Charity bandaged his hand the best she could and gave him a painkiller from the first aid box. He refused to take the really strong stuff because he didn’t want to get drowsy. He insisted on standing guard, gun in hand, in case the raiders returned.
“If you help us load up supplies,” Milo told the captives, “we’ll do everything we can to free you.”
Besides Callum, ten men were at the market. They were dirty and bedraggled, their long hair nearly covering the collars around their throats. They all eyed the harvesters suspiciously and kept their distance, as though Milo’s offer was a trick, and he might decide to sell them to some disreputable farmers, or worse, another group of slavers.
“If we can unlock their computer,” Callum said, “I can figure out how to turn off the signal to our collars.” He wiped his palmson his pants. “You’ll let me try, right? I can do that while you’re loading stuff.”
Milo cocked his head skeptically. “Do you know anything about computer programs? Because if you don’t, you could make things worse.”
Callum nodded, quick, fast nods that showed his eagerness. “I was attending tech school when they captured me. If I can’t turn off the signal, I should be at least able to modify the perimeters so that the containment area encompasses a few hundred miles, enough so we can reach hospitals.”
Only specialized surgeons could remove the collars without risk of puncturing the carotid artery. It was the way slave owners kept their slaves from running. If they went beyond the boundaries set by their masters, the collars sent out debilitating shocks.
The men grudgingly helped load the trucks. If they didn’t trust the harvesters, they at least had some trust in Callum’s skill. Milo dragged the bearded slaver into the main tent that housed the collars and laptop. The man’s fingerprints unlocked the computer. Callum sat on the ground, brows furrowed, and worked.
Charity envied the way his fingers flew over the screen, stopping every once in a while to type a flurry of commands on the keyboard. You had to be really smart to go to a tech school. Perhaps that’s why the slavers wanted him.
Charity didn’t find any of the items on her parents’ list among the slavers’ things except for gasoline, and there was enough of that to make them far richer than when they’d come.
They took the lion’s share of the fuel along with some of the market goods. The Huntingtons’ haul was much better than the captives’, but the Huntingtons had been the ones to kill the slavers, and besides, no one was going to question their authority when they had all the guns.
The slavers had conveniently stripped their vehicles of security tech. Milo did an electronics swipe on them anyway in case they’d added their own tracking devices. The Huntingtons claimed two of the four usable trucks, plus loaded more goods onto their Jeep’s trailer.
Charity could tell when Callum managed to turn off the collars’ signals. All of the men, at the same moment, sighed in relief and reached up to touch their necks. After that, a couple of the men left the trucks, stalked over to one of the dead men, and kicked him repeatedly.
Some of the captives egged the two on, giving them suggestions of what else they could do to the bodies.
Their actions were a waste of time and brutal, but she understood their rage. Maybe she would’ve done the same thing if she’d been a slave.
With the exception of Callum, the captives planned to drive the other vehicles to Kansas City to find medical treatment there. That city hadn’t been damaged much in the wars and had a wide array of services.
The men also took the slavers’ computers and phones with them. The tech was new and would’ve brought in high prices at a market, but the men agreed that turning the tech over to the police was the best thing to do. The electronics might give the authorities information to help catch the remaining slavers.
Sometimes revenge trumped money.
Once the packing was done, Charity’s family drove off. Callum and Milo headed the caravan in a large white truck with a closed bed. Callum said he knew how to drive, and Milo was in no state to. He sat in the passenger side with his rifle visible to discourage any raiders who might be on the road.
Zia followed them in a smaller maroon truck. Charity drove the Jeep with a trailer now stuffed with crates, including one with three dozen chickens.
Perhaps it was for the best that she was alone so no one was there to criticize her driving. She’d been functioning well enough while they packed up, going on auto-pilot to complete the task. Now she gripped the wheel too tight and kept forgetting that if she didn’t ease the gas pedal just right, the Jeep would sputter or lurch forward. Her limbs no longer shook but felt like they still were. She couldn’t get enough air, despite her deep breaths.
Her brain kept invoking horrible scenarios, kept imagining how events might have played out if not for those matches. Where would she be at this moment? Would the oily slaver be making good on his threats to get acquainted with her tongue?
The men wouldn’t have waited long to tighten one of the collars around her neck. When would her family have realized that the three of them weren’t coming home? Her parents would’ve tried to save them, and that would put her family in even more danger.
She didn’t feel guilty for killing the slavers, but the man who’d dropped the gas container—had he been an innocent captive? Maybe he’d been a good man with a family? Was his blood on their hands?
While she’d loaded up the trucks, Charity had asked Milo about him.
“He was a slaver,” Milo said loudly and firmly, a warning to everyone else not to contradict him. “You don’t need to regret killing him. It was self-defense.”
Might have been. But Milo wouldn’t have had to speak so loudly if he’d been sure of that truth.
The trip home seemed to take forever. When the group finally pulled into the farm compound in their parade of vehicles, Charity’s parents came out of their bunkhouse to meet them. They’d been waiting there instead of working in the fields with the rest of the harvesters.
It seemed strange somehow that they both looked the same as they had this morning—her father’s sure stride and the brown hair peeking out of his favorite cowboy hat. Her mother’s blonde hair was still in the same ponytail she’d had at breakfast.
Milo’s truck came to a halt just short of the bunkhouses. He climbed out and marched over to their parents. If the extra vehicles hadn’t already made it clear that this hadn’t been a normal trip, the blood soaking through his bandage did. Charity was glad he reached them first so he could be the one to tell them what had happened. She didn’t want to relive the details.