Carrion (The Bren Watts Diaries #1)

Chapter 88

Bean and Charlie were still unconscious when we arrived at Jun's safe house. By then, the sunset was upon us.

It was a narrow, three-story townhouse of old English red and large rectangular windows, though it had been barricaded by wood planks and plywood from inside. It had a stone fence and a gate; the driveway was gated, too. Front steps led to the raised level, three or four feet off the ground.

Jun climbed out of the truck and unlocked the driveway gate. He then strode ahead to open the garage doors at the ground level, and there, we hid the vehicle inside. Jun closed it behind us.

I climbed out of the car. "How safe is this?" I asked Jun.

"Safe," he said and walked away toward the door. Alfie and Peter followed after him, dragging Bean and Charlie.

Logan sidled next to me, looking at Jun suspiciously, and then whispered, "Do you trust him?"

"I owe him two now for saving my life."

"Something's off with him."

"A lot of shit went down for him to survive this long. Think of what we went through, and then do it on your own."

"Yeah. I guess so." He looked down on my clothes and frowned. He didn't say anything.

Logan reckoned I wasn't mortally wounded even if I had a gallon of blood all over me and that not all of it came from vectors. He had seen me kill one man right in front of him without a beat, but then again, as I looked into his eyes, I realized he carried the same burden. Had he killed someone as well? It would only make sense. He was in that school with too many armed men.

Without saying anything, I put an arm on his shoulder, letting him know that I understood.

"Oh, by the way, guess what I got?" Logan asked, dropping the subject. He pulled out a crossbow.

Bean's crossbow.

Logan handed it to me. It weighed around seven pounds and twenty-five inches long, and a scope, labeled with a hundred yards optics. It came with a shoulder sling. "He almost shot me with an arrow," I said.

"We got the arrows." Logan held the quiver up with six arrows painted black, but the fetching was in blood red.

"Yeah. It's ours," I said chuckling.

"You know how to use this?"

"Nope. But it can't be that hard. Pull and shoot, right?" I tried to pull the strings back, but they hurt a lot. I let go and flailed my hand out. I had to put it on the ground and used my foot as a holder on the stirrup (the metal bar at the front) while I pulled the string back with both hands. I managed to pull it back on the retention spring and put an arrow on the track. "Wow. That's a bitch to do." It took me seven seconds to do it all. That was too long when a vector was charging you.

Logan laughed. "You kinda struggled there a little."

I slapped him on the shoulder. "Ass."

"What if we get caught out by a horde out there? Oh, let me see." Logan acted like he was taking the crossbow down onto the floor. "I just gotta bend over here while a vector jumps on my back."

"If we want a silent kill, this can be very useful."

"Huh. Never thought of that. We can use it to sneak around, too."

"Maybe. Let's store it for now and keep it close." I handed the crossbow back to him.

"Will do."

"And careful with the trigger. I'd hate to find an arrow lodged on my knee."

"Heh. I'll try."

"Bren?" Peter called out from inside the house. He stepped into the door frame; his eyes narrowed on Logan and I. "What are you two doing?"