Page 3 of Raider Unleashed

“Okay. Do you want me to swing by and pick you up when I’m leaving the area?”

“Nah, I’ll find my own way. Stay in touch, though.” The last thing Raider needed was for one of the team to get hurt now. They’d survived hell and to get hurt over a volcano would be just wrong on so many levels.

“Will do,” Harlan said and started toward the next house.

“Hey, Fender… Meg’ll be fine.”

Harlan looked over his shoulder and nodded but as Raider watched his buddy walk away, his gut knotted. Harlan would be all twisted about not being able to go home to his sister Meg. There was nothing Raider could do but he felt the other man’s anxiety over it. Worrying about family sucked sometimes. Okay, all of the time.

He made his way from the neighborhood toward the main road and started walking. He only made it a few blocks before he realized traffic wasn’t moving at all. The sound of horns was deafening. The traffic lights at most intersections were out. People were yelling at each other through their car windows, cursing and raising their fists. Others were trying to edge theirway through. It was one clown short of a circus. Oh wait, there was a clown who seemed to think he could drive over the sidewalk to get around everyone else. Raider held back a scoff of disgust when he spied a pile of guys on bikes on the corner blocking the clown’s forward momentum.

With a silent curse, Raider assessed the situation with his usual military precision. His tolerance for people’s bullshit was already in the red zone. The old beat-up gray Honda was the problem. It was blocking the lane and the guy who wanted to turn left into it was hung up in the intersection. Things appeared to have gone downhill from there.

Raider took a deep breath and hurried between the vehicles. He approached the gray car and immediately understood the issue. The car was covered in ash and by the looks of things was totally dead. He glanced inside to find a woman and three small children along with all kinds of stuff packed to the roof line.

“Fuck me,” he muttered.

It was probably their whole lives or as much as they could fit in the old car. He tapped on the window. The woman stared at him, her eyes huge and blinking.Shit.It was the one time in his life he wished he had a badge. Instead, he squatted on his haunches a few feet back from the window and gestured for her to lower it. She finally did so.

“Hey,” Raider said with a smile. “The car won’t start?”

She nodded and bit her lip.

He surveyed the area for possible options. The entrance to a strip mall parking lot was just half a block down. If he could push it there, he could solve the traffic snarl. He stood and looked around. “Let me see if I can find some help. We’ll push you to that parking lot, okay?”

She nodded again as one of the little ones in the back coughed. She immediately rolled up the window.

Raider looked around. He made eye contact with the guy in the truck behind the gray car and walked over. The window was already down and the guy’s scowl was darker than the ash-clogged sky.

“You up for helping me push her out of the way?” Raider asked as he pointed to the car.

The man nodded and exited his truck. He was big, which was good because they were going to need all the help they could get. That small car was jammed full.

Others soon realized what was going on and joined them. Within minutes, a group of eight volunteers managed to get the car pushed down the street and into the parking lot. The drivers filtered back to their cars and the traffic started to move.

Raider knew it was only a matter of time with the lights out before it got all balled up again, but he decided to take a moment and go into the convenience store at the end of the strip mall and buy a bottle of water.

He turned to the woman in the car. “Are you going to be okay?”

She nodded. “My husband is on the way. He’ll be here soon and fix the car. He knows what’s wrong with it. He’s a mechanic.”

“Good. Okay. I’m going to the store. Do you need anything? For you or your kids?”

The little guy in the back of the car coughed again. She glanced back at him as she shook her head no. Then she started putting the window back up. “Thank you again,” she said and then closed the window completely.

Raider started into the store. He didn’t blame the woman. Anyone with asthma was in big trouble in this. He knew he was breathing in too much ash as it was, and he didn’t have any lung issues. He entered the store and nodded to the guy behind the cash register as he went down the aisle to the back where thefridges were. He pulled out a large bottle of water and headed back toward the front. He stopped halfway when he spied a bunch of bandanas hanging on a rack. It wasn’t a mask but it would do. He needed to stop breathing in so much ash. The only colors the guy had were red, blue, and black. Raider grabbed a black one and continued to the front. Last thing he wanted was for someone to mistake him as being affiliated with a gang.

“Hey,” he said to the man behind the cash.

“Getting rough out there,” the guy said. He was an inch or two shorter than Raider, with blond hair that was cut close to his head. His eyes were dark and his mouth had a twist to it. The guy gave off a vibe Raider wasn’t loving, but it didn’t matter much. He wasn’t planning on chatting with the guy for long. Raider handed over the money for both the water and the bandana and then grabbed his change.

As he turned to go the door opened and the bell sounded. He looked up and found himself face-to-face with his ex-wife.

3

The glow in the sky only got brighter as Piper stared out the window. A fucking volcano. That’s what had screwed everything up. A fucking volcano. It was unbelievable. Truly. She shifted her weight, trying to keep her ass from falling asleep.

She studied the back of the strip mall. A convenience store, a t-shirt shop, a sandwich place, two empty stores, and a bank. The only thing open was the convenience store, not that she could see it from there. Smart people were getting out of Dodge. Not only was it nighttime but there was a fucking volcano erupting not that far away.

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