"Ready for round two already?" I growl. 

"That wouldn't be wise," the woman's stern voice sounds behind us, and Octavia grabs her bat, ready for a fight. 

"What's going on, Cass?" Felix hisses, stiff as he assesses the situation, fists clenched and ready to brawl.

"These two circus freaks jumped me in the woods while I was hunting," I growl.

The young man pouts, returning his hand to his side. "Well, that's not very nice." 

"Neither is what you did to my face, and yet here we are," I snap back. 

The young man sighs. "Look, let's just talk this out, yeah? We can take you back to our camp, get you patched up, and smooth out this whole thing over a plate of hot food." 

"Oh, because 'talking it out' worked so well for us five minutes ago," I remark. 

The woman behind us scoffs. "All you had to do was listen to me; you were the one who decided to fight." 

I glance back at her, careful to keep the young man in sight. "You had a knife to my throat; that doesn't exactly tell me you're up for a chat." 

I notice that the man has taken a small step towards me, and I turn back around, aiming my bow at his head. He stops, his hand raised once more, though this time in surrender.

"Walk away now," I growl, "and you won't have to see us again."

"Wish we could," the man sighs, "but we can't just let you go. We don't know who you are, and besides that, you left your breakfast back in the clearing."

I can't suppress the growl of my stomach at the mention of food, and the young man smiles. 

"Look," he says calmly, "I'm not asking you to trust us. I'm just asking you to come with us to our camp, get patched up, maybe have a bite to eat, and have a talk with our leader. After that, you can go."

"Somehow, I feel like you're lying to me," I retort. 

The woman behind me sighs, stepping closer, unphased as Octavia raises her bat a little higher. "You don't seem all that used to acts of kindness, and I get that. We're both strangers in a dangerous world to one another, but as I see it, you need medical attention and food, both of which we can provide if you just come with us peacefully and answer some questions." 

"Five minutes ago, you were all set to beat my face in," I growl. "Why should I believe anything you say?"

"She's got a point there," the young man points out, and the woman gives him a death glare.

"Because you're not marked," the woman growls, her attention back to me. "If you were, we would have killed you by now."

"Wow," Octavia grumbles, "such a poetic way with words..."

The woman glares at my younger sister, and I scowl right back at the woman. Try something, lady, and I'll put an arrow between your eyes.

None of this would have happened if she hadn't have threatened me with a knife while I minded my own business, trying to feed my family. Her face is neutral now, calm, all evidence of the storm in her eyes replaced with a mask of indifference, but the intensity behind them hasn't disappeared.

"Cass," Octavia ventures, glancing back at me, "what do we do?" 

I glance at my siblings, then at the two strangers. If I kill them, that'll only piss off their camp, and there's no telling who they are or how many of them are out here, and I can't risk another manhunt. Not with how long we've been without proper food, and I'm sure that if they have medical supplies, I can properly look after the old wound on my leg. 

"Cass?" Felix asks. 

I sigh, slowly lowering my bow. The strangers are correct; if they wanted us dead, we would have been gone a long time ago, and we certainly wouldn't be talking right now. They seemed only to want to disarm and capture me in the fight, whereas I was attacking with wild lethality to get away. 

"Fine," I declare. "We'll do it your way." 

I hate that we have to go with them, but putting my family at risk is not a good move. If these strangers keep up their end of this exchange, we can get out of here and continue on with our mission, hopefully unscathed. Felix and Octavia both glance over at me, Octavia obviously fighting the urge to take a shot at the woman before her, but she eventually lowers her bat, and Felix slowly relaxes. 

"Good," the man states. "I'm sure you understand that we'll have to take your weapons while we escort you to our camp."

"And we'll have to check these two for markings as well," the woman adds, gesturing to my siblings.

"Why?" I demand. "Isn't it enough that I'm clean?"

"No," she says simply, not bothering to offer up more of an explanation.

My siblings and I exchange anxious glances, but eventually, we relent and hand them our weapons. 

"I don't like this, Cass," Octavia mutters to me as she cautiously removes her old button-up. 

"Don't worry," I assure my sister, glaring over at the woman as she approaches Octavia and me, "if they try anything, they'll have one Hell of a problem on their hands."

The woman regards me with a guarded expression I can't place; respect? Caution? Alertness?

She checks my sister gentler than she checked me - likely because Octavia hasn't hit her in the face yet - while the man checks Felix. Both of my siblings stand stiffly while the strangers check their arms and legs and necks for a spider tattoo none of us have, and I watch the strangers intently. 

"Good, they're clean," the man sighs with relief after their check. 

"They're my siblings," I deadpan, "I'd be concerned if they weren't."

The strangers exchange blank looks with one another, communicating something I can't read before the woman sighs. It's a look I always get when I introduce my family, namely with Felix because he obviously doesn't look like us; Korean's look nothing like Filipino's, and every time I introduce my brother, we get funny looks just like the ones these strangers are giving us.

"Like we said earlier, we can never be too sure," she says, picking up our weapons. "Grab your things; we'll take you to our camp."

My siblings and I grab our bags, the strangers taking what few weapons we have on us, and they lead us silently through the woods, only stopping at the clearing we fought in long enough to make Felix pick up the deer and carry it on his shoulders. The two strangers keep a close eye on us, and I notice that the woman had a pistol hidden behind her belt this entire time when she crouches to find her discarded knife in the leaves from our scuffle.

She very easily could have just shot me there in the woods and left me to rot rather than fight and talk. I almost feel bad about making the situation difficult, but she did put a knife to my throat first thing. Not the greatest first impression.

My siblings and I follow them through the woods for a while in silence, taking a well-worn path in the dirt until we start to hear quiet chatter from somewhere ahead of us. Through the branches and bushes, I can make out a tall, wooden wall stretched out before us, and before long, an equally large gate made of wood and sheet metal looms overhead with a massive hand-painted sign above it reading 'Camp Cottonwood.' 

The woman escorting us gives out two short whistle blasts, and two heads appear at the top of the wall, watching us with caution. After a moment, the two heads disappear back behind the wall, followed by the sound of gears turning, and the gates slowly swing open.

It looks to be a summer camp, cabins lined up all around with a few tents pitched about, a couple of greenhouses off to the side, and I can see the river snaking around the back with some newer-looking buildings by the banks. Dozens of people are gathered by the front gates, some are armed, and when they notice that my siblings and I are being escorted in by the strangers, they all stop to stare. Most of them are staring at me, at the blood on my face, and scared whispers drift around us. 

An older man approaches us, looking much more displeased than I've seen the woman be. "Who the Hell are they?" He demands, glaring heavily at me. 

"Guests," the man replies simply, trying to walk us past him, but the older man steps in front again. 

"Leon ain't gonna like this," he growls. "I sure as Hell don't."

"Well, then," the young stranger grins, making us pause to look at this older man, "why don't you take this deer to Butch then and tell him all about it? We're really in quite a bit of a hurry."

The younger man hefts the deer from Felix's shoulders and tosses it into the arms of the angry old man, whose arms sag at the sudden weight added into his arms. 

He sputters as the young man pats his shoulder with a friendly grin, "Wha-"

"Now hold on," the woman escorting us pipes in. "Before he goes, he can bring one of his people here to take the weapons to the armory."

He tries again, "Excuse me-" 

But the young man gives out a whistle to a pair of men who have been standing off to the side of the main path and watching us. They cast each other confused looks and slowly approach, keeping close eyes on my siblings and me.

"Uh, yes?" One of them asks, his eyes trained on me and my bloody face.

The young woman escorting us dumps our weapons into the arms of the first man who reached us and gives him a pat on the shoulder. "Be a dear and take these to the armory," she orders. 

"But who-" he tries.

"We're in a hurry," the woman interrupts, "now would be nice."

The man shoots a glare at her as he hands his buddy my bow and quiver, shouldering my sister's bat and gripping my knife before they turn and head towards a small shed not far from the large building we're headed to.

"Who are they?" I hear one of them mutter to another as we continue making our way to the big building.

"Surely not Widow's; those two know better than to bring those bastards here," his friend answers grimly, not bothering to lower his voice, and he shoots one last glare our way.

"Did you see the blood on that girl's face? It looks like Danielle gave her one Hell of a beating."

His buddy scoffs, his comment lost in the whispers of other campers pointing at us as the two strangers continue walking us, now empty-handed save for what little supplies we carry, to the big house that looks as though it's been crudely remodeled into a base of operations. Or maybe fortified as a shelter. 

Two guards, both armed with rifles, stand on either side of the front door. They nod to the two strangers as they lead my siblings and me up the porch's steps, opening the door and allowing us inside. 

There aren't very many people here; mostly, it looks like guards simply chatting tensely on the leather couches in the main room. 

"What do you think they're up to?" I overhear one of them ask. 

"There's no telling; Hughes says he spotted a small group of them to the east of us, but he couldn't track them to any camps," one answers. 

"That's ominous..." a third notes, shuddering. 

"Do you think they finally found us?" the second guard asks. 

"If they did, wouldn't they have attacked by now?" the first replies. 

When they hear us walk in, they all go silent, staring at us, noting the blood on my face and the cut on the woman's, and they glare. Are they hiding from the Widow's here? That would explain the strangers' hostility and their paranoia about checking the three of us for marks.

We're led up a flight of stairs and down a hall to a set of double doors, where the woman knocks. There are a few moments of silence before a gruff voice answers, "Come in." 

The woman opens the door to a large study, and inside is a tall, muscular man, maybe in his forties, standing in front of an oak desk strewn with papers. He's dressed in casual military fatigues, his dark eyebrows furrowed at a map he's looking over. A deep, old scar marks his face, running from below his chin up to the side of his nose. His wavy dark hair is pulled back in a low ponytail, and black circles mark his dark skin under his eyes.

He turns to us, deep concern in his eyes when he sees the state the woman and I are in. "Danielle. Josh," he greets with a nod, his eyes trained on me. The two strangers both stand at attention on either side of my siblings and me. "I see you brought guests."

"Sir," the woman - Danielle, I guess - nods. "We found them camped out in the woods a mile west of us," she gestures to me with her head, "where this one was wandering around."

"I can see that there was also a scuffle between you," he eyes us, and I can barely make out a sense of recognition in his face. "Are they clean?" 

"Yes, sir. We checked this one in the woods before she ran off," Danielle gestures to me. "We followed her back to a small camp where these two were staying at, and we checked the other two before coming here." 

The older man regards my siblings and me with a curious gaze, then looks to Danielle and Josh, nodding. "Good. Now, explain these injuries to me. Did they attack you first?" The older man asks. 

Danielle and Josh exchange glances, and Danielle sighs. "Technically, yes." 

I glare at her, and the older man notices this. "They either did, or they didn't, Danielle. What happened?" He asks, his eyes trained on the tense blonde next to me. 

Danielle gulps before she speaks. "Josh and I were out on patrol this morning, as you ordered. We came across their camp in the woods, next to the creek, and noticed this one leaving while the other two slept," Danielle once again gestures to me. "We couldn't tell if they were Widow's initially, so we followed her into the woods. When we noticed she was getting close to the walls, and armed, we stepped in." 

"Hardly," I spit, and all eyes swivel to look at me. "I was out hunting a deer for my family. I almost had it, but then this guy swooped in and killed it, while Lady Schwarzenegger over here stuck a knife to my neck," I gesture with my thumb to the cut she left on the side of my neck, still bleeding. Danielle doesn't look at me, but I can see her lip curl slightly in distaste at the nickname. "They handed the deer off to some old guy when we came in."

Danielle takes a breath when the older man turns his gaze to her. "I calmly asked her to lower her weapon since it was still aimed at Josh. Rather than listening and avoiding all of this," she glares at me, "she fought back." 

"If you had just waited two seconds instead of jumping in like a couple of psychopaths, maybe I would have been more inclined to listen to you!" I growl defensively. 

"You were armed and headed straight for our camp! We had to think about our people!" Danielle argues back. 

The older man clears his throat, and Danielle and Josh both straighten up, quiet. "That's quite enough out of all of you," the older man says and turns to my siblings and me. "I apologize on their behalf for the distress they've caused, though I hope you understand our position. Strangers in this area very rarely mean well, and we must make sure to protect the people gathered here. For now," he stands and walks around the desk to stand in front of us, "let's get your injuries looked at, and we can talk more later. Danielle," he looks over at the woman, and she stiffens. "Take our guests to the Shed and see that they're taken care of, then come get me once you're finished."