"What do you mean, 'move on'?"

"We just got here!"

"Cass still needs to heal!"

"I thought you needed help?"

John holds his hands up, looking beyond exhausted, and my friends quiet down, still confused. "I know what my boys said, but you can't stay here very long," John sighs.

"Why the change of heart?" Dani asks, keeping her voice even, her grip on my hand tightening.

John watches her for a moment, the gears in his head turning as he formulates his words. "We simply don't have the space or resources to take care of you lot," he eventually says.

"Well, that's a bold-faced lie," Sparrow growls, surprising us all. "There's an entire highway a few miles from here full of resources! We were just there!"

"They aren't our resources to take, boy," John growls back.

"Wait," I pipe in, sitting up as best as I can, and all eyes turn to me. "This has something to do with those bandits Hank mentioned, right?"

John tenses up at the mention of the bandits, and I know I hit the nail on the head. "Damn son blabbin' to everyone he meets…" John grumbles, rubbing his temples.

"We can help you with them," Josh says. "Carry our own weight, you know?"

"No offense, kid," John says, "but this ain't none of your business. Now, I'm gonna need you kids to scoot on outta here by tonight, ya hear me?"

"But-"

"No 'buts'!" John interrupts. "Now the way I see it, you lot ain't got a lot of time to dilly-dally, so I suggest you get packed up and ready to move on out." With that, the grumpy old man leaves the room, closing the door behind him.

"He's hiding something," Quentin says, crossing his arms.

"He's not the only one," Josh says, looking over us. "You have to remember, we're all strangers to each other, and we didn't exactly get off on the right foot on the highway."

Dani sighs, her grip on my hand relaxing. I rub my thumb over her knuckles, hoping that I'm soothing her, and she looks at me, an apologetic smile on her face. "Then we prove to him that he can trust us," Dani says, looking back up at everyone else. "We can't go anywhere with Cass in the shape she's in right now; we just don't have the medical supplies to take care of potential infections she could get."

"And I don't think Old MacDonald over here is going to be all that willing to part with any more medicine than he's already used," Sparrow sighs.

"Old MacDonald?" Josh chuckles. "Really?"

"What? He's old, he has a farm, and he quite literally just went 'Ee I ee I o, you gotta fuckin' go' at us," Sparrow defends. "It makes sense!"

Quentin nods his head, a thoughtful, serious look on his face. "I got that reference."

Sparrow all but squee's with joy, fanning himself, while Josh, Dani, and I roll our eyes. However much I don't trust Quentin, I have to admit; he is undoubtedly an... interesting guy.

"Anyway," Dani continues, "we're going to have to show them that we can be trusted; it's the only way they'll let us stay long enough for Cass to fully recover."

"I'm okay, guys, really," I try standing, but Dani stops me with a gentle hand on my shoulder. "I'm not handicapped, just a little sore."

"Cass, you lost a lot of blood," Dani notes.

"And you were out for quite a while," Josh adds.

"Pssh, I've had worse," I wave off.

Dani squeezes my shoulder gently. "That's not the point, Cass. Just let us figure out what we can do while you rest up. We'll buy you as much time as we can."

"Uh, guys?" Sparrow's voice is tense as he looks through the blinds of the bedroom to the front yard. "I don't know if we have any time to buy."

Quentin and Josh step next to him to see what he's talking about, and they all tense up.

"What's going on?" Dani asks.

"I think we just found out what their 'bandit' problem is..." Quentin mutters.

"Widow's..." Josh growls, and my heart sinks.

"Jessica?" I ask.

Josh shakes his head. "No, I don't see her with these assholes, but I know some of them."

The bedroom door bursts open, and Matt appears, looking panicked. "We have a problem."

"Yeah, a spider infestation," Sparrow growls, his hand drifting to his sword.

"That's not the only thing," Matt pants, shoving his way to the window to look outside. "That's Mike Allan; he can't know I'm here."

Dani glares over at Matt. "What'd you do this time, Matt?"

"Listen, Mike and I go way back, and not like 'childhood buddies' kind of way back," Matt gulps. "Let's just say that if he knows I'm here, we're all dead."

"I'm somehow not surprised to know that you've managed to piss off everyone we come across," I growl, forcing myself to stand, this time with Dani helping me up.

The young girl from the highway - Gwen, I think her name is - pops her head into the room, looking horrified. "They came a lot earlier than we expected them to," she pants, disheveled. "Come on, I gotta get you lot to the attic before they see you." My friends and I exchange anxious glances with one another as Matt continues to stare out the window. "Come on!" Gwen urges. Dani puts her arm around my waist while I put mine over her shoulder, and she helps me out into the hallway after Gwen. We nearly bump into Owen and Hank on the way out, but they don't even stop to complain.

Josh drags Matt out of the room after us while Sparrow and Quentin follow closely behind. Gwen leads us up the stairs of the farmhouse and into the main hallway, where she yanks down an old cord, revealing a rickety old staircase that folds out of the ceiling.

"Come on, up you get!" Gwen urges, gesturing for us to get upstairs.

Dani helps me get up the steep steps, my side screaming with pain the entire way up. The others follow closely behind, with Josh coming up last, pausing to look at Gwen. "What's going on, Gwen?" he asks.

"It's complicated," she sighs. "But we can't have them spot you, or it'll be trouble for all of us, now get up there!"

Josh spares one last look at Gwen and sighs, climbing up the ladder to join us.

"Stay up here until I open it back up, alright?" Gwen demands. "And don't make a sound."

With that, she folds the stairs up back into the ceiling, with Josh helping to pull it up until we're shut inside the hot, musty attic. Looking around, there's not a lot in here, just a couple pieces of furniture covered with sheets, several boxes, and a bunch of scrap wood. Against the far wall facing the front of the house is a shuttered window, and we can hear the voices of John, Hank, and Owen from outside.

We creep over to the window to peek out, careful not to open it too far. There's at least ten Widow's outside, and all of them are armed with rifles of some sort and geared up with either riot gear or military armor. Luckily, I don't recognize any of them, but that doesn't mean they won't shoot us on sight.

John takes a hesitant step towards the Widow's, his hands in plain view, and greets the Widow's.

I strain to listen but can't hear anything over the house creaking in the wind. "Can anyone hear what's going on?"

"No clue," Quentin replies quietly.

Well shit.

I watch the scene unfold on the front lawn of John's house, every muscle in my body ready to flee. The head of the Widow's - Mike - outside says something that seems to upset Hank, who takes a threatening step forward, stopped by Owen just as all ten of the Widow's raise their weapons at him. Mike says something and shudders as though laughing, his head held high as John and Owen talk Hank down.

Gwen appears on the lawn, walking over to her family with her hands raised, and Mike takes an interest in her appearance.

Josh tenses up, looking like he's ready to leap from the window and storm the Widow's. "I don't like where this is going," he growls.

Dani grabs her brother's shoulder, shaking her head. "Keep your cool, Josh. We're too outnumbered here."

Josh's eyes don't leave the scene. "We've been through worse fights," he returns.

"Yes, except those fights didn't include hostages held at gunpoint, and Cass still isn't healed," Dani reasons. "We'll wait this out."

Josh growls, then shakes his head and shrugs off Dani's hand, storming away from the window. Dani watches him, helpless to his rage, and glances over at me. I give her arm a squeeze and an understanding, though tired, smile and she sighs, taking the hint to talk to Josh. I don't know why he's getting so defensive, but I get the feeling it has something to do with Gwen.

Guess it didn't take long for him to get attached.

Sparrow and Quentin both sigh, giving up on trying to listen to the conversation outside, and go to sit down against the far wall. Matt slumps against the wall of the window, his hands trembling as he stares at them, and it makes me wonder what in the hell he did that's scaring him so much.

I glance back out of the window to see what's going on and nearly choke when I notice that one of the Widow's is staring right at me. I duck from view, startling Matt.

"What?" He demands. "Did they notice us?"

I gulp. "I'm not sure," I reply, taking a steady breath as I peek back over the window. Sure enough, the Widow who spotted me is still staring, though she makes no move to say anything. Her short white-blonde hair whips in the wind, and arctic blue eyes bore into mine, a frigid expression on her face. A shorter Widow woman beside her elbows her in the ribs, ripping her attention from me, and the two whisper to one another. The shorter Widow glances in our direction, but I duck down before I can see what happens next.

"Cassandra," Matt growls, "did they see you?"

I nod, shaken. "Uh, yeah. Might have a problem on our hands."

Matt swears under his breath. "Of fucking course they see you," he growls, hauling himself to his feet so he can glance out. He pauses, slowly turning to glare at me. "Riley. Fucking. Steele." He hisses. Josh and Dani's heads pop up, both looking pale.

"I feel like I should know who that is," I mutter, the name not ringing any bells.

Matt grabs the collar of my shirt and painfully yanks me away from the window, prompting Dani to launch to her feet to rip me from Matt's grip.

"Keep your hands off her," Dani growls, putting herself between Matt and me.

"You're dumbass of a girlfriend is gonna get us fucking killed," Matt hisses. "Down there is Riley Steele. Do you remember who that is? Because I sure fuckin' do!"

"I know who she is," Dani growls, glancing towards the window, tense. "I also know about the rumors, too."

"What's going on?" I demand, wrapping an arm around Dani to keep my balance. "Who's Riley Steele?"

Matt glares at Dani with a mocking grin. "Yeah, Dani. Why don't you tell her who that wacko is?"

Dani rolls her eyes and steers me away from the window, gesturing for me to sit down. I do so, confused and concerned about just how much shit I got us into.

Dani sighs. "She prefers to go by Steele," she sighs. "We joined the Widow's roughly around the same time, near the beginning. At first, it wasn't all that bad."

I scoff.

"Really, it wasn't," Dani defends. "This was before Grimm took over the group, back when Marrick was the leader. He was a hard-ass and wasn't the easiest to get along with, but he was fair. There wasn't an initiation when Marrick was the leader. Then Grimm killed him and changed everything."

Josh shakes his head, looking exhausted. "Things went from zero to one-hundred faster than we could keep up with."

Dani nods. "That's why we left. But not before the shit hit the fan. Riley was just some scared high school kid; she joined up with her older brother and a couple of friends shortly after Josh and I joined. When Grimm took over and forced people to kill one another for protection..." Dani trails off, glancing over at Matt.

Matt scoffs. "Riley killed her own brother without a second thought to get her mark," he growls.

My heart drops. "What..?"

"Oh, that's not the half of it either," Matt continues. "Apparently, a week later, she killed two of the three 'friends' who joined with her, just because they got in her way during a raid."

"How..?" I can't even form the thought right; that kid down there killed her brother and her friends? For a group like the Widow's? "How do you know that?"

Matt shakes his head. "Because I was there when she killed her brother," he says.

"What about the friends?" I return. "Did you see her kill them?"

"Didn't need to," he replies. "She walked all the way back to camp, carrying one of their severed arms, covered in blood. That was all the proof I needed."

God, and I thought Jess was a psychopath...

"So," I breathe, "this murder-crazed child just saw me poking my head out of the window. I think we should take that as our cue to leave."

Dani rests a steady hand on my shoulder. "Do you think she recognized you?"

I shrug. "No idea, but Widow's are always looking to suck more supplies out of people when they realize how many are cooped up in one spot."

Sparrow groans. "We just can't catch a break, can we?"

Quentin pats his arm, shaking his head. "If push comes to shove, we'll sneak out at night, so no one spots us."

Matt shakes his head. "That's when they'll be out on heavy patrols," he informs. "Especially Steele. They send her out when they need to find someone quick."

"Shit," I sigh, rubbing my face. "I'm sorry, I got careless."

Dani tugs me to her side, wrapping a protective arm around me. "It's not your fault," Dani says.

Matt rolls his eyes. "Yeah, it kind of is."

Dani shoots him a death glare before continuing. "The Widow's have been hunting us since day one; a close run-in with them was bound to happen. We just need to have a plan."

I nod, sinking into her embrace as Matt glances back out of the window. "Looks like they're leaving," Matt informs us.

Josh glances up at the window, noting the time. "Should we head down now?"

Quentin opens his mouth to respond but is interrupted when the attic door drops down. We all jump, scrambling for cover as heavy footsteps ascend the ladder. From behind the crate Dani and I dove behind, Gwen's voice sounds from the attic entrance, "It's safe to come down now."

Sparrow's head is the first to pop from hiding, followed quickly by Quentin and Matt, and eventually, we all stand to stare at Gwen, sitting at the entrance with a stressed look on her face.

Josh is the first to speak up, his voice tight. "So, you're working with the Widow's."

Gwen quickly shakes her head, looking horrified. "No!" She pauses, noting the doubt on all of our faces. She sighs. "Okay, well, not technically. We don't really have a choice here," she says.

Matt advances towards her, a pissed off look on his face, but gets stopped when Josh steps in his way, daring him to get closer. Matt snarls, "We always have a choice."

"Back off, man," Josh warns.