Chương 11: Walk Away

The hallway was short and dim. Bathroom on the left, office door at the end. The office door was open, the heavy security frame pushed inward. Light from the office window spilled into the hall. A woman knelt behind his desk, pulling open the bottom drawer. She looked up when his shadow crossed the doorway, and for a moment neither of them moved.

"Mr. Locke." Rachel's voice came out tight. She was still wearing the blouse she'd probably had on when the rain started, wrinkled now and stained at the cuffs. Her bag sat open on the desk, a few small items inside he couldn't make out from the doorway.

"I didn't think—" She swallowed.

"The store was already broken into. Everything out front was gone. I thought you were probably dead." She trailed off. Enzo looked at her. At the open drawers, the rifled filing cabinet, the scattered papers. She'd been methodical about it. Looking for the safe combination, most likely.

"It's fine, Rachel." He meant it. After all, it would be quite hypocritical to be upset at her actions when Val and Sumi were busy stealing food, after which they'd join him in stealing a bunch of bicycles. She blinked. Whatever she'd been bracing for, that wasn't it.

"I'm just here to grab a few things," he said.

"After that, take whatever you want." He didn't wait for a response. The workshop bench ran along the far wall beneath the window, and he went to it first. His precision set sat in its leather case beside the lamp. He unzipped it and checked each graver by touch. The onglette, his best flat, the round he'd reground three times to get the profile right. All there. He rolled it shut and slid it into the backpack alongside his home set. The flex shaft handpieces hung on hooks above the bench.

Two of them, each fitted with different collet sizes. He lifted them down and tucked them into the gaps between containers. The burr organizer sat beside them, a rotating stand studded with pegs, each holding a different cutting head. He didn't take them all. Pulled the setting burrs, the ball burrs in three sizes, a few cone-shaped ones for seat cutting, and dropped them into a fabric pouch meant to hold loose gems. Ring mandrel from its hook on the wall. Solid steel, a foot long. He'd strap it to the outside.

Planishing hammer from the pegboard. Added it by the tool rolls. He pulled open the top desk drawer and sorted through the clutter until his fingers found what he was looking for. The hand-push graver, designed to be driven by palm pressure alone. He'd kept it out of sentiment more than anything. His pneumatic system did the same work in a fraction of the time. The pneumatic system that was now a paperweight. He added it to the roll. Rachel watched all of this from beside the desk.

She'd stopped searching and was standing with her arms crossed, her bag clutched against her chest. Enzo knelt in front of the safe. His knee ground under the pack's weight, but he ignored it. He reached for the dial, then stopped. Pressed his palm flat against the door instead.

"Lock," he whispered. The mechanism turned. Tumblers clicked in sequence. He reached out and pulled the handle, and the heavy door swung open. A notification pulsed. He dismissed it. Inside were three gold bars stacked on the bottom shelf, each one catching the light. Above them, a tray of loose gemstones in labeled pouches. Several client rings in progress, set in foam inserts. Some finished work waiting for pickup that would never come. He took the gemstones, the rings, and the finished pieces.

Left the gold where it was. He stood and looked at Rachel. Then gestured at it.

"All yours." Her eyes widened. She looked at the safe, then back at him, clearly trying to work out the catch. There wasn't one. The gold bars were heavy, and heavy was a problem now. But she didn't know that, and he wasn't going to explain it.

"Thank you," she said quietly. He nodded and shouldered the pack, feeling every ounce of what he'd added. The mandrel jutted awkwardly from the side. He adjusted the straps, picked up his cane, and turned toward the door. Then stopped. A shelf in the corner, high up, half hidden behind a box of old receipts and a dusty jar of liver of sulfur. He'd almost missed it. A cast-iron hand-crank sharpening system, compact, bench-mountable, with a small grinding plate and a folding handle.

He'd bought it at an estate sale two years ago because the old man selling it had been a watchmaker and the stories were good. Had never used it. The electric sharpener was faster and more precise. He reached up and pulled it down. Blew the dust off and turned the crank once. The mechanism was stiff but sound. Five, maybe six pounds of cast iron and steel. It wouldn't fit in the pack. He tucked it under his arm, shifted the cane, and headed for the door.

"Good luck, Rachel."

"You too, Mr. Locke."

The pet aisle was at the far end of the store, past the dairy section where the smell was already turning. Val kept her pace up and her eyes forward, but she tracked everything in her periphery. A family of four with a shopping cart stacked to the brim, the father's hand resting on a crowbar tucked into his belt loop. Two women working in tandem down the canned goods aisle, filling garbage bags. A kid sitting on the floor near the pharmacy counter, eating chips and watching the chaos with amusement.

She'd sent Sumi to grab water. The back wall had cases of bottled water still stacked three deep, and Sumi had taken both their backpacks along with Murph's lead. They'd be faster if they split up. That was what Val had told her. It was also true that she didn't love the idea of Sumi alone in a store full of desperate people, but the water section was visible from the registers and there were enough other shoppers around to keep things civil. Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere.

Support the author by seeking out the original. That was the strange part. Things were still civil. Barely, and with a current running underneath that said it wouldn't last, but people were taking what they needed and leaving space for others. A woman reached past a man for a jar of peanut butter and he stepped aside without a word. No eye contact, no acknowledgment, but no conflict either. Somewhere outside, an Eater screeched.

The sound was distant, blocks away at least, but it cut through the store's silence like a knife. Everyone froze for half a second. The man with the crowbar pulled it free. One of the women with the garbage bags hurried toward the exit. The rest went back to what they were doing, moving a little faster than before. Val found the pet food aisle. It was half picked over, which surprised her until she thought about it. It was San Francisco. Everyone had a dog. Thankfully, plenty remained.

She needed the high-protein kibble Enzo had asked for. Something that would keep the now fully grown Murph fueled. She spotted a bag near the back of the bottom shelf, dark blue packaging with a label she recognized from the brand Enzo bought. The bag was huge. She slid the first bag out and hefted it onto her shoulder, the thirty pounds feeling lighter than it should. Since she'd started cultivating mana, her strength had risen noticeably. As had everything else. Speed. Durability. Reflexes.

Then she grabbed a second bag, tossed it over her other shoulder, and took off toward where she'd left Sumi. They didn't know what Mill Valley would look like when they got there. Didn't know if the stores would be picked clean already, if the roads would even be passable, if the house would still be standing. Every bit of food they didn't grab now was a gamble on the future being stable. Hunting and foraging assumed free time and safe surroundings.

Two bags of premium kibble was almost two months supply for Murph, maybe more if they rationed carefully. She heard the voice before she turned the corner.

"I said move. You deaf?" Val came around the end and saw them. Two men, both bigger than her, which described most people she'd ever met. The one in front stood towering over her friend, hand on the hilt of a hunting knife at his belt. Denim jacket, heavy boots. The one behind had a rifle slung over his right shoulder and a shopping cart loaded with cans and boxed food. He was leaning against the cart like this was entertainment. Sumi was on her knees between the two open backpacks, half-packed with water bottles.

Murph sat beside her, ears flat, lead pulled tight.

"We're just getting water," Sumi said. Her voice was steady.

"There's plenty. We'll be out of your way in a minute."

"You'll be out of our way now." The knife man took a step closer.

"Or do I need to help you understand?" Val dropped the dog food bags. They hit the floor with a thud that made both men look up. She was already moving, covering the ground fast enough that the knife man's expression shifted from annoyance to assessment. She put herself between Sumi and the two of them.

"She said she'll be done in a minute." Val looked at the knife man directly. He was a head taller, but she didn't care.

"There's enough water for everyone. Grab whatever you want. We're not stopping you."

"Who the fuck are you?" The rifle man straightened up from his cart.

"Her friend." The knife man's lip curled.

"Two of you doesn't change the math, sweetheart. Still two of us, and I've got more than tough words." His hand tightened on the knife grip. Behind her, Val heard Sumi's breathing hitch. Felt Murph step closer behind her, the dog's weight pressing against the back of her leg. Val looked at the knife. At the rifle. At the two men's faces, one posturing and eager, the other still deciding. She thought about the water in the bags. About the fifteen miles of road between here and Mill Valley. About the bridge.

About whether the taps would work when they got there, whether the pumping stations were still running, whether the blood rain had fouled the reservoirs. She thought about Enzo waiting for them, counting on them to come back with what they needed. She thought about backing down, and the math didn't work.

"Val," Sumi said quietly.

"Let's just go." Val took a breath. She let the cycle begin. Her heart rate climbed, not from fear, but from intention. Cultivation was nothing like casting. She'd seen wizards thread mana into spell forms, all geometric precision and delicate control. This was the opposite. Her heartbeat was the engine, each thump pulling mana up from her core and driving it outward through her body in a warm flood.

It moved through her arms and legs like a second pulse, filling her muscles, pulsing against her skin from the inside. Fire mana rose to the surface of her fists and spilled over. Flames curled around her knuckles, licking between her fingers, throwing orange light across the aisle. It didn't burn. It was her own mana, shaped by her own body, and it responded to her will the way her lungs responded to the need to breathe. She could feel it wanting to go further, to wrap her forearms, to climb.

She held it at her hands. Enough to make the point. Murph growled. Low and menacing, hackles rising along her spine. Val stepped forward and held up one burning fist.

"Walk away." She let the fire say the rest. The knife man's face went white. His hand came off the hilt and hung at his side. He stared at the flames wrapping her fingers, the light reflected in his widening eyes. His partner grabbed his shoulder.

"Shit, dude. She's one of those freaks. Come on." The knife man didn't move. He was still staring at her, and Val could see the battle behind his eyes. Pride warring with survival as some animal part of his brain tried to reconcile the sight of the fire pouring from her hands. Murph's growl deepened. The man's jaw flexed. Then he turned, shrugging off the hand on his shoulder, and grabbed a single pack of water before dumping it in the cart. They headed up the aisle toward the front of the store.

The rifle man looked back once. The knife man didn't. Val let the fire die. The mana receded, pulled back by her slowing heartbeat, leaving a residual warmth in her hands that faded over the next few seconds. She unclenched her fists and let out the breath she'd been holding. She turned around. Sumi was still on her knees.

"You okay?" Val asked. Sumi let out a long, unsteady breath.

"They were here before I noticed them. The one with the knife started talking and I just froze." She looked down at her hands.

"I couldn't even think of what to do."

"You kept them talking. That's what mattered." Val knelt beside her and started packing the remaining water bottles.

"If you'd panicked, they might have acted before I got here." Sumi didn't look convinced, but she picked up a bottle and added it to the backpack. They worked in silence for a minute. The sounds of the store continued. A cart rattling across the floor. A child asking a question that went unanswered.

"This is how it's going to be from now on, isn't it?" Sumi asked. Val zipped the bag shut.

"I don't know. Probably." Sumi studied her for a moment, then nodded. She stood and pulled on her backpack, adjusting the straps over the weight of the water. Val grabbed the two dog food bags from where she'd dropped them and settled one on each shoulder. Between the kibble and the bottles already in her own pack, she was carrying close to eighty pounds. She felt it in her legs, her lower back, the straps cutting into her shoulders.

They walked out through the store's shattered entrance, glass crunching under their shoes, Murph trotting ahead of them on a short lead. The sun hit Val's eyes and she squinted against it, scanning the street for threats the way she'd become accustomed to since learning of Eaters. Movement in a doorway across the street. Someone down the road, searching the trunk of a car. Enzo was waiting outside the bike shop across the street.

He stood there with his own backpack, something long and metallic jutting from one side, leaning hard on his cane. He was watching them. Val felt the tension run out of her. The knot sitting between her shoulder blades eased. They were all fine. Everything was fine. They had the food and water they needed. Enzo had whatever he needed, and he was standing there, waiting for them, calm as he always was. As if none of it rattled him.

Like he was focused on a particularly challenging climb he had planned, and nothing was going to get in his way. The world might have changed, but her brother hadn't. And that was comforting. She crossed the street toward him, Sumi and Murph following behind.