jaw clenched, his body was wound tight like a spring ready to snap.

Cundalini pressed his advantage. “You don’t have to like it, Boss. You just have to accept it.”

Toecutter breathed hard through his nose, glaring between the two men.

Then, finally—

“Fix him.”

Cundalini nodded, already moving.

With practiced efficiency Cundalini stripped off Goose’s tattered uniform, peeling the fabric away and revealing wounds both fresh and old. Goose barely flinched, his jaw tight as the night air bit into his battered skin. Cundalini could see the tension held within the man’s muscles, the way he braced for pain without complaint.

“You want something to bite on?” he asked, offering up a splintered piece of wood.

Goose eyed it, then shook his head. “Just do it.”

Cundalini shrugged. “Your funeral.”

With a firm grip, he pulled Goose’s broken leg bones into place. 

The sickening grind of the shifting bone felt loud enough to have echoed through the still night.

Goose grunted, his breath hissing through clenched teeth, but he didn’t cry out.

Toecutter watched with a sneer, arms crossed over his chest. “Tough boy, eh?” he muttered.

Cundalini ignored him, securing the leg in a brace splint of wood and bandages. “That’s the worst of it. Now let’s see what that little shit Johnny left you.”

The stab wound wasn’t too deep, but it had bled enough to weaken the man further. Cundalini cleaned it with what little supplies he had, before bandaging it tightly enough to make Goose suck air in sharply over his teeth. The bruises, the shallow cuts—the damage left by the gang—there wasn’t much he could do for those. But Goose didn’t seem to care.

He sat still, watching the fire, his breath slow and even despite the pain.

Cundalini took a moment to look at him properly—at the lean muscle, the many pale scars crisscrossing his torso, some faded with time, others more recent. Wounds from the past, from other fights, other struggles. This wasn’t a man unaccustomed to pain.

Toecutter saw them too.

His eyes traced the scars with something unreadable—contempt, perhaps. Disdain. But beneath it, there was something else.

Curiosity.

Who was this man?

This Bronze who refused to die, who refused to bend, even when everything had been taken from him?

Cundalini finished his work, fixing Goose’s clothes back as best he could before moving back to tend to Mouse.

Goose exhaled, his head tilting back against the bike thathe was still cuffed to. He looked utterly exhausted, but still not broken.

Toecutter’s lips curled.

He reached into his boot, pulling out a battered metal flask. Unscrewing the cap, he took a long, slow swallow, the strong liquor burning its way down his throat.

Then—without a word—he walked over to the handcuffed man, crouching down in front of Goose, he held out the flask.

The Bronze hesitated, his eyes flicking up to meet Toecutter’s.

Toecutter raised it slightly, pressing it to the cuffed man’s lips. “Go on, Bronze. Drink.”

Goose considered for only a second longer before parting his lips. The alcohol was sharp, strong enough to burn away some of the ache in his bones.

Toecutter watched him, a strange smirk playing at his lips.

“You and I,” he murmured, tilting his head slightly, regarding his rival with calculating eyes, “we’ve got unfinished business, Bronze.”

Goose swallowed, the heat of the liquor settling in his stomach.

“Yeah,” he rasped, “we do.”

Chapter Text

The fire burned low, glowing embers casting strange shadows across the barren highway. Above, the stars stretched vast and indifferent, their cold light doing nothing to soften the hard world below.

The rest of the gang were scattered, chasing wrecks, trailers, or anything with four wheels that could carry her without breaking her further.

Only the four remained.

Cundalini lay nearby, half-dozing beside his patient, Little Mouse. His hands—still crusted with her dried blood—rested near her bandaged side, the gauze dark with fresh seepage. She was unconscious, barely breathing, lips parted slightly as if caught mid-prayer.

He’d done everything he could—packed the wound and tied the pressure bandage tight. He placed her close to the warmth of the fire, had wrapped her tight in the bed roll, but nothing he could do stemmed the deeper rot that was crawling inside her.

Toecutter sat cross-legged in the firelight, like a prophet at the end of the world. His leathers dusted with grit, his thick fingers playing with the silver cap of his battered flask. Across from him, Goose sat cuffed to the back frame of Cundalini’s bike, legs outstretched, one wrist freed for the moment—an unexpected courtesy.

Toecutter uncapped the flask and took a slow swig, then he extended it to Goose without a word.

Goose stared for just a moment, then took it. His throat worked as he swallowed a long swig.

The burn of alcohol was sharp and welcome, lighting a path down to his empty belly.

“Toecutter,” Goose rasped, handing it back.

Toecutter grinned crookedly. “Go easy on that, your blood’s running thin.” 

Goose huffed a quiet laugh.

“So, Bronze,” Toecutter mused, rolling the flask between his fingers. “What made a nice boy like you sign up for this dirty, dirty war?”

Goose exhaled through his nose. “Not a Bronze, not anymore.”

Toecutter tilted his head, curious. The fire flickered across the angles of his face, making him look older. Or maybe just more honest.

“I quit,” Goose clarified, voice low, bitter. “The moment they called her DÍA. Coded her like she was a fuckin’ spreadsheet.” He glanced toward the blanket-wrapped figure near the fire, eyes dimmed with memory. “Died In Action, except they weren’t saying that, they were talking about survival rates and asset redundancy.  No rescue mission, not even a fucking body recovery. Just… forgotten about.”

Goose took the flask again when offered.

“I knew she wasn’t dead,” Goose continued. “So I cashed out. Walked. Threw the badge in the trash and came looking.”

Toecutter’s gaze hadn’t left him. Not once.

“Took the fuckin’ Force bike too,” Goose added with a grin, faint and crooked. “They won’t be gettin’ that back now, will they? Serves ‘em right.”

Toecutter chuckled—a dry sound, like gravel shifting. His lips twisted into a wry smile.

“Never figured you for a thief,” he said.

“Only stole what mattered,” Goose muttered, sipping again.

Toecutter leaned forward slightly, voice quiet. “You think she was worth throwing everything away for?”

The flask paused midway to Goose’s lips. He looked up. Locked eyes with the man across from him.

“She’s more than worth it,” he said before gulping down more of the comforting liquor.

Toecutter nodded once. Then as he reached forward for the flask, he stared directly into the Gooses blue on blue eyes and asked, in the softest voice: “Even now?”

Goose didn’t flinch. He leaned back against the frame of the bike, the desert wind moving gently through his sweat-matted hair.

“Even now,” he said., his voice almost a sigh “She’s about the only good thing left in this godforsaken world.”

The fire popped.

Behind them, Little Mouse let out a shallow breath, barely audible….

…In the place where Little Mouse lingered, the space between life and death, fever had scorched away memory, burning it into something else.

Something more…..

…She was in the deep desert, standing barefoot on the sun-scorched sand, the heat licking at her soles, yet she did not burn.

She was clothed, but barely—wrapped in something weightless, something otherworldly. A robe of sheer white, flowing like mist, whispering over her skin like cobwebs spun by human hands. Not quite a wedding dress. Not quite a religious robe. Something between.

Something sacred.

Something binding.

The sky above her was vast and empty, the horizon endless.

She was alone.

But not for long.

A figure stood in the distance, watching her.

She knew who it was before he moved.

Before he strode toward her, his silhouette wavering in the heat.

Toecutter.

Not the Road King. Not the man of dust and leather.

He was something older. Something primal.

His hair was, longer, flecked with grey, braided with rings of gold. His face was painted with ochre and ash, his eyes burning like embers in the twilight. His legs clad in a patchwork of tanned skins. His bare chest was streaked with symbols—some ancient rite, some language only the desert knew.

He reached her, stopping just a breath away.

The wind lifted the sheer fabric of her robe, pressing it to her skin, revealing everything beneath it.

They did not speak.

There was no need for words here.

He lifted his hand, his fingers brushing gently against her collarbone, then lower, trailing the line of her sternum as if reading something written into her very bones.

She reached for him in turn, pressing her palm against his heart, feeling it thunder beneath her hand.

And then—

A second figure emerged from the haze.

Striding toward her from the opposite direction.

Goose.

But not the man she had known. He, too, was changed.

His MFP uniform was gone, replaced by leathers that were stripped-down, feral, omething raw. He was sun-bronzed and scarred, his blond hair lightened even further by the sun. His blue eyes were sharper, filled with something deeper than desire.

A challenge? A plea? A claim over her?

She was caught between them.

Both waiting. Both wanting.

She opened her mouth—

But before she could speak, before she could choose—

The desert wind howled, whipping up the sand and swallowed the world whole…..

….Toecutter’s gaze flickered toward her, his expression darkening.

She had barely stirred, caught in the infections grip. Her skin pale, her breath coming in uneven gasps.

She was fighting.

He’d always known she would.

Goose took another swig, passing the flask back before he let his head tilt back, staring up at the endless sky. “You know, I almost killed her when I first met her”

Toecutter’s attention snapped back to him. “Did you now?”

Goose chuckled dryly. “Didn’t know she was one of ours back then. Thought she was just another nomad punk trying to muscle it on the roads.”

He let his eyes drift shut, lost to memory….

….The first time he saw her, she was just another nameless rider—helmeted, visor black as night, dressed in patchwork leathers that spoke of long, wild roads.

She had come tearing into the city, her bike snarling as she cut through the alleys and backstreets. Goose had seen her from across the lot, standing beside his Hot Pursuit bike, the heat of the day rolling off the tarmac and metal.

Nomad trash didn’t come this far into the city unless they were looking for trouble. So he had challenged her. Revved his engine, smirking at the rider through the heat haze, taunting them like they were just another street rat looking for trouble.

But this mysterious rider, they had given as good as she got.

Fast. Cunning. Dangerous.

Matching his revs, pushing him out of the way to get the best entry or exit to a corner. Goose had pushed both himself, and his bike to the limit, causing the unknown rider to run dangerously close to an oncoming truck, swerving desperately to get the bike back on track. He’d been surprised they had made it. But what had surprised him most was later—when he had followed the bike to the roadhouse, where the rider had dismounted, walking over to him as he pulled his bike up onto its stand, when they had pulled off there helmet and he realized she was a woman. 

She was panting, excited. She had the widest grin and her eyes were lit up.

“That, was fucking amazing!” Were her first words to him.

“Drink?” Was what she said next.

She’d taken him into the dimly lit roadhouse, where it turned out she had a room, the only place she had to go when she wasn’t running deep into enemy territory. The bartender had put the bottle on the bar without being asked and she had grabbed in, and his hand and led him brought the bars interior, down a corridor to her own little haven. 

It wasn’t much, but it had everything they needed, a bed, a bathroom and each other.

There had been no pointless flirting, no small talk, she had been on him the moment the door had closed, and like their road race they had pushed each others limits, taken each other to the very edge. 

In the aftermath, laying with each other, tangled amid the sweat and semen soaked sheets, he had be the one to take a spill. He had fallen, hard….

….In the fever’s grip Little Mouse relived it all.

The dimly lit bar.

Goose’s smirk against the door, all muscle and confidence, his leathers hanging open to expose his bare chest.

His words, “You ride like you’ don’t give a damn.”

The words she had said as she had lifted the bottle to her lips, watching him. “Maybe I don’t.”

They had tumbled into bed, limbs tangled, mouths desperate. She had stripped him before she had shed a single piece of her clothing, too eager to wait for the prize.

He had been glorious to behold, tanned skin, his lean, muscled body showing his strength without boasting about it. His strong thighs framing a thick uncut cock that twitched under her gaze. 

She hadn’t even bothered undressing before sinking to her knees to worship him with gentle kisses and kitten licks until, revelling in the noises he made before she took him into her mouth, letting him guide her with his hands in her hair, urge her to take him deeper and she was more than happy to oblige. When his l thighs began to tense she knew he was close, she wasn’t expected the gentle pressure on her hair as he pulled her away. 

“Wait, not yet. I wanna see you, all of you.” 

And she had started to strip as fast as possible, but he had grabbed her hand, pulling it away, replacing it with his own. He stripped her slowly, exploring her with his fingers, his tongue, his mouth. 

By the time the made it to the bed they were both so far gone with lust that everything was fast, urgent, selfish, mashed lips and grasping hands

They had made love again and again, the heat between them burning as fiercely as the engines they rode.

And later, lying in the half light given by the bedside lights, their sweat-slick bodies cooling, he has run his finger over her blood type tattoo.

“How long?”, he had asked, knowing what that hidden, insignificant tattoo had meant.

“Too long”, she had replied holding her hand against his cheek, her thumb rubbing over his bottom lip. 

“Deep covers don’t retire, Goose,” she had murmured, tracing the scar on his ribs. “We last five years, if we’re lucky.”

“You planning on being lucky?” he had asked, his voice drowsy but serious. 

She had laughed, bitter and low. “I threw my suicide pill away years ago. If I go out, I go out screaming.”….

…Goose shook his head, distracted by the memory.

Toecutter was watching him, something unreadable in his eyes.

“You loved her,” he said suddenly. It wasn’t a question and Goose didn’t answer. But crucially, he didn’t deny it.

Toecutter smirked, tapping a gloved finger against the flask before lifting it his lips and swallowing another mouthful of the hooch before passing it back to Goose.

“Drink up,” he murmured. “We’ve still got a long road ahead of us.”

…..As her body fought against the infection her memories surged, pulling her back through time, back to the moment when she first saw him—not just a fleeting glance from the shadows, not just a distant figure in the roar of an engine—but truly saw him.

Toecutter.

The legend.

The mad king of the highways.

She had been tailing them for weeks, keeping her distance as they emerged from the deep desert, heading toward the farmlands where richer pickings lay.

When she was sure of their route, she has called in her report, but then things had gone bad, they had made her, almost caught her and she had turned tail and run, to a place she knew, a hidden inlet cradled by cliffs. And that’s is where she had seen him, truly seen him, for the first time, while she stood naked beneath a waterfall….

…Toecutter felt the prickling in his mind and he remembered it too.

Something had been pulling at him, not just the persistent itch of the watcher, something else like waiting for a storm to break…or an axe to fall. Seeking solitude he had wandered from the pack.

Even a king needed moments of peace sometimes. He needed some time away from the madness, the constant noise of the gang, their laughter, their reckless indulgence.

He had slipped into the water, letting the sea wash over him, cooling the fever in his blood.

He had waded out past the headland—

And there she was.

A nymph.

A true creature of the wild.

He thought she wasn’t real as she stood beneath the waterfall, the sun illuminating her bare skin, rivulets of water racing over her curves. He had been so entranced that he felt like he had forgotten how to breathe.

The she had looked at him—

Not with fear or revulsion.

But with shock and recognition.

Then—

She bolted.

He had lurched forward, fighting the water as she scrambled up the rocky hillside, running away from him.

He reached the top of the cliff just in time to see her kick her bike to life—and he recognised it, the hybrid machine that had been following the gang, it’s rider hiding in the shadows like a mouse.

Now she wasn’t hiding, she was gloriously exposed, and he wanted her, the little mouse had come out of the shadows and he wanted her like nothing else on earth. When she rode away wearing nothing but her boots, her leather jacket, and her black-visored helmet he knew, he wasn’t going to stop until he had her. 

He stood there, watching as she disappeared into the distance.

And then—

Then he had turned back.

Back to the little beach.

Back to where she had been, where her clothing, her belongings, lay abandoned in the sand, the only trace of her existence.

He picked up the patched leather trousers—lifting them reverently to his face, breathing in her scent, feeling his heart beginning to thunder at the thrill of the chase. Feeling the heat in his groin, the throbbing of his growing erection.

He took himself in his hand and as he began to squeeze his rigid flesh he grinned in anticipation of the coming hunt….

….She was no longer standing in the deep desert, she was in the wilds. The wind was warm, gentle, stirring the fine grains of sand, caressing the sheer white robe that draped over her body like mist. There was a familiarity about the landscape that snagged at her memory, tugging at an old wound, something long-scabbed over but never truly healed.

And in the distance—A trail of trucks.

She narrowed her eyes, trying to place them, to recall why they filled her with a nameless dread.

Then—

A voice.

Low, familiar, filled with warmth.

She spun around, startled, and found herself standing in front of Fifi Macaffee.

She knew this was a dream then because Fifi was dead. He had fallen in the first of the food riots, just as she’d feared he would. She had warned him. Told him things were about to get bad. Urged him to take some leave, to head out on his boat, go do some fishing.

But Fifi still believed in heroes.

She hadn’t seen his body, had never had to look upon the ruin of him, torn apart in the wreckage of a raided warehouse, the last man standing in a futile effort to protect stockpiles he never even had access to.

Maybe that was a mercy.

But here—

Here, in this wherever and whenever of the fever dream, he was whole again.

Towering. Broad-shouldered.

His chest was bare, burnished bronze by the desert sun, his ever-present black silk scarf fluttering in the same wind that teased through her hair.

God, she had missed him.

He looked down at her, his warm brown eyes crinkling at the corners.

“Squeak.”

The nickname hit her like a punch to the gut.

They had given it to her in training. Pipsqueak, they’d called her—until they learned better.

Until they realized she was five foot four of piss and vinegar.

Lean, hard muscle honed by years of working the land, instincts and nerves sharp enough to rival any of the men.

How many of of her classmates were still alive?

Did any of them still ride?

Fifi turned his gaze back to the horizon, to the distant line of trucks cutting across the desert like a procession of insects.

He pointed.

“I need you to remember these, Squeak.”

His voice was quiet.

Steady.

Unshakable as ever.

“Remember them, because something’s coming girl. Something bad.”

A sound rose in the distance.

Faint at first.

Then growing.

Wailing.

Sirens.

Layer upon layer, rising and rising, the shrill scream building until it was deafening. An ear splitting, shattering cacophony that was reverberating through her very bones.

And then—

Light.

Blinding.

The world turned black and in the darkness the fire bloomed.

A towering mushroom cloud rose against the void, its terrible shape unmistakable.

As the heat of it burned across her skin she screamed.

Chapter Text

The gang returned with the dawn. The roar of their engines chasing the first rays of the rising sun over the horizon.

Those still on their bikes flanked the yellow ford pick up truck and Mudguts and Starbuck, were visible in the cab, their bikes stowed on the flatbed of the truck.

It looked well loved and hard fought for. The  crisp yellow paintwork and chrome trim dented, peppered here and there with buckshot holes. 

The gang brought Toecutter more than just the stolen pickup. They brought him news.

Bubba had been the first to sense it. The shift in the air, the barely restrained panic lurking in the towns they had passed through. People were no longer prepared to barter, to do any sort of deal with strangers, they were beyond sacred. The rumours spun out by the news were no longer spoken about in cautious whispers—they were shouted, screamed. The end was coming. The world was falling. Even the “good” people now just took what they needed and killed whoever stood in their way. There was no law, no order anymore. Military bases had collapse as the soldiers had simply abandoned their posts, heading back to their families to face what was to come, or to try and out it. Perhaps in the cities there was still law and order, still hope, but out here, where the world had long been busy dying, it was rotting.

“The last of ‘em, the ones who still had any hope,” Bubba had muttered, crouched by the remains of the fire. “They’re losing it, Boss, can I see it in their eyes.”

The depot would be their best chance and maybe their last.

Now, in the bed of the truck, Toecutter sat, his back to the cab, Little Mouse’s limp body in his lap, arms wrapped around her to keep her steady as the truck jostled them, lurching over the cracked tarmac. Her fever hadn’t broken. If anything, it had worsened, as the infection tightened its grip on her body. The wind whipped around them, tugging at their hair and their clothes. The others rode ahead and behind, forming a protective convoy, but even that didn’t feel like enough. Not after what Bubba Zanetti had said.

Cundalini was there, busy as ever, his speedy hands working quickly, preparing yet another road transfusion. Goose, his face pale sat next to Toecutter, his broken but braced leg stretched out in front of him, his sleeve rolled, his arm extended towards the needle without hesitation. 

He was free of the cuffs now. Toecutter knew he wouldn’t run. Not now. Not when she still hovered between life and death. He knew it, just as surely as he knew the sun would rise. For all the Bronze’s past betrayals, for his slavish following of the law, for all the blood that stained his hands, one thing was certain: he wouldn’t leave her.

The needle slid into Goose’s arm, and he let out a sharp breath, as his eyelids flickered..

Cundalini watched him carefully.

“Keep talkin’ to me, Goose,” the medic told him, pressing a strip medical tape against the tube that ran along Goose’s arm in an attempt to keep the needle steady. 

“I don’t need ya passin’ out and falling’ out the goddamn truck. You ain’t attached to anything anymore, remember.”

Goose huffed. “You coulda kept the cuffs ya know. I might’ve liked ‘em.”

Toecutter smirked.

Cundalini rolled his eyes. “Hilarious.”

Goose shifted, wincing as the movement jostled his broken leg.

Toecutter didn’t look, but he knew this ex Bronze, this man known as The Goose was watching him. Waiting.

When he finally spoke, Goose’s voice was rough from pain, exhaustion and the effort of making heard above the sound of the wind.

“You ever think about why?”

Toecutter flicked his gaze toward him. “Why what?”

“Why we’re here. Why she—” his Goose’s gaze shifted to the unconscious woman who lay on Toecutter’s lap, “—had to be the one caught between us.”

Toecutter smirked. “You think it’s fate? Don’t tell me you of all people believe in hoodoo!”

Goose didn’t answer right away but he tilted his head back, staring up at the vast, empty sky. Considering. Contemplating. 

“No.” He finally replied. “I don’t believe in fate.” After a pause he added. “But I do believe in gravity.”

Toecutter huffed. “You think she’s a force, do you?”

Goose’s lip curled in something that wasn’t quite a smile. “I think we’re both orbiting her. And neither one of us can break free.”

The silence that stretched between them was a brittle, uneasy thing.

Toecutter broke it, taking in a slow breath, rolling his shoulders as if shaking off the weight of the words before he admitted the truth.

“There is something about her.”

Goose scoffed. “No shit.”

Toecutter shot him a sharp look, but there was no real bite behind it.

“I mean something more than just her flesh, more than just her body,” Toecutter said, his voice lower now, almost reflective. “She’s got something else. Something you and I don’t.”

Goose nodded slowly.

“She still believes in something.”

Toecutter’s expression darkened. “And we don’t?”

Goose shook his head. “Not like her.” He exhaled, shifting again with a wince. “We’re just men, Toecutter. Foot soldiers. Flesh and blood. She’s…she’s something more. She always has been.”

It might have been the tiredness or the constant stress but Cundalini’s mouth opened and the thought in his head came spilling out before he even realised it.

“Jesus, you two sound like bloody Starbuck,” he actually slapped his hand over his mouth as soon as he’d said it. A gesture that Goose found funny but he also saw the look of fear in Cundalini’s eyes. A line had clearly been crossed.

Goose looked back and forth between the two men, Toecutter’s gaze could kill and Cundalini kept his head down, busying himself checking the flow on the transfusion tubing. 

“Cundalini,” Toecutter pronounced each and every syllable with acidic precision. “Look at me, Cundalini,” reluctantly the moustachioed biker lifted his head, his swagger and bravado long gone.

“Tell me what he has been saying.” 

Again each word was tight, clipped, controlled and Goose could see a hint of how this man was able to control these dispirit men. 

“Boss,” Cundalini swallowed, “I don’t want to get anyone into any trouble, including me.” 

Toecutter bestowed a beatific smile on the kneeling medic. “No trouble, Cundalini, so tell me.”

Apparently Toecutters word was good enough because Cundalini visibly relaxed. 

“You know what Bucks like. Always talking about fate and shit. Well he’s been going around saying as how the “stars are talking about her”, says we should be following her, just like the wise men did. He don’t mean nothing by it boss, you know Starbuck, always looking for signs and messages.”

Toecutter held his hand up, a clear sign the conversation was over because Cundalini clammed up and dropped his eyes immediately. 

Both Goose and Toecutter’s gaze shifted to the woman lying there in sickly stillness between them.

“You wanna tell me what that was about?” Goose questioned Toecutter.

Toecutter shook his head, but answered anyway. 

“Starbuck….Starbuck knows things.”

Goose snorted and Toecutter shot him a look that stilled the laughter that had bubbled up inside the ex Bronzes chest.

“I mean it. I don’t know how and I don’t ask why, but I will tell you right now, if he feels something strongly, it pays to listen. He’s been right before. You said yourself that she was a force. What if she was always meant to pull us together?”

Goose didn’t know what to say. It sounded like so much garbage, but he couldn’t deny this itch beneath his skin when she was near, the pull of her. Would he have thrown his life and career away for anyone else? He’d not been shy. There was a string of lovers, with and without broken hearts that lay in his wake, would any of them pull him so deep into this kind of chaos. The answer was simple. No. Goose knew deep down that the moment he had first met her, he was never going to leave her. Despite the difficulty of her posting and his duty roster, they had made it work. When she was on rest they had spent every spare moment together, tangled in each others limbs. And when she was on duty, well, then he had stripped off his uniform and ridden his own bike far from the city for their illicit meetings in burnt out factories and tumbled down buildings. 

And it wasn’t just the sex, although that was the best he’d ever had. She had an innate ability to pull pleasure out of him coupled with a filthy mind and a willingness to explore and experiment that he had found lacking in every other partner. It had all been amazing. But it had been the quiet times, the times when they had lain together staring up and the stars or curled up against each other in the darkened room in the roadhouse, when they had whispered their confessions to each other, that had been what really mattered, that they could bare their souls to each other. 

Could there really be something more than just luck at work? 

She had pulled Goose out of the city. If Bubba Zanetti’s news was accurate, maybe it had been more than just perfect timing. But he had ended up a prisoner of Toecutter, accept, now he wasn’t. He wasn’t exactly sure what he was anymore. She had stabbed herself so that she had needed blood, his blood and he just happened to be there. Now Toecutter was talking to him like an equal, asking for his opinion. It all seemed like so many coincidences, except she was at the centre of it all.

“So what if she was,” Goose said doubt colouring his voice.

Toecutter looked at him, his face deadly serious.

“Because if Starbuck is right, if she is the centre of all this, the star we have to follow. Will you follow her?”

Goose couldn’t bring himself to say yes, to admit the possibility of some half arsed prophecy. 

But he nodded and that was good enough for Toecutter 

Toecutter clenched his jaw, shot out an arm, gripping Goose’s free arm tight. “And would you die for her?”

Goose didn’t hesitate. “In a heartbeat.”

Toecutter smiled, but there was no mockery in it. It was something quieter. Something powerful.

“So would I.” Toecutter spoke the words with quiet menace, but it was not directed at Goose, it was aimed at the world that was falling down around them

Energy crackled between them.

The two men who were once sworn enemies, were now bound by the same unrelenting force.

A woman neither could break free from.

A woman they would both kill for.

A woman they would both die for.

And, for now, at least—

That was enough.

The truck continued to speed on its way, tires rumbling over the baked  and cracked tarmac, kicking up the dust as it carried them toward whatever awaited them at the depot.

Toecutter’s grip on Little Mouse tightened.

He hated this.

Hated feeling this helpless. Her breath still stirred against his chest, her body still burned hot with fever. But she wasn’t waking and somewhere, deep inside that fevered mind of hers, he knew that she was dreaming….

…The outback stretched endlessly before her. But it wasn’t the one she had always known—the one of broken down farms and refineries, dusty roads and heat shifting asphalt, throbbing engines, and open throttles.

It felt alive.

The sky looked so strange, burnt orange and gold, giving way to blue greens and purples. Beneath it the sands shimmered like glass under the weight of the setting sun. Windchimes made of scavenged metal whispered their eerie song, strung up between towering wooden posts, totems that marked the entrance to a settlement.

A home.

And she stood at the heart of it, her bare feet felt connected to the warm earth beneath them, her body wrapped in the white cloth.

The robe that she knew was not a wedding dress and not a religious robe, but something in between.

Something ancient.

Something sacred.

And she was not alone.

To her right stood Toecutter, his handsome, strong face streaked with war paint, his hair bound in loose braids, adorned with metal and bone. Around his throat sat a heavy collar of dark leather, decorated with relics of the past—dog tags, spent bullet casings, fragments of broken badges. Symbols of the old world. A world she knew was long dead.

To her left stood Goose.

He was marked differently, but the link, the connection between to two men was still clear. The remnants of his Bronze past still woven into his presence, but it was not the Bronze of before. His leathers had been reforged, reshaped, painted in the colors of something new. A warrior’s garb and a guardian’s armor.

But her attention was pulled by the figure standing just in front of her. 

The child.

It was a boy, his feet and chest bare, his legs clad in loose linen trousers that fluttered like flags in the ever present breeze. 

His hair was dark, wild and thick with curling waves that cascaded over his shoulders—just like the hair of his father. But his eyes. They were all hers. Green as the hidden places of the earth, green as the forgotten forests that had withered away under the weight of time.

He was no older than ten, but he had a presence that made him seem ageless. He stood, studying her, tilting his head slightly, his expression unreadable.

Then, finally—he spoke.

“You have to remember and you have to wake up,” he said.

His voice was rich, steady. Not the voice of a child. Not really.

Then the wind began to rise, howling through the desert, rattling the chimes, as in the distance the terrifying wail of sirens began to rise—

And then—

She gasped.

A choked, ragged sound that tore from her throat as consciousness came slamming back into her.

It was so abrupt, so sudden that Toecutter almost dropped her.

“Shit—” he blurted out, snatching hold of her, grasping her tightly.

Cundalini was instantly at her side, fingers pressing to her pulse, eyes scanning her face.

“Easy, sweetheart,” he cooed at her, checking the bandages. “You’re alright. You’re safe.”

She wasn’t sure she believed him.

Her vision blurred, the last remnants of the dream clinging to the edges of her mind, refusing to be forgotten.

A child.

A settlement.

A future.

The sirens still echoed in her ears.

The explosion. The fire.

The mushroom cloud.

She shuddered.

Goose’s hand found hers, his grip weak but real.

“You with us?” he murmured.

She turned her head, meeting his gaze.

Then she turned to Toecutter.

He looked wrecked.

But when she whispered his name his whole body tensed, like a man on the edge of something he wasn’t ready to face.

She squeezed both their hands.

“I saw something,” she rasped.

Goose and Toecutter exchanged a look.

Waiting  

Toecutter didn’t breathe.

Goose didn’t move.

Cundalini’s fingers, which had been pressing gently to her pulse, froze.

The truck kept rolling, its heavy tires eating up the broken tarmac, the engine a steady growl beneath them. The wind still howled, tugging at their hair and filling the spaces between their bodies, but nothing—nothing—could drown out her words.

“I’m pregnant.”

And then she was gone again—not into fevered delirium, not into the terrifying abyss of unconsciousness—just into sleep.

The tension in her face melted away, the rigid pain in her body softened, and for the first time in days… she rested. As she did so her lips curved, the ghost of a smile lingering on her face, like there was a secret only she knew.

Goose’s fingers tightened around hers, his jaw clenching. His body—already weak, already drained—seemed to lock up completely, his breath coming sharp and fast.

Cundalini, recovering first, exhaled slowly, shaking his head as he went back to checking her pulse. “She’s stable,” he said, “so that’s something.”

Stable.

Toecutter heard the word but could barely process it.

His mind—his violent, feral, ruthless mind—was still trying to grasp what had just been spoken into existence.

A child.

His? Goose’s?

Both?

It should matter.

But somehow, it didn’t.

His grip on her waist tightened, as if the sheer force of his touch could protect her from everything—from the blood loss, from the fever, from the entire cursed world.

For years, he had carved a path through the world with nothing but his own desires to be considered. He had followed no law but his own, ruled over his people using both terror and adoration alike.

And now? Now, he held her, and inside her—the future waited.

His.

Hers.

Goose’s.

Bloodlines twisting together, entangling, forging something new as the world was falling apart.

Goose let out a slow, shaky breath, running a hand over his face before turning his head to look at Toecutter. His blue eyes—so sharp, so piercing even through exhaustion—held something unreadable. Not anger. Not fear. Something else. Something neither of them knew how to name.

Goose wet his lips, voice hoarse from pain and fatigue.

“…What now?”

It was not a challenge. Not a taunt. It was a question. A real, honest question. And for the first time in his life, Toecutter didn’t have an answer. Instead, he just looked down at her—at the woman who had bound them both to her without ever trying, without ever needing to.

She had always belonged to herself. And now, somehow— She belonged to something more.

Then, quietly, with a trace of awe Toecutter spoke.

“She’ll tell us.”

Chapter Text

They had travelled long and hard, avoiding any settlements on Bubba’s advice. “They’re twitchy, Boss,” was all he had said, but the meaning was clear. As the world stumbled towards he inevitable, people had reached the shoot first and ask questions later stage. Toecutter wasn’t prepared to take any unnecessary risks. The cargo the truck carried was too precious. Little Mouse was not his only concern anymore. She was pregnant. He had no reason to doubt her strange proclamation. In fact, he had the sense that it was the complete and utter truth. Deep down inside his feral heart he understood this, he understood that she was carrying his child, his son. He didn’t know why. He just knew. 

When the truck finally rolled to a stop on the roadside, the dust kicked up by the tires lifting into the night like so many ghosts, he didn’t feel any sense of relief. 

They were still a good ways from the depot, but even from almost a mile out they could see the floodlights that across the compound, hear the whisper of distant voices—voices that did not belong to the gang.

The depot was occupied. Someone had gotten to the depot first.

Toecutter swung out of the truck bed, leaving Goose and Little Mouse in Cundalini’s capable hands. He landed lightly despite his size and the exhaustion pulling at his muscles. When the rest of the gang had climbed off their bikes he gave them a few precious moments to stretch and swill the warm water from their canteens before he signalled for them to spread out, sending them fanning off into the shadows, each of them tense, knowing their duty, watching, listening. They would count the number the enemies, assess their weaponry, hunt for their weaknesses and they wouldn’t even know that they were being watched. They moved with surprising speed and practiced stealth, crouched in the darkness beyond the perimeter, watching, observing with wary, hungry eyes. 

In the slightest hint of a gully Bubba crouched beside Toecutter, his eyes sharp as he studied the enemy. He had sensed the growing trouble out on the road hunting for the truck, and now the proof of it was displayed for all to see.

“They’re not MFP. Not organized military, either.” Bubba whispered to Toecutter as he nodded toward one of the figures standing on the catwalk above the loading docks. “That one’s got a lieutenant’s patch on his shoulder, but look at him—uniform’s unbuttoned, gear’s mismatched. There’s no chain of command. They’ve gone awol for sure.”

Toecutter studied the figures that moved beyond the chain-link fence, their uniformed silhouettes stark against the pale floodlights that buzzed overhead. They were deserters definitely. Well armed but sloppy. There was no organization to them, no crisp military precision—no officer barking orders. Rogues. Soldiers without a leash, without a cause. Men who had abandoned their oaths and become something else entirely. Unpredictable. Dangerous. 

He could see that they were well-armed. Floodlights swept the compound and gun barrels glinted on the upper walkways. There was no way to avoid the fact that as good as his men where, Toecutter knew that they were outgunned and that the numbers weren’t in their favour….

…but inside that depot there could well be the medkits, antibiotics, painkillers, blood packs. Everything Little Mouse needed to live.

Toecutter fixed his gaze on the depot, his mind whirring.

He had taken many things in his lifetime. Had crushed and stolen and burned himself a path through this world. But this… this wasn’t some poorly defended truck stop, a weak little township or an exposed gas truck convoy.

This was something different. Deadly,

He knew that a straight up fight would cost the gang too much.

A deal was unlikely. They had nothing to offer and no pressure to apply.

They needed another way.

They needed a plan. 

With a low whistling cry, a sound that to the ear of a distracted guard could easily be mistaken for a lonely night bird, Toecutter called them all back to the truck.

In he bed of the truck Cundalini moved to check on Little Mouse once again, whispering a curse under his breath as he touched her clammy, sweat-damp skin. She was still stable, just about, but he knew that it wouldn’t hold. Not without fresh supplies, medications. Goose wasn’t much better. He was weak, drained of too much blood and although his broken leg was now stable, it must have been causing him agony. Cundalini had to admire the man, because no matter how much pain he was in, Goose stubbornly refused show it. 

Toecutter stood by the truck, surrounded by he gang, bitter determination carved into every angle of his face. He listened as Clunk and Starbuck rattled off the patrol patterns, guard rotations and armaments they had observed. Mudguts and Starbuck listed of the strong points and weaknesses of the depots defence. Diabando sketched a rough map in the dirt, revealing all the possible cover available—then they tried to figure out a way in that wouldn’t get them all killed. 

They all had ideas but it was an ill formed, overlapping mess of half-formed plans, that always ending in firefights and losses bodies. 

“It’s a fuckin’ meat grinder,” Starbuck growled. “If we try to go in through the front, we die and there is no way to breach the back without alerting the fuckers”

“Maybe from the east wall,” Mudguts suggested. “It’s blind on one side if we time it right.”

“There’s no cover,” Bubba snarled, a rare show of temper from his usual cool manner. “They’ll pick us off before we get halfway there.”

“They’ve lost it,” Diabando muttered from the shadows, a sick grin twisting his lips. “They’re just a pack of hungry dogs, lookin’ for scraps. They won’t fight if they think they can’t win.”

“Could we blockade them? Draw them out?” Clunk offered up.

“We don’t have time for that” Cundalini snapped at him. “She’s fading fast. I’m not being dramatic but we either go in tonight or bury her tomorrow.”

Silence fell, cold and sharp.

They could all feel the anger boiling off Toecutter.

Then an unexpected voice cut through the confusion.

“I’ve got an idea.”

All the heads turned towards Goose. He was sat on the end of the truck bed, staring out towards the distant depot.

Toecutter arched a brow, unimpressed. “Do you, now?”

“…We can’t wait.” Goose shifted his voice thick with exhaustion. “We don’t have time to plan some grand fucking siege. We need in and we need in now.”

Goose coughed, wiping his mouth. “We can’t fight them head-on. Not with what we’ve got. But we don’t have to fight.” He nodded toward the depot. “That place isn’t a base. It’s a prison. They’re holed up, fortified, because they expect trouble. Which means they’re scared.”

Bubba’s brow furrowed. “So?”

“So,” Goose continued, licking his cracked lips, “we give them the trouble they’re waiting for, just not the kind they expect.”

Toecutter folded his arms, waiting, listening.

Goose took a breath and carried on. “They don’t know our numbers so we make it sound like there’s more of us than there is. Hit ‘em from all sides. Noise, fire, chaos. We need them panicked, confused. We don’t break in—we make them come out. We need to get them to run.”

Mudguts grinned, eyes glinting with something delightfully unhinged. “You wanna flush ‘em out?”

“More than that,” Goose said his jaw tightening. “I wanna turn ‘em against each other.”

Silence fell over the gang as the idea sank in.

Then Toecutter began laughing. It was a slow, wicked sound, rolling low in his broad chest.

“Ohhh, Bronze,” he purred. “You can be a nasty little thing when you want to be.”

Goose didn’t smile. He didn’t rise to Toecutter’s praise, or mockery, he wasn’t sure which it was. He just turned his gaze toward Toecutter.

“They’re on edge,” he murmured. “So let’s break ‘em.”

Toecutter straightened, the decision settling into his bones.

“I think you have something Bronze. If we can’t take it,” he murmured, a slow grin curling at the edges of his lips, “then we make them let us in.”

Bubba’s eyes gleamed in the dark. “…What are you thinking, Boss?”

Toecutter turned, expression wicked and sharp.

“I’m thinking it’s time we let them know why we own the road.”

Toecutter exhaled slowly, knuckles cracking as he flexed his fingers. He could see the plan forming, the way to set up the distractions, the way to shred the taught nerves of the men holed up in the depot. He wasn’t going to let a pack of wild dogs, stand between him and the one thing in the world he was determined not lose.

He clenched his jaw at the thought of it.

A frontal assault would be suicide but chaos, confusion, whispers in the darkness, that might just work. 

The plan was brutally simple. Bubba and Clunk would set fires along the perimeter, using salvaged gasoline and old tires to create thick, choking smoke. Cundalini—despite his exhaustion—would rig up makeshift explosives from scavenged fuel, tossing them toward the depot walls to create confusion.

Once the panic started Toecutter, Mudguts, and the rest would use their bikes to circle the compound, revving engines, flashing lights, constantly moving, creating the illusion of a much larger force.

And Goose—as weak as he was—had volunteered to be the one to deliver the final blow.

The only downside was that for the plan to work, they needed everyone, Little Mouse would have to be left behind. Toecutter didn’t like it, she was vulnerable, helpless in her current state but thed was no other option. 

But they took precautions. They moved the truck from the highway into the brush, disguising it as best the could. Cundalini’s wanted to leave her with a fire, complaining that she would get too cold if they were gone to long, but even a well hidden fire would give him away in the darkness. Instead he was forced to leave her in the truck bed, bundled about with the bedrolls and spare clothing. 

He whispered “we’ll be back soon,” to her unconscious form, ever the reassuring medic, even if he didn’t exactly feel confident himself. 

They moved into place with care, ready and waiting but holding back until everything was ready, until everyone was in place. 

Hidden behind scrub trees and a long dead back hoe, Toecutter stood with Goose. 

“You sure about this, Bronze?” Toecutter murmured as Goose strapped old radio he’d been given to his belt.

Goose smirked, exhaustion making his smile crooked. “Not Bronze. It’s Goose, or Jim if you want to be really formal about it and yeah, I’m sure. I used to do a little recon work back in the day,” he muttered. “So let’s see if I still got it.”

It wasn’t going to be easy, especially with his broken leg slowing him down, but his job was essential. He needed to use the chaos the gang would cause to sneak in through the old ventilation ducts. Once he was inside the complex he would need to break into the depot’s intercom system and start turning the ex soldiers against each other.

He knew that these rogue soldiers weren’t loyal. They weren’t a unit. They were just a pack of desperate men, thrown together by circumstance. All it would take would be a little push—a few whispers over the radio, a well-timed explosion, a couple of bodies stumbled over in the dark—and paranoia and fear would do the rest.

Toecutter grinned, his eyes gleaming with malice.

“Ohh, this is going to be fun.”

With everything in place Toecutter left him, no doubting him to perform his promised tasks, even if Toecutter didn’t trust him, didn’t like being in debt to his love rival, Goose was at that moment just s much an acolyte as the rest of the gang.

He was a part of the oncoming storm..

Chapter Text

The soldiers inside the depot were already on edge. The news had been bad, really bad. The world had shifted under their boots—authority was a ghost, and they clung to scraps of chain-of-command like children to a drowned father. They wore their old fatigues like armor against the truth, their rifles polished, their boots blackened—but inside, they were broken, forgotten things. Toys with no one left to play with them. They were now no different than the bandits that had roamed the badlands for years, they just had better gear. 

Without command, without orders they had become sloppy. They didn’t post guards, not properly, efficiently, they didn’t have people watching the area, scanning thr shadows for movement. They didn’t even turn the spotlights outward, illuminating the scrubby bush land around them, 

Bubba and Clunk struck the first blow.

They moved like phantoms, low and fast, darting through the skeletons of rusted shipping containers and weed-choked fencing. They sloshed jerry cans of fuel over piles of discarded tires, broken pallets, and accumulated detritus. They stood back, the air thick with the stench of gasoline fumes, a simply ignition device, a bundle of matches tied around a lit cigarette, tossed towards the would be infernos. They were gone, slipping back into the darkness before the first  pile of tires caught with a throaty whump.

Greasy flames roared to life, belching thick black smoke that rolled low across the sand before surging upward. It curled over the perimeter fences in great plumes, dragging heat and ash with it. The depot’s front entrance vanished behind a veil of churning shadow, the visibility inside turning into a flickering, strobing nightmare.

Then came the explosions.

Cundalini, pale with exhaustion but steady, rigged the scavenged fuel-cell bombs with a surgeons stead  hands and deadly focus. One by one, he rolled them toward the barricades, timing the fuses with an uncanny accuracy, releasing each homemade bomb with a wicked, bitter smile.

The first blast shattered the night with a bone-snapping roar—windows blew out, shrapnel screamed through the night, and the men inside the compound dove for cover.

The second explosion ripped through a parked supply truck, the fireball it created climbing up into the night sky like a beast made of flame. A backwash of heat and flame washed over the yard, driving some men backward, sending others to their knees, their hair and clothing igniting.

Every bomb, every fireball, detonated its own panic within the compound.

The soldiers opened fire—but not with discipline. They sprayed the darkness with rounds, bullets ripping through smoke and ricocheting off rusted shipping containers, cutting through their own number with sick efficiency. They fired relentlessly off into the darkness, wasting their bullets. Because the gang was never where they fired, already having moved on to wreak havoc elsewhere. They were fighting ghosts, their outlines distorted by the flickering firelight, vanishing into the night, only to reappear, seemingly instantaneously somewhere further along the perimeter. They were too fast to count, seemingly too numerous to fight.

When the panic in the men in the depot reached fever pitch, Toecutter unleashed his phantom army.

Motorcycle engines revved and snarled in the dark, tires rumbling across gravel, spitting dirt up in the air. The gang circled the depot’s flanks in a wild, chaotic dance, their headlights pulsing in and out of the smoke like searchlights from hell. They were never still. With their minimal weapons and ammo they fired off gunshots in staccato bursts—counting on the concrete building to magnify and distort the sound with echoes and ricochets. It was never enough to engage in a firefight, but just enough to suggest, they could.

Inside, the fear and terror became infectious, spreading from man to man. With no one in control. With no officer to calm them, to order a coordinated response, the men’s resolve began to crumble. 

Goose was waiting.  He was crouched in the ash-thick dark behind a collapsed wall, watching the columns of smoke rise—great, gouting towers lit from beneath by hellfire. The burning tires created a stench thick enough to coat the tongue, acrid and blinding, but the wind had shifted in their favor. The smoke swept inward now, coiling into the depot like a living thing.

When the chaos in the building had built to the level he judge just right, Goose moved to deliver the coup de grace.

He clenched his jaw against the pain in his leg—splinted, bound, still broken. But he didn’t care. Not tonight.

Not with her life on the line.

Little Mouse.

He hated himself for still using that name. But what else could he call her? That dead-code MFP designation? The random foster name they slapped on her file like a bandaid on a corpse? No. She was Mouse. It was strange to admit it, but she had, on some deep, hidden, subconscious level, she had always been Little Mouse.

And he’d follow her into hell.

Which, he supposed, was exactly what he was doing now.

He dragged himself into the service tunnel’s mouth—a rust-slick vent barely wide enough for his shoulders. Sweat slicked his back. The heat inside the shaft was stifling, and every ninety-degree turn was an act of brutal violence on his broken leg. He might have moved like a wounded animal—but he was silent, relentless, determined.

By the time he reached the ventilation access above the old control room, he was shaking with the effort, and quite probably heat stroke. But that didn’t matter. Because the room was empty. Just like he’d guessed it would be.

There was no officer corps anymore to call out orders over the radio. No duty rosters to be broadcast or watches to be called. No one needed the coms room anymore so no one was there to noticed him as he pulled himself down from the vent hatch. He landed heavily, his broken leg taking more weight than it should. He hissed with the sudden pain of bone end grating against bone end, but swallowed back the scream that bubble up. Giving himself just a moment to recover from the sickly, cold, sweat of the moment before he went to work.

He was relieved to discover that the control panel still had power and still worked. Albeit barely. He head the speakers crackle and hiss with static, coming alive as he deftly split and rerouted wires.

When he was finished, the hurried connections taped together, he took a steadying breath and began to whisper into the microphone.

He kept his voice just loud enough to be heard over the cacophony that rose from the smoke below..

“There’s a rat among you.” He spat he words out letting them slither away to whisper through the speakers.

He’d set the relay up to randomly cycle through the open speakers. His poisonous whispers shifting through the darkness, creating even more confusion.

“Who sold you out?” He asked them, setting the hook of betrayal.

“Who led them here?” He whispered, reeling them in.

Below him, in the depot he could hear boots thudding, voices raised, shouting. Then the sharp crack of a rifle being fired.

Another poisonous And whisper:..

…“They’re already inside.”…

…and another…

…“They always have been.”…

It didn’t take much.

A shove, a finger pointed, a simmering grudge.

Then it was a scream. A gunshot. 

The paranoia erupted and Goose didn’t stop it—he fed it.

“Gonna kill you.” He hissed into the darkness.

“Gonna slit your throat.” He found the venom in his voice shockingly real. Had he fallen so far so fast. He didn’t have the time to wonder.

Down in the depot the panicked men didn’t know what was real anymore. 

In the swirling, blinding smoke, with shadows in the walls and whispers in their ears, they broke. 

They accused one another. Friends shot friends. The frightened fired blindly into the dark, shooting at any hint of movement. Taking down each other with stray bullets. 

Goose heard a man scream in pain, only to have the scream turn into a wet gurgle as a second bullet ripped through his throat.

Down below him he could hear someone praying in the dark.

By the time Toecutter and Bubba had finally breached the gates—iron hinges shrieking, boots pounding as the gang stormed in—the depot was already almost dead.

Most of the soldiers lay where they’d fallen—gunned down by their own. Others fled into the night at the first chance of escape, abandoning everything, even their injured friends and comrades.

Toecutter’s men were ruthless. Those that couldn’t make their escape through the busted open gates were doomed. The wounded dispatched with quiet efficiency. There was no room for mercy in this spiralling, moribund world.

And Goose, leaning against the intercom console, panting and soaked in sweat, watched at thr coms room windows as it all unfolded. He felt sick with the violence but he couldn’t help feel a sense of grim satisfaction at a job well done.

Toecutter approached, blood the sleeves of his leather jacket, his eyes bright, alive, he wore a wide, almost manic smile.

He clapped Goose on the shoulder—hard.

“You really are a nasty bastard… Goose.”

Goose blinked. The use of his name, rather than the hated moniker, Bronze, didn’t escape him. It was the slightest nod at acceptance.

Goose exhaled, nodded. “Let’s get what we came for.”

They worked quickly. Prying open the abandoned crates of supplies. Bottles of antibiotics. Clean gauze. IV fluid. Morphine, sterile scissors, suture kits. Even fuel and rations—it was more than they had dared to hope for. 

They loaded up with as much as each of them could carry, then they turned their backs on the smouldering fires disappearing back into the darkness leaving the smouldering fires and the carnage behind them.

The sun had not yet risen, but the horizon was beginning to glow, the desert wind carrying the taste of smoke and blood as they approached the camp.

And then—

They saw it.

Everything was as they had left it. Except for one thing.

Blankets and bed rolls lay scattered in and around the folded truck bed but Little Mouse was gone.

The truck bed where she had been laid—pale, fevered, unconscious —was empty.

There was no blood trail. No signs of a scuffle. No hints at violence.

Just absence.

Cundalini staggered forward panicked. “She was here. I swear—I left her right here.”

Bubba raised his rifle, scanning the ridge.

Toecutter said nothing.

Goose stood frozen, the medpack still clutched in his hands, staring at the empty space.

He felt a dreadful chilling certainty. This was his punishment for the, carnage, the evil he had just taken part in. Little Mouse had been taken.

When Toecutter finally spoke, his voice was ragged and sharp like steel dragged across stone:

“Find her.”

The gang scattered like wolves with blood in their nostrils. Starbuck mounted his bike so fast he almost dropped it, Bubba barking orders even as he kicked up dust. Diabando vanished into the ridge line, silent and fast. Even Clunk—so often slow and blank—tore off into the darkness with a snarl.

They searched with desperation in their eyes and dust in their lungs.

Had she woken confused, fever-blind? Had she wandered into the scrub, into the endless nowhere of the outback?

Was she lying somewhere, just beyond the reach of the firelight, bleeding into the sand?

The thought sickened them all.

Goose couldn’t ride. Not anymore. His body was too far gone—blood loss, exhaustion, the shattered leg now swollen and throbbing beneath the bandages. But he wouldn’t be still.

He limped. He crawled. He searched.

Goose combed the area with a soldier’s eye. Not for shapes or shouts—but for signs.

A heel scuff beneath the truck’s fender. A faint smear of blood along the steel lip—still tacky. At first he thought she might’ve slid off the edge herself lost in a fever daze.

But then he saw it.

Crushed scrub grass near the road. Flattened in long, deliberate tracks.

He fell to his knees, fingers sifting through the disturbed grit.

Tire marks. Heavy ones. Dual rear wheels.

Military grade.

Goose’s stomach turned.

He followed the line, dragging himself along the shoulder of the road, squinting against the early light.

There—just visible—a boot print.

Not hers.

Too large. Too uniform. The kind of sole only the army stamped and issued.

He stared at it.

Then back at the smear of blood near the track—long, dragged. Not a struggle. Not a fight.

She hadn’t resisted.

He swallowed hard.

She hadn’t been able to.

Whoever took her had slid her out of the truck like cargo. Quiet. Quick.

He clenched his fists in the dirt, knuckles white and bloodless.

By the time the others returned, dusk was clawing its way over the horizon, the desert wind growing sharper, colder.

Toecutter was the last to appear.

His eyes burned red—not from firelight or fury, but from something deeper. Grief. Disbelief. He stormed back into camp with no words, tearing his gloves off, throwing them into the darkness. Anger came rolling off in waves. Choking everyone around him.

He snarled, snapped, roared at everyone. He kicked the fire the others had lit, sending sparks flying. He turned on Starbuck for breathing too loud. Snapped at Bubba for bringing back nothing. His rage churned without direction, like a rabid dog set loose in a locked room.

Goose watched him quietly. Then finally, when the worst of the grief induced anger had evaporated, Goose broke the silence. 

“You’re not gonna want to hear this.”

Toecutter froze.

Goose motioned to the road behind the truck. His voice stayed low.

“I found tire tracks. Not ours. Military truck. Dual rear axle. They pulled in behind us.”

He paused, waited.

Toecutter’s chest rose and fell, no sound coming out.

Goose continued. “There’s a boot print. Standard-issue tread. Someone got out, came up to the bed.”

Another pause.

“And there’s blood. Smear down the tailgate. She didn’t walk off. She was taken. Slid out. No struggle.”

The fire crackled again. Loud in the silence.

Toecutter didn’t speak.

Didn’t move.

His hands clenched slowly at his sides, the veins like ropes beneath his skin. His jaw twitched. Then—

He turned, walked five steps into the dark, and let out a roar.

It wasn’t a scream of rage. It wasn’t even human.

It was the sound of loss, of something sacred being ripped from him again.

A deep, feral howl that echoed across the wastes.

When he returned to the fire, his voice was hollow.

“Then we hunt them.”

Goose nodded once, jaw tight.

“Yeah,” he said softly. “We do.”

Chapter Text

Little mouse was gone.

She had vanished a without a trace.

The mysterious raiders who had taken her had moved like ghosts—disciplined, surgical, trained.

The gang had scoured the desert surrounding the truck the had left her nestled, moving in an ever widening circle, growing ever more desperate with each passing day. 

They had pushed out in every direction, combing the hills, the dry creek beds, the endless reaches of the salt plains. Starbuck even climbed the ridge and used the binoculars they’d looted from the depot, scanning until the heat shimmer made his eyes sting and the world warp.

There was nothing.

Wherever they looked, no matter how hard they scoured the scrubland, the bushes and the sand, it gave them nothing. 

There were no drag marks, no dropped gear, no broken branches or boot scuffs on the hardpan. Just those few minuscule clues that Goose had found close to the truck.

It was as if she’d been whole swallowed by the earth itself.

Diabando, who’d been driving the truck, cursed himself as the gang was forced to conclude that whoever had taken Little Mouse had seen her from the road, leaving their truck parked at the roadside before loading her up and driving away with her. He blamed himself for not having pulled the truck further off the roadside, for not making it harder for them. Toecutter didn’t offer to free him from the guilt, just fixed him with baleful eyes that had Diabando shrinking away to the fringes. 

It was the worst possible conclusion. 

She had been taken by an unknown vehicle on a road that was sun scorched and scoured by constant winds. 

A road that held no clues, there only choice was to take to the roads, to hunt for, and intercept any vehicle that might fit the tire pattern. 

But it didn’t matter how many vehicles they stopped, or however many roads they travelled, they found nothing.

But Toecutter wouldn’t stop.

He was driven to the very edge by her disappearance, his often questioned sanity hanging by a thread.

He didn’t sleep. He barely ate. He snarled orders from sunup to dusk, barely giving the men a moment’s rest before he sent them back out. He drove them mercilessly, and when he was exhausted with taking out her loss on his Acolytes, he turned his anger on Goose.

“You’re the reason we’re in this mess,” he snapped, teeth bared, voice low and venomous. “She only did it because of you. You should have died on the road Bronze.”

Goose, already ragged, exhausted from his efforts with the search, turned slowly. His leg was still bound tight, stiff and aching, the splint digging into the inside of his thigh. His face gaunt, shadowed with pain and exhaustion.

Goose didn’t say anything, he just eyed the big man, returning his sour eyed glare.

Toecutter shoved him. It wasn’t hard, but there was clearly malice behind it.

“You gonna limp your way to another excuse, Bronze?”

Toecutter drawled the last worst, filling it with hatred. Striding over to Goose, shoving him harder, pushing him again and again, forcing Goose to stumble backwards.

“Bronze,” Toecutter sneered, “nothing but a fucking wasted, washed up, fucking BRONZE!” He roared the last word straight into Gooses face, his own face twisted with rage.

That was the last straw.

Goose lunged.

The pair hit the dirt in a tumble of limbs and snarls, the light from the rough camp fire illuminating their writhing outlines. 

Toecutter’s massive frame gave him the clear advantage—six foot two of muscle and violence—but Goose fought like a feral dog, lean, mean, dirty, fighting the bigger man without shame or restraint.

He swept Toecutter’s legs out from under him with a savage hook of his heel, sending the larger man crashing to the dirt. As Toecutter roared, Goose grabbed a fistful of sand and flung it into his face, grinding it into his eyes. While the other man reeled, Goose landed a brutal elbow into his crotch, then shoved his knee into his gut.

Toecutter retaliated with a brutal backhand that split Goose’s lip and nearly knocked him unconscious. He slammed his fist down onto Goose’s broken leg again and again, causing Goose to yowl in pain, kicking and biting, anything to get the man to leave the agonising wound alone. 

The pair rolled over and over, fists flying, knees slamming into ribs, grunts and curses filling the night.

As the fight grew more ferocious, and Toecutter began to loose the upper hand, the gang started forward instinctively—but Bubba held up a single hand. His expression unreadable, his eyes steady.

“Let it happen.”

No one disobeyed.

Bubba knew that the tension between the two men had to come to a head. The pressure had to be released, one way or another. He would make sure that neither man killed the other, but the bruises, the pain, they had earned them.

Eventually, the fight began to slow, the ferocity bleeding into exhaustion. The two men pulled apart, heaving for breath, slick with sweat and dirt, bloodied and bruised.

They lay there, backs to the dirt, panting, broken silhouettes against the firelight, silent save for their wheezing, gasping breathing.

Finally, Goose sat up spitting a mouthful of blood into the dust. 

“Your not the only one suffering. But we can’t carry on like this. If we spend all our time fucking each other up we are gonna lose her. Forever. Truce?”

Toecutter nodded slowly.

Goose sighed and the two men’s gazes finally met, raw honest, speaking volumes in the dark.

“If she picks you,” Goose said hoarsely, “I won’t stand in the way.”

Toecutter took a long breath. “And if she picks you… I’ll let her go.”

Goose gave a wry, bitter smile. “We both know that she might not pick either of us. She might not even be able to…if we can’t find her. If we can’t get her back…”

Toecutter smirked, but there was no joy in it. “Then we burn the fucking world. You and me together.”

They both chuckled at that—strange, low, guttural things.

And then they agreed.

They’d honor her choice. But first, first they had to find her.

With possible no trail to follow, no clues. it meant one thing: they would have to go into the populated areas. 

Towns. 

Pockets of desperate, terrified humanity, clinging to the rotting corpse of the world. Dangerous places growing more deadly with every news report, every escalation in global hostilities. Powder kegs waiting for the worst kind of spark.

They reached first the town by noon the next day—barely a smear of a place on the edge of the map. One cracked street. A gas station that hadn’t seen fuel in years. Half a dozen crumbling buildings. Boarded windows. Faded. Shrivelled. Moribund. The people who lived there were more ghosts than flesh, peering through dirt smeared windows and holes in the cracked plywood shuttering. The world was crumbling around them. The townspeople knew it. They could feel it and the fear that engendered made them vicious.

All Bubba wanted was information.

He kept the others back. Dismounting alone, making a show of approaching with hands wide and empty, calm, like a man with nothing to hide. He walked up to the door of a low squat structure, something that might’ve once been a well used saloon or bar.

The barrel of the shotgun was through the crack in the door before he got halfway there.

Click.

Bubba froze. 

Then BOOM.

The shotgun erupted in a spray of fire and buckshot. Bubba threw himself sideways, crashing into the dirt with a howl of pain. Some of the pellets caught his shoulder, punching through leather and skin. Blood spattered across the dirt.

The door burst open and the shooter came out firing. He yelling, panicked, his expression unhinged, wild-eyed.

Bubba rolled, acting on pure instinct, dragging himself to cover.

And then Mudguts came tearing from the side alley like a cannon shot, ducking low, ramming his shoulder into the gunman’s gut and slamming him into the doorframe. The man hit the ground with a crack, his shotgun spinning out of reach.

The gang surged forward—Toecutter in the lead, eyes full of flame.

Boots thudded, clenched fists pummelling unresisting flesh.

None of the watchers in the shadowy buildings moved to help the fallen man. 

The gang were about to beat him to death.

Goose limped into the fray and shoved them back with surprising force. His eyes were blazing, his voice sharp as he yelled at the bikers to stop.

“Enough!” He roared, his voice carrying an authority none of them had ever expected to hear. 

He dragged the coughing, bleeding man up onto his knees, slammed his arm around the man’s neck, yanking tight, locking him in a chokehold, the man’s face pressed into the crook of his muscular arm. His voice was quiet, low, dangerous, when he spoke, his mouth close to he shooters ear.

“I’m gonna ask you real nice, and you’re gonna answer. Okay? You seen any army-style trucks around?”

The man gasped, trying to shake his head, his eyes bulging from his sockets as his face turned puce. “N-no. No, I swear!”

Goose held the choke for a second longer, then released him, shoving him backward into the dirt. The man gasped, staring around at the gang, their wild eyes, bloodied hands, sweat-slick leather.

Goose held up a calming hand. “We’re not here to kill anyone. We just want information.”

The man blinked. Then, slowly… nodded.

His eyes scanned the gang for the first time taking in the exhaustion and the grief that had been masked by their anger at his actions. Then he looked back to Goose.

“…What do you really want to know?” His voice was quiet, hoarse from the choke hold, but her held Goose’s gaze defiantly.

Goose frowned. “Missing women.”

The change in the man’s face was immediate. Recognition. Guilt. Fear.

“You lose someone,” he said quietly.

Goose nodded once.

The man licked his lips nervously before he began. “They’ve been raiding the farms,” he told them, “Hitting the isolated ones. Never the towns. They don’t take the livestock or the food. They don’t steal the vehicles. They don’t even touch the fuel drums.”

He looked up, locking eyes with Goose.

“They just take the women. The young ones.”

It took them a full day of chasing whispers to find the first real lead.

The talk was of a unit. Unmarked. Not one made up of soldiers gone rogue and not one of the nomads gangs. They were trained, efficient, ruthless. A shadow force that was moving through the wasteland, picking over the remains of civilization like vultures. They were well armed but they moved liked ghosts, avoiding unnecessary interaction. They left no witnesses. They carried no insignia. Made no broadcasts. Issued no demands. They just came and they took what they wanted. 

Little Mouse had been left alone at the worst possible moment. Practically laid out like a gift for the unknown raiders and they hadn’t hesitated to take her.

They at last knew their enemy. They knew from the farmsteads that had been hit, the direction of their travel, now it was just a matter of finding them.

Toecutter ran a hand through his wild, sweat-drenched curls, glancing at Goose.

“You said you were a tracker once.”

Goose flexed his healing hands still stiff and bruised from their fight. Even with the new injuries he was feeling stronger every day.

“I was a lot of things once,” he admitted.

“Well.” Toecutter grinned, teeth flashing in the firelight of their latest bivouac. “I…we need you to be that again.”

Goose nodded. Nothing more needed to be said because they both knew that no matter what it took—they were going to get her back.

The desert wind worked in their favour, swallowed their sound and spitting it out far behind them, well away from their quarry. They had been followed the tracks for hours, sweeping further and further from the burnt out farmstead. The corpse of the older male had lain on the ornamental brick path in front of the smouldering ruins, the fat black flies crawling over the ruins of his face, shotgun still gripped in his stiffening hands. 

For once their luck was in, the raiders had driven away cross country, avoiding the road and leaving them faint tire marks to follow. A trail of breadcrumbs in the sand and dirtp. They rode in grim silence, their bikes snarling like hunting dogs on the scent. Then Bubba signaled from up ahead, one sharp motion.

Toecutter pulled up beside him, eyes narrowing. Bubba didn’t speak, just lifted his chin towards the shallow valley below.

Three figures moved through the it guiding a military flat bed truck.

The soldiers were outfitted in fatigues, their gear well-kept but lacking any recognisable insignia. Their movements were too precise, too coordinated for common raiders. These weren’t scavengers. These were men on a mission.

And in the truck bed—Three woman, one clutching a teenage girl tightly to her chest. They were all trembling, barefoot, their clothes torn, bruises and black eyes visible even at that distance.

Toecutter’s fingers flexed around the grip of his shotgun. They had found them. The men who had taken Little Mouse, and now they were taking more.

Goose came up beside him, breathing hard through his nose, having jogged up from the truck his was now driving, fists clenched so tight his knuckles had gone white.

Neither of them needed to speak. This was all the proof they had needed. These bastards were taking women. And if they had these women… then they had Little Mouse too.

They planned the ambush fast, it wasn’t going to be pretty, but it would be effective.

The landscape would work in their favour, shallow, brush covered hills forcing the raiders to take a single path, no chance of escape, no space to turn and flee. 

The attack the gang launched was swift and brutal. They descended like a pack of ravenous wolves. The first soldier barely had time to register the roar of engines before Bubba’s rifle barked, dropping him before he could raise his weapon.

The second went for his sidearm, but Toecutter was already on him, boot smashing into his chest, sending him sprawling.

The last soldier tried to run.

Goose caught him.

One hand fisting in the man’s collar, the other bringing a knife up to the soft flesh beneath his chin, pressing until he felt the slickness of the man’s blood dampening his fingers.

The soldier froze.

The women in the truck bed cowered in fear, wide-eyed and shaking.

And Toecutter…

Toecutter knelt beside the one he had kicked down.

He wasn’t dead. Not yet.

His breath was wet, bubbling—probably a shattered rib puncturing his lung. But his eyes were full of defiance.

Goose dragged his own prisoner forward, shoving him down beside the other.

The two surviving soldiers exchanged looks.

They knew.

They knew exactly what was coming.

And so did Goose.

The gang stood in a rough circle around the fallen soldiers, the wind whipping at their clothes, their hair.

“Cundalini, see to them,” Toecutter said nodding in the direction of the women huddled in the truck, silent, watching. “I want to know what they have suffered so we can pay it back.”

Cundalini shepherded the near catatonic women away from what was to come, his friendly bedside manner and easy smile reassuring them enough to get them to follow him without question. When they were too far away to hear Toecutter leaned in close to the soldiers, pulling his heavy, brutally sharp knife from its boot mounted sheath.

“You took our woman,” he said, his voice dripping with venom. “And we want to know where she is.”

The smile that spread across Toecutter’s face was slow, easy, almost gentle.

“You can tell us,” he told them his voice persuasive. “Or I can make this very… very, unpleasant.”

The soldier Goose had brought down spat, the gobbet of phlegm landing on Toecutters left boot.

Toecutter sighed.

He turned to Goose.

“Well?”

Goose hadn’t spoken since the attack.

His jaw was tight, breath steady, but his hands were trembling slightly. Once, he would have drawn a line here. Once, there would have been a right and a wrong. But not anymore. Now, there was only the need to get her back.

His voice was hoarse when he finally spoke.

“There’s a time and a place for torture.” He said as he looked the soldier dead in the eyes. “And this is it.”

Toecutter grinned.

And the screaming started.

It didn’t take long. Pain broke men faster than bullets ever could.

They learned everything.

There was a bunker. It was hidden deep in the wasteland, buried beneath a ruined military installation. There were supplies for generations, stockpiles of food, weapons, medicine… but no women.

Until now.

They had been sent out to find them, to hunt them, waiting for lone women to cross their paths.

Little Mouse had been left unguarded at the worst possible time.

One of the soldiers, sobbing now, choked out the final pieces of information. The routes. The guards. The way in.

And Goose felt sick.

Not from the blood. Not from the broken bones. But from the fact that he had helped do this. That he had sat there, silent, as Toecutter and the others broke these men apart piece by piece. And worst of all—Was that he didn’t regret it.

Toecutter stood, wiping his hands on a rag, surveying the broken soldiers.

“Well,” he said lightly. “That was educational.”

Bubba adjusted his rifle. “What do we do with them?” He jerked his chin at the two soldiers. “Can’t let them go.”

Goose locked eyes with one of them.

The man who had spat at Toecutter earlier, who had sworn they wouldn’t break him. The man who was now a whimpering wreck.

Goose lifted the pistol he’d taken from the soldier…aiming at the prone man.

For the first time since his is world had turned upside down—he didn’t hesitate.

Chapter Text

Little Mouse woke to a strange type of quiet. 

It wasn’t a kind that she had ever been used to. Not the quiet murmuring of hushed voices in the academy, not the wild sound of wind and dust and grass stems rustling of her time in the bush her body still as she watched her quarry from a distance, and it was not the restful quiet that came when, satisfied and spent, she curled into Toecutter’s breathless form, the subtle sounds of the camp fire burning and the gang settling themselves in the distance. This was something else. It was clinical. Controlled. Sterile.

There was no wind. No sound of creaking leather or the ticking of engines cooling. Just the faint hum of a ventilation system moving scrubbed, cool air through hidden ducts. The light above her burned a steady, sterile white. Fluorescent daylight tubes glared from behind frosted panels in a false ceiling. The light was reflected back at her room sterile looking white walls, cold and static—no flickering, no shadows shifting like ghosts. It buzzed faintly, fluorescent and institutional. 

The air was still and cold, scrubbed free of dust, rot, and decay. Even through the haze of fever and pain, she knew. This place—wherever it was—had been built to last.

She began to slowly pull herself from the soporific grip of sleep. Her mouth was dry. Her limbs were heavy. Her thoughts came slowly, as if they were dragging through treacle.

Her fingers twitched against crisp sheets, unnaturally clean and so tightly tucked in they might’ve been cut from a hospital training manual. She was lying on a bed—not a cot, not a pile of blankets on a dirty concrete floor—but a real bed. Her body ached in strange ways, not just the familiar throb of the knife wound but something deeper—heavier. Like her muscles had been filled with lead.

She turned her head slowly, her vision swimming with the movement, the ghost of the fever still pulling at her brain making her thoughts drift like smoke. But as the world slowly came into focus, she saw the walls—clean steel panels, smooth and unmarred. Welded seams. Reinforced corners. The kind of metal used in high grade military bunkers. This was no scavenger camp, gang hideout or repurposed ruin. This was purpose built. A permanent installation.

She tried to move, to shift her body, to pivot and felt a resistance and strong tug on her arm. Her right wrist wouldn’t follow her. She tried to pull against the force, jerking arm until the pain bloomed, sharp and unmistakable. The cold bite of steel. She twisted her head and panic rose like bile in her throat. A handcuff. Her left wrist was bound to a reinforced metal railing that ran along the edge of the hospital bed.

Her breath caught. This wasn’t just a safety issue. The binding wasn’t to keep her safe, you didn’t need handcuffs for that. No she wasn’t restrained in case she fell or acting up due to the fever, she was secured. An unknown danger or a valuable asset they didn’t want to lose? She wasn’t sure that she wanted to know the answer,

She turned her head—every muscle aching. Her other wrist was free, but there was a plastic tube embedded in the crook of her right elbow, taped down and snaking away to a bag hanging from a stand beside the bed. Clear fluid dripped rhythmically before it flowed down the tube and into her vein. This was no crude road transfusion. This was pristine, grade A medical equipment. She couldn’t read the label on the bag hanging by her bed, the long words printed on the label blurring as she tried to read them, but her sluggish mind pieced it all together. Fluids, definitely. Antibiotics, maybe. And something else. Something to dull her around the edges. A sedative, maybe. A mild tranquilizer. Enough to keep her docile—obedient—without knocking her out entirely.

She blinked, trying to focus.

To keep her quiet, to stop her panicking…but why…

She looked down at herself, realised why and froze.

She was clean. Too clean. Her upper half, above the over tight sheets was clothed in a thin grey gown. It had no markings, no logo, no softness. Utilitarian. Institutional. It was something meant to be worn, not lived in. Her skin smelled of disinfectant, her fingernails had been trimmed and scrubbed. They had even tackled her hair—she could smell the faint chemical blandness of hospital shampoo. It had been washed and combed.

Her legs shifted beneath the sheet.

Something felt… wrong.

It wasn’t pain, not exactly. Just an ache. A strange stretch inside of her that hadn’t been there before. Not a wound. An invasion.

They hadn’t just cleaned her.

They had examined her.

Everywhere.

Her stomach turned.

She clenched her thighs together beneath the sheet, suddenly aware of the violation her body remembered and her mind could only guess at. She had been unconscious. Fevered. Lost within the burning fog of infection, blood loss and exhaustion. And while she had drifted somewhere between death and survival, they had stripped her bare. Her clothes. Her boots. Every last thing that had been a part of her identity.

Even the little copper ring Toecutter had twisted into shape for her one night by the fire, made from wiring scavenged off a rusted wreck.

Everything was gone.

She blinked fast against the sting in her eyes and continued to try and gather her wits and assess her current situation.

The room was sealed steel. The corners rounded off. No windows. Just the thick, industrial humming of a place buried deep, where time had no meaning. A bunker. Maybe underground. Maybe just hidden. There was no clock. No sense of hours passed.

But the feeling in her gut told her something worse than time, and her belongings had been taken.

Her breath came shallow.

This wasn’t a hospital. There were no nurses. No charts. No soothing voices or gentle kindness.

As she turned her head to try and see behind her she at last spotted the doorway…and the two men that stood there.

Soldiers.

Not the frantic men she was used to, not the unitless rogues that had begun to prowl the edges of the cities and the badlands, no these soldiers were a different breed altogether. Clean, pressed uniforms. Their boots polished bright, laces tied with perfection, like parade ground mannequins. Belts tight. Weapons holstered. One had a radio clipped to his vest, muted but alive with occasional flickers of sound.

They didn’t look at her. Didn’t speak. Didn’t acknowledge her existence at all. It was as if she wasn’t there. Or at least not a living being. They regarded her as if she was just another fixture. A thing to be monitored, not spoken to.

Her heart pounded against her ribs as she stared at the insignia on one soldier’s shoulder—black and gold, a clean geometric emblem shaped like a spearhead superimposed over a ring of stars. For a moment it was just a shape—abstract, forgettable.

But then her brain caught up.

It remembered.

She’d seen that symbol before—a long time ago, back before everything fell apart. 

It had been a rare visitation to the city. Loud, throbbing, dirty. Its bones were cracked glass and rusted steel, patched over with half-hearted propaganda and the stench of rot and decay. Months ago now—though it felt like a lifetime—she had pulled her bike off the highway, weaving through back alleys and shadowed streets, until the looming hulk of the Halls of Justice rose out of the concrete smog like a dead god’s temple.

Even then, even when everything was supposedly holding together, the cracks were spreading. The sirens screamed more often than birdsong. Roads were clogged with those desperate to flee, often with no idea of where to go. Those that wandered the streets, the civilians, had the look of beaten strays—hollow, twitching, all waiting for the next boot to drop.

She rolled her bike down into the underground garage, the familiar choke and burble of the engine reverberating through the walls, echoing off the stained cement like a memory trying to cling. She always parked in the far back corner, behind the forgotten riot van and the shell of some long-abandoned interceptor. It was safer there. Less visible. You never knew who was watching.

She swung her leg off the saddle, stretching, pulling at her clothes to ease the creases, grabbing the canvas-wrapped bundle on the back—just scavenged parts and tools, no contraband this time—and pressed the keypad to seal the heavy door behind her.

Then came the climb.

The building itself was a brutal thing—angular, grey, barred windows, all trimmed with razor wire—but the staircase she took was still something special, old, narrow, spiraled, the wooden bannister smooth under her fingered. She didn’t bother with the front officers, or the rec room. She knew Goose wasn’t there. Instead she took the stairs two at a time, her boots clanging rhythmically, breath catching a little with the effort. Heat curled up the walls from the floors below, making her sweat, but she didn’t stop. She never did.

She ran all the way. Right to the very top.

To Fifi’s lair.

It always struck her as odd, that a man so big—so goddamn big—would hole himself up in the smallest, most cramped part of the building. The ceilings there sloped harshly, the corners pinched in. But Fifi had been a soldier before the badge, and a commander before that. He understood the value of a high vantage point. Elevation meant vision. Control.

And control was what Fifi lived for.

The room was half greenhouse, half war room. His desk was littered with reports, maps with coffee rings on the edges, dossiers stuffed in cracked leather folders. But to the left of it sat his shrine—potted plants, nurtured in old ammo tins and old riot helmets, blooming in spite of everything. She’d once seen him stroke the leaves of a dying fern with more gentleness than she’d seen most men give a lover.

And on the right, pointed out over the dead skyline, were the tools of a watchman. Telescopes. Binoculars. Rangefinders mounted on tripods. Fifi missed nothing. Not in the streets. Not inside the Halls. Not in the air.

When she reached the top—face flushed, shirt damp from the heat—he was already turning. His arms opened wide, and she went to him like she always did, pressing herself into that mountain of muscle and sweat and leather. The hug was tight. Crushing. Protective.

“Squeak,” he murmured, dropping a kiss on the crown of her head, the stub of a cigar clamped between his teeth. “You waiting on that reprobate Goose?”

She flushed. She couldn’t help it.

It wasn’t official—her and Goose. Not yet. Not really. But nothing got past Fifi.

He chuckled, low and knowing. “You two aren’t as subtle as you think, you know.” He pulled back, grinning beneath the wild bristle of his mustache. “Did you think I wouldn’t notice the corresponding off-rotations… or the goddamn grin that loon’s been wearing lately? I’m not complaining. He was circling the drain before you came along. Couldn’t get his head right after Rockatansky bailed.”

She blinked. “Are we that obvious?”

He let out a bark of laughter. “Any more obvious and it’d be a neon sign.”

She smiled despite herself, folding her arms as she leaned against the desk. She’d heard the name Max Rockatansky whispered like a ghost story in the breakrooms and locker bays. A man who used to own the roads. A risk-taker. A legend. Until something inside him cracked.

“Goose said he just walked away,” she murmured.

Fifi nodded. “Burned too hot for too long. You’ll see it someday. We all get there eventually. Goose was headed the same way.”

He didn’t have to say you pulled him back. But she felt it in the space between his words.

Then something outside caught his attention.

He turned toward the narrow window, the one angled perfectly across the upper eastern sector of the city. He waved her over with a grunt. She moved to his side, brushing aside a fern to press close to the glass.

Down below, through the street past the batter Hall’s of Justice gates, a convoy was rolling past.

Military Trucks. Armored. Heavy. With a strange spearhead symbol on the sides. Definitely not local.

And they weren’t alone. The convoy was flanked by jeeps—four in total—all mounted with wicked looking machine guns. The gunners sat still as statues. Helmets glinting under the harsh sun.

“That’s not regular patrol,” she said, voice tight.

Fifi nodded. The set of his jaw said more than his words. “Nope. That’s something else. Government boys moving fast. That’s them packing up the ark.”

She hadn’t understood at the time but she understood now.

The world wasn’t gone yet. But it was breaking. Power grids sputtering. Borders closing. Civil unrest swelling like bruises beneath the skin. Everyone waiting for the final blow to land.

And someone—somewhere—had been preparing.

Stockpiling.

Securing.

She remembered what Fifi had told her—long before the riots, before the collapse.

“Some of them are going underground, Squeak. Not to help. Not to rebuild. Just to wait it out. The money men. The suits. The ones that planned ahead.”

This was it.

This was one of them. One of the hidden bunkers meant for the powerful. There last-ditch fortresses, buried deep enough to survive whatever the end might throw at them.

But the suits weren’t here. Nor were all the soldiers. The space felt too hollow, too empty. There had to be no more than a skeleton crew here waiting for arrival of the rich, the elite, those who could swap a kings ransom for a chance of survival.

So why was she here? She severely doubted that it was out of the goodness of their hearts. 

She remember something else Fifi had said to her, in what she would later come to know as his last goodbye.

“You see those trucks, Squeak? You remember them. You see them you remember, somethings coming. Something real bad.”

And she did remember.

She remembered now, lying handcuffed in that sterile metal room, the memory bubbling up from her like the last gasping breathes of a drowning man. 

Because those trucks, that convoy, she had seen them again.

This time it was deep in the badlands, the dust plumes they had left behind drawing her attention. She had watched them rumbling across the desert, it had been late afternoon, the sky a hard orange smear above the cracked land, and the wind had started to carry heat like it meant to burn through the skin. She had been parked off the road—if you could call it that—an old mining trail barely carved into the red earth, her engine cooling with slow metal ticks beneath her.

That was when she saw it.

A line of dust on the far horizon, trailing high into the air like a signal fire. Not just one vehicle—many. Industrial. Heavy. Traveling with a purpose. Moving fast.

She’d crouched beside the bike, pulling the old field binocs from her saddlebag. She turned the lenses, focused.

Trucks. Big ones. Covered. Reinforced tires. Diesel belchers. The kind she had only seen near supply stations or government compounds. But these weren’t part of any posted patrol. No escort from local enforcement. Just a convoy, deep in restricted territory.

But it was the outriders that had chilled her.

Jeeps with mounted guns. Tinted visors. Not a man among them moved like a soldier protecting civilians.

They moved like men protecting a secret.

When she’d phoned in the report for the first time ever an operator had cut in on the line.

“You didn’t see anything.”

“What?—”

“You are not to enter that zone again. Code Black has been declared. Repeat: Code Black. Unauthorised entry will be treated as hostile. You will not be warned. You will be shot.”

The comm line went dead.

She’d stared at the phone moment, heart thumping loud in her ears.

Code Black.

She’d only ever heard it used once before, whispered in a briefing that ended in two resignations and one fatal “accident” on the road.

Code Black didn’t mean quarantine. It didn’t mean off-limits.

It meant buried.

Redacted.

Erased.

She knew the desert. She knew the long, lonely stretches where satellite coverage dropped off, where old bunkers from past wars lay sunken and forgotten. She remembered the maps—redacted sectors, hollowed zones with no roads and no names. Places even the gangs avoided.

That convoy was headed into one.

And now…

She knew where she was.

She had followed the dust once.

Now she was inside the place that made it. 

Now she lay shackled to a cold metal bed, stripped of every scrap of identity.

Hidden deep. Forgotten by the world above.

Chapter Text

Little Mouse had no idea how long she had been held inside the bunker. Time seemed to have lost its shape. There were no clocks, no windows. No sunlight or moonlight to carve shadows across the sterile walls. No temperature shifts to mark morning from evening, no change in the constant white lights overhead, no change to the sterile, scrubbed air pressing in upon her from all sides. It could have been days, weeks or months.

She drifted between shallow sleep and the blurred edges of sedation, her mind half-drowned in chemical fog, her thoughts and dreams sometimes lucid, sometimes not. Her body no longer felt like her own. Her limbs were too slow, too heavy, as if they’d been replaced with those of someone older, someone barely stitched together. Even her skin felt wrong. Tight. Sensitive. She didn’t even smell like herself anymore. She smelled like antiseptic. Like bleach. Like something scrubbed raw.

And she barely saw anyone.

At first, there had been guards—silent, stone-faced figures who stood at attention near the door. They didn’t speak to her. They didn’t look at her. They were present, but distant, watching not with curiosity or cruelty, but cold detachment. Monitoring her like she was just another object, like a status light on a panel that needed to be checked periodically just to see if it was still working.

But now that she was awake more often, more aware of her surroundings, they were gone. For the majority of the time she was left utterly alone in the room where she lay, handcuffed to the bed,

The door remained mostly closed, opening only when necessary: a  uniformed figure entering to deliver meals or meds. It closed quickly behind them when they entered and it closed quickly behind them again when they left. 

During those brief moments when the door was open she tried to find out more about where she was. But there was nothing to be seen, or to be heard in the corridor outside. The most she heard was footsteps that occasionally scuffed just beyond her room, or the faint hum of communication static that could rarely be heard bleeding through the echoing empty corridor. She felt as if she were stuck drifting inside a ghost ship.

As time past her waking mind, her thoughts, began to feel a little clearer, the ache in her bones a little duller. The fever that had almost killed her had finally broken. Her body, once limp with illness and chemical fog, had begun to respond again. Her hands no longer trembled with every movement. She could sit up now without moaning in pain and could even turn her head without the room tilting.

But still, the drip line snaked into her, sucking a steady stream from the IV bag on the stand beside her.

It fed her something—antibiotics, she assumed. But she knew now there was something else in it too, something that softened the edges of her awareness, pulling her thoughts away from her before they could become fully formed. She could feel it, like cotton pressing down behind her eyes. She had tried to rebel, to pull the line out of her, but the instant her fingers had tugging it free, her blood pulsing across the sheets, the room had flooded with an alarm, deafening her, and before she could recover from the shock of it she was no longer alone, and practiced hands were easing a needle into her vein, and then.

Black.

She knew it meant that they were watching her, even if she could see the cameras. She hadn’t tried again. There was no point.

The humiliation had been quiet and complete when she had awoken after the attempt to find that while she was sleeping, her sheets and her gown had been replaced, her body had been washed and her catheter and drip had been removed.

Shortly after she had awoken a uniformed medic had entered the room, pressing a cylindrical buzzer into her hand with instructions that if she needed a bedpan, she was to press it. She had dreaded having to use it, holding off for as long as possible. When she had been finally forced by desperation to give in, the medic to deliver  it had been a good looking a square-jawed man in crisp fatigues. Unable to use her left hand she had been forced to ask him to assist her onto it. He stood beside her, impassive and silent, as she filled it, the noise of the steady stream sounding deafening in her embarrassment. He’d spoken only once, sliding away the now used bedpan indicating towards the buzzer : “If you need any more assistance, press it.”

That had been how long ago? How many more times had someone stood and listened to her pissing? The handcuff wasn’t removed. It was clear that no matter how polite these people were, she was still their prisoner.

Day after day, uniform after uniform. Men. Always men. Always different. Never the same face twice. Not cruel, not kind, just indifferent.

Businesslike.

And every one of them had been male.

Some part of her, that she refused to acknowledge out of fear, had desperately hoped that maybe, just once, a woman would appear. A medic with a clipped tone. A nurse with some soft edge to her voice. A kind hand. Hell, she’d even take a grade a cast iron bitch right now.

But no.

It was only ever men.

Where were the nurses?

Where were the other women? 

She was, as far as she could tell, alone.

It was just her. A singular female. The ghost of a girl stripped down and tucked away in a cell that was pretending to be a hospital room.

Something else had begun to bother her—the way they treated her. 

They only spoke to her when it was absolutely necessary: asking her to take a breath as they pressed a stethoscope to her chest, or to extend her arm for a blood pressure reading. But if they were checking her vitals or palpating her stomach, changing her dressings or shining a light into her eyes, they remained silent.

And always, their gloved hands were careful, clinical, precise.

Too precise, as though they had been trained not to show any emotion, to reveal any feelings that her presence might induce in them.

She couldn’t help wonder why.  Why was she being held here? What had they brought her here for?

They hadn’t hurt her. They hadn’t even asked her any questions.

No… they had something planned for her…they wanted something from her that she was scared to admit that, even to herself.

Because, yes they had tended her wounds, but they had also washed her, cleansed her, inside and out.

Sanitised her.

Prepared her.

Readied her. 

They were waiting for someone or something and whatever they were waiting for… she knew with every breath that tightened in her chest, that it had nothing at all to do with letting her go. 

She awoke to the sterile white lighting and the persistent hum but there was something else, something that set her on edge instantaneously.

She wasn’t alone.

A man sat across the room from her, watching her, his muscular frame folded onto a metal frame chair. His posture was stiff, controlled. Not lounging or posturing like the bikers she had spent so long among.

No, this was something different. This was not just military training, this was power, control.

His face was lined but not old, like someone who had spent years exposed to the elements. His jaw clean-shaven, his posture so rigid it might have been carved from stone. His hands rested on his knees, fingers laced together in perfect discipline.

His uniform was pristine, his boots polished to a shine. The insignia on his shoulder—the same one that had haunted her fever dreams—marked him as someone important, a commanding officer, at least.

He had been sitting there waiting for her to wake. Waiting for her to understand.

Her mouth felt dry with fear and the moment her eyes met his, an icy dread settled in her bones.

This was no rescuer, no savior.

This was the man in charge and what he wanted from her, she feared it would be worse than death.

He smiled, a small, clinical thing.

“I see you’re awake,” he said. His voice was smooth, measured. The voice of a man who gave orders and expected them to be followed without question. “That is good. We weren’t sure that you would make it. That fever nearly took you.”

She swallowed forcing her dried up throat to work. She felt unbelievably aware of her own body. She could feel the stitches pulling in her sides, the deep ache of the wound, the severed flesh knitting together beneath the clean bandage. She was acutely aware of the thinness of the smock she wore, the way the cold air caused her nipples to stiffen and strain against the coarse fabric.

“We treated the infection,” he continued, as if discussing something as mundane as a broken-down vehicle. “Gave you the proper care. IV fluids. Antibiotics. I am told that you are recovering well.”

Her fingers twitched against the sheets, pinching at the fabric, a reflex movement that some buried instinct clutched to as if it had the power to prevent the inevitable. 

She knew what was coming.

She knew it before he even said it.

Because men like this—men with too much power and too little oversight—they never did anything for free, and she had nothing to offer in payment but herself.

When he spoke again, his words confirmed every dark, sinking thought.

“And when you are well enough,” he said, with the certainty of a man delivering a preordained truth, “you will begin your duties.”

The air in the room felt razor-sharp as she sucked it deep into her lungs.

She didn’t ask what he meant. She didn’t have to.

He leaned forward slightly, his elbows resting on his knees, his voice never breaking its calm, clinical rhythm.

“You understand, of course that we are not savages, not animals. We are not raiders or soldiers who have abandoned their posts to run amok. We are the last of the true military. The last ones standing. This bunker, and others like it, have been created to ensure the survival of our way of life, of our species.“ 

His pale grey eyes flicked over her face, gauging her reaction.

“We have supplies,” he continued. “Food, water, medicine. Everything needed to sustain life for decades. But the higher command have failed to provide for a basic need. Life as we know it is ending and no matter how well-supplied we are, without women, there is no future.”

Her heart pounded against her ribs.

“I made the decision to rectify their oversight. Scouts have been dispatched to remote farms, homes outlying small towns. Observing, cataloging, calculating risk versus reward.” His fingers drummed lightly against his knee. “Most communities are too well-defended, too entrenched. Raiding them would cost us too much, or risk exposing our existence. But a woman alone?”

His gaze sharpened.

“You were a gift.”

She felt sick.

“The infection was touch-and-go,” he said. “Another day, and you wouldn’t have survived. But you’re strong. You pulled through. That’s good.” His lips pressed together in something that might have been satisfaction. “That means you will be strong enough to carry healthy children.”

She felt like she was falling.

He spoke so simply. So logically. Like this was a mission briefing, like he was explaining supply lines and rations instead of spelling out her systematic rape, forced pregnancy, slavery.

“You will have time to recover,” he said, rising to his feet. He smoothed out the front of his jacket, inspecting it with meticulous care before looking back at her. “You’ll have everything you need.”

She forced herself to breathe. Forced herself not to react to his words but something in her must have shown, because he stepped closer, tilting his head slightly.

“I can see you are intelligent,” he said. “Good. That will make this easier.”

Her fingers clenched at the sheets over and over.

“You will come to understand,” he said. “That this is not an act of cruelty. It is a necessity and if the world decays as predicted, you might well come to be grateful.”

He turned to go but paused as he reached the door, looking back at her. 

“You should rest while you can,” he said. “Because you will soon begin your new life.”

When the door closed behind him, she heard a lock click into place.

They kept their promises. They brought her food, real food, better than anything she had eaten in years. Meat. Fresh vegetables, broth rich with bone marrow. She drank water that tasted so clean it was almost unnatural.

They bathed her regularly yet she had never felt filthier. They were careful but….thorough. She felt their hands all over her body, impersonal but lingering, just long enough to remind her that she was theirs now to use.

They moved her around the facility. Guards walking her to the showers, to the commissary to collect her food. 

She saw the way the soldiers around her looked at her with barely concealed lust, struggling to control their impulses, their desires.

She saw the way hands twitched toward weapons when she passed, the way conversations paused when she entered a room, as if they had to consciously remind themselves of discipline.

She had been around men her whole life—cops, criminals, soldiers, killers. She knew what restraint looked like.

These men were losing theirs.

They had been brought to this hidden bunker with the knowledge that they were waiting for the end of the world. Living by different rules. Survival was all that mattered. They were waiting, waiting for the world to break. Waiting for someone to tell them it was okay to take whatever they wanted.

Had they been chosen for this? Had they volunteered?

She didn’t know.

She didn’t care.

All she cared about was the life inside her. Her child. Her son. She had no doubt the dream had revealed the truth. That she was pregnant.

She clung on to that thought, the secret in the womb a literal lifeline because she knew, if she let the fear take her, if she let it spill out from where she had crammed it down it would fill her up so fast that she would shatter.

The only control she had left was silence so she withdrew into herself, barely speaking, barely moving. Trying to disappear into the background. It wasn’t easy when every set of eyes seemed to be watching her. 

And day by day, hour by hour she inched closer to the fate that awaited her and all she could think of, all her mind screamed, over and over, was:

Where was Toecutter?

Where was Goose?

Were they coming for her?

Could they, would they find her in time or would they be too late?

She had never felt so alone.

Chapter Text

The gang left the soldiers bodies where they fell—broken and bloodied on the dirt. In the afternoon heat the were already beginning to draw flies. Fat, black, creatures that swarmed in to climb all over the death whitened skin, crawling in and out of silently screaming mouths. 

No one said a prayer for them.

No one spoke their names with sadness or sorrow.

There were no such luxuries for men like that. No shovels that scraped at the hard-packed soil, no cairns raised to mark their end. Just the red-stained dust soaking up the truth and the finality of what had been done to them. What they had confessed from screaming mouths and broken bodies. It was all they had deserved.

Toecutter hadn’t even blinked when the last breath rattled out of the final one. He’d just spat into the dirt and turned away, eager to be on his way, to act on the information he had obtained.

He had no time for worthless ghosts. Not when Little Mouse was still out there—locked up, cut off, waiting for him in some bunker scraped out of desert rock. Not when he felt the certainty that every second mattered.

But Goose had different ideas.

The women had been huddled in the shade of the truck—their clothes were torn, blood-matted hair, their silence so loud it screamed. There were four of them in total, one barely into her teens and all with that same look in their eyes—wide, glassy, fractured. The kind of terror that clung to its victims long after the real threat had passed.

Goose had approached them slowly, like a man trying to calm a spooked animal.

He crouched down low, keeping himself small, his hands held loose, open, his eyes soft.

“You don’t gotta talk,” he said gently. “Not if you don’t want to. Just listen a sec, yeah?”

His voice held that warm, honey coated charm that had once made him a legend among the MFP officers. The voice that got kids to stop running, got bikers to lower their weapons, got him more than his fair share of action and, right now, got wary women to look him in the eye.

Goose didn’t rush things. He smiled, he joked quietly about himself, doing the same things he had used to ease the tension during long stakeouts or slow patrols. He told them his name like it wasn’t important, like it didn’t carry weight.

“You probably think we’re just more bastards in leather,” he said. 

“And hey, that’s fair. But we’re not here to hurt you. I promise. Not ever. We’re just lookin’ for someone who’s been taken by the same pricks who hurt you.”

One of the women flinched when he offered her a canteen, but she still took it. Her hands trembled, and she kept her eyes low, glancing up at him with the briefest of gazes.

“But you’re safe now,” Goose said. “That’s not a promise I make lightly.”

And somehow, as he spoke to them, coaxed them, they began to relax in his company, to soften. Not to speak, to be themselves—no, not yet—but nod, whisper a few words, to breath a little easier. To drink. To eat. To let Cundalini clean and dress their wounds. To let someone touch them without fear of pain or assault. They weren’t healed. Not even close. But they were listening, engaging, accepting that maybe they weren’t in immediate danger.

Later, as the heat began to settle into the cool sting of dusk, Goose leaned against the truck beside Toecutter, brushing sweat from his brow.

“Those women. They’ve lost everything. Those fuckers burned their homes out from underneath them. They don’t have anything to go back to and there’s no way they can cope out here on their own,” he said, glancing back at the women. “Not after what they’ve been through.”

Toecutter didn’t answer. He was staring out across the desert, jaw clenched tight, his body coiled like a spring, desperate to be on the move.

“If we leave them here, they’re just gonna die,” Goose said quietly. 

“Or get picked off by some other chancers.”

Toecutter’s fingers flexed in his worn leather gloves, his gaze narrowing against the wind.

“I say we take them with us.” Goose continued, pressing home his point. “If they wanna leave later, when they’ve got their legs back under them, that’s fine. But right now? We don’t leave anyone behind.”

He paused, waiting.

“Toecutter?”

The dark haired man didn’t look at him.

“They’ll slow us down,” was all he said. His voice was heavy, tired, but it wasn’t a no.

Goose exhaled, relieved, a crooked smile ghosting across his lips. He hadn’t wanted to fight Toecutter on this. The fact that he even considered he might be able to argue with him indicated just how much their relationship between the two men had changed. Goose found it hard to believe. The world really had turned topsy-turvy.

They left as the stars began to bleed into the sky, loaded into both vehicles—their battered pickup and the troop transport they’d taken from the dead soldiers. Several bikes were strapped onto them, secured to enable their riders to rest. Toecutter had been pushing them on relentlessly, to beyond the point of exhaustion. Now, with the extra vehicle, they rotated shifts—some sleeping in the truck cab or flatbed, some at the wheel, while others scouting ahead on their bikes.

It wasn’t faster, not yet. But once they were all rested, it would be. And it was smarter. Goose had argued it all through when he had been pleading the case for bringing the women with them—more shelter, more rest, more eyes scanning the distance for any hint of the bunker.

The women still didn’t speak much, but the didn’t seem to be crying anymore.  They still sat grouped close together in the truck’s bed, knees touching, hands sometimes clasped when they thought no one was watching. But they took the food and water when it was offered, let Cundalini take care of them, began to offer a small smile or mutter a faint “thank you”.

They didn’t ask where they were going. They didn’t need too, because the men they were riding with didn’t hide it. Every conversation turned back to her. To a woman named Mouse who had been stolen. Taken to a bunker hidden in the far reaches of the southern wastes, a place they too had been destined to be dragged away to. And now they were headed straight for it. It should have frightened them, terrified them, but they felt strangely safe surrounded by the gangs single minded thirst for vengeance. Vengeance against the faceless men who had also ruined their lives. Vengeance built bonds, forged unlikely alliances, broke down barriers, calmed fears.

Goose looked up from his map reading in the truck cab. He glanced through the rear window into the back at the women—watching the horizon their eyes no longer cowed, their bodies no longer folded in on themselves for fear of attracting attention they were beginning to look like they belonged there. That they were now a part of the hunt for Little Mouse, that they were now a part of the rescue, the righteous wave that was coming for her, no matter what.

Down in the bunker Little Mouse had just been marched, hands gripping both of the upper arms firmly guiding her, to see the commander of the facility. 

She stood in his office, arms still held within the vice like grip, trying desperately to keep her fear in check. 

The officer just sat there watching her tremble as her hands clenched into bloodless fists as she fought to hold herself together. 

The thin hospital gown they had given her hung loose over her bony frame, she’d lost too much weight fighting her fever, her joints protruding from her pale skin. 

She knew she looked small, her bare feet silent on the polished concrete floor, her hair limp and damp from the latest chemical-scented sponge bath.

Frail.

Weak.

Diminished.

She knew that she was meant to feel that way, that it was a part of their conditioning—diminishment by design. But she wasn’t broken. Not yet. The thread holding her together was frayed to near-splitting, but it was still holding….just. So she kept her chin lifted, even as her muscles tensed under the weight of his gaze.

But as the officer spoke, that thread began to stretch taught.

“Today is the day,” he said, his voice gently, almost kind. He reminded her of a parent informing a child that it was time to get a shot. His voice was smooth, practiced, carefully stripped of any emotion.

She didn’t speak. Didn’t respond. Didn’t even blink. But she knew that he noticed her flinch. The way her shoulders curled in, just slightly. How the tiny bones of her knuckles turned white where she clenched her fists even tighter.

“The doctor has deemed that you are fit,” he continued. “And a rota has been drawn up.”

He said it so calmly. So efficiently. As if she were an appliance being signed off after repairs. Not a human. Not a woman. Just a thing to be assigned.

“Your will begin your duties today.”

Her lungs stuttered, drawing in short, quick gasps that burned. Her chest rose and fell too fast, too shallow as she panicked, but still she said nothing. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of begging because she knew it wouldn’t change a thing.

He went on, as if he hadn’t just whored her out—though they both knew he had.

“I do apologise for the volume of your workload. However there are many soldiers here and they almost all require their ration of you.”

Ration.

The word hit like a slap. Not a gift. Not a reward. Not even a right to be earned. A fucking ration. A consumable. Something issued with no more worth than new boots.

Still she did not move. Her nails dug into her palms so hard she thought she might break skin.

He smiled then, a small, tight thing with no warmth behind it. He was pleased with her silence. Pleased with himself.

“It will no doubt become easier, in time. We only have a few women offering their services at the moment. But we are actively recruiting. Once we locate more… candidates… your responsibilities will lighten. And of course, once you are pregnant you will be rested.”

She couldn’t stop the tremble now. It had moved from her fingers to her arms, her knees. A violent, rippling shiver that worked its way down her spine.

Pregnant. Christ it got worse with every sentence. She wasn’t just there to ‘entertain’ the fucking troops, they were planning on her somehow being able to repopulate the goddamn earth.

Her eyes locked on the metal edge of the desk. She could feel the antiseptic sting of the air. Could smell her own sterile skin. Could feel the weight of what was coming bearing down on her, closing in.

He looked her over with clinical detachment. Her muscle tone. Her posture. Her readiness. She knew she was being assessed.

“I have instructed my men to treat you with respect,” he said lightly. “To avoid damaging you. However…”

A pause. A sigh. Feigned regret.

“Some of them may be… a little over-eager. Discipline has frayed under the strain of isolation. But we’ll do our best to maintain order. I suggest you do not antagonise them. See it in the kindness of your heart to accommodate any of their particular….fancies.”

The moment stretched like wire drawn tight.

Then—

She shifted. Just slightly.

A twitch.

A weight transfer.

A single heartbeat.

And then she moved, exploding into motion, faster than any of them expected.

She surged sideways, slammed her shoulder into the guard beside her. He stumbled, caught off guard. Her fist connected—awkward, raw—but enough to knock his balance. And then she was free, moving, running, her bare feet slapping against cold concrete. She gulped down air as she ran the too-bright corridors stretched and twisted like an endless white maze. Lights hummed overhead. The walls were too smooth, the corners too sharp. Everything smelled of bleach and metal. Somewhere behind her came shouting. Boots pounding. A rising alarm cut the air like a scream, red lights flashing at the corners of her vision.

She turned a corner. Then another.

It was a blur of sameness. Hallways that looped back on themselves. Doors with no labels. Everything white, white, white.

And then—

A wall of soldiers. Armed. Alert. Waiting. Her eyes found theirs. They were eager, excited, ready.

Behind her, more footsteps closed in a thudding echo of pursuit. She was cornered. There was no way forward, no way back.

She stumbled, suddenly weakened by the effort and the reality of the situation, fell to her knees the cold of the floor stinging her skin. 

Sitting back on her heels, and her breath hitched as her body began to shut down. It was to little, too late. There was no hope left.

Her vision blurred at the edges. The air felt too thin. Her body too heavy. Before the black swallowed her, before the sedatives or exhaustion or despair could drag her under again, she did the only thing she had left.

She screamed.

Not in terror.

Not in submission.

But in defiance. In desperation. In the primal, final hope that someone—anyone—might hear her.

“TOECUTTER!”

Her voice cracked.

“GOOSE!”

It broke again.

“HELP ME!”

And then—Nothing. Only darkness. And the cold. And silence.

Out in the desert, beneath a sky like spilled ink, the gang had bivouacked in a shallow ravine—a gnarled crease in the earth barely deep enough to hide them from the relentless wind that scraped across the dunes. Sand hissed as it moved, caught in the current of the dry night breeze. The cold had set in fast after sunset, replacing the punishing heat with a brittle chill that bit through jackets and leather, settling into bones already worn from the road.

Their camp was little more than a half-moon of bikes and trucks ringed in dust, the embers of a once-blazing fire now reduced to a faint orange pulse, casting skeletal shadows across the walls of the gully. The perimeter was marked by scuffed boot prints and discarded gear, the only sign that this stretch of desert belonged to anyone at all.

All but the watch were asleep—limbs tangled in stained canvas, rifles resting near pillows fashioned from rags and jackets. Exhaustion had settled heavy over them, broken only by the occasional grunt or muttered curse in dreams.

Toecutter stirred first. A strangled breath ripped from his throat, half gasp, half growl. His chest heaved as if he’d surfaced from deep underwater. He sat bolt upright, eyes wide, pupils blown against the darkness, sweat slicking his chest and brow despite the night’s chill. His breath came in ragged gasps.

He wasn’t alone.

Across the fire pit, Goose was already awake—sitting straight-backed in the dirt, his fists clenched so tight his knuckles stood out like bone under skin. His blanket had fallen to one side, forgotten. His eyes were hollowed with something not quite fear, but not far from it.

They locked eyes.

Neither of them spoke. They didn’t need to. The sound still echoed in their skulls. A scream. Her scream. Ripping through the dark, tearing through their sleep like a blade through cloth. It hadn’t come from outside, hadn’t stirred the others. But it had been real. Too real.

Goose’s jaw worked as he swallowed hard, staring out into the night as if he might see her emerge from the darkness. There was something raw behind his eyes. Not panic. Worse. The absolute certainty that he had heard her.

It was not a memory. Not his imagination. It was her voice. Little Mouse. Screaming for them. For him. For Toecutter.

Begging.

Help me.

Goose shoved the rough wool blanket off and rose fast, not bothering to shake the stiffness from his limbs. The fatigue that had weighed down his every step for days was suddenly gone—burned out of him like fuel from a match. He moved with urgency.

“We have to go,” he said hoarsely, his voice rough with sleep and something deeper—grief, fury, fear.

Toecutter didn’t argue. He was already pulling on his boots. He didn’t even glance at Goose. He didn’t need to. He felt it too—felt her voice still clinging to the walls of his skull like smoke.

They were up.

They were moving.

The fire cracked softly as Bubba stirred, groaning as he pushed himself upright, his hair matted from sleep. Clunk rolled over, rubbing his eyes with a grunt. “What’s the rush?” he mumbled, blinking blearily into the flickering gloom.

Toecutter’s voice cracked like a whip.

“She’s in trouble.”

That cut through the sleep haze like a bullet. Bubba glanced at Goose, then Toecutter, and back again. His face was unreadable, carved in moonlight, but the edge in his stare said more than words ever could. “You two dreaming the same dream now?” he asked slowly.

“Something like that,” Goose muttered, already strapping on his boots. His hands moved fast. Efficient. His shoulders were tight with urgency, his mouth grim.

“It doesn’t matter how we know,” he added, checking his rifle. “We just do.”

There was no more questioning.

No scoffing.

No jokes.

Something in the air had changed—something ancient and sacred and dangerous. The desert around them felt charged, like the moments before a storm, before the sky split open with lightning.

Within minutes, the camp was alive. Blankets were rolled, fires doused. Boots thudded in the sand. Chains clinked. Gear slammed shut. Leather creaked. Metal gleamed under moonlight. The rumble of engines shattered the quiet as the gang readied to ride. Their machines came to life like animals waking from hibernation—snarling, growling, hungering for the road. They didn’t know exactly where she was. But they knew where to start looking, and right now, that was enough. Because Little Mouse had called for them—not with a radio, not with a flare, but with the raw, instinctive cry of someone who believed wholeheartedly in the men who had once sworn to protect her. She had believed in them.

And now?

Now they were coming for her.

They roared into the dark, engines splitting the night wide open.

Because blood called to blood. Because family wasn’t always born—it was chosen. And she was theirs just as much as they were hers.

Hell was coming for the bastards who had dared to touch her.

Chapter Text

Little Mouse woke to cold that threaded through her bones—not the kind of chill that came from a night spent under open sky, or from the wind slicing through the desert. Not even the kind of chill that came with air-conditioning. No, this was a deeper, more unnatural cold. The kind of cold that clung to your skin, sucking the heat from the flesh beneath.

Her eyes blinked open to sterile white walls, blinding lights and the scent of disinfectant. Confusion washed over her. The last thing she remembered was running. Running through endless, identical corridors. Her mind felt so fuzzy that she couldn’t work out if it had been reality or a dream. But the terrible truth of her situation came crashing down on her when she realised why she felt so cold. 

She was naked.

Not just naked—spread eagled.

Strapped down to a metal bed. Wide leather restraints secured her at the chest, stomach, and across the tops of her thighs. Smaller, tighter cuffs crushed her wrists and ankles. Her legs were parted wide—obscenely wide—and locked that way. Her muscles trembled from the strain of the position alone.

There was no mistaking the message.

If she wouldn’t “do her duty” voluntarily, these people were prepared to take what they wanted anyway.

She felt like a sacrificial offering, laid bare on some hellish altar. An unwilling participant in someone else’s ritual.

Tears stung the corners of her eyes, as horror and despair overwhelmed her. She wanted to give in. To spiral into the fear. Wanted to die right then and there, to simply cease to exist, but she swallowed her sobs and pushed the thoughts away, out of her mind. She wasn’t going to just give in, to become nothing more than a fucking unpaid whore, something for men to use whenever they felt the urge, She’d been a cop. MFP. A bronze. A deep cover bronze at that. The toughest of the tough. She’d patrolled the deep country. Ridden stretches of road so wild that blood on the tarmac was the norm. She’d ridden hell for leathe going toe to toe with Goose. Taken him, a true road warrior as her lover. She was an Acolyte. The bride of Toecutter, the King of the Wastelands. She’d stood before him, defied him, demanded Goose be spared. She wasn’t some trembling fucking flower.

She was Little Mouse—and she wasn’t going down without a fight.

But God, the straps were tight.

She struggled silently trying to get a feel for them. There was no give. No weak link she could exploit.

Then she remembered—her thumb.

It had been an accident, months before the world had begun to rot—oil on a bend and a skid that sent her barrelling towards a roadside ditch. She had braced for impact, but the force of the collision had thrown forward jamming the handlebars into her thumb. The result was a shredded tendon, dislocated knuckle and a bone pushed so far out of joint that it was a visible lump pressing out from her skin. The doctors had said she might never be able to use it again.

She’d sobbed—not from the pain, but from fear. Fear that it would end her career. That she’d never ride again.

She remembered how Fifi had stood over her hospital bed, chomping on a cigar, much to the nurses displeasure. “Squeak, I’ve seen men drive with half their guts out. You think I’m gonna let a busted thumb keep you off the road?” He’d built her a contraption—made of rubber bands and weights, a pulley system to strengthen it again. He made her work on it until she cried.

“I’ll make a street brawler outta you yet,” he’d grinned.

That thumb still ached on cold mornings—was still weak, but right now weak was good.

She clenched her teeth and stared at her hand, trying to prepare herself.

She shifted, curling the injured hand just so—willing the old scar tissue to give. 

It took three attempts to get her grip right, to steel her nerves.

Then she jerked her hand sideways, hard and sharp, driving her thumb against the edge of the strap.

The joint began to scream in agony at the treatment, but she just increased the pressure and then, with a sharp twist she wrenched her hand upward. Pain exploded up her arm. She bit hard into her own shoulder, stifling a scream as black dots danced across her vision. Sweat poured down her temples. Her stomach lurched as she fought against the urge to vomit. The bones didn’t just dislocate—they shifted grotesquely under the pressure, tearing at the tendon. Her mouth opened, but no sound came. At last there was an agonising pop, and with a sickening snapping sensation her the thumb slipped free of its joint.

As much as she wanted to rest. To put a stop to the pain, she had to keep going. She had to get free and the dislocation was only the start. 

She twisted, pulling the useless hand through the strap. Every inch hurt worse than the last. Her teeth gnashed. Her breath came in stuttered gasps. She bit her lips so hard she could taste blood and then her fingers finally tore free.

She lay there for a while, waiting for the room to stop spinning, slumped and shaking.

But not broken.

She let the pain subside just enough to act. 

Her hand was useless, a throbbing mess of twisted bone and shredded tendon, but she forced it to help anyway—working at the strap across her chest, clawing at the buckle until, at last, it snapped open. Then, she twisted over and freed her right hand, her strong one. 

She used the loose chest strap to bite down on, muffling her cries as she popped her thumb back into place.

It was as bad as the dislocation and she couldn’t prevent herself from blacking out for a moment. Maybe longer.

When her vision cleared, tears streaked her cheeks. But her hands were free.

She undid the strap around her waist the moved down to her legs—she fumbled with the buckles on the straps around her thighs and ankles, flinching at every touch, her hands shaking too badly with pain and fear to work fast. But finally, she was free.

She rolled off the bed and landed hard on the cold tile. Her knees hit first, sending shockwaves through her spine, but she didn’t care.

She was free. She was moving.

She looked around the room, searching for anything she could find to use as a weapon, but the room was painfully empty. A single metal chair, bolted to the floor. A recessed high in the ceiling. Nothing she could tear free.

Except—

She crawled back to the bed. Hauled the mattress aside with trembling arms. Underneath there was a grid of interlocking metal springs.

Hope bloomed in her chest.

She dug her fingers into the twisting the mesh. One spring that was all she needed. She finally tore one loose, straightening it against the bedframe. A crude, jagged spike. Ugly—but sharp.

She moved to the door. Tried the handle, she had to. It was locked, of course.

She pressed her ear against the cold metal. Silence.

She waited. A minute. Then two. Still nothing. Turning back into the room again she began searching, pacing, planning her next move when—

The lock clicked.

Her blood turned to ice. Her heart hammering in her chest. She dropped into a protective crouch, pressing herself back into the far corner. Hiding the spring in her hand. She didn’t breathe. Didn’t blink.

The door opened.

A soldier stepped in. Tall. Muscular. Confident.

He looked at her, crouched, naked, trembling, then down at the bed, the empty restraints.

He didn’t say anything, just stepped forward, calm, controlled, closing the door behind him with a soft click.

He moved toward her slowly. His mouth twisting into a slow, cruel smile—eyes sparkling with predatory pride. She saw it in him. The hunger. The cruelty. The excitement of knowing she had tried to escape—and failed.

He was enjoying the game. He reached down and grabbed her by the arm, hauling her to her feet like a sack of grain. She kicked, struggled, but her limbs were weak, she was trembling with pain and adrenaline.

His free hand moved to his belt.

No. No. NO!

She lunged at him before he could finish undoing it, slamming her fist into his face, her nails clawing at his eyes.

He grunted, staggering back, but she was already on him, fighting with everything she had. Punching, clawing, biting, raking her nails down his face. She fought like a cornered animal, a blur of teeth and nails, wild fury and the desperate need to survive, to protect the life that was growing inside her. He grunted, staggered, reaching out to stop her. Angered, he slammed her hard into the wall. Her breath exploded from her lungs.

But she wasn’t done, she kicked out hard. Her bare foot connecting with the tender flesh between his legs.

He groaned, bending over, stumbling backwards. She tried to dodge past him, to get to the door, but he grabbed her around the waist as she levelled with him, hauling her around and punching her, hard, in the stomach.

She collapsed to her knees, mouth open in a silent scream, curling over the pain. He kicked her, sending her sprawling onto the ground. She barely had time to catch her breathe before his boot smashed into her ribs once, then again. She felt her ribs cracking under the force.

A strangled cry tore from her lips as she coiled in on herself, wrapping her arms over her stomach, trying to protect it. Protect her baby. Her vision going white with the pain.

Then his hands were on her. One fisting into her hair, yanking her upright by it. Her scalp screaming in agony with the force of it. His other wrapping around her throat and he lifted her like she weighed nothing, slamming her back against the wall, his fingers digging in, cutting off her air. She was choking, suffocating, her hands clawing at his grip, legs kicking weakly beneath her.

He grinned. He was Enjoying it. She could see his cock stiff, straining against his uniform. 

He untangled his fingers from her hair, sliding his hand down, his fingers curling over her breast, crushing it, hard, cruel fingers digging into the soft flesh.

She made a hoarse, broken sound of protest, her nails digging into his wrist.

“That’s right, you fucking cunt,” he murmured. “Not so tough now, are you?”

The world blurred. Her lungs burned. The weight in her belly was a living thing, something she had to protect.

He dragged her over to the bed and slammed her down onto it, hard.

“You could’ve made it easier on yourself,” he said with a grin, straddling her hips, pinning her. He forced a kiss on her. His lips mashing against hers, his tongue pushing into her mouth, making her gag. His breath stank of processed rations and tobacco. “But the thing is,” he said leaning close so that he could whisper into her ear, “I like ‘em feisty.”

The spring was clenched in her fist. It was her last hope but she didn’t move. 

She knew she would have one chance. She had to time it perfectly. She would have to suffer until the moment came. 

He pulled his belt open, loosening his trousers. 

She stayed completely still.

He leaned down, grabbing her face, forcing her to look at him. “You gonna cry now?”

She didn’t answer.

He leaned in.

His mouth latched onto her breast—biting, not sucking or kissing—she cried out in pain as his teeth dug into her nipple as his other hand moved down, forcing her thighs apart. 

He pawed at her slit, his thick fingers jamming up inside her.

She endured it. Suffered the pain.

Waited.

Waited for the moment. Waited for the second that he thought she was broken. The moment he believed that she’d given up.

It worked. After she went slack he leaned back, releasing her as he attempted to pull his trousers all the way down, paying her no more attention that the bed she lay on. 

Then—she struck.

She drove the spring straight up and into the soft meat between his jaw and throat.

He jerked.

A wet gurgling sound came from his throat as he collapsed onto her.

When she ripped it out a mist of blood sprayed across her chest.

She shoved him off, scrambling out from under him as he clutched at his neck, gurgling, twitching as the blood began to spread, pooling under him.

She hit the floor, crawling away from his body, pressing herself back into that same corner. 

Breathing. Sobbing. Alive.

She watched him die. 

Then the pain came. 

Sharp, stabbing, cramping across her abdomen. 

And when she looked down she saw the blood.

Chapter Text

The wind was a constant rasp across the dunes, hissing over the rust-red stones and sun-cracked ground, carrying with it the dry, metallic tang of scorched earth. From the high ridge, the bunker sat hunched in the valley below like a waiting beast—low and blunt, barely more than a grey smear of concrete protruding from the earth. A single road leading to its sunken entrance way. But every man in the gang felt its presence like a heartbeat. Cold. Watching. Impenetrable.

“It’s an ugly bastard,” Bubba muttered, crouched behind a slab of broken rock, squinting through the scope of a battered rifle. “Machine gun emplacements, three—maybe four. Covering the slope.”

“Sloping entryway’s deliberate,” Goose said, kneeling beside him. He swept his gaze over the terrain, eyes narrowing. “Funnel any attackers right into a killbox. They don’t need to chase you. Just pin you down and wait for you to die on the slope.”

The structure itself was squat—like a concrete pillbox sunk into the sand. A sloped driveway led down between steep banks to a pair of massive reinforced steel doors, wide enough for a full-sized truck. No handles. No locks. Just steel and shadow and deadly silence.

“No vents. No side doors.” Toecutter’s voice was tight as a garrote. He stood a few feet back, arms crossed over his broad chest, boots planted firm. He didn’t like the place. It made the hairs rise on the back of his neck.

“What about remote sensors?” Clunk asked, pulling a faded cloth over his face to keep the grit from his mouth. “This far out, they’ll want eyes. Bet they’ve got motion scanners out there in the scrub.”

“Probably,” Goose said. “Could be buried vibration detectors. Hell, could be old-school trip lines and hidden spotters. Doesn’t matter. We get too close, someone inside’ll know.”

Kundalini scowled, eyes scanning the low-lying structure. “How the hell do we even get close, then? If we roll up, they’ll turn us into soup.”

“That’s the point.” Goose pointed toward the slope. “See how the road curves slightly to the right before the gate? That’s no accident. Makes the approach feel more secure—but it’s a blind curve. Perfect for a dead stop firing line.”

“And no cover,” Diabando added. “Just a shallow ditch. Maybe some rock outcrops, but not enough.”

Toecutter turned, watching the distant shape with hard, sunburnt eyes. His face, always angular and fierce, was tight with something other than rage. It was Fear.

He hated it. Hated that he felt it. Hated that she was in there, somewhere beneath a thousand tonnes of concrete and steel, and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it—not yet. Every second they waited was a second too long. Because something  was wrong . He didn’t need to be told. He could feel it in his gut, a sick twisting, like rot taking root. He forced himself to breathe through it. Turned to Bubba and Mudguts. “You two, stay here. Watch that bunker. Look for movement—shadows, glints, anything out of place, anything interesting. Log in every fifteen minutes. Rotate shifts.”

“Got it,” Bubba said, already stretching out the legs of his rifles bipod.

Toecutter jerked his head back down the slope. “The rest of you, back to the camp. We need a new plan, or this ends with a massacre.”

The group began the quiet climb back down to their well hidden makeshift camp. No one spoke.

Goose walked beside Toecutter, shoulder to shoulder. Neither looked at the other. The silence between them was brittle with unspoken tension.

“I don’t like this,” Toecutter said finally. “It’s too clean. Too fucking deadly.”

“That’s the point of bunkers like that,” Goose replied. “You don’t see the teeth until you’re bleeding.”

Toecutter exhaled hard through his nose. “And I hate relying on you….ex-bronze.”

“You should,” Goose muttered. “I’m reckless. Disobedient. The fact that I’m still here talking to you proves that. But you know that I’m not gonna stop being a thorn in your side until she’s out of there.”

Toecutter stopped walking. For just a second, the every present wind seemed to hush.

“She’s not just being held in there,” he said, voice low and hoarse. “She’s hurt. She’s suffering. I can feel it.”

Goose turned toward his rival. Their eyes met—both bloodshot, both burning with the same fire.

“I know,” Goose said. “That’s why we’re not going in loud. That’s why we’re gonna do this smart. Because we’re the only chance she’s got.”

Toecutter looked away, jaw clenched. He knew the truth of the blonde man’s words.

They gathered in the shadow of the ridge, all but those on guard crouched in a half-circle around a hastily drawn map scrawled into the sand with the point of Toecutter’s knife.  Dust caked every boot, every cracked lip. No one looked rested. No one was rested. But their attention their focus was still sharp.

“Front’s suicide,” Goose said grimly, dragging a calloused finger through the dust toward the crude shape of the bunker. “No cover, no angle. You hit that slope, you’re a walking corpse. Machine guns’ll chew us up before we get twenty feet.”

“Could we blow the ridge behind it?” Diabando asked, glancing up. “Drop half the slope down, maybe block the entrance. Force ‘em to come out to clear it”

Goose shook his head. “Too slow. We’d have to dig for days to place the charges just right, and even then they’ve got blast doors. No guarantee they’d open for the rubble.”

“We need to get that damn door open and we can’t place the charges to open it unless we’re already in.” Toecutter’s voice was low, bitter.

“We tunnel?” Mudguts offered, half-joking.

Goose leveled him with a look. “Sure. Got a mining rig stashed under your cot, do you?”

Clunk spat into the sand, eyes narrowed. “There is no good plan, is there?”

“There’s no plan unless we act fast,” Goose snapped, rising to his feet. He looked directly at Toecutter. “You want to tell them, or should I?”

Toecutter scowled. “It’s a feeling. Not a fact .”

“It’s real enough,” Goose growled. “We both feel it. Something’s wrong . Worse than before.”

The gang shifted uncomfortably. Bubba rubbed the back of his neck. Diabando muttered something under his breath. Goose swept his gaze across them all. “It’s like this... this screaming inside your chest. Like something’s tearing, but you can’t find where. And it just keeps getting louder.”

Toecutter stood stiffly. He didn’t want this. Didn’t want the vulnerability of it. But when Goose met his eyes again, he gave the smallest nod.

“I feel it too,” he admitted quietly. “She’s dying in there. I know it.”

They waited for the jeers. The snorts. A call of what, now you’re a mystic, boss?

But they never came. Instead—the silence deepened . Heads lowered. Eyes couldn’t meet. Clunk shifted his weight. Mudguts crossed his arms. Even Bubba was uncharacteristically still. It was Kundalini who broke the quiet.

“It ain’t just you, boss.” His voice was hoarse, thin. “We all been feelin’ it. Like... like time’s countin’ down. ‘Cept we don’t know how long’s left on the clock.”

Toecutter blinked. The understanding of it hit him harder than gunfire. Goose’s mouth pulled into a grim line. “Then we all know we don’t have time to wait for perfect.”

Starbuck stood slowly from his crouch, brushing the dust off his palms. His voice was calm, but there was a tremble in it, like he was holding something in. His eyes gleamed strangely in the firelight. “I told you,” he said quietly. “I told you guys. The stars. The stars been talkin’ about her.”

This time there were a few low groans around the circle.

“Oh, Christ, here he goes—” Clunk began.

“No. Shut up,” Toecutter cut in, voice hard. “Let him talk.”

Everyone turned. Even Goose paused. Starbuck’s hands twitched slightly at his sides, but he stood tall. His voice trembled at first, then gathered strength.

“The star, they talk, if you know how to listen, right, and they say she’s special. Not just special cos she is one of us, special because she’s the future. She danced with death and won. A storm in the shape of a woman. They say we have to follow her. That she’ll lead us out of the wasteland, into the promised land.”

He looked around. His eyes were wide, almost feverish.

“They say we follow her or we die. They say she’s the key to the new dawn . But only if we reach her in time.”

The wind gusted suddenly, scattering the lines of the sand map. Starbuck’s voice was steady as he told them the truth of it, “The end of the world’s comin’. Believe me.”

Toecutter stared at him. No mockery. No laughter. Just a slow, solemn nod.

“Then we’d better make sure she’ stays alive,” he said. “Because if she dies in there, we might as well bury ourselves next to her.”

Goose knelt again beside what remained of the map, sweeping the lines away with a palm. “Then we don’t need complicated plans, we need chaos. Distraction. And someone already inside when the shooting starts.” He looked up, eyes grim.

Goose knew the plan he was forming was madness but he also knew it was their only shot. He stared out at the bunker again—just a slit of concrete embedded in the earth like a scar, the slope leading down to those great double doors flanked by emplacements and certain death. There was no cover. No blind spot. No mercy. Any of the gang who so much as peeked around that ridge during daylight and we’re spotted would be shot on site. This was a black site. He’d heard of them. Been warned off of straying  to close to them during his MFP days. They operated outside the military, outside the MFP, outside the law. They operated a lethal force trespass policy. Anyone accidentally or deliberately setting foot to close to a black site would suddenly find a red targeting dot on their chest and a warning shot near their feet.

There wouldn’t be a second warning.

“It's suicide,” he muttered to himself under his breath. “But only if we try to kick it down,” he said slightly louder.

Toecutter glanced sideways at him, he was pacing like a caged dog, sand grinding beneath his boots. “You got an idea?”

Goose didn’t answer right away. His eyes were still on the bunker. “I’ve got a theory. A bad one. A long shot.”

“Spit it.” Toecutter growled out the words.

“Someone has to get inside first.”

Toecutter halted, staring. “You just said—”

“I know what I said,” Goose snapped. “And I meant it. If we go in as we are, we’ll be pulp on the rocks. They’ll drop us before we can blink. But them?” He jerked his chin toward the campfire beyond the trucks, where the women sat together, half-shadowed, backs to one another, heads ducked close in quiet conversation. “If they approach... unarmed...”

Toecutter’s face twisted. “You’re saying send ‘em in as bait.”

“I’m saying they might be able to get the doors open. And if we give them the right tools... maybe even get them to crack it wide from the inside .”

Kundalini, who was on watch nearby nearby, sat up. “They’ll open the doors for a bunch of women.”

Goose nodded. “Especially if they look like victims. Especially if they cry.”

Toecutter spat into the dirt. “That’s fuckin’ nasty. You of all people wanna’ use those women as bait”

“Yeah,” Goose said coldly. “But it’ll work. You think those pricks are running a nursery inside that bunker? You think they’ll hesitate when women come begging? No. They’ll open that fuckin’ door so fast they’ll trip over each other to see who gets to drag ‘em in first. But they won’t be helpless,” Goose murmured, his voice low, teeth bared. “Not this time.”

Goose turned to Kundalini. “I’ll need you with me to help persuade them. You’ve got the touch.”

Toecutter gave a rough, skeptical laugh. “You’re gonna talk them into walking into that place?”

Goose stood. “I’m not going to talk them into anything. I’m going to ask . If they say no, they walk away. No threat, no force. They don’t owe us.”

Toecutter opened his mouth—then shut it. There was something raw behind his eyes. Something tight. Goose didn’t push it. He just clapped Kundalini’s shoulder. “Come on. Time to use that bedside manner of yours.”

The campfire by the truck had burned low, mostly embers now, and the women sat close to its fading heat. Some with their knees hugged to their chests, others wrapped in whatever blankets the gang had managed to scrounge. Their makeshift shelter of tarps and barrels gave little real protection from the elements, but they had learned to fear men, not nature. Goose approached slow, careful. Kundalini beside him, loose-hipped and smiling. One of the women—tall, with sharp eyes and a scar across her brow—noticed them first. Her shoulders tensed. She nudged the others subtly. Conversations halted. Goose felt the weight of their gazes. Not fear, exactly. Not anymore. But wariness. These women didn’t trust anyone. Not yet. But Kundalini moved easily, his voice gentle, words half-laughed. “Thought I’d come check on your leg, Cass. You been walking stiff.”

Cass—the scar-browed woman—didn’t smile, but she relaxed enough to nod. “That from the man who suggested stitching me up with a fish hook.”

“Desperate times,” he said, grinning.

A few of the others smiled faintly at the joke and the tension cracked, just a little.

Goose crouched beside them. His bones leathers creaking. “We’re not here to bother you. Just to talk.”

The silence remained. But no one moved away.

“We know what those men were going to do to you,” Goose said softly. “What they might’ve already done. I won’t ask. I don’t want to. But... there’s someone else.”

Kundalini took over, his voice quieter now. “The girl they took from us. The one we’ve been tracking, hunting for. She’s in that bunker.”

“She’s down there with those men. The same type of men that burned your homes, killed your families, that…hurt you.” Goose added.

“You’re planning to attack that place?” one of the women, her dark hair hung in a loose plait over her shoulder, asked. Her voice was rasped, like she’d swallowed gravel. “That bunker?”

“Yeah. We are,” Goose said.

Kundalini looked around the circle, meeting each pair of eyes in turn. “But we don’t stand a chance unless we’ve got help. We need someone inside. Someone who can get the doors open. Cause enough chaos for us to strike.”

“You want us to go in,” Cass said flatly.

Goose didn’t deny it. “Yes. Carry charges. Get inside. Get close. Set off hell.”

“You want us to be victims again ?” one of the younger women whispered.

“No,” Goose said, voice hard. “I want you to be the ones who bring it down. Who stop these fuckers. I want you to walk in and burn it from the inside out .”

There was a heavy silence.

“But it’s your call,” Kundalini said gently.

“Absolutely,” Goose confirmed. “All of it. If you say no, you walk. Take the truck.  We’ll give your gear, supplies. No debt. No strings. No one will try and stop you.” He meant it. And they knew he meant it. Still, no one spoke. The women looked at one another. Lips pressed tight. Eyes darting. Finally, Cass looked up. “How many men do you think are in there?”

“Not many,” Goose said. “Maybe a platoon, if that. Could be fewer. We think it’s a black site, not regular army. Not even military. Something off-books. A big site meant as a bunker for fat cats and politicians to scurry off to when things go south. Which means it’s dirty... they don’t want outsiders coming in to staff it. The men in there will be spread thin.”

Another woman whispered, “and she’s inside right now?”

“Yes.” Goose answers.

“And she’s like us?”

Goose nodded once. “Exactly like you.”

“And walking up to the front door? That’s it? That’s your grand plan?” she’d said, one brow arched, eyes like iron. Goose had nodded, sheepish. “Yeah. Simple. In and out. Make a mess, and we come storming in—”

“Then you’re fucked!” she barked. Goose had opened his mouth to say something in defensive of the idea, but she had shaken her head holding up a hand to hush him. He had thought it was over then but when a log cracked open in the fire, sending a scattering of sparks into the air, Cass had exhaled slowly. “We’ll talk.” She said.

Goose stood. “That’s all we’re asking.”

As he and Kundalini turned to go, he heard someone—maybe the youngest—murmur, “Let’s burn the bastards.”

Goose didn’t look back. But his blood surged with hope. They had a chance.

Goose stood, trying not to bounce on the balls of his feet like a rookie waiting for orders. The women had pulled away to talk—clustered in a knot near the trucks, voices low and heads close, shielding each other with their bodies like they were bracing for a storm. And maybe they were. Behind him, Kundalini shifted beside a boulder, arms crossed, face unreadable. Goose felt the weight of his stare.

Cass had scoffed right in his face when he told her the plan. He’d tried to argue, jaw halfway open, but she’d already raised a hand, silencing him with the kind of steel command that comes from someone who’d survived the worst thing she could have imagined. Now, they just had to wait and it was hell. By the time Toecutter came loping over the tension in the air was thick enough to cut. He looked between the two men, that ever-present scowl carved deep into his weathered face.

“Well?” He asked

“They didn’t say no,” Kundalini offered.

“But they didn’t say yes, either.” Goose added.

Toecutter’s eyes flashed. “We don’t have time for this,” he growled. “Every second we wait—”

“ We just have to leave it, ” Goose snapped, louder than he meant to.

Toecutter whirled but didn’t speak. Just stared. A thread of silent rage and desperation holding them in place. Goose looked away first. He knew what was churning in the man’s gut. He could feel it too. That deep, clawing sense of urgency that had been building in him like a fever. He’d known fear before—known dread. But this? This was something more. Like a ticking bomb behind his ribs, counting down toward something he couldn’t name. If the women said no, the gang would still attack. He knew it. They couldn’t not. Toecutter would go in guns blazing, and the rest would follow, loyal to death and chaos. And they would die. Goose knew the kind of men they were up against. Not soldiers. Not heroes. Cleaners . Spooks. Men trained to disappear whole towns and leave no blood for the crows. If the gang rushed that entrance, they wouldn’t get within five feet. And she—Goose refused to say her name in that thought—she wouldn’t survive it. He forced himself to breathe. It was going to work. It had to.

It was nearly an hour later when the women came over to them. Toecutter had taken ti the ridge for watch duty, grumbling about it but being glad for something to do. The rest were scattered—some tinkering with bikes, others dozing under the tarps.

Goose was kneeling by a crate, checking the bolt on his rifle, when the shadows shifted.

They came toward him—quiet and steady. Cass at the front, sharp-eyed, head high. Behind her, the rest of the women in a loose formation that somehow looked just as dangerous and determined as any marching unit Goose had ever seen.

“We’ve had a talk,” Cass said.

Goose stood slowly, heart in his throat.

“Like I said before, your plan sucks.”

His shoulders slumped. He stared down at the dirt that would probably be soaked in his blood by morning.

“But,” Cass continued, “we have a better idea.”

Goose’s head snapped up.

She went on, sharp and commanding. “Some of us have handled weapons. Others haven’t. We all want in—but not everyone’s made for front-line. And Ren?” She nodded back at a slight teenage girl standing with arms folded, jaw set but pale.

“She stays out of this,” Cass said.

Goose nodded without hesitation. “Yes. Yes, absolutely. Anything.”

Cass took a breath. “The ones who can will go in. Just like you said. Carrying charges. But not just little ones. If you want to take out those doors, you need more than a boom in a biscuit tin.”

He blinked. “We don’t have the gear to conceal—”

“Yes, we do.” Cass’s lips curled into something dark and clever. “Swaddling.”

Goose blinked again.

“A baby,” she said. “Wrapped tight. Close to the chest. Nobody questions a woman carrying a baby. Nobody asks to unwrap it. And nobody expects it to explode.”

Kundalini let out a low whistle beside him. “Shit. That’s cold.”

“Damn right it is,” Cass said. “And we’re not going in unarmed either. Every one of us who volunteered knows how to shoot. Maybe not military sharp, but good enough to drop a man if he puts a hand where he shouldn’t.”

Goose was nodding fast. “Yeah—yes—this could work. ”

“One more thing,” Cass said. “We’re not going in alone.”

Goose stilled. “What?”

Cass’s grin was mean and golden. “Mudguts. Bubba. And you.”

Goose blinked. “ Me? ”

“You three go in with us. Disguised.”

“Disguised how?”

Cass’s smirk was feral. “Pretty little dresses. Shawls. Hell, we’ll do your lashes. You’ll be the wolves in lamb’s clothing.”

Kundalini howled with laughter, gripping Goose’s shoulder to steady himself.

Goose was less amused. “They’ll never go for it.”

Cass shrugged. “They don’t have to look good. Just pass long enough to get inside.”

“And once the fireworks start?” Goose asked.

“Then we go wild,” she said. “We set hell loose. You and your boys hit hard. And the rest of your bikers can come charging in once they see smoke.”

Goose ran a hand over his face, heart thundering. The plan was audacious. Risky. Fucking insane. And it just might work.

He grinned. “Alright. I’ll get the dresses.”

Cass clapped him on the shoulder. “Make sure they match.”

Chapter Text

Goose went in search of Toecutter. The women had made their decision and he needed to know, but Goose wasn’t looking forward to telling him. The trouble was the plan had merit, in fact he thought it was probably their best shot, so, as humiliating as it was going to be, Goose had to explain it to him, and he had to tell him he would do his part, however embarrassing it was, willingly.

He found Toecutter standing atop a slope of loose shale, his boots sunk into the crumbling edge making it look like he had grown out of it. He was standing so still that he almost looked like a statue, solid, unmoving. His eyes were fixed on the distant horizon, where the grey scar of the bunker lay hidden beneath the heat haze. Only his hair broke the illusion stillness, the desert wind whipping it about his head, dragging the strands into a tangle of loose curls and dust.

Goose marvelled at his stillness. He had always thought of Toecutter in terms of ferocious, unrestrained energy and it felt somehow wrong to break into the man’s quite meditations. But Goose needed to update him, needed to let him know what the women had said, so he cleared his throat, making a sound just loud enough to carry over the wind.

Toecutter didn’t turn. His eyes stayed fixed on the horizon and for a moment Goose thought that he hadn’t heard, then he finally spoke, his voice tired, strained.

“Well?” he rasped, voice like gravel. “I assume you have news. Don’t keep me in suspense.”

Goose scrubbed a hand down the back of his neck, dragging the sweat and grime with it. The words were right there, just waiting to leap into the air and humiliate him. He took a breath, grimaced, and plunged in.

“The women. They’ve agreed to help… but… they came up with a better plan.”

Toecutter turned at that. Just his head at first, then the rest of him followed. To Goose if felt like watching a rock slide moving in slow motion. His eyes locked onto Goose filled with an intensity that almost had the Ex Bronze taking a step back.

“Did they now? Do tell”

Goose winced, already dreading what was coming. He started with the stuff that wasn’t going to humiliate him.

“It’s a good plan and they are really putting themselves on the line. The are prepared to walk in, offer themselves up as bait, but they want weapons—real ones, guns. The women who volunteered, they can all shoot. And they want proper bombs, none of our usual fire-in-a-bottle tricks. They know that small charges won’t do much to a door like that. They want a big one. They have a plan to hide it, wrap it up like a baby.”

Goose took a moment to look at the big man. He was watching him closely, like a fox watching a chicken.

“And?” The inflection in Toecutter’s voice made it clear he knew Goose was stalling.

There was no way of putting it off any further.

“They want a few of us to go in with them.” Goose huffed.

Toecutter’s eyebrow arched. He hadn’t missed the choice of the word. Goose was now referring to himself as one of them.

“Us?”

“Me. Bubba. Mudguts.”

Toecutter stared. “To go in? To walk up to the bunker with them ”

Goose nodded.

“To just walk up to the bunker? Just as easy as that?” Toecutter’s voice could cut glass.

“We’ll be in disguise,” Goose admitted grudgingly.

Goose met Toecutter’s eyes and saw them sparkle with glee.

“Disguised as...?” He asked, his mouth twitching. His hand stroking the stubble on his chin as if he were trying hard not to smile

“As women,” Goose cringed as he said it.

The silence was excruciating. Toecutter’s lip curled. He was trying, trying with everything he had to hold it together. His shoulders trembled. He turned half away from Goose, clenched his jaw. But then the laughter broke free like a chainsaw ripping through a tin shed.

“ HAAAAAHAAHHHH—oh, Christ almighty! ” he bellowed, doubling over. His whole body shook with the force of it. He wheezed and slapped his thigh.

“You!? Goose! A mother-fuckin’-Bronze! Gonna wiggle your arse into a petticoat and flash a bit of ankle at the guards?!”

Goose stared at Toecutter and if looks could kill, Toecutter would’ve spontaneously combusted.

“Oh, fuck me sideways,” Toecutter gasped, tears streaming down his dust-caked cheeks.

“Bubba? In a dress? With those shoulders? What’s he gonna do, wear a circus tent!?”

Goose folded his arms and let it play out.

“You’ll be a vision, you will. What’ll we call you? Lady Gooseington? No—no, wait, I got it!” He pointed, eyes wild with mirth. “ Mother Goose! ”

Goose was trying hard to stay angry, but Toecutter’s unrestrained laughter was infectious and he couldn’t stop the slow smile from spreading across his face.

Toecutter collapsed against a boulder, wheezing.

“Oh god, I needed that. I haven’t laughed that much since Starbuck blew up a latrine after making rocket fuel outta moonshine and sugar.”

He wiped his face with both hands and exhaled a long, shuddering breath.

“It rained shit!”

Then— snap —like a switch had flipped, the mirth fell away. His posture straightened. His eyes sharpened. Goose marvelled at it. The man’s moods were so mercurial you could get whiplash from them.

Now there was no more laughter, no more ridicule. He was looking at Goose as a commander would a soldier. When he spoke there was no trace of humor in his voice.

“But you know what this means?” Toecutter’s asked.

Goose nodded.

“You won’t be on a bike. No leather. No speed. No armor. Just a skirt and a concealed bomb. If they catch wind of you, they won’t just kill you, they’ll cut you to pieces.”

“Yeah, I understand.” Goose told him.

“Even if it goes right, you’ll still be stuck in the kill box. It’ll take us time to get to you. To be able to back you up. It’ll be up to you to stay alive.” Toecutter pressed home the point.

But Goose didn’t flinch. “I know.”

“And you’re still going to do it? I wouldn’t think any less of you, of the others, if they said no.”

Goose sighed. “Yeah, I am. Because it’s not about me.”

Toecutter’s brow furrowed.

“It’s about her,” Goose said softly. “Mouse” he finally used the name the gang had given her, “…and the baby. Every second we waste, someone’s hurting her. And this…” he paused, jaw flexing. “…this is our best chance of stopping them.”

Toecutter looked at him for a long time—really looked. Then, wordlessly, he stepped forward and held out his hand. Goose took it, and in a single, powerful pull, Toecutter yanked him close until they were nose-to-nose.

“Then we do this,” he said. “we save her or we die trying. Agreed?”

“Agreed.”

Toecutter held his gaze a second longer, like he was reading a truth Goose hadn’t said aloud. Then he shoved him back—not cruelly, but not gently either. Goose staggered a step or two backwards before straightened.

“Go,” Toecutter barked. “Take Mudguts and Bubba. Find something frilly. Something distracting . I want those soldiers so confused they don’t know if they’re being bombed or seduced.”

Goose turned to go, but Toecutter’s voice cracked out behind him.

“And Goose?”

He paused.

“Pick something that shows off your legs.”

The bikes kicked up small cyclones of grit as they roared down the cracked highway—three rough-edged bikers on a mission unlike any they'd ever ridden before. They weren’t riding out for guns, fuel, or blood. They were riding out for dresses.

"You're sure this is necessary?" Mudguts shouted over the thrum of the engine.

Goose, riding pillion behind Bubba, shouted back his answer. "We need something that fits! You want to waltz into the gates of hell in your leather pants hanging out and hope no one notices?"

Mudguts chuckled from the bike beside them. "I dunno. I’ve been told I’ve got shapely legs.”

Bubba snorted. "You’ve got knees like pork knuckles."

Goose couldn’t help grinning as he called out, “Think of it this way…it’s like we’re hunting… hunting dresses.”

"Fine," Bubba grumbled. “But next time someone tells me we’re going on a mission, I’m bringing a damn shotgun—not a tape measure and a bra cup chart.”

Mudguts barked a laugh. “Don’t lie Bubba, I know you can’t wait to try on the heels.”

"Fuck you. If I do, it’s because they make my calves pop."

Goose grinned despite himself. The tension they all carried was like a noose around their guts, but this—this ridiculous detour—was a blessed reprieve. For a few hours, they weren’t gearing up to storm a fortified bunker crawling with heavily armed soldiers. They were three bastards on a scavenger hunt for floral prints and lipstick.

They were heading east. The didn’t have the time to go to the city or to even head to one of the towns. Beside, Bubba was still nervous about being around people.

“They were shoot first last time, who knows what they’re like now.”

Goose didn’t argue. He felt it too—that sour heat under the skin, the sense that the world was unraveling faster than anyone could hold it together. If they didn’t get into the bunker soon...He shook the thought away. No, they would have to make do with scattered farms and long-abandoned places and hope they would find what they needed.

Bubba slowed as they rolled past the rusted gates of a weather-beaten homestead.

“Place looks dead.” He called over his shoulder.

"Good," said Goose. “Dead don’t call the cops.”

“Cops don’t exist anymore,” Mudguts muttered. “Just twitchy civilians with rifles and not enough serotonin.”

As dilapidated as the place was, it wasn’t empty, but that worked in their favour. Bubba pointed out a sagging washing line, and on it a pair of floral house dresses and a lace trimmed nightgown, fluttered in the breeze.

“Oh hell yeah, target acquired,” Goose whooped, hopping off the back of the bike and bolting over to the line.

Bubba groaned. “If I get shot for stealing a fucking sundress, I’m haunting you.”

Goose came running back a short time later, waving the stolen dresses in the air.

“Mudguts, you’ll look like a damn princess.” He shouted.

“Only if I get the one with daisies,” Mudguts replied solemnly.

Goose tossed him the flowery printed dress. “Your wish is my command.”

They raided four more homes in total. The first was empty, dust settled thick over the linoleum, nothing left to pick over, not even a headscarf.

The second was definitely occupied.

It was an old wooden, single storey farmhouse. The sound of a radio playing gospel music drifted from the front of the house as Bubba levered a bedroom window open at the back. Once inside Goose opened a closet and blinked.

"Jackpot," he whispered.

Silk. Cotton. A wedding dress wrapped in yellowed plastic. Scarves, petticoats, belts. Goose snatched what looked like a prom style dress and held it up.

"Too sparkly," Mudguts muttered over his shoulder. "Try the blue one. Matches your eyes."

It was all going well Bubba, was rifling through a closet while Mudguts and Goose were going through the drawers, when a creak stopped them cold. Footsteps. someone was coming down the hall.

“Shit!” Goose hissed.

They barely had time to shove the drawers closed before Goose grabbed Mudguts by the vest and shoved him and Bubba into the closet, bumping hangers and rattling coat hooks as they squeezed in among the dresses. They pulled the door closed a second before the bedroom door opened.

They huddled there, not daring to breathe, their shoulders wedged tight together, their noses filled with the scent of mothballs and old perfume.

A floorboard creaked.

“Dammit, where did I leave my goddamn glasses—” came a woman’s voice.

The woman opened the other closet door, ignoring the side the three of them were pressed into. Hangers jangled and Goose nearly passed out. 

The footsteps paused… moved on and they could hear her rustling about, moving the objects on top of the dressing table. A minute later, the bedroom door shut behind and the three men in the wardrobe exhaled in unison.

As they raced back to their bikes with their latest treasures Bubba was red faced with the effort of holding in laughter, “Well boys” he choked out “… guess we’re officially out of the closet now.”

Goose nearly choked he was laughing so hard.

Mudguts deadpanned, “I wish I’d got the shoes to match.”

There third stop was an abandoned homestead, where the sound of giggles, drifting toward them on the wind, drew their attention. They traced the sound to a couple skinny dipping in a spring-fed cattle trough, splashing and kissing like the world wasn’t falling apart around them. Mudguts, who had snuck in for a closer look, came back with a bundle of clothes in his arms.

“You took both sets?” Goose asked in disbelief.

He shrugged. “Didn’t want the guy to feel left out.”

Bubba looked at the clothes. “These even gonna fit ?”

“Oh darling, you could wear anything,” Mudguts replied.

By the time the Goose was climbing out of the bedroom window of the fourth house, a wooden cottage that boasted an eclectic mix of stained glass, repurposed car parts and taxidermy, they they had three duffel bags stuffed with women's clothes. Their haul included dresses of every cut and size, wigs, shawls, costume jewelry, makeup, even a fur stole that Mudguts had insisted was ‘ essential’ .

But they weren’t done yet. While Goose had been busy, Mudguts had made a discovery.

The battered motorcycle was hidden beneath a tarp in what could only charitably be called a car port. The bike was as ugly as sin, painted piss yellow, with mismatched tires and a seat patched with duct tape. But as ugly as it looked it still sputtered into life under Mudguts talented fingers and it had roared like a wild dog when Mudguts twisted the throttle.

Now, as he wheeled it toward Goose across the dusty yard, he let out a low whistle.

“Hey, princess, you shall go to the ball,” he called. “Got you a chariot.”

Goose turned and stared.

Mudguts slapped the seat. “Ain’t much to look at, but she purrs real sweet.”

Goose ran a hand over the rust-streaked tank, feeling the bones of the bike, solid, it had potential. He looked up, found an unexpected lump in his throat.

“Take it, it ain’t right you having to ride bitch anymore.” Mudguts said awkwardly.

“You might not like it Goose, but you’re one of us now.” Bubba added.

“Thanks. Both of you.” They all heard the tremor in Goose’s voice. However different these men were, they spoke the same language when it came to bikes.

“Don’t get mushy,” Bubba muttered. “You still gotta convince me to wear lipstick.”

Goose laughed, full and raw. “Just don’t smear it before we reach those gates, eh?”

The three of them saddled up and turned for the return ride, the packs full of frilly dresses sat heavy against their backs, but their hearts were heavier. Tomorrow, they’d be walking into hell dressed as women.

But tonight? Tonight they’d ride like brothers.

While Goose, Bubba, and Mudguts played dress-up in the desert, gathering silks and lace for a suicide mission, three others were preparing to steal thunder.

Diabando, Kundalini, and Starbuck squatted in the shadow of the truck, eyes narrowed, watching as Toecutter pressed a finger into the dry earth, tracing the shape of the mining camp and its key structures—watchtowers, storage sheds, generators, search lights.

His voice was low, not much more than a growl.

“This Mining site. It’s Two clicks northeast. They use dynamite and C4 for shale blasting. You three—get in, get it, get out. No fuckups. No dead miners. No surprises. We can’t afford the delays and we can’t afford to lose anybody. You aren’t there for the blood, you’re there for the bang.”

Kundalini snorted. “Shame. I brought my good killing boots.”

Toecutter didn’t smile.

“Don’t get caught. If you do, you know the drill—you bite off your tongue before you talk.”

Diabando’s mouth twisted into a toothy grin. “We’ll be gone before they even know they have been hit.”

Starbuck was quiet, as always, but his hands fluttered like birds at his sides. He looked skyward, eyes searching for something beyond the clouds.

“The stars are dimming,” he muttered. “Means the fire’s coming.”

“Good,” Diabando said. “Maybe it’ll burn em out of that fucking bunker.”

They timed the ride perfectly, reaching their destination just as true darkness fell, pushing their bikes by hand across the jagged terrain so that the engines wouldn’t given away their approach.

The mine loomed like a sleeping beast. Nestled in a shallow gorge it was made up of low squat buildings constructed of concrete and rust stained corrugated iron. The perimeter fence was topped with loops of razorwire and, from a pair of watchtowers, searchlights swooped lazily in the dark.

From the ridge, Diabando peered through his battered binoculars.

“Piece of cake. Two night guards. Maybe some more inside. We give ‘em something to chase, then we gut the beast.”

Kundalini was first into action, slithering forward, keeping low, a moving shadow against the shale. He reached the generators and slid a hand beneath the chain-link fencing. The firecrackers were cheap, rigged with scavenged magnesium powder to punch brighter than their bark. He nestled them in a tin can, set the fuse, then pulled the string tight through a hole in the fencing.

“Let there be light.” He said, grinning to himself as he held his lighters flame to the fuse.

In the darkness by the fence, Diabando and Starbucks waited, hearts pounding like fists on ribcages. As Diabando mutter a Hail Mary, Starbuck’s fingers sketching a constellation into the dirt. Then the firecrackers went off with a sharp crack–CRACK–crack , sudden and dazzling. Magnesium fire bloomed into blinding white light. Sparks rained like confetti over the generator housing.

“RAIDERS AT THE BACK GATE!” They heard someone yell.

Flashlights bobbed and boots thundered on the dry earth as the miners poured toward the chaos. And in that perfect pocket of distraction, Diabando and Starbuck began their operation. Closing into the fence, Starbuck, used his bulk to lift, Diabando up, gloved and leathered up, he made short work of the razor wire. Then he was down the other side and off.

He didn’t run. He flowed. Darting across the packed gravel, moving between blind spots, making the most of any shadows. At the door of the explosives storage shed, he dropped to one knee and pulled out his tools—just a piece of a spoon and a tension wire twisted from a bike brake cable. But he knew how to use them.

He breathed slow. In. Out. He didn’t even look at the lock, letting his fingers and the feel of the metal against the lock mechanism guide him.

There was a click  and the lock popped. With a satisfied sigh Diabando slipped inside and froze.

A single metal shade bulb illuminating a narrow room packed with crates—some plastic, some wooden, all of them marked with bright yellow diamonds. Symbols that screamed DANGER and WARNING in triplicate. He recognized the logo: this was military-grade shit. Not just dynamite. C4. Det cord. Blasting caps. Enough firepower to collapse a city block.

He reached for a prybar and cracked open one of the wooden crates. Cool white bricks, neatly stacked, wrapped in crinkling plastic. Stamped: C4

“Oh, baby,” he whispered running his fingers over them, caressing them gently.

He grabbed four bricks, slid them into the reinforced satchel they had brought with them for the job. A second crate offered up rolls of det cord, and fuse wire, which he pocketed greedily. The blasting caps were loose in a foam-lined box—he took six, carefully wrapping them and isolating them before he packed them. He wanted to take more. There was so much good stuff here. Stuff they could use in the future. But there was no time for that.   Keep it light, he reminded himself. We gotta be slick, we gotta move fast. He resecured the crates, kicked a bit of dust to mask his tracks, and slipped back out into the night.

Starbuck was waiting for him by the fence. Holding, of all things a terrifying plastic baby doll. “The stars say we need it,” was all he said before Diabando swung the satchel up and over for the big man to catch. In return Starbucks slung over the rope so that Diabando could climb out.

They found Kundalini crouched in the sagebrush, chewing on a toothpick, looking utterly pleased with himself.

“That show enough for you?”

Diabando slapped the satchel. “That show’s gonna have one hell of a damn encore.”

“Then let’s get the hell outta here.”

They wheeled the bikes back up the ridge before kick-starting them to life. The engines sputtered, then roared as one, and together they rode back to Toecutter, back to the coming storm.

Toecutter was standing waiting for them when they returned, grabbing the satchel and unzipping it, before they had even managed to cut their engine. When he saw the contents, his face burned with a malevolent smile.

“You boys went shopped good .”

Starbuck stood apart from the others, staring up at the stars, They were singing, he could hear them. They were telling him that death was coming, and that it would be wearing a dress.

Chapter Text

The camp smelled like sweat, cordite and nervous energy. And it was busy. Boots crunched across gravel, metal clinked as bones were tuned to perfection, or loaded onto the back of the truck and somewhere a welding torch hissed as Kundalini and Starbuck tried to fashion a detonator trigger from an old car battery and what looked suspiciously like the innards of a toaster. Overhead the sky overhead was still ink-black but on the horizon the stars were beginning to fade. It wouldn’t be long now. There were just a few more hours until showtime.

Goose sat cross legged on the dirt, sweat ran down his back despite the chill of the desert night. He was working by the light of a bike headlamp, hunched over his creation, frantically trying to get the thing finished in time. Cass was perched beside him, a collection of wires splayed like veins across her lap, her fingers nimble and ruthless, her teeth clenched in concentration.

“I still can’t believe we’re doin’ this,” Goose muttered, holding up the cracked plastic skull of the toy baby—its mouth permanently agape in a frozen smile…or scream, Goose couldn’t tell which.

“This feels weird….Feels… I dunno….wrong,” he muttered, shaking his head at the abomination that lay before him.

Cass didn’t look up. “It’s just a casing, Goose. A decoy. It’s creepy, I’ll give you that, but it’s better than just a bundle of dynamite wrapped in a shawl. We should be thanking Starbuck for bringing it back.”

He glanced at her. There was something weird about the whole thing. Starbuck’s insistence that the star told him to bring back the discarded toy, a toy that just happened to have a voice box that activated when it was moved from upright to lying down. A voice box they could use as a switch.

Goose finished attaching the last of the wires, his hands moving steadier than he felt.

“I’ll prime it just before we go,” he told Cass, “for god’s sake don’t put it down once I do.’

“It’ll cry?” Cass asked after a moment of consideration, wiping her fingers on the front of her already-filthy cargo pants.

“One cycle, when it’s activated. Just one. Then boom.” He said, suddenly bone, tired.

“And it’ll be enough?” She pressed.

Goose stood, stretching out the knots in his spine. “It better be.”

Cass gave a slow nod of understanding. “Then I guess it’s time we turn you guys into gals.”

Goose nodded, cinching the final knot with raw fingers. “Time to dress up and blow some shit sky high.”

As Goose approached Mudguts and Bubba were already there, standing unimpressed amid the piles of clothes accessories as the women sorted through them, holding up possible items, checking fits. Immediately discarding anything that was too bright, too shiny…too flamboyant. Mudguts whined when his favorite fur wrap was thrown onto the reject pile.

“I liked that,” he pouted.

The girl a willowy brunette with big brown eyes picked it up and threw it back at him.

“Stash it in your stuff if you wanna keep it so bad,” she retorted with a grin.

Mudguts picked it up and grinned back at her. “Take care of it for me. I’ll get it when this is over.” The bravado was clear. None of them knew if there would even be an after.

Bubba was trying to wriggle into an elasticated girdle.

“This is not designed for a man of my stature,” he growled, glaring down at his already padded bosom like it had personally betrayed him. “And I can’t breathe.”

“Well you know what they say, old chap,” Mudguts snickered, wandering over to twang Bubba’s bra strap with vicious glee. “Beauty is pain.”

“Shut your hole.” The usually stoic biker snapped at him.

“Least yours match,” Mudguts muttered, eyeing his mismatched bra and girdle.

“If you die tonight, I’ll tell everyone they did.”

Goose smirked. “You’re looking good boys. A real vision of femininity.”

Bubba crossed his arms—fake breasts wobbling. “I look like a pissed-off whorehouse madam.”

“You are a pissed-off whorehouse madam,” Goose said. “You’re method acting.”

“Joke as much as you want, Copper, it’s your turn next.” Bubba muttered, nodding to the three women who were approached Goose with a serious look of intent and a bundle of fabric.

Goose stood in the dirt wearing nothing but his pants and a corset, its ample bust stuffed with scarves and t-shirts while Cass circled him with a razor and a bottle of water.

“Hold still,” she ordered, voice tight with focus. “Or I’m going to be slicing up your legs.” Beside his Bubba was in the same predicament.

“Why are we shaving again?” Bubba grumbled, grimacing as another woman ran a straight razor along his forearm. “Feels like some sort of punishment.”

“It’s to help you pass, dumbass,” said Starbuck from the other side of the tent, where he was helping Mudguts wrangle himself into a dark blue cotton smock dress, “because nothing screams ‘man in disguise’ like a pair of furry gorilla legs sticking out the bottom of a sundress.”

Goose eyed the dress hanging near him. Soft cotton. Powder blue with the faint smell of lavender and moth balls. Granny material. Cass slapped his calf. “Turn.”

He obeyed.

Behind them, Liza, the brunette was brushing out a long black wig, the bristles snagging against synthetic knots. “Remember, You’re not doing drag,” she muttered. “This isn’t for fun. It’s not camp. No glitter, no lashes. Just enough to sell the illusion, not get you noticed.”

You guys have to look like us. The women exchanged glances. “Yep, windblown and fucking exhausted.”

“Who the fuck is gonna be wandering around the desert in full slap anyway?” said another woman, applying a quick dab of brown shadow under Goose’s eyes. “We keep it real. Sun-blown, tired, dusty.”

“But it feel fabulous!” Mudguts called, now sporting a surprisingly well fitted paisley print dress with the sort of skirt that swished when he moved.

Goose stared at his own reflection in the cracked side mirror of the truck. The face looking back was his—but not. The hard edges had been softened with smudged kohl and bronzer. His lashes darkened. Lips tinted with the faintest smear of lipstick. A blonde wig sat on his head. His jaw was still too sharp, nose broken a little left—but in the low light, if he kept his head down, he might just pass.

Might.

Cass arranged a scarf on his head, wrapping it around his neck to disguise his Adams apple.

“Okay you three, you look the part, now you have to act it. We are going to practice walking. Try not to stomp like you’re ploughing a field, yeah?”

“I walk like I walk,” Goose growled.

“Then how about you try walking like someone who doesn’t have balls swinging between their knees.”

There was a round of snickers. Even Bubba cracked a grin.

“Okay,” Cass said, exhaling. “Let’s try it.”

The three men lined up.

They tried.

Bubba immediately lumbered forward like he was marching into a bar fight. Cass stopped him with a hand to the chest. “What the hell was that?”

“I was being graceful,” he said, affronted.

“You looked like you were trying to seduce a fence post.”

“Maybe the fence post was into it.”

Goose watched them, trying to mimic the smooth stride Cass demonstrated—hips slightly loose, steps shorter, posture relaxed but alert. It felt unnatural. Like stepping into someone else’s skin. But when he caught himself in the mirror again, he didn’t laugh. None of them did. Under all the jokes, the chuckles and jabs, the fear was starting to settle in their bones. Each moment of forced levity felt more like a last breath before submerging.

Mudguts tied a headscarf around his wig and practiced blinking slowly. “When we come outta that tunnel,” he muttered, half to himself, “we better make it count.”

Cass nodded grimly. “You’ve got maybe thirty seconds of surprise. You blow the doors, we follow hard. Don’t think. Don’t hesitate. Just move.”

Lira came forward then, pressing a small revolver into Goose’s hand. “For your garter,” she said. “Loaded. Safety off so don’t blow your petticoats off.”

Toecutter arrived then, flanked by Starbuck and Diabando, both of whom were carrying the completed charges in bundles of cloth. Toecutter walked the line, looked the group up and down, silent for a while, his expression unreadable, before one eyebrow crept up.

then murmured, “You all know what to do.”

looked the group up and down, his expression unreadable, before one eyebrow crept up.

“I’ve seen some shit in my day,” he said slowly. “But this? This takes the bloody cake.”

Starbuck grinned. “You think the enemy’ll be too confused to shoot em?”

“Hell,” Toecutter said. “They’ll probably die laughing. That’s one way to thin their numbers.”

He turned serious then, his voice dropping to that low growl that always made the men go quiet. “Dawn’s close. You all know what to do. We’ve got one shot at this. The women are going up the slope in ten. They’ll draw the guards, distract them. As soon as they’re close enough, Goose, Mudguts, and Bubba move in with the payload.”

He pointed at Starbuck. “Once the front doors blow, you lot, get to cover, you’ll be sitting ducks out in the open. we’ll try and take out the gunners out with the rifles.”

Cass stepped up, her eyes hard and focused. “We’re all armed. We’ll keep em’ busy.”

Toecutter crouched beside him. “Still time to change your mind.”

Goose shook his head. “Mouse, she’s in there, waiting.”

Toecutter nodded, placing a heavy hand on Goose’s shoulder. “Then let’s go and get her…darling.”

They were crouched together behind the ridge, bomb bundles held like sleeping babes, guns hidden in shawls and bodices.

A murmur of affirmation passed through the group. One of the women—the one who used to be a teacher—held up a small watch. “Five minutes,” she whispered. Last touch-ups. Final checks. Fingers trembled as bullets were loaded. Dynamite wrapped in cloth bundles. Knives strapped to thighs. Tension hummed like a live wire. When a low whistle sounded. It was time to go.

Cass raised her voice. Final checks. Ladies, adjust your bloomers. Gentlemen… tuck accordingly. Let’s move!”

Mudguts muttered, “I swear if I get shot, I want the bullet to hit me square in the dignity.”

“You don’t have any left,” Goose said, holstering his gun beneath his skirts. “Exactly!” Mudguts answered.

The wind moaned over the sands. A whisper of dawn slid up the horizon, bruised and red.

Half a dozen women who had suffered more than they should have and three hardbitten bikers hidden beneath wigs and powder and borrowed dresses, rose and moved like shadows through the dust, toward the bunker, toward hell.

The desert wind had picked up, curling grit around their boots, dragging strands of hair across painted faces.

It lifted the hems of dresses and scarves like playful ghosts, tugging loose strands of hair from wigs, dragging dust into eyes and mouths, and turning the ragtag procession into something half-beautiful, half-apocalyptic. They came on foot, slow and uneven, skirts brushing ankles, shawls clutched tight, like survivors from a world gone.

Goose could barely see his own boots beneath the patchwork dress Cass had chosen for him—brown calico with a drooping neckline and a sagging waistband that barely concealed the revolver holstered against his thigh. The wig itched, his shaved legs stung, and he was already soaked with sweat. But none of that mattered now.

They were moving.

They walked in a loose formation, with the women spread wide, creating a shifting cloud of fabric and bodies, their silhouettes blurring the shapes of the three disguised men tucked into the center.

“Shorter strides,” hissed Starbuck beside him. “You’re marching, Goose. You’re not leading a goddamn patrol.”

“Swing your hips more,” came another whisper from the left. Goose didn’t even know who said it.

“For God’s sake, Goose,” Cass snapped low without turning her head, “keep your chin down. You look like you’re challenging the sun to a duel.”

Mudguts grumbled from behind his headscarf, “Feel like a prize hog in a wedding dress.”

“Shut up and relax your shoulders,” Cass growled. “All of you. You’re supposed to be exhausted. Desperate. Not storming the fucking castle.”

The illusion was everything. The whole plan, their lives, depended on the disguise holding long enough to get through the gates.

Goose tried to soften his shoulders. Tried to look tired. Look small. Hard to do when you were clenched with terror and strapped to half a kilo of explosives.

They crested a small ridge and saw it—the bunker.

Concrete, sand-blasted, low to the earth like a buried beast. A wall of steel and reinforced mesh fencing surrounded it, studded with watchtowers. Floodlights were mounted, though they were still off in the half-darkness of early dawn. A massive gate yawned shut in the center, the sloping drive to it flanked by machine gun nests and, standing sentry in front of it, two men with rifles and dead eyes.

The group kept walking.

Goose could feel the tension radiating off every step. The women moved with the right kind of slow—dragging, heads bowed, bodies slumping under invisible burdens. All rehearsed. All deliberate. Every inch a performance. But now it was no longer just an act, it was a life preserver.

It’s not gonna work…its not gonna work…its not gonna work

Goose’s brain repeated the phrase over and over again.

The guards were watching them intently, not moving from their positions, but they straightened up. One of them pointed. The second raised a pair of binoculars. Goose dropped his head. Even at this distance he could hear the Radio crackle that followed.

Cass lifted her head and, with a practiced tremble in her voice, called out.

“Please!” she shouted. “Please, can you help us?”

Her voice cracked in just the right place.

“We need food… water… shelter.” She stumbled a little, clutching her stomach like she was about to faint. “We have nowhere else to go.”

Goose’s heart pounded so hard he thought it might shake the wig off his head. He didn’t dare look up, didn’t dare breathe too loudly. He thought at any moment he was going to hear the sound of the machine guns as they were mown down in a hail of bullets.   Then, to his utter shock—the gate began to swing open. The gates to the bunker lifted open with a hydraulic moan, its movement sluggish but undeniable, steel grinding on steel, as it rolled upwards, and that was when everything started to unravel faster than anyone expected.  Shapes moved in the darkness within. Lots of shapes. Not just one or two extra guards.

Dozens.

Men poured out of the bunker like ants from a freshly kicked nest. Some in uniforms, some not. Some of them were armed, but the majority were not, it was as if they had just got out of their bunks. And they all had that look. The hungry one. The look that said: fresh meat.

“Shit,” muttered Mudguts under his breath. “What the fuck do we do now?”

“Just go with it, man,” Bubba whispered. “It’s all we can do.”

Soldiers flooded out like hornets, their excitement palpable—crude laughter, leering stares, the thunder of countless boots pounding across concrete. One of the guards shouted, “Don’t let ‘em get away! Bring ’em in!” The crowd of men seemed ravenous, not for blood, but for what they thought had just wandered into their trap .The men swarmed toward them, fanning out like vultures circling a carcass. Some were hooting, calling out obscenities, waving water bottles as lures like fishermen with bait.

Cass caught Goose’s eye, and for a moment—just one—there was panic in her face. Not fear. But the desperate calculation of someone who knew the that their carefully choreographed plan had just buckled under their feet.

She gave the smallest shrug.   They would have to improvise

“Cover us,” Cass hissed, her voice sharp and low. She grabbed Goose’s arm. “You. You’re pregnant now. Shove this under your dress.”

“What—?”

“Now, Goose!”

With fumbling fingers, he took the lumpy, cloth-wrapped bundle she thrust at him. His hands trembled slightly as he stuffed the bundle up beneath the fabric of his makeshift dress, padding out his belly until he looked convincingly round. Cass looped her arm around him like she was helping a laboring friend to safety. Then she turned back to the soldiers with a tremble in her lip and a hitch in her step. She let herself sag forward, letting two of them grab her arms.

Goose clenched his fists beneath the folds of the dress and said nothing as rough hands touched his back, his backside, brushing too close. The men were heading them, all of them inside the bunker. Every nerve in his body screamed. But he kept walking, kept his head down and kept praying. Without a word being said the women formed a circle again—tightening, guiding, keeping the three men at their center. Whispered instructions still floated past Goose’s ears, breathless and urgent.

“Don’t flinch.”

“Stay low.”

“Smile if they touch you.”

“Don’t go for your gun, just wait.”

They were inside the kill zone now. They would have to blow the charges, but they were inside the bloody building…but if they didn’t….if they didn’t they would be discovered…they were already dead.

“Cover us,” Cass hissed, her voice sharp and low. She grabbed Goose’s arm. “You. You’re pregnant now. Shove this under your dress.”

“What—?”

“Now, Goose!”

With fumbling fingers, he took the lumpy, cloth-wrapped bundle she thrust at him. His hands trembled slightly as he stuffed the bundle up beneath the fabric of his makeshift dress, padding out his belly until he looked convincingly round. Cass looped her arm around him like she was helping a laboring friend to safety.

“When we get in there, when we are next to the gate controls, you are going into fucking labor..you hear me?”

Goose gave her a panicked look.

“Don’t worry about the details, just drop and start moaning, I’ll do the rest.” She hissed at him.

The soldiers had surrounded them, formed a soldier wall to prevent their leaving, pushing them slowly, but surely towards the entrance. They were losing their initial caution, hands were grabbing arms, sliding around waists, squeezing buttocks. A soldier came up to Goose, sliding an arm around his waist. Goose had to fight not to pull away, instead he bent over, bringing an arm up to protect his ‘bump’. Cass stepped in, sliding her arm around his waist, above the soldiers. “She’s so close, I don’t want to leave her. She could go in to labor at any moment.”

The comment had the desired effect. The soldier recoiled as if burnt. Heading over towards where Mudguts was bashfully trying to fend off at least two sets of eager hands.

If this carried on their were going to be made at any moment. One wrongly placed hand and it would all be over.

Goose caught his eye, flicking out the finger signals that meant be ready. He couldn’t see Bubba, he just hoped the big man had seen.

The group was being rapidly funneled forward now, soldiers eager to close the gates behind them, corral the ‘refugees’ and sort them at their leisure.

Cass leaned in toward Goose, whispering, “Ready?”

“No,” he muttered through gritted teeth. “But go.”

They reached the control post beside the gate—a steel panel inset into concrete, a perfect place to blow open or disable the mechanism. Cass leaned forward and, with a sudden burst of unapologetic violence, rammed her elbow directly into Goose’s groin.

He went down like a felled tree, eyes wide, mouth opening in a strangled moan. He curled around the pain, hands clamped between his legs.

“Ugh—?!”

“For authenticity,” Cass murmured, crouching down beside him. “Sorry.”

“You could’ve warned me,” he growled through clenched teeth, sweat rolling down his temples.

“I did. Sort of.”

Goose fumbled with the hidden bundle beneath his dress, teeth clenched harder now for reasons beyond pain. He unwrapped the layers, revealing the crude explosive inside. His fingers flew. Wire, fuse, matchstick timer, friction strip. Muscle memory took over where fear might have paralyzed him.

Meanwhile, Cass was fluttering and fawning like an anxious friend. “It’s just Braxton Hicks,” she told the nearest guards. “Practice contractions. She’ll be fine in a second. Just needs a moment.”

The guards chuckled, leering. “Looks like she’s havin’ it right there!”

All around them, the women were doing exactly as agreed. They drifted off in twos and threes with soldiers, coaxing them away from their posts, separating them with soft voices, flashing smiles, fingers trailing down sleeves. Weapons had been hidden under layers of skirts and scarves. Each woman had a plan, a target.

Goose lit the fuse, tucked the bundle on the ground next to the control panel, and rolled to his feet, scurrying away with Cass supporting him..

“Showtime,” he muttered to her.

The explosion ripped through the electronics with a deafening roar, sending dust, smoke, and screams into the air. Fire bloomed from the panel, sparks cascading like a meteor shower. Soldiers stumbled, shouting, weapons raised too late. From all directions, chaos unfolded. The women struck first—silent, deadly. Knives slipped between ribs, guns drawn from hems, hidden weapons used with brutal efficiency. Soldiers collapsed before they even knew they were under attack.

“Fucking hell!” one screamed, clutching his bleeding side.

Others turned, rifles raised, but hesitated—still seeing women in front of them, not enemies.

Too late.

Across the desert, the distant growl of engines rose to a thunderous chorus. The rest of the gang was coming, the roar of bikes a rolling wave of fury. Then the worst sound hit: the mechanical chatter of the machine gun nest opening up.

“We have to take them out!” Goose shouted over the din, dodging to avoid a spray of bullets that chewed through a nearby wall.

“Go!” he barked at Bubba. “Show them your baby!”

Bubba, his own bomb swaddled tightly against his chest, glanced at the gate’s gun turret. The nest was mounted just above the entrance, tucked behind armored slits.

“No guts, no glory,” he muttered.

He ran. Across the killing ground. Alone. Bullets stitched the air around him. He zigzagged, skirt flaring like fire behind him. Somehow, impossibly, he reached the nest, tossed the bundle upward with all his strength, and dove to the side. The explosion shook the wall, vaporizing the nest in a gout of flame and debris. Goose shielded his face as pieces rained down like metal hail. Behind him, a scream erupted from above.

A second gun nest, farther along the wall, had begun to rotate, barrels spinning up. Then Mudguts was there. Like a spider up a web, he scaled the rear wall, hands and boots finding impossible purchase. He moved fast, too fast, a dark blur half-seen through smoke and chaos. The soldier in the nest didn’t even see him coming—just turned at the last second, eyes wide— Mudguts dropped a pair of makeshift grenades into the nest.

“Catch.”

The detonation punched the side of the bunker, blowing the upper platform into shredded steel. The machine guns fell silent. The road lay open. With a roar like judgment day, the gang came thundering in—engines screaming, guns blazing, fire licking the dawn. Cass grabbed Goose’s hand as he stumbled to his feet. Her face was streaked with sweat and soot, but her grin was wide.

“You alright, Mother Goose?”

“Remind me to kill you later,” he gasped.

“Only if you survive,” she winked, then turned and charged forward into the fire and steel.

Behind them, the desert was no longer quiet. The bunker was theirs to storm. And Little Mouse was waiting.

Chapter Text

Little Mouse collapsed, gasping. Her limbs were shaking, her skin cold with shock as she stared at the man who had tried to rape her—now twitching, gurgling, dying. The rusted bed spring she’d driven into his neck jutted out grotesquely, blood pumping in thick pulses from the wound. He twitched once… twice… and then went still. A wet, final exhale hissed past his lips.

She didn’t feel sorry.
She didn’t feel relieved.
She didn’t feel anything at all.

Only numb.

She was still locked in a concrete cage, naked and bleeding. Still trapped in hell. She had stopped the man who’d come for her, but what would they do when they found his body? When they found her like this—defiant, blood-soaked, alive? If they had tied her down just for trying to run away, what would they do now?

They’d make sure she couldn’t fight back again.

Ever.

She curled up in the corner, hugging her knees to her chest, arms wrapped tightly around her trembling frame. The tiles were ice beneath her skin, and the cold leached into her bones. Her body rocked slightly, matching the rhythm of the pain that pulsed through her abdomen.Blood slicked the floor beneath her. Leaking out between her thighs. Somewhere deep inside, she already knew.

She had lost. Lost. more than just her freedom. 

And she was alone. So alone. 

Then the world cracked open.

The first explosion shook the walls like an angry god slamming his fist on the bunker’s roof. The lights above her flickered. Distant gunfire echoed—sharp, brutal, growing closer. Boots thundered past the cell door, soldiers shouting, running toward something she couldn’t see.

She blinked.

Another explosion.
Screams.
Gunshots.
And then—
Could it be?

It was faint, but she was sure. It was the unmistakable roar of motorcycles. Her mouth dropped open in disbelief a desperate cry caught in her throat. They were here.

Goose.
Toecutter.

They had come. They had found her and they had brought hell with them.

The bunker was in chaos. The gang hit it like a tidal wave of fury and steel, tearing through the compound with bullets, blades, and blood-stained vengeance. The soldiers, eager to see, touch, capture the woman had come running straight from their beds. They died with sleep still in their eyes as blade slide across startled throats or slammed into unprepared chests. Now motorcycle engines howled and echoed in the narrow halls as the men and women revealed the truth—disguised or not—they shed the last of their deception and revealed the monsters they had always been.

Toecutter and Goose led the charge—violence incarnate.

Goose had ripped off the remains of his disguise. No more skirts, no more wigs. Just rage, raw and focused, with the black rifle gripped tight in his hands. He moved with ruthless efficiency, like death made flesh, each shot a precise, surgical executions. No wasted movement. No missed kill.

Toecutter was pure chaos.

A grinning beast with a sawed-off shotgun, he tore through the bunker like it had personally offended him. Blood sprayed the walls in thick arcs as he fired, point-blank, laughing as men dropped around him like flies. His eyes blazed with something wild and old, the kind of madness that made devils flinch.

They fought as one.
A war god and his executioner.

A soldier came screaming out of a side hall, rifle raised—Toecutter fired first. The man dropped, howling. Goose stepped in and finished him, plunging a blade into his throat with unflinching precision. Another lunged from the shadows—combat knife flashing. Toecutter met him, knocking the blade aside. He shoved the man straight into Goose’s waiting hands. One brutal twist. A wet snap and another useless body dropped to the floor.

They kept moving. Keep pressing deeper and deeper into the facility. 

Another soldier managed to get off a shot— The bullet skimmed Toecutter’s arm, slicing through the leather. He didn’t flinch. He just grinned.

"You little fucker," he growled, charging forward like a freight train.

He slammed the man into the wall, pressing the shotgun under his chin.

Boom.

The blast painted the wall red. Goose spun as another soldier emerged behind them. Without hesitation, he raised his rifle and blew the bastard’s head clean off. Toecutter wiped gore from his face and barked a laugh.

"Still think I should’ve killed him, Bubba?!" he shouted into the chaos. "Looks like I got myself a useful cop after all!"

But Goose didn’t answer.

He was already moving on. Only one thing on his mind. That somewhere deep in the bunker, she was there. Little Mouse. And he wasn’t stopping until she was in his arms. Until every man who had hurt her was nothing more than ash.

They reached the command center—the skeleton staff meant that it was virtually undefended. It fell, walls scorched, lights flickering, as the bunker groaned under the weight of its own collapse. And there, amidst the ruin, stood the General. Ramrod straight. Arms clasped behind his back. Face carved from ice.

He wasn’t armed.
Didn’t need to be.

He wore authority like armor, the insignia on his chest shining dull in the emergency lights. A remnant of a moribund regime. He stood calm, composed, unmoved as chaos exploded all around him.

Toecutter and Goose stared him down, weapons lowered but not forgotten.

"So," the General said, voice smooth. "You’re the ones who burned my house down."

They said nothing.

"You understand what you’ve destroyed?" he asked. "We had order here. Structure. A future. And you threw it all away because of a woman."

Toecutter’s grin was a blade.

"Not just any woman," he said. "Ours."

The General’s eyes flicked to Goose.

"She was a necessity. A resource. You, of all people, should understand that, Officer."

It was the wrong thing to say. Goose lunged. The knife in his hand flashed as he brought it the steel round to slice art the general but the man moved faster, far faster, than he should have. He caught Goose’s wrist, twisting. Hard, violent. Goose hissed but didn’t falter—he used his momentum to the swing himself round to knee the General hard in the ribs. He felt some of them give, felt them crack under the blow. 

Toecutter swung the shotgun and the mans head. But the general ducked and the weapon clattered into the wall above him, as he launched himself at the gang leader. He tried to slide a knife between the big mans ribs but Toecutter only laughed, grabbing the man’s arm and twisting until something popped.

Still, the General fought. sending a stinging blow cracking across Toecutter’s jaw.

Then Goose was back. He slammed his forehead into the General’s face. Smashing cartilage and sending blood bursting from the military man’s nose.

Toecutter took over. He lifted the bastard off the ground with one hand wrapped around his neck, slamming him into the wall. Pressing the barrel of his shotgun to the mans kneecap. 

"You’re gonna tell us where she is," he growled.

The General coughed, smiling through blood.

"And if I don’t?"

Goose stepped forward. Knife in hand. Cold as death.

"You really wanna find out?"

The General’s smile cracked. "She’s already broken," he rasped. "You’re too late."

Boom.

Toecutter blew out the man’s knee. Screams echoed off the steel walls.

"Where. Is. She?"

The General gasped, choking on his own blood.

Goose grabbed him by the hair, yanking his head back.

"Talk. Or the next shot takes your balls."

"East wing… medical… last room…" he coughed.

Goose was gone before the sentence finished.

He didn’t see Toecutter fire the final shell. But he heard it echo through the corridors before he began to run.

The corridor blurred. His lungs burned. The walls felt too narrow, too long. But there it was. The door.

He slammed his shoulder into the door. It cracking the lock open, swinging wide on broken hinges—

And stopped. The first thing he saw was the dead soldier, his trousers loose, his shriveled genitals on display. Saw the lake of blood that had spilled out of him. 

And curled in the corner of the cell. Naked. Bleeding. Shaking. Little Mouse. Her eyes were open but empty, fixed on nothing, tears streaming down her face. She didn’t move. Didn’t even look at him.

Blood smeared the tile beneath her in wide, wet arcs. Not from a wound that he could see.

No.

Goose’s stomach dropped. Toecutter boots thudded to a stop behind him. 

"No…" he heard the man cry out as he saw her.

When she heard him, it seemed to break the spell, and she let out a sound. A strangled, animal howl—of grief and fear and agony all in one piercing wail. Goose dropped to his knees, crawling toward her. His hands hovered uselessly. She twisted away from him, her back hitting the wall. Her hands clutched her belly. Like she could still hold something in. Like she could still stop it from leaving.

Toecutter knelt too, face like granite, jaw tight with fury and something darker. She sobbed, wracked with pain, her whole body buckling. Then, suddenly—she arched forward, a fresh scream ripping out of her chest. Goose caught her, pulling her against him. She clawed at him, fists knotted in his shirt.

"It hurts," she gasped. "It hurts so bad—"

Goose pressed his forehead to hers, rocking her gently, his voice breaking.

"Stay with me. Stay with me."

Toecutter stood. He turned toward the soldier’s body—still slumped, the rusted spring still lodged in his neck. He stared. Long and hard. It was as if he wanted to will the life back into the mad so that he could hurt him, make him suffer, kill him himself. Make him pay for what he had done to the woman he loved.  Then turned back, crouching again, resting his hand over Goose’s.

His voice was steel and fire.

"We’ll fix this."

Goose nodded, silent, face buried in her hair.

They were not losing her. Not here. Not Now. They were going to save her. Save the life inside of her and God help anyone who tried to stop them

Chapter Text

Sporadic gunfire still barked here and there within the bunker but they were just isolated bursts—no longer the sharp, ordered rhythm of a disciplined unit. It was frantic, scattered, the desperate flailing of men who knew the fight was already lost. The soldiers’ cohesion had shattered. The chain of command, so ironclad only an hour ago, was gone, replaced by raw survival instinct. The once-orderly bunker had become a warren of panic, the stench of fear as sharp as the stink of gun smoke. In their panic the soldiers turned on one another. They shot their own kind to cover their desperate escape; or in an effort to escape suicidal orders. Others simply hurled down their rifles in surrender or bolted from the bunker like rats abandoning a sinking ship.

But none of that mattered to Toecutter and Goose. The surrender, the chaos, the soldiers bleeding out in corners—they barely even saw it. There was only one thing in the world that existed for them now.

Little Mouse.          

They had found her in the East Wing, the last cell at the end of a sterile, corridor.

The stink of blood hitting them first—sharp, metallic, cloying. The room had a bed, fitted with restraints, and a dead  soldier laying on the floor beside it, his throat blown open in a mess of black-red gore. The broken spring from the mattress jutted out like a grisly trophy. Little Mouse was huddled in a corner, her arms wrapped tight around her knees. 

Toecutter approached her slowly. As if he were approaching a frightened animal. And huddled there, bloody and shaking, that was what she reminded him of. 

“Mouse…” His voice was hoarse, stripped of its usual rough edge, “What did they do to you?” 

She didn’t answer him. Didn’t even acknowledge his presence. Just kept gazing out with a seemingly endless stare. A glassy blankness in her eyes that spoke of enduring more than just terror.

Goose dropped to his knees beside her.

“Hey. Hey, it’s us. You’re safe now.” he told her, keeping his voice low and steady.

Desperate to touch her, to reassure her, he used his hand to brush the matted hair from her face. She flinched like the touch burned, her whole body trembling so hard it made her spasm.

“Jesus Christ…” Toecutter breathed out the words as he crouched down on her other side, his big hands hovering in the air like he wanted to scoop her up but was afraid to break her. 

“Mouse, look at me.” He kept his voice level but added weight to it. He had given a command. Mouse shivered violently, curling tighter in on herself, her breath coming in short, shallow gasps. But her eyes shifted toward him—barely—but they still didn’t focus. The glassy sheen over them was wrong. The look too far away. Too gone. Her lips parted slightly, but no sound came. Not even a whisper. Her throat worked like she was trying to speak, trying to answer him, but nothing made it out.

Goose’s stomach sank. He’d seen that kind of shutdown before. Seen the kind of vile abuse that caused it. It didn’t take much imagination for him to piece together what had happened in the godforsaken room.

The lock on the door. The restraints on the bed. The body of the soldier, his trousers still loose around his thighs.

“We need to see where she’s hurt,”  Toecutter was saying as he began trying to pry her arms away from her chest. When he grasped her wrists she bucked wildly away from him, her heels kicking against the slippery tiles as she desperately tried to get away from whatever horror she imagined. Toecutter tried to steady her. Tried to calm her until he saw the trail of blood her movement left behind.

“Toe…” Goose’s voice was tight, almost strangled, he already understood the truth of it. “It’s coming from—Fuck! Fuck! She needs a doc. Right now! Where the fuck is Cundalini?” Goose snarled, his voice tight with urgency, every word spat out like it was having to be torn out of him.

Toecutter’s head snapped up, his gaze fixed toward the east corridor.

“The infirmary,” he barked, voice cutting through the air like a whipcrack. “If he’s still breathing, he’ll be there.”

Without another word, Toecutter, teeth clenched so hard his jaw ached, slid his arms under Mouse scooping her up. Her body was limp, her body slack as if her bones had been stolen from her. Her skin was cool, almost clammy against his forearm. He could feel the faint flutter of her breaths against his neck, shallow and fragile, each one too far apart. It wasn’t enough. It wasn’t nearly enough. She felt far too light for a grown woman—even with the deadweight of near unconsciousness—and the wrongness of it all burned in his chest.

“Hold on, Mouse,” he muttered under his breath, so low only she could possibly hear.

Goose was moving ahead, out in front his gun tight in his grip, his whole body taut, wound like a spring ready to snap. His jaw was locked, his eyes hard, scanning for threats. Every motion was sharp, stripped of anything unnecessary. He didn’t shout, didn’t hesitate—just cut down anyone foolish enough to still be fighting, or even to just be in the wrong place at the wrong time. A soldier stepped into the hallway and made the mistake of pointing his weapon at them—three shots cracked, and he was dead before his body hit the floor.They moved through the bunker like that—Goose the blade clearing the path, Toecutter the shield carrying their broken cargo. The maze-like corridors closed around them, walls sweating with condensation, as the air conditioning tried to overcome the heat of the battle.  The sharp tang of cordite stung the back of Toecutter’s throat, but it couldn’t drown out the heavier, more personal scent of the blood that was soaking into his shirt. It was hot, wet, and slick against his forearms, sliding over his skin as he adjusted his grip. It clung to him, sticky where it began to cool, and the smell of it filled his nostrils. His heartbeat roared in his ears, nausea making his stomach roll. But there was only one thought in his head—for Gods sake get her there in time.

Cundalini was there, hunched over the counter in the infirmary, stuffing bandages, vials, and surgical tools into a stolen medic’s bag. The harsh fluorescent lights buzzed overhead, flickering in the haze of smoke that had begun to seep into the room from somewhere deeper in the bunker. He moved with the quick, greedy precision of someone looting in the middle of a warzone. The door banged open so hard it rattled against the wall. He spun around at the sudden intrusion, his hand flying instinctively toward the pistol at his hip—Then he saw her. His face drained of color in an instant, the cocky set of his jaw collapsing into something stricken.

“Jesus…” His voice was a hushed exhale, “Get her on the table. Now.”

Toecutter didn’t need to be told twice. He strode forward, his boots thudding against the linoleum, and laid her down with a gentleness completely at odds with the violence he was so rightly known for. Her limp form sank into the cold, stainless-steel surface, her head lolling to one side. She whimpered—a thin, broken sound, as fragile as burnt paper—and the noise punched through Toecutter like a blade.

“She’s hemorrhaging,” Cundalini said grimly, already moving, his voice clipped with the kind of focus that left no room for anything else. In two swift motions he had her legs in the gynaecology stirrups, the squeak of the hinges sharp in the heavy air. His hands were already moving between them, professional, quick, entirely unbothered by Toecutter's legendary jealousy. He had no fear of it. Not here. Not now. Not when every second mattered.

Toecutter stood watching over them like a shadow, his fists clenched at his sides, jaw twitching. Goose hovered at her head, brushing damp hair from her face with a hand that trembled more than he’d like to admit.

Cundalini looked up, eyes hard. “Boss, if I don’t stop this bleeding, she’s gonna lose it.”

For half a heartbeat Toecutter’s face was a mask—flat, unreadable. Then his teeth bared, voice coming out sharp enough to cut steel.

“Then do something.”

The medic didn’t rise to the barked command, didn’t even look at Toecutter again. His focus was already on the tray beside him, gloved hands snatching up forceps, scissors, cauterising iron and a coiled length of surgical thread. The air was thick with the copper tang of blood now, heavier with every passing second.

Cundalini’s muttered curses were the only sounds, as he worked. Every movement was fast but careful, the kind of speed born from years of knowing that to move too slow meant certain death.

“There’s no time to sedate her,” Cundalini said, his voice steady but edged with urgency. He didn’t even glance at the two men hovering over her, his eyes locked on the mess of torn flesh and pooling blood between the cold stirrups. His gloved hands moved in a blur—clamps clicking shut, gauze pressing deep, the sharp metallic scent of the instruments mixing with the hot, copper tang of her blood. “And I don’t think she’d tolerate it either. She’s too weak already.”

The words hit Goose’s like a fist. His stomach churned violently, a sour heat crawling up the back of his throat. She was too weak. They were too late. The thought hit like shrapnel, cutting him deep. Had they been too slow? Had they wasted seconds in the fight, seconds that could have been hers? Storming the bunker, tearing through those soldiers—it hadn’t felt fast enough then, and now it felt like a death sentence. His spiral was broken by Cundalini’s voice, sharp, urgent. 

“And I’m gonna need blood.” The medic’s eyes cut to Goose, hard and unflinching. “She’s lost too much already—we need another transfusion. D’ya think you’re—”

Goose didn’t even let him finish. His hands were already yanking at his sleeve, shoving the fabric up past his elbow with rough, frantic movements.

“Take it.” His voice was a low, fierce growl, thick with something that hurt to speak. He thrust his arm toward the biker medic like it was a weapon he was shoving into his grip. Maybe it was. A weapon they could use to fight death himself. 

Cundalini didn’t waste a second. The sting of antiseptic, the bite of the needle—Goose barely felt any of it. Clear tubing uncoiled between them, snaking from his arm to hers, and the sight of his own blood trickling toward her felt like the only thing keeping him from cracking. Their blood mixed again, flowing through sterile plastic instead of filthy backroom improvisation. For once, Cundalini had the luxury of proper equipment, and when the red line began to push into her veins, he let out a sharp, controlled exhale—part relief, part determination. At least she wasn’t going to bleed out on the table before he could stop the hemorrhage.

Toecutter stood on the other side of the table like a statue carved from fury. His hand clamped so hard around the edge of the steel slab that his knuckles were bone-white, the tendons standing out like wires under his skin. Goose had seen that look before—it was the kind of rage that could hollow out a man if he didn’t direct it somewhere or at someone—but Goose knew it wasn’t aimed at him. it wasn't jealousy that their blood was mixing once again. This was a different beast entirely. This was the agony of being forced to stand by helplessly while someone you’d kill the world for slipped through your fingers. If sheer force of will could keep her alive, Toecutter was pouring every drop of his into her.

They both watched her face like it was the only thing in the room. Her lips parted in shallow, uneven gasps, breath whispering out of her like she was too tired to even hold onto it. Her eyelids fluttered weakly, lashes damp with tears that had dried halfway down her temples.

Goose barely noticed when the dizziness started to pull at him—the creeping fog of giving too much, too fast. The metallic tang at the back of his tongue, the hollow ache behind his eyes—it all blurred into the background. His focus stayed on her. On the fragile lift and fall of her chest. On the small, involuntary twitch of her fingers, curling as if they were reaching for something—or someone—just out of reach.

“Come on, stay with us,” he murmured, leaning in slightly, the words barely more than breath. They were meant for her alone, a private plea wrapped in desperation and fear. But the truth gnawed at him. The damage had been done long before they burst into this room. He could see it in the way her body fought, straining to keep up, and in the way the life in her seemed to ebb and flow, as though something was already trying to pull her away from them. Goose knew—if she slipped now, no amount of blood would bring her back.

Cundalini saw it before either Goose or Toecutter did—the subtle shift, the almost imperceptible slackening of her muscles beneath his hands, the change in the rhythm of her shallow breaths. Years of patching up the broken and the bleeding told him exactly what was happening. Her blood pressure was crashing, sliding fast toward the point of no return.

“Shit,” he hissed under his breath, his gloved fingers moving faster, forcing clamps into place, packing gauze so deep it turned crimson the moment it touched her. The heat of her blood was everywhere—on his hands, soaking through the thin latex, pooling on the steel beneath her. The cautery pen hissed and spat, releasing the acrid scent of burning flesh as he seared the ruptured vessels closed, trying to hold her together. Trying to outrun death himself. 

He looked up briefly—just long enough to see her eyelids flutter once, twice… and then still.

“No, no, no—don’t you let go, woman. You hear me? Don’t you fucking dare!” His voice was a rough, urgent bark, tearing through the thick air of the infirmary. It wasn’t the measured tone of a medic now—it was the desperate command of a man refusing to lose someone under his hands. But her body was already betraying him. Her skin, damp with sweat, was cooling beneath his touch. Her breaths—ragged, shallow—stuttered, then evened out into something too slow, too fragile.

“Come on, come on—stay with me!” He pressed down harder, his movements bordering on brutal now, fighting for her with every ounce of skill and stubbornness he had left. But the signs were all there. She was too drained, too broken, too fragile from what had been done to her. And then, in one silent, unbearable moment—she was gone. Her body sagged in the stirrups, her head lolling slightly to one side. Goose swore sharply, his voice cracking, his hand tightening over hers as if he could anchor her back by touch alone. Toecutter’s teeth bared in an agonzed snarl.

But she didn’t hear them anymore. She had fallen—into the depths of unconsciousness, into the darkness that had been pulling at her all along. Into the place where the visions waited.

She was floating.

Drifting.

Weightless.

Her body untethered from the pain, from the gnawing ache in her belly, from the sticky warmth of blood, from the cruel hands and hungering eyes of the men who had tried to break her. The agony was gone, the fear muted to a faint echo. The air—if it could even be called that—was warm and thick around her, wrapping her like a blanket. The light was soft, golden, glowing like the sun just before it sank beneath the horizon on an early summer evening, when the day still clung to the world and everything felt briefly, impossibly safe.

She felt light. Unburdened. Free.

For the first time in what felt like forever, her chest wasn’t tight. There was no pounding in her head, no steel taste of terror on her tongue. She could breathe without wincing. She could exist without hurting. But beneath her… the world was dying.

She hovered high above it, untouchable, her body like smoke in the breeze. She watched with a strange detachment, as though she were nothing more than a shadow on the clouds. Missiles streaked through the blackened sky like vengeful comets, their contrails slashing across the horizon in arcs of damnation. They moved with terrible precision, each one seeking a place that held life, laughter, and dreams. When they struck, the earth bloomed in monstrous white-hot light, swallowing cities whole—swallowing histories, names, and faces into a molten nothingness. One after another, the detonations came, their brilliance flashing across her vision like the birthing of the sun, exploding over and over. The ground split apart, jagged wounds tearing across continents. The oceans boiled, great churning cauldrons of black steam and fire. The sky burned until it was no sky at all, only a vast, writhing inferno. The last screams of mankind rose like a chorus—raw, panicked, desperate—only to be devoured by the thunder of the inferno.

There was no escape.

No mercy.

No salvation.

This was the last throw of the dice, and the arrogant few who had once believed they were in control had crafted their own annihilation. Somewhere deep inside, she knew she should have felt something—terror, grief, outrage—but here, in this weightless warmth, it was impossible to care.

“Sad, isn’t it?”

The voice cut through the chaos below, deep and rough, wrapped in something wry and knowing, yet carrying the heavy drag of sorrow. A strong arm curled around her shoulders, warm and solid, pulling her in against a broad chest. The scent hit her immediately—leather, sweat, and the faint earthy tang of cigar smoke.

Fifi.

She turned, and there he was.

Whole. Alive.

The man who had been her mentor, her friend, her protector—the man who had once stood between her and the ugliness of the world with nothing more than his belief and that sharp, assessing stare. His face was lined, carved by age and worry, but those eyes—those knowing eyes—still held nothing but love and a kind of steady, unshakable faith in her. His grip tightened around her shoulders, anchoring her to him, promising safety without words.

“I know,” he murmured, his voice gentler now, rough edges worn down by affection. “I know you don’t want to go back. I know it’s easier here.”

Her throat closed. She swallowed hard, but the words stayed trapped behind her teeth. He eased back just enough to cradle her face in his rough, work-worn hands. The touch was warm, grounding.

“But you have to wake up, kid,” he said, his tone shifting—soft but unyielding. “Your people, they need you. Your damn sprog needs you.”

Her breath caught. Tears blurred the golden light around him.

“Fifi—”

“You have to be a mother now,” he interrupted, pressing his lips to her forehead with a lingering tenderness that cracked something open inside her.

“You have to protect your tribe.”

She shook her head, her voice breaking, but before she could plead, before she could reach for him again, he was already pushing her away. The golden warmth ripped from her like flesh being torn from a bone. She fell, the light vanishing above her, replaced by the raging red glare of the broken world rushing up to meet her.

She screamed.

Somewhere above, as she tumbled, she saw him—silhouetted in the fading gold, grinning that lopsided grin she knew so well.

“Tell Goose,” he called, voice booming with laughter, “I know what he did to my damn peace lily!”

And then he was gone and the broken world was hurtling toward her, roaring and burning.

She came back with violence.

A gasp tore from her throat, jagged and raw, as her lungs dragged in air that felt like fire. She coughed hard, choking, her whole body shuddering with the shock of being dragged from wherever she’d been. Hands were on her chest—broad, calloused, still now, but slick with sweat, trembling faintly. They had been pressing down just moments ago, pounding rhythm into her silent body. Toecutter loomed over her, his pale hair plastered to his forehead with sweat, his eyes wide with a kind of wild fear she’d never seen on him before. Beside him, Cundalini’s face was drawn tight, breath ragged, his moustache damp with the sheen of panic.

They had been resuscitating her.

She wasn’t dead. Not yet. But her mind told her if she didn’t act now, they all would be. With a burst of strength she didn’t know was still inside her, she shot a hand up. Her fingers tangled in Toecutter’s hair, yanking him down until his face was inches from hers. Her breath came in ragged bursts, her voice barely more than a rasp.

“Get everyone inside,” she gasped. “Seal the bunker. Drag in anyone still out there—even the fucking soldiers. Do it. Do it now!”

Toecutter’s eyes narrowed at the urgency in her voice. But he didn’t argue, didn’t demand explanations. He bent and kissed her—hard, fierce, a press of heat and defiance and something unspoken. His forehead came to rest against hers for the briefest second, the heat of him grounding her, then he was gone in a blur off speed, sprinting out, barking orders that cut through the chaos like a whip crack.

She turned her head.

Goose was there.

He hadn’t moved during any of it, he had just stood watching. His vivid blue eyes were fixed on her, unreadable except for the sadness pooled deep inside them. He had seen that kiss. Seen the fire, the passion, the choice. And in that moment she knew what he was thinking—that he’d lost her, that he’d been replaced.The thought put a twisting ache in her chest. She lifted a shaking hand toward him, beckoning. For a heartbeat, he hesitated, torn between pride and the pull she still had on him. Then at last he moved to her.  Her fingers brushed his face, cupping his cheek, the rasp of his stubble under her thumb grounding her in a way nothing else could.

“I love you,” she whispered. “I love you both.”

Goose closed his eyes, exhaling slow, like the words physically hurt him. She tightened her grip, forcing his gaze back to hers.

“The world we knew is gone,” she murmured. “We are the new tribe now. We will inherit this world. We will rebuild it. And we will rule it together. All three of us. A queen with two kings.”

His lips parted slightly as his breath hitched in his throat. And she saw it—he was going to say no. He was going to cling to the old rules, the old ways, even now. She didn’t give him the chance. With sudden, fierce urgency, she surged forward, kissing him—just as hard, just as deep, just as desperate as she had kissed Toecutter. Goose’s hands closed around her instantly, strong and unyielding, pulling her against him like he was afraid she might vanish if he let go. He kissed her back with a hunger that tasted of fear and need, like a drowning man who had just tasted air. When they finally broke apart, her breath came fast and shallow, but there was a steadiness in her chest now. Her palm drifted down to her belly, feeling the faint, stubborn pulse of life that was still there. They would live. They all would. But only if the bunker was sealed.

And then—like lightning—an image slammed into her mind.

The huge metal blast door, half open, torn free from its tracks. Toecutter, Diabando, and Clunk straining, sweat pouring, trying to force it closed as, in the distance, the flares of the first airbursts blooming in the sky.

It was too late.

The words rose in her throat before she could even think. They didn’t make sense, but the urgency in them felt like a blade pressing to her spine.

“The baby. Goose. It’s time for the baby.”

He frowned, shaking his head. “It’s okay. It’s safe. You’re not losing it, it’s not coming.” His hand smoothed over her hair, his voice low, almost coaxing.

“NO!

The word cracked from her so sharply he actually flinched, stepping back. But she caught him, her fingers curling in his sleeve, holding him there.

“Starbuck’s baby,” she insisted, her voice breaking into a fevered rush. “It’s time for Starbuck’s baby… the gate… it’s a blast door… it’s coming, Goose… the end… it’s coming. If we don’t close the door—”

She didn’t have to finish. Something in her voice—raw, unshakable—stripped away any hesitation in him. He bolted for the corridor, boots hammering against the metal floor, the sound echoing off the bunker walls. Pain flared in every step—his broken leg sending shocks of white-hot agony up his spine—but he didn’t slow. He had to get there. He had to deliver the warning.

And he prayed—harder than he had in years—that Starbuck and the baby would be there waiting for him.

Chapter Text

Goose ran like his life depended on it…and if Mouse was right, it did. His life, her life, the lives of everybody inside the bunker. They were all depending on him getting to the gate in time and finding that goddamn baby doll.  His lungs were on fire and every step sent a burning jolt of agony through his bad leg, but he didn’t stop. He couldn’t. Little Mouse’s voice was ringing in his ears, frantic and broken: “Starbuck’s baby. It’s time for Starbuck’s baby…” He didn’t understand how she knew. That was something strange and otherworldly that he didn’t even want to think about—but deep down he believed her. He knew what she said was true.

Around him the corridors were filled with chaos. Toecutter had clearly done exactly as Mouse had asked—and herded anyone left alive inside the bunker, soldiers and gang members alike. The narrow corridors of the bunker were now jammed with a crush of confused, panicked bodies. Terrified and bewildered soldiers who’d dropping their rifles and surrendered now mixed with the women they had intended to capture, while Bubba and Mudguts barked orders, dragging everyone deeper underground.

The press of flesh and the roar of voices smothered him. It was like a human tide trying to drag him the other way. Goose shoved through them like a drowning man desperately swimming for the shore. Shoulders slammed into him, hands grabbed at him and desperate faces turned toward him, but he didn’t stop.

“Move!” he snarled, shoving a soldier aside. His boot slipped in blood but he caught himself before he went down, driving himself forward even harder than before. His heart was hammering like a drum, his throat felt raw and his vision had begun swimming. But with every foot he gained he couldn’t help thinking—I’m Too slow. I’m too fucking slow. 

Finally, he burst free of the crowd—And saw the door.

The bunker’s outer blast door loomed above him, a slab of steel thicker than a tank’s hull. It should have been sliding shut on hydraulic rails, sealing them off from the world above. Instead, it hung crooked, jammed halfway down, sparks spitting from the broken track. Clunk, Diabando, Toecutter and a couple of soldiers were straining against the mechanism, hands on makeshift levers, shoulders braced against the steel, teeth gritted with effort. But the door didn’t budge.

Goose spun in place, frantic, eyes scanning every corner, every shadow. The baby… where was the fucking baby? It was all he could think about. The damn doll. It had gotten lost when the plan went south, now he was turning in circles like a madman, breathing coming in ragged gasps, his chest about to burst, desperate to find the damn thing.

A hand strong clamped down on his shoulder.

Toecutter.

The gang leader spun him around, his eyes burning, his face streaked with soot and sweat. “What’s wrong with you, Copper?!” he barked, shaking him once. “Talk!”

Goose tried—but in his breathless panic his words came out broken, half choked. “Running outta time—The baby—Starbuck’s baby—she told me—we need it—we need it to close the door—”

Toecutter’s eyes narrowed. He looked at Goose like he’d lost his mind, then he froze. Slowly, his expression shifted—calculation sparking behind the confusion. “Fuck me,” he breathed. “That might just work.”

He didn’t waste another second. He whirled on the gang, voice booming. “Get everyone inside! Deeper—now! Move your sorry arses!” His lieutenants leapt to obey, dragging the last stragglers down into the belly of the bunker, the crowd finally thinning.

Goose and Toecutter tore through the entrance chamber, searching desperately. The steel door continued to groan and shudder but stubbornly refused to close. Goose’s chest was so tight it hurt. His ears rang with the memory of Mouse’s desperate plea.

Then—

“Oi.”

In unison they spun toward the gate. Starbuck was standing in the opening, silhouetted against the bruised horizon. His hair was wild, his face blackened with soot, but he was grinning. In his hands, he cradled the battered plastic doll. Its cracked skull like face gleamed faintly in the light.

“I told you we’d need it,” he said.

Goose nearly collapsed with relief.

With minutes—maybe seconds—to spare, they worked. Starbuck shoved the doll into Goose’s hands, and Goose jammed the bundle into the broken hydraulics of the blast door. His fingers flew, splicing wires, setting the crude switch. His heart pounded so hard he barely heard the others yelling, barely saw the flares of blinding light on the horizon—the first beginnings of the end of the old ways.

But he heard the doll.

Heard its voice box crackle into life, tinny and broken.

“Mama…”

Goose bolted, barreling down the corridor reaching Toecutter who dragged him even further in before both men went diving for cover.

The explosion hit like an ungodly hammer. The baby’s voice cut off in a scream of shattering plastic as the charge went off. Fire and smoke blasted outward, rattling the walls. The great slab of steel groaned, shrieked—then with a scream of tortured metal, it slammed down into place. The bunker shook. There was a brief moment of peace and then the world above them ended.

The bombs fell.

They didn’t see them, but they felt them—the deadly vibrations rose up through the concrete, through their bones, through the very marrow of the earth. Dozens, maybe hundreds of warheads splitting open the sky, their explosions burning brighter than suns as they fell on cities that were already crumbling, on civilizations that were already dead. It was spite given form. The last vile, poisonous breath of nations ensuring that their supposed enemies burned with them.

The bunker convulsed with every strike. Walls bucked and groaned, dust poured from the ceilings. Lights flickered, faded then blazed back. The sound was indescribable—a rolling thunder that never ended. It was the roar of the world itself tearing apart.

Some of those now buried in the bunker screamed. Some prayed. Others simply collapsed, hands over their ears, eyes shut, waiting for the end. But Goose and Toecutter were not content to cower. They staggered back to their feet, clutching at each other for balance, their eyes wild. Their thoughts weren’t on the bombs. They weren’t on the burning cities or the dying world collapsing above their heads. They had only one thought.

Mouse.

If this was the end, they weren’t going to face it out here in the corridors. They were going to be with her.

Without a word, they ran. Boots hammering on the bucking steel deck, lungs burning, dodging the panicked stragglers as they forced their way deeper underground. Desperate to reach the infirmary. Because if the world was ending, they’d be damned if she was going to face it without them.

The corridors heaved around them as the bombs fell. The concrete quaked with every detonation above, dust sifting down in choking clouds. Red emergency lights flickered on, painting the walls in blood like huésped. They heard a woman’s voice scream in terror while somewhere else a man sobbed. The bunker was supposed to protect them, but it felt like they were in a coffin slowly being buried alive.

But no matter what they saw, what they heard, Goose and Toecutter didn’t slow. They shoved through the chaos, shoulders slamming into dazed survivors, barking curses, forcing their way forward.

The closer they came, the more Goose’s chest burned—not just from running, not just from the weight of the exhaustion his body carried, but from the thought that it might already have been too little, too late. He couldn’t let himself believe it. Not yet. Not when she’d told him what to do. Not when she’d said she could save them  all.

The infirmary doors came into view and Goose didn’t even slow, just kicked one open and barrelled through it pulling Toecutter in his wake. Inside, the air stank of blood and antiseptic, the metallic tang of it so heavy it made his teeth ache. The overhead lights flickered and buzzed like dying insects. On the table, Little Mouse lay pale as marble, her body limp beneath blood-soaked sheets. Tubes ran from her arms, from hastily rigged equipment, the line from Goose’s own arm to hers folded shut buy still taped in place. Cundalini hovered over her moving like a man possessed, his hands slick with blood as he worked to pack gauze, cauterise ruptured vessels, clamp what he could. Sweat poured off him, streaking through the dust on his face.

He looked up as they stormed in, his mustache dark with sweat, eyes wild. “She flatlined twice. Fucking TWICE. I got her back, but—” His voice cracked. “She’s slipping again.”

Goose stumbled closer, his breath ragged. The sight of her tore something inside of him. Her lips were cracked, her skin too pale, too clammy. He wanted to grab her hand, to scream her name, but his throat closed tight.

Toecutter didn’t hesitate. He was at her side in an instant, his big hands trembling as they hovered above her like he was afraid to touch. “Mouse… please…” His voice broke, stripped of all his usual command, all his swagger. Just raw, pleading desperation.

Her chest rose shallowly, then stilled for a terrible second.

“No,” Goose hissed, shaking his head as he finally seized her hand in his, clutching it so hard his knuckles whitened. “You don’t get to go. Not now. Not after everything.”

The bunker rocked with another impact, the sound of annihilation pressing down from above. Dust rained from the ceiling. A cabinet of instruments toppled, scattering scalpels and clamps across the floor. None of them flinched. Their focus was entirely on her.

“Come back, Mouse,” Toecutter whispered fiercely, lowering his forehead to hers, his voice a growl of command and prayer in one. “You hear me? Come back. You don’t leave us. You don’t leave me.”

Cundalini cursed under his breath as he fought the tide of blood loss. “She’s fighting, but it’s not enough—I can’t stop it alone—”

“You fucking will,” Goose snapped, his voice breaking. He squeezed Mouse’s hand, his thumb stroking her palm like it could tether her back. “She’s not done. Not her. Not here. Not now!”

Yet another blast wave shook the bunker. Lights went out, plunging them into darkness for a breathless moment, before they blamed once. The earth beneath them groaned as if the bones of the world were breaking apart. People screamed outside in the corridors. But inside the infirmary, the only sounds that mattered was only the rasp of Mouse’s swallow breaths and the wet sound of Cundalini’s hands working. Goose bent low, his lips brushing her ear. His voice cracked with everything he couldn’t bear to lose.

“Mouse… please. It’s me. It’s us. You come back now… you come back or I’ll drag you back myself.”

He kissed her temple, desperate, broken.

Her eyelids flickered.

Once. Twice.

Then her body shuddered—an awful, rattling gasp, her chest rising again, air tearing into her lungs like she was drowning and breaking the surface.

Toecutter let out a strangled roar, half laughter, half sob, his hand cupping her face. “That’s it! That’s my girl!”

Cundalini exhaled like he’d been holding his breath for hours, his hands still working frantically. “She’s not out of the woods—but she’s here. Christ, knows how, but she’s still here.”

The next blast above shook the whole world again, louder, closer, the end of all things was roaring overhead. But Goose and Toecutter barely heard it. Because in that moment, she was breathing and that was all that mattered.

Her chest heaved, each breath rattling like broken glass. She was awake, but not with them—her eyes were wide and unfocused, pupils blown so dark they swallowed the color.

“Mouse?” Goose whispered, clutching her hand tighter, his voice raw. “Talk to me. Say something.”

Her lips moved, trembling, but no words came. Just a faint wheeze, a hollow rasp as though her voice had been stolen. Her throat worked soundlessly, tears leaking from the corners of her eyes. It was as if she were mourning the loss of the world.

“Shh,” Toecutter soothed, brushing damp strands of hair from her face with bloodied fingers. His own hands shook. “Don’t cry…whatever happened…it’s over…you’re safe…” except he knew she wasn’t. Whatever the military fuck ups had done to her, it wasn't over. It was still killing her. His jaw clenched, fury flashing hot and ugly behind his eyes.

She tried again, a tiny sound slipping past her lips, but it was broken, shredded. No words. Nothing that could help them understand what had been done to her in that cell. Or what she had seen from on high, the Earth destroyed, ruined as generations screamed in terror. She wanted to scream, to spit the horror back into the world, rid herself of it, but her body betrayed her.

Goose leaned closer, panic clawing up his throat. “What did they do? Did he hurt you? Did he—”

Her eyes fluttered toward him, shining with pain and shame. She turned her head away, the movement feeble but deliberate. Goose froze, his stomach twisting to ice. Her silence was answer enough. Toecutter’s gaze tracked downward, following the dark stain spreading beneath her on the table. At first he thought it was what she’d already lost—But then he saw it spreading. It was a fresh flow. The unstoppable crimson welling up between her thighs.

“Fuck,” he growled, his voice a serrated edge. He looked at Cundalini like a man ready to kill. “She’s still bleeding.”

“I know she’s still bleeding!” Cundalini snapped, his hands already buried in gauze and clamps, frantic and efficient. His mustache twitched with each sharp breath. “It’s coming from higher up—I can’t—shit—”

Goose staggered a step back, pressing both hands to his head like he could tear the helplessness out by the roots. The sight of that blood, thick and dark, pooling under her hips—it was more than he could bear. He’d seen bodies, skinned and gutted on the highway, he’d seen crash victims burned alive, but never had he seen something that tore him apart like this.

“No, no, no…” he muttered, pacing a half-circle around the table, his fists clenching and unclenching. “She can’t—she can’t fucking—”

Mouse whimpered, a high, broken sound, her hand twitching against the sheet. Toecutter was there instantly, gripping her fingers, bowing his head over her like a shield. “Don’t you go,” he murmured fiercely. “Don’t you fucking dare leave me.”

The bunker groaned as another detonation shook the earth above, the floor shuddering like the end of days. Dust drifted down in a fine rain, coating her hair, their shoulders, the instruments Cundalini worked with.

“Her pressure’s crashing again!” Cundalini barked, sweat flying off his brow as he worked. “She’s running out of blood, I can’t hold this much longer—”

Goose lunged back to the table, grabbing Mouse’s other hand, crushing it between both of his. His face was wet—sweat, tears, he didn’t even know. “Stay with us, Mouse,” he begged, his forehead pressed to her limp fingers. “Stay. With. Us.”

Her eyelids fluttered once. Twice. Her lips parted, but still no sound came—just another broken wheeze, a sob trapped in silence. But the tears kept falling. And that was all the answer they needed.

The walls of the infirmary quaked as another dull thud rolled through the bunker, dust sifting down from the vents. Instruments clattered against metal trays, and Cundalini swore under his breath as he tried to clamp another vessel.

“Pressure’s gone, she’s bleeding out—I can’t stop it!” His voice was ragged, edged with desperation.

Toecutter leaned over Mouse’s pale body, his jaw locked, eyes burning like fire. Goose gripped her hand so tightly his knuckles had turned bone white, his chest heaving as if he could breathe life into her through sheer force of will. This was it. They were losing her. She was dying in front of them and there was absolutely nothing they could do to stop it. Then the infirmary door banged wide open. Starbuck staggered in, dragging a man by the collar. The soldier’s face was gray with fear, his boots skidding against the tile as Starbuck shoved him forward.

“This one!” Starbuck barked, his voice ringing like a prophecy. His eyes gleamed fever-bright. “This one has the light on his hands. The starlight. I saw it!”

Goose snapped his head up, teeth bared. “The fuck are you bringing soldiers in here for?!”

Starbuck shoved the man to his knees beside the table. “Because he’s not just a soldier. He’s medical. A surgeon.” His grin was wide, wild. “He can save her.”

The man lifted his hands slowly, but steadily despite the explosive tension in the room. His palms were slick with sweat and dust, but his eyes—sharp, clear, unflinching—met Cundalini’s.

“I’m not your enemy,” he said hoarsely. “I swore an oath, a medical oath, before all this. If you let me work, I can save her.”

Cundalini’s head whipped toward Toecutter. “Boss—”

If looks could kill the one Toecutter levelled at the army surgeon should have stopped his heart cold.  He leveled a at the man’s chest, his voice a low snarl. “If you touch her wrong, if you so much as look at her wrong, I’ll put your guts on the floor before you blink.”

The surgeon nodded once, swallowing. “Then I guess I’d better not fuck up.”

Goose’s heart thundered in his ears, torn between rage and a desperate, fragile hope. He leaned closer to Mouse, whispering against her damp hair. “Hold on, girl. Hold on. You’ve got another chance.”

Cundalini shoved a tray toward the newcomer, his hands still covered with Mouse’s blood.

“Okay then star boy. You better show us what you’ve got.”

Chapter Text

The surgeon rose slowly from his knees, brushing pale dust from his rumpled fatigues with a measured precision that felt grotesquely out of place given the situation. The name tag on his chest patch read Keays in neatly stitched black letters. As he stood his eyes flicked across the room in cold assessment. They turned to the operating table where mouse lay, her legs still in the surgical steel stirrups, splayed out, blood pooled beneath her naked hips. He took in the nearby surgical trolley, its surface littered with bloody instruments and gore soaked gauzes. Before his gaze finally drifted over to the stainless steel trough sink that ran along the far wall. 

“I need to scrub in,” he said, voice clipped and detached, the kind of tone reserved for operating theaters or autopsy bays.

Toecutter’s laugh cracked through the air like gunfire. Short, sharp, ugly. His jaw twitching with fury. “You want to wash your fucking hands while she’s leaking her goddamn life out on that table?” He yelled, pointing a thick, oil-stained finger toward Little Mouse, who lay barely conscious on the surgical table. Her skin was ashen. Her pulse fluttered at her throat like a moth trapped under skin. Her life blood still leaking out despite the gauze packed between her thighs. Her lips parted, a soft whimper escaping, so faint it was almost drowned out by the distant rumble of bombs tearing open the desert floor above.

The surgeon didn’t flinch. Didn’t blink. Just held Toecutter’s gaze with a steely calm.

“If I don’t, she’ll die of infection,” he said flatly. “If you don’t want her dead in two days from sepsis instead of thirty minutes from blood loss? Then let me scrub.”

For a breathless moment, the tension was so thick it felt like the air itself might snap, no one talked to Toecutter like that. Toecutter’s eyes narrowed. His fingers twitched as if he wanted to tear the uniformed man apart but then Mouse moaned again—her voice barely audible. Her arm, still attached to the IV line that they had used to give her Goose’s blood, twitched weakly. Her breath wheezed in her chest. It wasn’t a death rattle yet, but it wasn’t far off. 

Toecutter snarled, stepped back he pointed an accusatory finger towards the man, “Fine.” He spat the word out “But if she slips while you’re playing with the fucking soap, I’ll skin you.”

The surgeon didn’t bother to answer. He was already moving, rolling his sleeves high with brutal efficiency. Hot water hissed out as he cranked the tap with his elbow, rushing into the steel trough. The surgeons hands already working the bar of carbolic soap up into a yellow lather ran in foamy streaks down his forearms. Behind him, Cundalini shifted nervously, his eyes flicking from the operating table to the scrubbing in surgeon and back again.

“Boss…” Cundalini said, licking his lips, “He’s our best hope... I can keep her breathing another minute, maybe two, but if he’s a real cutter…”

Toecutter didn’t look away from the surgeon. “Then scrub the fuck in with him. Help him save her!”

Cundalini didn’t need telling twice. He peeled off his blood-streaked jacket, revealing wiry, scarred arms beneath the tank top he wore. His boots thudded as he virtually sprinted across to the sink. Joining the surgeon he began soaping his hands and arms in preparation for what was to come. They scrubbed up together in silence, shoulder to shoulder the steam curling up around their faces.

Standing beside the operating table Goose was already rolling his sleeve back again. His jaw set, his eyes locked on Mouse’s pale face he held out his arm. “Hook me up again,” he told them, “Take what you need. Just keep her here.”

The surgeon flicked him a glance over his shoulder. “Not just you. She needs volume fast.” He jerked his head towards an industrial-grade freezer unit that was stood in a shadowed corner of the room. Goose didn’t hesitate. He strode over, his boots thudding heavily on the tile, and yanked open the stiff metal door with a grunt. A burst of cold, chemical air hit him in the face. Inside, stacked like bricks, were red and yellow drip bags—blood and plasma—each labeled with neatly printed labels. Goose grabbed a red one, his fingers aching from the cold, and held it up.

“Universal donor packs?”

The surgeon nodded but didn’t look away from scrubbing his hands, he already knew what this place was stocked with.

“And plasma.” He said, “We’ll need four bags of each. Get them out and put them in the thawing unit. But make sure you bag them first.”

Goose blinked, looking at him with confusion. “Wrap them?”

The surgeon, elbow-deep in yellow-tinged antiseptic lather, jabbed a soap-slick finger toward the thawing station against the back wall. “Just follow the instructions. They built all this stuff to be as easy to use as possible, just in case they lost the entire medical team.”

Goose didn’t like the sound of that—in case they lost the medical team—but he said nothing. This was not the time for questions.

He moved quickly, grabbing four blood and four plasma bags from the freezer, each one stiff and frozen solid. He shoved them into the clear zip-lock sleeves stacked neatly beside the thawing unit, working with the urgency of someone stuffing explosives into a timer. The bags were icy against his palms, so cold that they stuck to his skin, the contact with the warm air of the medical wing creating a slick of frost on their surfaces. 

Lifting the heavy stainless steel lid, he revealed the deep thermal tank beneath. Goose twisted the single dial on the front panel until it hit the “THAW / CYCLE MAX” setting. Instantly, the machine hummed to life, the tank groaning and filling with water heated by some hidden element. Steam curled into the air as Goose carefully placed the bagged units into the churning warmth and closed the lid.

“They’ll take about thirty-five minutes,” the surgeon said without looking up. “So don’t go far. We’ll need you to keep her as stable as possible until they’re ready.”

Moments later the tap on the surgical sink was finally shut off and Cundalini and the military surgeon, Keays stepped back, drying their hands on paper towels. The surgeon reached for a sterile gown hanging in its plastic sheath. He tore it open, slipped his arms in, he let it fall around him like a shroud. Cundalini mirrored him, ripping his own pack open, donning the surgical robe and gloves in practiced haste. The snap of latex sounded like a gunshot in the heavy air.

At last they were gloved up and ready to work. They had moved as fast as they possibly could but to Toecutter it felt like it had taken a life time. 

“Hurry up,” he hissed, pacing the room  like a caged animal, one hand twitching near the blade sheathed at his side.

But the surgeon fixed him with a sharp, pointed stare. “One step at a time saves her life. We rush, she dies.” He said, his voice calm but ironclad, bricking no argument. The silence that followed was full of unspoken rage and helplessness. Toecutter bit it down, ground it between his teeth like sand.

Keays switched focus his voice cutting through the tension like the scalpel that he would soon be wielding. “You,” he said, pointing to Cundalini. “Hook him up. But keep the flow slow. We’ll need to eke out what he can give until we can get some of that donor blood into her.”

Cundalini nodded once, already moving. He worked fast, reaching for the equipment and inserting a fresh IV line into the blonde bikers already punctured and bruised arm, checking the flow rate, twisting the regulator clamp down until the thin thread of blood slowed to a trickle.

“She’s stable for now,” Cundalini muttered to Goose as he worked, “But it’s still a knife’s edge.”

Mouse lay utterly still. Her lips were gray, bloodless, cracked from dehydration and blood loss. Her eyelids fluttered, the muscles beneath twitching in brief, unconscious spasms—but they never opened. Her body looked too small for the table, like it had already begun to vanish into the realm between the living and the dead.

Goose sat on a metal stool he'd pulled up beside the operating table Mouse lay on, jaw clenched, his face pale but focused. He could already feel the dizzy pull of the blood loss creeping in, but he kept his eyes fixed on Mouse’s face. He reached out with his free hand and brushed sweat-damp hair from her temple, the strands sticking to his fingers. He whispered to her softly, over and over, his voice raw, hoarse, choked with fear but lined with steel. “Stay with me, kid. Don’t you dare drift now. We’ve come too far. You hold on, you hear me?”

Toecutter moved to stand at the head of the table whilst Cundalini positioned himself beside the surgeon, ready to assist, the instruments and gauzes laid out neatly beside him. 

The surgeon leaned over Mouse’s body, hands poised like a concert pianist over the keyboard. “Okay, let’s see what we’re dealing with.” His eyes swept her abdomen and her groin where blood soaked the gauze packing in a relentless tide. His gaze was sharp, focused, hard—but not cruel. He began his examination. He was silent, but Goose saw his face, saw how the expression shifted, concern blooming in his eyes.

“She’s bleeding from the uterus,” he said, voice clipped. “I’ll try to save it. But if I can’t stop the bleeding, then…”

“Then you remove it, cut it out.” Toecutter growled, stepping closer to the table, leaning over the prone figure of Mouse like a territorial wolf. His voice was low and lethal, a thread stretched to breaking. His eyes blazed, jaw ticking like a clockwork bomb.  “I don’t care what you have to do. Just keep her alive.”

The surgeon didn’t flinch. “You understand we don’t have the time to put her under. Not that she’d survive the anesthetic anyway. She might feel everything.”

Toecutter didn’t answer right away. His throat worked around the words, but none came. Then he gave one stiff nod.

Keays then looked him dead in the eye. “If she wakes up mid-procedure, you hold her the fuck down.”

Toecutter’s shoulders squared. “I will.”

The surgeon took a deep breath and gazed down a the gravely ill woman below him.

“Okay, let’s see what I can do.”

The he gave a curt nod. “Scalpel.” Cundalini handed it over, his movements sharp and sure, though his mouth was pressed into a tight, pale line. He was sweating, and not just from the heat.

Steel met skin with a whispering slice. The surgeon moved like a man possessed—swift, unerring, his gloved fingers disappearing into the mess of torn flesh and pooling blood. Every movement was deliberate, honed by years of experience that no battlefield chaos could erase.

“Clamp,” he snapped, and Cundalini was there instantly, offering the tool with trembling but ready hands. “Suction.”

The whine of the tube began, pulling blood away to reveal pale tissue slick with red. The pads came out sodden, sodden again, red soaking through in seconds. The smell of blood filled the room—coppery, raw, metallic. The tension made the air feel as thick as syrup.

Goose’s vision began to blur. His blood pressure was dropping—he could feel it. His skin turning clammy, his temples pulsing with pressure, and his grip on Mouse’s hand trembled. But he didn’t stop. He wouldn’t stop. His eyes stayed locked on her face, searching for any sign, any flicker or life. Toecutter stood behind her head like a statue wrought from fury and desperation. His hands hovered just out of reach, fists clenched, as if the sheer weight of his presence could keep her soul anchored to the world. Outside, the earth trembled with the distant thunder of explosives, but inside the medical wing there was only breath, blood and the  thin, fraying line of life stretched taut beneath the surgeon’s hands.

“She’s crashing,” the surgeon muttered, urgency cutting through his voice. “Her pressure’s bottoming out.”

“No—” Goose whispered. It came out strangled. His hand clutched hers. “You hear me, kid? Don’t you give up. You stay with us. You fight.”

Mouse gave a weak hitch of breath. Once. Twice. Then stillness. The sudden quiet was unbearable. Everything stopped. Even the surgeon paused, scapel hovering in mid air. And then—with the smallest sound imaginable—she dragged in a ragged, wet breath. The room exhaled with her.

“She’s right on the edge,” the Keays said, not pausing. “How long’s left on the blood?”

Cundalini bolted to the thawing unit, wrenching it open and checking the readout.

“Eight minutes!” he barked.

The surgeon shook his head. “We’ll have to risk it. Hope it’s not too cold or she’ll arrest. But we can’t wait any longer. Hook her up to a unit—the blood. Get it in her as fast as you can.”

Cundalini’s fingers fumbled on the slick plastic wrappers that held the drip bags, yanking free from the tank he freed it from the outer back, hissing at the chill that lingered in the contents, but he moved fast, already grabbing the necessary tubing.

Finding a usable vein proved nearly impossible. Every visible one had collapsed under the influence of blood loss and shock. He muttered curses under his breath, finally pressing fingers to the side of her throat. 

“There, no veins, there’s nothing but her neck left,” he gasped.

“I’ll need to put a central venous catheter in, come here and apply pressure.” the surgeon told him but Cundalini’s response was fast and determined.  “No! I can do it.” He told the Keays.

The surgeon looked up at him, eyes narrowing. “Going in blind? Think you can manage that? We don’t have time for imagining,” he challenged. 

Cundalini nodded. “Yeah, I can.” There was room for doubt in his reply. 

“Third drawer on the left,” the surgeon nodded to Toecutter. “Fetch him a kit. Quickly if you want her to live.”

Toecutter made no fuss about the command, just obeying, bringing the sealed kit round to his acolyte as if he were the underling. Cundalini took it with grateful hands and a worried smile. 

“Thanks boss.” Was all he said.

He steadied himself. Taking a deep breath before he began the tricky procedure. He didn’t realise it, but he held his breath the whole time he was working, letting it out in a long sigh as the central line finally slid in without a hitch. but he had no time to bask in his glory. With shaking hands he hooked up the bag of universal donor blood. Hoping the chill in the life giving liquid wouldn’t damage the fragile thread of life the girl was hanging onto. 

Then he tightened the clamp on Goose’s transfusion, reducing the flow even more, but he couldn’t afford to stop the flow completely. 

“I don’t want take any more man,” he said, shaking his head, haunted eyes meeting Goose’s. “You’ve given so much already.”

Goose was swaying now, his shirt soaked in sweat, but he didn’t argue, just looked Cundalini in the eyes. “Take it all man, every last drop if you need to.” He pressed his forehead to Mouse’s knuckles, his breath hot and shaking against her skin. “Come on, girl. You’re stronger than this. You’re the toughest kid I’ve ever seen. Don’t you dare make liars out of us.”

The surgeon didn’t stop moving. Clamps snapped shut. Sutures pulled through torn muscle, looping and knotting in swift, brutal patterns.

“That’s it…” the surgeon murmured. “I’ve got it. I found the vessel. I’m tying it off… now.”

There was a beat of silence—and then Cundalini let out a ragged, broken laugh, half a sob, half a prayer. He staggered back, wiping sweat from his face with a bloody glove, leaving a dark smear across his cheek. Goose slumped forward completely, forehead against Mouse’s hand, his whisper barely audible. “Thank you…”

Toecutter’s grin split his bloodied face. It was savage, unfiltered joy—feral and luminous. Tears carved clean lines through the gore and dirt on his cheeks.

“She’s mine, she’s ours,”  he said, voice hoarse but certain, “Death don’t get to fucking take her.”

Keay’s voice cut through their elation. “She’s not safe yet. But she’s stopped losing blood and she’s still fighting.”

He leaned back at last, his arms trembling peeling off his bloodstained gloves off with two wet, snapping sounds, dropping them into the steel tray beside him like discarded skins. “the best I can say that she’s holding… for now,” he told them. “But her body… what it’s been through…” His voice faltered. He looked between the three men, weighing how much truth to give. But in the end, he didn’t soften it. “She may not wake tonight. She may not wake at all.” His eyes flicked down to her belly, then away again. “And the baby… it’s too early to know. Too much blood lost. Too much trauma.”

The words landed like hammer blows in the quiet. Goose’s breath caught, and he gripped the edge of the table, white-knuckled. His vision swam—not just from the blood loss, but from the gravity of those words. He bent forward again, pressing Mouse’s limp hand between his own, forehead against her skin. “Don’t leave us,” he whispered. His voice cracked, thick with tears. “Don’t take the kid with you. Please, Mouse.”

The harsh light above flickered once, then steadied. Mouse lay pale beneath it, sweat glistening on her brow, breath coming in slow, shallow pulls. The metal table streaked with crimson.

Toecutter stepped closer, eyes blazing. He reached out and laid one massive hand over her belly, gentle as a ghost. The other he pressed over her heart, eyes closing as he bowed his head. His tangled hair fell forward, shadowing his face. But his lips moved silently. A prayer. A promise. Or maybe just a desperate plea to the woman that now meant everything to him.

The bunker shook again, but the vibrations were quieter now as the explosions became distant. The battle outside, the war that was over as soon as it began was ending, but down in the bunker, in that moment, in that room, a new battle was beginning. Small, fragile, desperate—Mouse’s fight to survive had just begun. 

Chapter Text

The air in the clinic was heavy—thick with sweat and antiseptic and the iron tang of blood still clung to the back of every throat. Outside, the earth no longer trembled, but a tense silence had fallen, the kind that could only be generated by such mindless devastation. Inside the small group were momentarily held in that quietness, broken only by the unrelenting electronic beep of the monitor tethered to Mouse, and by the rustling movements made by the motions of Keays and Kundalini.

Keays was professional, detatched and meticulous as he and Kundalini cleaned Mouse’s torn body. Every motion was precise and careful, like she was made of porcelain and might shatter under careless fingers. Her abdomen was still bloated from the trauma, her limbs limp and pale. The pair worked together in wordless coordination, rinsing away the worst of the gore with warm water, patting her dry with paper towels, and gently smoothing her sweat-drenched hair away from her forehead.

Kundalini found a clean surgical gown folded in a drawer and slipped it carefully over her shoulders, fastening the ties around her back with practiced ease. Then came the transfer.

“On three,” Keays murmured.

“One. Two. Three, lift.”

They moved her with the delicacy of the faithful handling the body of a saint. She didn’t stir. Didn’t whimper. Didn’t even moan. Lowering her onto the hospital bed, the sheets already warmed by the overhead lamps. Her head lolled against the pillows like a child’s doll and if it wasn’t for the subtle rise and fall of her chest and the rhythmic beep of the monitor, she might just as well have been dead. 

Keays adjusted her IV lines, replacing the first transfusion bag with another. Dark red blood sluiced through the tubing, snaking into her veins like liquid hope. “She’s still absorbing the volume too slowly,” he muttered. “We’ll need to keep alternating blood and plasma until we see a real rise in her blood pressure.” Once he had taped the IV line in place, he pulled the thin blanket over her, tucking it carefully in beneath her chin like she were a sleeping a child instead of a patients.

Then, at last, he turned away from her, addressing the room rather than a single individual. “She’s going to need rest, round-the-clock care, IVs, heat, constant monitoring and she needs something else…something to help pull her back. I’ve seen patients like this before. Gone too far…too deep. They don’t respond unless their brains are stimulated. She’ll need someone talking to her, a familiar voice as often as possible.”

“She’ll have it,” Toecutter said, his voice low. He was standing at the end of her bed. His eyes hadn’t left Mouse since they had moved her to it.

“Good,” Keays said, then pointed a finger at Goose. “You. That bed. Now, I’m not going to tell you to strip, but take your boots off at least.”

Goose blinked at him, bleary-eyed and pale. “I’m fine.”

“You’re not fine,” Keays snapped, all professionalism and no patience. He nodded toward one of the other hospital beds. “Over there. Sit. Now.”

“I can stand,” Goose insisted, though his knees were wobbling.

“You’ll collapse like a sack of bricks in about sixty seconds if you do.” Keays said flatly. “You’re lucky you didn’t black out mid-transfusion. One of those blood lines was wide-open for nearly twenty minutes. That’s over a pint of blood, minimum, dumped straight out of you and into her. Then I slowed it down and took another half pint. Do you understand how close you are to your heart stopping right now?”

Goose didn’t answer. He just sank heavily onto the bed, breath whistling through his nose, hands clenched white-knuckled around the edge of the mattress as if the act of holding on so tightly was the only thing keeping him from collapse.

Keays’s voice softened. “You’re not actively bleeding, which means I’m not wasting donor blood on you. We have a limited supply—God help us if more casualties come in—and judging by how many bombs went off out there, I’d bet good money they will. But you’re on bed rest. That’s an order not a suggestion.”

Goose grumbled something unintelligible but finally leaned back, toeing off his boots with effort and hauling his legs up onto the pristine sheet. His fingers trembled as he dragged the thin blanket up over his knees. He would never let the others know, but secretly, he was glad. He was weakened, exhausted even and he didn’t want to leave Mouse’s side, not when she was so precariously balanced between life and death. 

Keays adjusted the pillow behind Goose’s head. “Rest.” Was all the said before turning his attention onto Kundalini, who was scrubbing the metal operating table down with furious, precise strokes, suds and blood mixing on the steel surface.

“You.” Keays nodded, tone shifting again—filled with respect and approval. “You kept her alive long enough to give me a chance. I don’t know where you learned but you’ve got a surgeon’s hands, and more balls than half the trauma teams I’ve worked with.”

Kundalini raised an eyebrow. “That a compliment or a diagnosis?”

Keays smirked, the expression a little lopsided due to tiredness. “Both.”

Kundalini grinned but kept scrubbing. “I figured we might need this again before long. Depending on how bad it got out there…”

Keays nodded grimly. “Smart. And probably right. If they’re dragging wounded in here by the armful, we’re gonna need every blade and clamp we’ve got.”

Kundalini dunked a pair of forceps into the already loaded sterilizer bath and turned on the cycle. “Listen, standard ‘this is what to expect’ speach aside. How long do you think its gonna be before we know if she’s ever gonna wake up?”

Keays shrugged, rubbing a weary hand over his face. “Hours, days. Could be weeks. Her body’s in shock. Her brain too. All we can do is keep her warm, keep her fed, and keep hoping.”

He moved over to stand next Toecutter, his approach slow. There was caution in his step, but not fear. The biker boss stood with his arms crossed over his chest, eyes locked on the bed, his expression unreadable. The blood on his face had dried into cracks and flakes, curling into the lines beside his mouth and eyes. His knuckles were still raw from punching through a reinforced door during the assault on the bunker.

“I take it you’re in charge?” Keays said, arms folded across his uniformed chest, voice flat but not unfriendly.

Toecutter’s eyes remained fixed on Mouse as if he could hold her in this life through sheer force of will. His voice, when it came, was low and certain.

“I’m not in charge,” he said. “She is.”

Keays studied him a beat, then nodded once—no sarcasm, no challenge. Just quiet acknowledgment.

“Well,” he said, voice dry, “she’s not available at the moment, so you’ll have to do.”

There might have been a trace of gallows humor in his tone, but it was buried under layers of exhaustion and something oddly close to respect. The man had just performed emergency surgery under fire while the walls trembled around him. He’d earned the right to speak plainly.

“I’m guessing,” he added, reaching for a paper towel to wide a streak of blood from his arm, “that you probably took out all of the top brass?”

Toecutter said nothing. He didn’t need to.

Keays just shrugged. “No loss really. Most of them were psychos or cowards in uniform. But if the rest of the compound’s anything like the infirmary, then everyone out there is scared shitless.”

He turned toward the door, fishing a bunch of keys from his pocket.

“So how about I give you the grand tour, show you what we have left,” he said over his shoulder moving towards the door.”

Toecutter hesitated. His gaze flicking between Mouse and Keays, the fragile rise and fall of her chest still the only thing anchoring him to the moment.

“She’ll still be there when you get back,” Keays said, softer now. “Your men can watch her. Kundalini is quite capable of giving her anything she needs. But right now I need your attention out there because there is a mess of scared civvies and what’s left of a platoon of soldiers trapped in this bunker with no one left to take orders from.”

Toecutter exhaled, sharp and hard, turning like he was tearing himself out of the room. But he followed Keays out of the door anyway.

The bunker corridors were earily silent. The stillness only broken by the occasional sob, pained moan or hushed conversation. It was as if the whole building was holding its breath and was too scared to exhale. The lights were low, some flickering and, in places, wires hung like vines and collapsed over head conduits littered the floor. There were bodies laying in contorted poses, dark pools of thickening blood surrounding them, brain matter spattering the walls and floors in places. Here and there the injured lay moaning in pain or ominously quiet. Wide, frightened eyes watched the pairs progress from shadowed corners. The path the gang had carved wasn’t pretty.

Keays ignored it all but kept up a clipped commentary as they walked, rattling off details as if he were trying to reassert normalcy with facts alone.

“Barracks are over that way—three wings, plenty of room seeing as our invited guessing are running terminally late. Gym’s got medical-grade equipment, treadmills and weights, some of the gear’s military rehab spec. Not that it matters now. Nobody’s going to be going back to basic. It’s all about survival now.”

Toecutter didn’t speak. He moved like a shadow beside the surgeon, eyes scanning, taking everything in.

“The mess hall’s to the left—serves five hundred. Full industrial kitchen. They have their own separate powered freezers, fully stocked, but most of the food stores are held separately—I’ll show you those last.”

They passed the comm station, its screens ominously dark, a single uniformed man was inside fiddling with the radios, muttering to himself about signal frequencies and backup batteries. When he saw the pair, he stiffened and nodded, like he’d wasn’t sure if he should offer a salute. Beyond that, a long, domed corridor opened into a wide recreation hall, where survivors from both sides had been gathered by the gang members. Soldiers, women, acolytes all stood shoulder to shoulder. Everyone was bruised, blooded and confused.

The pair walked on and as they passed the eyes of the gathered watched them go. The silence that followed was thick enough to chew. Keays glanced sideways at Toecutter, something new in his gaze. “They’re holding on, barely. Your men are looking at you to lead, the rest will follow. They need a leader. All of them. They need you.”

Toecutter snorted. “Don’t mistake knowing how to command fear for leadership.”

“I’m not.” Keays said but didn’t press the point.

The food storage wing was massive. Heavy steel doors sealed the cold air inside. Rows upon rows of metal shelving held crates of military rations, freeze-dried meals, vacuum-sealed fruits and proteins. Tin glinted from floor to ceiling. Enough to last months. Maybe more.

“To be honest,” Keays muttered, unlocking the inner security gate, “I always thought of this place as more of a more prepper fantasy than a real military asset. But say what you will, the Bunker Boys didn’t skimp.”

He led Toecutter down a short aisle to a reinforced steel cage within the storage room, sorting through the keyring until found the one he needed, and opened the padlock with a loud click.

“This,” he said, stepping inside, “is where they keep the good stuff.”

The shelves were lined with crates—each one labeled in stenciled white letters. 

OFFICERS ONLY

NOT FOR GENERAL CONSUMPTION

Keays reached into a crate and pulled out a glass bottle, the amber liquid inside catching the light. Moments later he’d pulled the cork. He took a swig, coughed, then exhaled through his teeth. 

“That’s good.”

He handed it wordlessly to Toecutter, who took it without ceremony. He stared at the label a moment, Lagavulin, 16 years, like it was some artifact from another life. No. It was something from another life. No more Lagavulin. No more whiskey distilleries. He shook his head, dismissing the thought. He knew that it was pointless to dwell on it. He took a long, slow pull. The burn hit the back of his throat, warming all the way down. He swallowed and let out a breath that might’ve been a laugh. Might’ve been a growl.

He passed the bottle back to the uniformed man who took it and lifted it towards his lips. “Here’s to the end of the world.” he said before taking a swallow. It was if he had read the other mans mind.

They stood in silence passing the bottle between them, no longer soldier and road warrior, just two men toasting each other with a relic from a world that had already ended. Keays took another slug from the whiskey bottle, wincing as it hit the back of his throat like fire. He stepped away from the shelf and sat on a crate, elbows resting on his knees, bottle still in hand. His fatigue was visible now, sunk into the lines around his eyes, into the slouch of his shoulders. He looked older by years than he had just hours ago.

“Why are you doing this, showing me this?” Toecutter asked, his eyes focus hard on the uniformed man. “We smashed your little kingdom but now you want me, want us to take over?“

Keays sighed, rubbing his hand over his eyes. “Because I’ve got nothing left to lose,” he said, voice rough with truth. “None of us have. The old chain of command? It died screaming in its own hypocrisy. The military—you want to know what they did? They burned everything. M.A.D. Mutual. Assured. Destruction. Complete obliteration of everything. They bombed whole cities to glass because they were too selfish to leave anything standing. They didnt care about anything but themselves. The people who built this bunker, they wanted to stay alive and were prepared to kill anyone who stood in their way. Even before the fucking bombs started falling. And, because they were so blinded by their self preservation they failed to even realise that they might have needed to carry on the fucking species. So what did they do? They went out and fucking snatched women. By the way, and I know you don’t have to believe me, but I didnt sign up for that,

His voice cracked.

“I told them. I told them it was wrong. Filed my report. Marked it on my fucking transfer papers. This was supposed to be my last rotation. I was binned. You know why? Because I told them they were sick bastards. Because I couldn’t keep playing doctor while they played god. I was twenty four hours from being transfered out. Twenty four fucking hours. One more day and I’d have been vaporised with the rest of humanity.”

He let that sit for a moment before continuing in a quieter voice.

“The way I see it,” he said, “the men who built this place? Who stocked it, locked it, wrote the goddamn protocols on who lives and who doesn’t? They were already dead before the bombs fell. They just didn’t know it.”

He gestured to the warehouse around them with a sweep of the bottle. “This whole place was never about saving anyone. It was about protecting themselves. They didn’t care about rebuilding, didn’t care about what comes next. Just about who they could step on to stay breathing one more day.”

Toecutter said nothing. His silence was a wall. But it wasn’t made of indifference. Keays could feel it—it was made of grief. Of weariness. Of doubt.

“Most of the men here, they aren’t that kind of monster. They’re just scared kids wrapped up in guns and training. They’ve been spoon fed so much bullshit, it’s in their bones now. But it can be bled out. You just have to give them something else to believe in.” Keays pressed on. “But you?” he said, pointing the bottle at Toecutter. “You didn’t come here to save yourself, you risked your lives for someone else. For her. You tore this place apart to get to her. That man back in the clinic—he gave half his blood without blinking. Don’t tell me that kind of loyalty happens by accident. That woman in there? You say she’s in charge. Fine. I believe you. But she can’t even move right now. So until she can, it’s on you.”

Toecutter’s lips twisted into a frown. “What makes you think I’m the kind of man who wants that kind of power?”

“You’re not,” Keays said simply. “That’s why I trust you with it.”

Toecutter looked at him now, really looked. “Why are you telling me this? Why back me? You don’t even know me. An hour ago I was walking through these corridors blowing holes in your soldiers with a shot gun. Now you want me to… what? Run this place?” he said slowly. 

“You have to take charge,” Keays said, his voice low and resolute. There was no suggestion, no hesitation. It wasn’t a request. It was a call to action.

Toecutter gave a hollow laugh. “Those soldier boys. They’re not gonna follow me.”

Keays shrugged, slow and deliberate. “Why not?”

“Because they’re waiting for the brass to be resurrected from the grave. You saw that man at the radio, desperately trying to reach the world outside, They want the old ways. They want order and crisp fucking uniforms.” Toecutter said at last, voice graveled and dismissive.

Keays didn’t say anything, just took another hit from the bottle, carefully considering the man’s argument.

“Men don’t follow titles.” He said at last, “They follow steadiness. Certainty. A spine that won’t snap, no matter how hard the world leans on it. Doesn’t matter if they like you. Doesn’t even matter if they respect you. What matters is that when everything goes to hell, they know you’ll still be standing.”

“And you’re still standing.” He told the biker. 

“Barely,” Toecutter muttered.

“Barely still counts.” Keays told him handing the bottle back. “They’re watching you. All of them. I can see it. Not just because you’re strong. Not because you’re smart. But because you did something. You broke the world they had and made wide apart, now they are waiting for something new. Now you’ve gotta prove it wasn’t just mindless violence, that you Can make something from it, mould a new reality for them.”

Toecutter tilted the bottle back and let the whiskey burn its way down his throat. when he lowered it again, his eyes were darker. Quieter.

“That your speech?” he rasped. “You give that to all the warlords?”

“Nope.” Keays said, rolling his neck. “Only the ones who might actually give a shit what happens next.”

Toecutter looked down at him “And what does happen next?”

“That’s the part you get to decide. But I can give you some ideas. First thing you need to establish is order. Reassure the civvies, get the wounded out of the corridors. Dispose of the bodies and clean up he blood. Give this place at least a look of normality. The power and water will need to be checked, along with the filtration and airlocks if they aren’t holding we are no better off than outside.. I can find you people to do all the technical stuff, but you…you get your people to hold the line, keep the panic at bay.”

Toecutter nodded once. “What about the soldiers?”

“They’ll fall in line,” Keays said. “Most of them don’t want to be in charge. They’re used to looking up the chain for orders. You just need to give them something to do and someone to salute.”

Toecutter smirked. “That’s not really my style.”

Keays grinned back. “Yeah, well… it’s a new world. Maybe it’s time for new styles.”

Keays lifted himself slowly off the crate stepped over to the reinforced supply cage, locked it behind them with a loud click of the padlock. 

He tossed the keys to Toecutter, who caught them one-handed.

Keays smiled faintly. “But do me a favour. No more drinking tonight.”

“Why?” Toecutter asked, curiosity peaked.

“Because panicked is fine,” Keays said, turning toward the exit. “But pissed and panicked is dangerous.”

The heavy door swung open. The hallway beyond was filled with shadow, the occasional flicker of a red emergency light playing across the concrete walls. Keays walked through it and left Toecutter standing alone in the dark, keys in one hand, bottle in the other, and a choice in front of him that would shape whatever was left of the world.

Toecutter stared down at the bottle in his hand, as if the answer might be floating in the amber liquid. He let out a long breath through his nose, then looked up, the sharpness returning to his gaze. He pocketed the keys without a word. Then stepped out to join Keays who waited for him in the corridor beyond, the weight of what lay ahead for both men settling heavy between them.

Together the two men walked in silence through the ruined halls of the bunker—one in a dusty uniform, the other in blood-smeared leathers. Soldiers, gang members, and women had begun to drift through the passageways like ghosts. Everyone looked lost. As if to counteract their haunted looks Toecutter purposefully moved with his usual swagger, but it was brittle around the edges. His eyes were locked ahead, jaw tight, fingers tight around the neck of the bottle.

When they reached the hallway outside the clinic, Keays slowed, and just as Toecutter reached for the door, the older man stopped him with a firm hand pressed against his chest.

“Wait.”

Toecutter turned, his lip already curling in protest, but Keays met him with calm, unwavering steel.

“I know you want to be in there with her,” Keays said gently, but firmly. “I get it. I do. But you need to be out here.”

Toecutter’s brows drew together in a scowl. “The fuck I do.”

Keays didn’t flinch. “Yes. You do. These people? Right now, they’re in shock. Shell-shocked, confused, scared. But that won’t last. You know it. I know it. In a few hours—maybe less—they’ll start asking questions. They’ll start laying blame. They’ll need someone to organize them, keep them busy, give them some hope, however slim..”

Toecutter shifted, his boots grinding against the concrete. His jaw twitched.

“I don’t want to be their fucking leader,” he spat, as if the very taste of the word turned his stomach.

Keays didn’t back off. He leaned in instead, voice low and level.

“You might not want to be,” he said. “But you took away everything they trusted. Their officers. Their orders. The routine that kept them from unraveling. If you don’t give them something to replace that with, you’re not going to have a group of people figuring things out together—you’re going to have a bunker full of time bombs looking for something to blow up.”

Toecutter said nothing, his eyes dark with fury. But it wasn’t aimed at Keays. Not really. It was the fury of knowing he was right.

Keays pressed on.

“If you don’t step up, they’ll pick someone else. Someone who might not be as amenable to you as I am. Someone that might be inclinded to blame you and your men for their current predicament. Or worse…” His eyes flicked toward the door. “Blame her. You want to spend six months locked in here, watching your back, guarding the door day and night? Starving to death when they cut off food and electricity to the clinic? You want to live like that?”

Still, Toecutter didn’t respond.

“Take my advice,” Keays said, backing toward the door. “Give them discipline. Give them tasks. Keep their hands busy and their minds off vengeance. Give them a structure before someone else gives them a reason to tear each other apart.”

He didn’t wait for permission. Just nodded once and slipped into the clinic, leaving the big man standing alone in the corridor, staring at the closed door.

The lights buzzed overhead. Somewhere distant, a pipe groaned. The silence pressed in. Toecutter stood for a long moment, unmoving, breath slow and heavy. Then, at last, he lifted his hand and pressed his fingers to his mouth. A sharp, shrill whistle split the quiet. Footsteps echoed in the corridors almost instantly. Heavy boots pounding from different directions—his people coming to him, instinctively, unthinking. Because when Toecutter called, they answered.

He stood there waiting, the weight of Keays’s words settling into his bones, Toecutter understood what the man had been driving at. If he didn’t forge this chaos into something new it would devour them all.

Chapter Text

The gang came running to Toecutter’s whistle. Bloodied and dusty, their leathers streaked with dirt and dried gore, they emerged from the bunker’s corridors like the ghosts of war. Their boots scuffed across concrete, their bodies humming with the twitchy, crackling energy of men who had seen too much and hadn’t yet had the time to reckon with it. Their eyes were wide and glassy, not from fear—but from exhaustion and from the rising tension of what they knew. The world had ended and now they were trapped beneath it with their enemies.

Toecutter stood waiting like a sentry just outside the clinic door, his arms folded across his chest, his tangled hair falling wild around his face. His expression was carved in stone, frowning, sharp-eyed. He scanned his crew as they gathered into a loose circle—Bubba, Zanetti, Clunk, Starbuck, Diabando, Mudguts… even Kundalini had slipped out from behind the clinic doors, bloody gloves stuffed into his back pocket, his hands still trembling with adrenaline.

“Right,” Toecutter said, voice low and gravelly. “Gather up. You lot still got fight in you?”

There were nods. Grunts. A couple of cracked-knuckle fist smacks and a muttered, “Fuckin’ right.”

“We ain’t done yet,” Toecutter continued. “This place is ours now. But that don’t mean shit if we don’t hold it. We’re boxed in, boys. I ain’t gonna lie to you. Outside is fucked. Fallout, ash, radiation—pick your poison. Whatever it is, we’re not leavin’ this bunker any time soon. So the only thing that matters right now—is keeping hold of what we’ve got.”

He looked each of them dead in the eye, one by one. 

“Keep it calm. Keep it tight. The numbers ain’t in our favour. If we push too hard, or if the wrong people get ideas? We’re fucked. And if we’re fucked, then Mouse—” his voice dipped, the edge of threat sharpening into something colder “—she’s unprotected. Anything happens to her and I burn this whole fucking place to the ground.”

That silenced what little muttering remained. They got it. All of them understood. They were still life or death situation, except now there was absolutely no escape.

Keays appeared at Toecutter's side, his sleeves rolled up, a clipboard in hand. His eyes were dark from exhaustion, but his mouth was set with the unflinching determination of a man used to doing the impossible with barely enough to survive.

“I’ve pulled you up some system maps. Equipment manuals for the relevant machines. I’ve also written down a few names of people who can walk your men through them,” Keays said briskly. “I’ve underlined the one’s I trust.” He told Toecutter, his knowing eyes meeting the big man’s with a steady gaze. 

Toecutter nodded taking the clipboard in his hand and holding it as if it were a live weapon. Dangerous but necessary. He turned back to the gang.

“Clunk. Mudguts. You’re on infrastructure. I need you to make sure this place is sealed up tight and everything is working right. Check that main door, make sure we didn’t damage it too much, but be careful. Be smart. Don’t take any risks and don’t put yourself to danger. Then check the air filters, scrubbers, intake valves, anything that keeps the air clean. Keeps this place from becoming one fucking big coffin. Because if this place is has bad air we’re already dead. Take the printouts and Keay’s list. Let me know if you think he is right in who we can trust. Got it?”

The men nodded, not waiting to hear the rest of the orders. The boss had spoken, they moved. 

“Starbuck, Diabando,” Toecutter continued. “You’re collecting weapons. Strip every locker, every stash, every soldier. No exceptions. If they’re still armed, they give it up. Inventory it then lock it up. I want the armoury sealed tighter than a nun’s—well, you know.”

Starbuck tilted his head. “What if they don’t hand ‘em over, Boss?”

“Then they find out why they should’ve. But play it safe. You feel outnumbered or you see something you don’t like, you step out of it. There are too few of us to take risks. But, don’t show em any fear. Right now we have the upper hand. We can’t lose that.”

Diabando nodded and the pair headed out on their mission.

Finally Toecutter turned to Bubba and Kundalini. “Bubba, you start rounding up the wounded. They might be soldiers and might have been the ones to fucking hurt ‘em. I don’t care. Get ‘em to the clinic. Get the women helping if you can—it'll give em a friendly face, help to keep ‘em calm. Tell the women not to look like they could happily slit the throats of the bastards if they can. They might feel like it, but they are just as vulnerable as we are. We both have to play the long game now. Triage whoever you can. Severe injuries first, walking wounded last and when you're done I want you to find me some damn cooks.”

Bubba blinked in surprise. “Cooks?”

“These people need something to pull em back from the edge. Hot drinks. Hot food. Bacon.”

“Bacon?” Zanetti echoed, brow raised.

“Bacon fixes a lotta shit,” Toecutter growled. “The smell alone? People start rememberin’ they’re human.”

That got a dry chuckle from a Bubba

“Bubba,” Toecutter continued, “I need you to do one last thing. I need you to round up the strays, get em back to the mess hall. Gather everyone who isn’t injured there. I’m givin’ a speech.”

“Since when do you give speeches?” Bubba queried, his face was, as always, carefully schooled, but there was a twinkle in his eye. .

Toecutter scowled. “Don’t rub it in.”

Bubba grinned and spun away to begin his mission as Toecutter turned his attention on Kundalini and Keays.

“Kundalini, do the best you can here but your main job is to keep and eye on Mouse. You keep her safe. You keep her alive. You got it?”

“Always boss.” Kundalini replied, heading back through the swinging door s of the clinic. 

Toecutter sighed. His shoulders rounding just a little. He had been holding himself tall and strong, a beacon for his men, but even he was feeling the effects of exhaustion. 

“You’re gonna have your work cut out. Keays, do you think you can round up some help you trust?" Toecutter asked the exhausted medic. 

Keays nodded. “I’m not sure who’d left, but I will try and find someone. But I won't bring them in if I don’t trust them. An operating theatre is no place for a dick measuring contest. 

“This feels wrong,” Toecutter muttered, pushing his hair back with his strong hands. 

Keays shrugged. “It feels wrong because you give a damn. That’s how I know you’re the right one.”

Toecutter grunted. “If I wasn’t, would you even tell me?”

“No,” Keays replied, “but I wouldn’t have given you the clipboard,” he continued with a trace of dry humour. 

Toecutter gave a snort that might have been a laugh. Then his face hardened.

“I’m checkin’ on Mouse.”

This time, Keays didn’t stop him.

The air grew warmer as Clunk and Mudguts moved through narrow maintenance corridors, accompanied by a few of Keays’s suggested engineers. The systems were complex but familiar enough for Clunk, who had a natural affinity with anything mechanical, to follow. The soldiers were guarded but professional. Except one. Corporal Jaeger. Tall, lanky, mean-eyed. His uniform pressed, boots shined like it mattered. He looked at the bikers like they were dirt under his nails.

“Try not to break anything,” he said, voice sharp. “Touch the wrong valve, and you’ll vent radiation across the entire east wing.”

“Helpful to know.” Mudguts drawled.

Jaeger sneered. “This isn’t some bikies dive bar. This is military-grade tech. I don’t expect you boys to know how to spell half the words on these schematics, let alone follow them.”

Clunk narrowed his eyes but said nothing.

Jaeger kept talking. “Whole damn place was running fine until you lot showed up. If anything’s offline now, it’s your fault,”

He turned his back on the gang members and muttered something to the rest of the men.

“We’d have been better off leaving that bitch to die in the desert—”

Mudguts heard and stopped dead. “You say that again,” he said, low and menacing, “and I swear on my patch, I’ll beat you into a fucking paste.”

Jaeger’s smirk faltered, but he looked away without responding. The threat had landed.

As they continued working, Mudguts leaned in to Clunk.

“Get his name down. Jaeger. He’s poison. We need to tell the boss.”

Elsewhere, Starbuck and Diabando walked a line between diplomacy and force. They entered barracks, storage rooms, offices. Most soldiers gave up their arms without protest—shocked into numb compliance. But others weren’t so willing.

“You’re not taking this,” one private said, clinging to his rifle like it was a teddy bear. “It’s the only thing that makes me feel safe.”

“You’re still alive,” Starbuck said gently. “That’s how you know you’re safe.”

Reluctantly, he surrendered the weapon trailing after the two men like someone had stolen his puppy.

As easy as the collection of most of the visible weapons was, Diabando wasn’t fooled. He caught the hard glances, the whispered conversations.

“There are more weapons stashed,” he said to Starbuck later. “you can bet on it. We need a sweep and we are going to need much better storage. There should be guards, security, the works, but there is just us and that ain't no where near enough.”

Bubba and the women worked tirelessly. The wounded were seemingly endless. Some were too far gone to move. Some cried out in pain and desperation. Others just sat silently clutching wounds they refused to reveal. They created a makeshift triage system. Severe bleeds, internal injuries and burns inside. Breaks, minor injuries and small burns outside. For everyone else it was blankets, water and whispered reassurances.

It was a bizarre situation as enemies assisting enemies. Bubba actually ended up carrying a man who he’d stabbed less than two hours into the clinic.

“You’re not dyin’ today,” he had told him quietly as the man wounded man had blinked up at him in disbelief.

Inside the clinic Kundalini worked beside Keays. Together with Kerr and Meares, two medical techs he had been able to round up and who he trusted. They stabilised the worst cases as best they could  They rationed the antibiotics and saved anaesthetic for surgeries. Broken bones had to be manipulated and splinted without it and the clinic was a chorus of pained moans and agonized screams.

Happy that things were under control Bubba headed for the kitchen. Inside he found two soldiers, barely more than boys, wide eyed and trembling with uncertainty. Bubba had a certain sympathy for them. They hadn't signed up for the end of the world. 

“You cook?” He asked 

They nodded.

“Then start. Hot drinks. Something fried. Get ‘em to the mess hall in half and hour. We need to feed people get 'em to start believing this can still be a world worth living in.”

Minutes later, the scent of bacon began to fill the halls.

In the mess hall the crowd slowly grew, the strays directed there by Bubba or drawn in by the promise of food or the smell of cooking. People spoke in hushed voices, faces turning to one another of scanning the crowd, trying to work out who had made it and who hadn't. There was hope there but it was fragile and flickering.

Keays stood beside Toecutter at the back of the room.

“This is your moment,” he told the biker boss and Toecutter stepped forward climbing up onto the nearest table.

Toecutter didn’t clear his throat. Didn’t wave for attention. He didn’t need to. They were already all watching and listening but he had to be careful. He wasn’t just addressing his gang anymore. This was an army in front of him and Keays was right. If he didn't or couldn't bring these men round they could turn in on him and his men in a heartbeat.

“This place is ours now,” he said. His voice was gravel, thick and low. “The bastards who ran it—the brass. They ain’t coming to save you. they’re gone. Whatever world you came from? Whatever you left behind. It’s gone too.”

A mutter of protest ran through the room.

“I won’t pretend to be your savior and I ain’t no general. When I entered this place I wasn’t intending on staying. What I did—what my men did breaking into here—was to save someone. A woman. A pregnant woman. Why? Because she is one of us and we protect our own. The rules that you used to follow. The ones that you used to think mattered. They don’t. Not any more. The only thing that does is survival. All of our survival. We are going to have to coexist, to work together, to live together. Because we got lucky, all of us here, and we have a future. I’ve kept my people alive through worse than this. And I’ll keep doing it. I'll keep you all alive. But that means order. That means rules.” Toecutter’s voice sharpened. “I will enforce discipline. If someone kills, if they steal, if they touch one of the women without their consent—they answer to me and my men and justice will be swift. This is my bunker now. The army, the government, your old life, your old authority—it’s all gone. From here on in you are all Acolytes and my word is the law. You follow the assignments you’re given. You get in line, you do what you're told or you get out of the way.”

He paused. Letting the words land before he raised his voice one more time: “We’re in this together now. We win or we die together. I will fight you if I have to but I’d rather fight with you, to live, to survive, to build a new life for that woman and her child and all the children to come. Now—we will carry on living. You will carry out your tasks. We will survive and when the time is right we will rebuild. Remember who you are. You are the people who will inherit the fucking world.”

There was a long silence. Then a single voice spoke from the back.

“And if we don’t want to follow you?”

Toecutter didn’t hesitate.

“Then you die.”

Another silence. Then a murmur. Nods. Eyes meeting eyes. Some still wary. Some angry. But some—just enough—steady.

He stepped down from the table. Moments later hot food was brought in to muted cheers. Forks scooped up hot bacon and eggs—crispy, golden, fat droplets glinting in the overhead ight—some people actually smiled. Brittle, shaky smiles, but real. Conversation began, the first tentative steps towards the new normality were being made,

The world outside was ash, but down in the bunker, beneath the concrete and the dust and the radiation—

A new world had begun to breathe.

Chapter Text

The rhythm of life inside the bunker did not settle so much as collapse into a kind of uneasy mechanical grind. Without the sun to mark the passing hours the days bled into each other. Although a night cycle dimmed the artificial lights to give and approximation of night and day they were never turned off. The reason behind it was simple. They were effectively trapped in the bunker’s tunnels, nobody wanted to be trapped in them in the dark. 

Despite the size of the complex the atmosphere still felt too tight with too many people breathing the same air. The whole thing was slowly becoming nothing more than a giant pressure cooker with people who should never have been forced into proximity. The bikers, the soldiers and the women who had once been their prisoners, they were survivors from different sides of a shattered world trying to coexist while coming to terms with everything they had lost.

Days turned to weeks until slowly the end of the world was months ago, but there was still no word from the outside. The receiving equipment apparently worked just fine, there was just nothing left to receive. They were on their own.

The women remained mostly together, a self-contained orbit around one another, instinctively avoiding the soldiers unless it was absolutely necessary. They had told the gang of behavior amid the soldiers that had frightened them. Unpleasant remarks. Unnecessary touches. Certain men following them, shadowing their every move. They travelled as a group, too frightened to be alone. Their loyalty, when it was offered, went to the gang—to those who’d rescued them and bled beside them in the storming of the gates—not to the men who once wanted to lock them up behind them. They came as a group to sit beside Mouse, to hold her hand, to talk to her. Even though they didn’t know her, she was still one of them, the one who had gone through the very worst of it. 

Toecutter couldn’t help but notice the way the soldiers around him fragmented. Some clung to their chain of command like it was a lifeline, uniforms crisp, boots polished, hair shaved neat. They kept their quarters spotless, drilled every morning, saluted each other in the corridors like absolutely nothing had changed. Others, slowly but surely, were slipping free from discipline’s grip. Uniforms relaxed—jumpsuits unzipped, sleeves rolled up, combat fatigues replaced by jeans or soft flannels recovered from lockers or borrowed from storage rooms. They began smoking more, laughing harder, louder, even if it was always edged with a sense of desperation. A few even began hanging out with the bikers—Starbuck, Diabando, Mudguts—sitting near them at meals, helping them with the cleanup. One soldier produced a set of playing cards and played blackjack with Clunk and Starbuck until both were half-drunk and red-faced with laughter. But not all adapted. Some broke. There were a handful of suicides, all within the first ten days. One young soldier, found in the hydroponics bay, had opened his wrists with military precision using a shard of glass. Another was found slumped in his quarters with a pistol beside him. He’d written no note. Just left a thin, bloody trail down the wall behind his chair. Two others hung themselves, side by side in an underground storage bunker. The morgue in the basement—unused until now—quietly began to fill.

In the clinic, life continued in its own slow rhythm. Keays, bruised with exhaustion but relentless, moved between patients like a ghost in combat boots. Kundalini, more settled now, had steadied into his own rhythm. He’d taken to wearing one of the green surgical coats, sleeves rolled, name written on the chest with marker pen—“Dr. K - The Man with the Magic Hands”. The two surviving med-techs, Meares, quiet and mousy, and Kerr, a tall, soft-eyed, cared for the wounded with quiet precision. They weren’t doctors. But they were all they had, and they all worked like hell to keep everyone alive.

Goose recovered enough to walk again—unsteady at first, pale as a ghost, the transfusions having left him shaky and hollow-eyed—but he refused to occupy a bed that someone else might need so he took the chair beside Mouse’s bed, dragging it close enough that his knees bumped the mattress, and spent hours talking to her. Murmuring things. Jokes. Stories. Promises. Just filling the air with his voice in case her soul was close enough to hear. Toecutter came too, never at the same time. The two men took shifts without ever discussing it—an unspoken arrangement that neither questioned. Sometimes, when the door creaked open and one appeared, the other simply stood and left. Toecutter never said much. He wasn’t built for long speeches and sweet words. But he sat beside her like a sentinel. Sometimes he sang to her, his voice low and cracked, barely more than a whisper. Once, he pulled the sheet down gently, callused hands trembling, as he reached out to touch her stomach.

“You hold on, Mouse,” he said softly. “You hold on.”

It was Goose who was first to notice. “There’s a bump,” he murmured to Keays one afternoon, motioning toward Mouse’s belly as he sat perched beside her, watching her breathe. “Her…It’s there. It’s… it’s bigger.”

Keays leaned in and examined her carefully. His expression, usually unreadable, softened just slightly. “She got lucky. The uterine wall’s intact,” he said. “The trauma didn’t rupture it. The baby’s alive. Growing.” Then, quieter: “But she has to come round. The baby won’t carry to term if she stays in a coma. Her body won’t cope with the demand as it grows bigger. She need to come back. Sooner rather than later.”

Goose exhaled like he hadn’t in days. “She will. I know she will.” Was all he said.

Outside the clinic, the rhythm was harder, uglier. People flinched at raised voices. Some had developed nervous tics; biting their fingers, tugging at their hair, rocking gently on their heels. Others seemed to age a decade in a week. One soldier had taken to sitting in the chapel and staring at the crucifix for hours on end, as if the answer to all the chaos could be found in its stark outlines. Still, work was done. Orders were followed. People needed food, water, purpose and Toecutter kept it all moving. With Keays at his side as interpreter, mediator, and occasional peacekeeper, he kept the bunker from boiling over.

But it wasn’t peace. Tensions simmered beneath the surface. Squabbles broke out over seating in the mess, over rations, over who got to shower first. Fights erupted in the corridors over trivialities—someone skipping a queue, a blanket taken by mistake, a glance was held a second too long. Once, two soldiers nearly came to blows over a half-eaten piece of toast. It was mostly trivial stuff but underneath it all something festered. 

It started the way rot always does—quiet, hidden, spreading in the dark where no one was looking, stirred by a handful of bitter uniformed men. Corporal Jaeger had always carried himself like a man who believed he’d been cheated out of command. His posture was too straight, his boots too clean, his stare too sharp. He made his dislike of the bikers obvious and the desire for military rule to be re established clearly burned within him. In the far corner of a barracks room Jaeger leaned against a bunk, arms crossed, voice low enough to blend in with the hum of the air ducts. A semicircle of soldiers stood around him, leaning in to hear his bitter words, their faces half-lit, their eyes hard.

“They’ve taken everything from us,” he said to the man across from him. Private Kelly—thin, nervy, eyes darting like a trapped rat. “Your squad, your post, your goddamn rifle. You think they’ll give it back? You think they care if you live or die down here?” 

The men listened, enraptured by his words. They were a dangerous mix: men who’d been drilled until they were conditioner to obey the cadence of a military command, and who were too brittle and too scared to shed the illusion that it was necessary.

“Listen up,” Jaeger said, pausing for effect. The others fell silent, hanging on the rasp of his voice. “We sacrificed everything to be here, to guard these arks. We did what we were told. We did our duty. And what did that get us? Stripped of command, shoved aside by a band of thieves in leather.”

There were murmurs of agreement.

“Those bikers—fine fighters. I’ll give them that—but who put them in charge? Who gave them the right to decide what happens here?”

Kelly swallowed, his Adam’s apple jerking. “They’re running things now, sir. Toecutter said—”

“Toecutter,” Jaeger interrupted, the name spat out like a slur. “You hear yourself? That’s what you’re calling him? Sir, commander, leader—none of that. Just a nickname like something out of a biker movie. He’s not a leader, he’s a fucking parasite. And that doctor—Keays—he’s just enabling him.”

Kelly hesitated. “They’ve kept order. I mean… no one’s starving.”

“Not yet,” Jaeger murmured. “But give it time. You think they’ll share when the supplies start running low? You think they’ll let us leave when it’s safe? You think they’ll let us live when we outnumber them?” He leaned closer, voice barely more than breath. “You think they’ll share the women?”

Kelly looked away. But the seed was already set.

A soldier at the edge of the crowd—Mills—spoke up, “But they took all the weapons, they control the armory.”

Jaeger’s lips pressed into a thin smile. “Not all the weapons.”

Another man, Private Roy, who had been quiet until now, asked, voice low, “What do you want us to do?”

Jaeger’s eyes glittered. “We retake the armory. We lock it down so those filthy pigs can’t rearm. As soon as things get rough they’ll go to ground. There kind always do. So we let them. Shut them in the medical wing with that whore of their’s and cut the power. Let them find out how little loyalty they really have within this bunker. Then we establish a chain of command. A proper chain of command, arm our men and then, then we put those filthy desert rats down.”

Jaeger went to work. He picked his men like a hunter picking out the best place for his traps. Slow, deliberate, patient. Whispered words setting the seed of disquiet, subtle comments cementing simmering hatred. He found one eager recruit in the maintenance wing—Corporal Brant, whose bunkmate had hung himself three nights before. Brant was already angry and his grief had soured into something festering and mean. Jaeger let him rage, let him curse the bikers, curse the world, curse Mouse and her “miracle baby” that everyone whispered about.

“You’re right,” Jaeger told him, letting the man hear exactly what he needed to hear. “It’s sick. The way they worship her. You can’t even say her name without one of them glaring at you. She’s the reason we’re stuck down here—because they wanted to play heroes. And now we all pay for it. She’s nothing more than a broodmare. It’s probably our baby the bitch is carrying anyway. I am sure the slut was eager to be served once she got here.”

Brant nodded, eyes glassy. He didn’t even realize he’d already agreed.

Two days later, another joined them—Sykes, a comms tech, whose brother had died in the storming of the gates. His hatred simmered quietly, but Jaeger fanned it expertly.

“You know what Toecutter said?” Jaeger murmured over a game of cards, the deck smudged with oil and sweat. “He said your brother died for nothing. Just some dead soldier in the way of his prize.”

Sykes froze. His fingers twitched around the cards. “He said that?”

Jaeger met his eyes and said nothing. Silence did the rest.

By the second week, Jaeger’s network had taken shape—a lattice of resentment running through the bunker’s metal veins. A dozen men at first. Then twenty. Then thirty. Maybe more. They met in the sub-basement, near the generator room, where the roar of the turbines covered their voices. Jaeger stood before them, his face shadowed by the emergency light’s red pulse.

“They’re weak,” he said, pacing slowly. “Those bikers, they’re weak, they’re ill disciplined. They drink. They’re distracted by that girl in the infirmary.”

Sykes frowned. “And Keays?”

“He’s a problem,” Jaeger admitted. “But he’s a practical man. He’ll side with whoever gives him stability. Once we control the bunker, he’ll fall in line or he’ll disappear.”

Brant spat on the floor. “And Toecutter?”

Jaeger’s mouth curled into something that wasn’t quite a smile. “Toecutter dies last. I want him to see it happen first. The loss, the panic, the collapse. I want him to understand before he goes that the world he built was made of rot.”

There were murmurs. Nods. A few nervous looks, but no objections.

Jaeger clapped his hands once, sharp as a gunshot. “Quiet for now. We move slow. No weapons yet. Not until I say. I’ve got a man watching the armoury. Another checking the food stores. We’ll need both.”

“What about the women?” someone asked from the back.

Jaeger’s eyes gleamed. “They’ll see reason once their protectors are gone. If they don’t, well, they were never going to be volunteers.” He let the words hang.

When he left the meeting, he passed one of the women—Marla, one of Bubba’s helpers from the kitchen—carrying a tray of mugs back toward the mess. He moved aside to let her pass and she gave him a look thick with distrust.  He watched her go, anger boiling. “Enjoy it while you can, bitch.” He muttered.

They honed their plans. Assigned rolls. They chose times. They mapped out shifts, whispered instructions—no written details, no diagrams, but small, clear tasks that men with anger and boredom could execute. Jaeger had an easy logic: replace the unknown with a known terror. Replace an improvised rule with the old blunt instrument of command. Messages passed along bunks. Two men were tapped to “inspect the filters” near midnight who in fact were moving illicit guns. A locksmith—a quiet man who had taken drinking alone—was asked if he still had his tools. Someone slipped a freshly cut key into Jaeger’s pocket when no one watched.

Mudguts discovered the plot purely by accident due to his hatred of the vibrating whine that the damaged lighting emitted. 

“What do you mean you don’t hear it?” He had complained to Mudguts while they had patrolled through the barracks. The high pitched whine had set his teeth on edge. It was like turning out the light and then hearing a freaking mosquito in your tent. He had sworn to himself he was going to fix the damn thing before his next patrol. Now he was crouched in a narrow crawlspace above the suspended ceiling. The duct was barely wide enough for a grown man to breathe, let alone move. Sweat trickled down the back of his neck as he wriggled, tools in hand, into place ready to teach the errant lighting unit who was boss, The air around him up was close, thick with dust and the faint metallic tang of overheated wiring. He grunted softly as he adjusted the torch wedged between his teeth, the beam wobbling as he reached for the fused lighting cable.

“Bloody thing,” he muttered under his breath, trying to twist the coupler into place. He was just tightening the last bolt when he heard it—the unmistakable echo of voices below him.

He didn’t know why, but instinct told him to freeze. To remain silent and hidden. At first, it was only indistinct noise, carried faintly up through the vent grille: boots scuffing, low laughter, the scrape of a chair leg. Then a voice cut through, rough and familiar in a way that made Mudguts’ blood run cold.

“…tonight. As soon as the night cycle hits we launch the attack.”

Mudguts stiffened, his eyes widening. He risked shifting slightly, just enough to glance through the narrow slats of the air vent. Below him twenty or so men stood in a loose group around a workbench. Jaeger was one of them. The corporal had a map of the bunker laid out flat across the table. He traced a line across it with a gloved finger, the others leaning in to listen.

“The first group takes the armoury. Quiet. No noise, no warning. Sykes will disable the locks—we’ll move in fast. Once we’ve got the weapons, we move on the command post and the clinic. Toecutter’s always near the girl but if he’s not, then we take her first and we use her to draw the others out.”

“Then what?” one of the younger soldiers asked.

Jaeger smiled thinly. “Then we put things back the way they should’ve been. Order. Discipline. None of this… chaos.” He spat the word. “The bikers fall and anyone who resists gets a bullet. The women—”

“—what about them?” another interrupted uneasily.

Jaeger’s voice turned colder. “Return to their original status. The service rooms are ready and waiting, complete with restraints, if necessary.”

Mudguts’ heart slammed in his chest so hard he was certain they would hear it. He clamped a hand over his mouth, holding his breath as a droplet of sweat ran down his temple and hung on his chin, trembling. The men below laughed quietly, trading jokes like it was a game.

“We’ll need someone to distract the guards at the armoury,” Sykes said. “Starbuck’s been sniffing around, thinks he’s in charge of security rotations.” He added laughing bitterly.

“I’ll handle him,” Jaeger said. “He’s soft. Thinks he’s one of us now. He’ll never see it coming.”

Another voice spoke up. “And if the bikers fight?”

“They will,” Jaeger said. “But that’s the beauty of it. We don’t want a reason to have to spare them. They fall in the fight or we execute them after, but remember. Toecutter dies last. I want him to suffer..”

Mudguts’ fingers were digging into the metal conduit  as he forced himself not to move. His every instinct screamed to run—to burst out of the vent, warn the others, grab his gun—but he knew if he so much as shifted the wrong way, they’d look up and if they found him, it wouldn’t be pretty.

The meeting continued. Plans were repeated, refined. Timings fixed. “After lights out,” Jaeger kept saying. “When the generators drop to low cycle. They’ll never see it coming.”

Mudguts felt a cramp seize his leg, but he bit his tongue until the pain passed. He lay there like a corpse, motionless, as the voices below finally started to fade. Boots scuffed. Laughter echoed. Then there was silence. Mudguts counted to sixty. Then another sixty. Then another. Only when he was certain the last of them had gone, really gone, did he finally move. His limbs ached as he wriggled backward through the conduit, scraping his elbows raw on the jagged edges. When he finally dropped down from the access panel, he hit the ground hard and had to brace himself against the wall, his breath coming in shallow, shaking bursts.

“Jesus fuck…” he whispered, running a trembling hand over his face. He knew what he had to do.

The corridor outside was empty. The lights buzzed faintly overhead, bathing the metal floor in sterile, ghostly white. He ran—half limping, half stumbling—through the hallways, skidding on corners, his boots hammering out the rhythm of his panic. He didn’t even think about where to go. He just knew. If Toecutter was anywhere, he’d be near the clinic. He always was. Mudguts burst through the lower corridor door, lungs burning, and sprinted for the medical wing. But no matter how fast he ran he could shake the feeling he was running out of time.