Hattie gathered a team of five people to go with a couple of raiders to the place where Ean was hiding. That was three more people than had come to the town to even tell them about their ransom demands, but no one doubted that there would be more people as soon as they made it to the location.

Alex carried two guns on him: the rifle that the raiders were aware of and the pistol that no one else, even the people in their group, were aware of. He liked having his back-up weapons when purposefully walking into danger.

They walked for a good hour away from the town before they reached a small cabin, one that was unmarked on the maps that every traveler took with them when they left the town. It was a dilapidated shack that did not even have the solar panels that had become standard for living spaces in the middle of nowhere. The building materials looked like scrap metal.

A raider carrying guns came out of the shack, smirking at them as he pointed his rifle at them.

"All right," he said. "Set everything down right there. Let me take a good look at them."

"Give us the hostage first," Hattie demanded. "We want to make sure he's safe before we give you anything."

Rifleman sneered.

"Not a fucking chance. Show us the shit, and then we'll show you what you want, got it?"

There was no reminder that these dummies were outnumbered. Hattie just nodded at the three men who had volunteered to carry the heavy boxes full of supplies, and then the men lowered them onto the ground. Rifleman opened up one of the boxes. It was full of ammunition. He opened one, and he nodded when he found that there were indeed bullets inside them.

Then he moved on to the second box. There were smaller boxes full of medicine inside, including the stuff that Alex had gotten from the other town. He took one of the bottles, and he swished it around to confirm that there was some kind of liquid inside of it.

There was a startling sound as Rifleman moved on to the third box. It sounded like a man's muffled screaming.

Before RIfleman even got to open the third box, one of Hattie's men rushed at one of the raiders, and one of the others quickly followed suit.

"Hey!" Rifleman shouted, and he grabbed for the rifle he had slung over his shoulder.

Alex ran at him. He let off a shot, and Alex felt a burning pain in his stomach. However, RIfleman went tumbling onto his back as Alex tackled him to the ground. Hattie was soon there, and she fought with RIfleman for a hold of the gun. There were other gunshots, but all Alex could concentrate on was holding onto the man while his stomach burned.

He prayed to whatever god still existed that the Merge magic had not yet completely dissipated from his body because that would be really shit timing.

Soon a third person came, and a fourth helped him to his feet as Hattie and her man tied up RIfleman. His eyes bulged when he noticed the blood soaking through his coat around his stomach, and he quickly pressed their hand to the wound.

"Whoa! We got a man hurt!" the kind soul said.

Alex waved it away, and he pressed his hand over the wound.

"I'll be fine," he said. "Let's go find Ean."

Hattie came to his side, and she grabbed Alex. She helped him sit on one of the boxes, and she lifted his shirt to take a look at the wound.

"You're in luck," she said. "This didn't hit anything vital. It's just bleeding a lot."

"I can't afford to lose much blood if you remember everything I told you."

"We already gave you a blood transfusion. You don't have to worry about that anymore."

Hattie pulled out some bandages and a bottle of alcohol from the medicine box. She drenched the bandage with alcohol, and it stung as she pressed it to his wound. He hissed through his teeth, and she smirked at him.

"You and I have been through worse shit," Hattie said. "Rest here, and I'll see what's taking them so long to find Ean."

"I'm not sitting out here alone."

Alex pushed himself off the box, and he—very slowly—followed after Hattie. The outside of the cabin was unimpressive, but the inside was even less so with the meager furnishings. He could hear muffled wailing from beneath them.

Her men were overturning furniture and feeling along the walls for secret switches, something he was sure they could only find in Pre-Merge cartoons. Alex kicked aside the rugs, and he found a hatch door.

"Check here," he said, leaving the "morons" part unspoken.

One of the men rushed to the hatch door. It turned out to be locked, and another of the men rushed to it with lock-picking tools in hand. Once they had the door open, a foul odor floated out of the room, and Alex covered his nose while taking a step back.

Alex recognized Ean's voice as the man screamed at them.

"Demons!" Ean shouted. "Stay away from me!"

Alex glanced at Hattie, who quirked an eyebrow in return. The men pulled Ean out of the cellar. He was wearing clothes, unlike in the picture, and he screamed and writhed on the floor as he looked at everything around him.

The man appeared to be having some kind of psychotic break.