Chapter 111: Chapter 111 - Freedom?
Iyisha forced her breathing to slow.
This was not the time. Not the place.
Her body still shook, shock clinging to muscle and bone, but she pushed it down anyway, locking it behind will and necessity. Panic could come later. Right now, there were still people trapped and doors not yet opened.
Malcolm moved first.
He crossed the room without a word and stopped in front of the crates, eyes scanning quickly, assessing, confirming what he already knew. No guards. No movement except fear and disbelief.
Iyisha turned away.
She went to the table where her clothes had been stacked and pulled them on with hands that trembled but obeyed. Fabric slid over skin that still felt wrong, too sensitive, every touch echoing too loud in her nerves.
She did not bother fixing it properly. Buttons misaligned. Hem uneven. None of that mattered.
What mattered is that she gets covered up.
Behind her, metal rattled.
Malcolm crouched in front of the first crate and cut through the bindings cleanly. The door swung open and the man inside recoiled instinctively, scrambling backward before realization caught up and he froze, staring at Malcolm like he was not sure whether to run or beg.
"You’re clear," Malcolm said calmly.
The man stayed where he was, breathing hard, nodding too fast.
Malcolm moved to the next crate.
Iyisha pulled her shirt straight and turned just in time to see Waldo lift his head.
His eyes found Lauren instantly.
"Lauren," he whispered, voice cracking.
The sound hit her harder than she expected.
Malcolm cut the restraints and opened the door. Waldo crawled out on shaking legs and barely made it two steps before Lauren reached him.
She wrapped herself around him without hesitation, sobbing into his chest as he held her back just as tightly, hands shaking as he tried to steady her even while his own breath broke apart.
Iyisha swallowed hard and looked away again.
She finished dressing and then moved back toward the table where weapons lay scattered. She gathered them with deliberate care, movements steadying as she worked, grounding herself in the weight and familiarity.
A rifle went to Marybeth. Ammunition followed. Another weapon slid across the table within reach of Lauren once her hands freed enough to take it.
Iyisha kept a pistol for herself.
Malcolm stayed near the crates, watching until everyone was clear, making sure no one collapsed back inside, no one froze where they stood.
Waldo wiped his face roughly and drew a breath that sounded like it hurt. "A truck rolled out earlier," he said. "Before the shooting. Might’ve been the rest of them."
Malcolm nodded once and turned toward the front door.
Iyisha joined him, pistol raised, body settling into readiness even as exhaustion tugged at her limbs.
Malcolm cracked the door open.
Sunlight spilled in.
Too bright. Too calm.
The yard lay open and still, vehicles silent, grass undisturbed, the sky painfully blue like the world had not noticed anything worth pausing for.
They waited.
Nothing moved.
Then a voice carried across the lawn.
"Easy."
Not close.
Not far.
Iyisha could not place it, the sound slipping between trees, fencing, and shadowed metal.
Her grip tightened on the pistol.
The sun kept shining hitting their eye.
And suddenly that felt like the most dangerous thing of all.
Iyisha’s breath caught as the voice carried again, clearer now, cutting through the false calm of the yard.
"You’re not getting out," it said. "More are coming. You’re boxed in."
The words settled heavy, deliberate, meant to sink into bone.
Iyisha looked at Malcolm.
He did not look back.
His eyes were fixed on the hood of a rusted car near the edge of the yard, gaze narrowed, unmoving, like he was tracking something most people would miss, like the shape of a threat instead of the threat itself.
"Let us go," Malcolm called out.
His voice did not rise. It did not carry anger. It carried certainty.
"Or I kill you too."
For a moment there was only the wind.
Then the voice laughed.
It was hollow. Bitter. The sound scraped rather than echoed.
"Trio’s dead, right?" the voice said.
The name hit the air like a thrown blade.
Iyisha’s stomach tightened. She did not know who Trio was, but she heard it in the way the name was spoken, the weight behind it, the fracture in the voice that turned laughter into something sharp and wrong.
This wasn’t bluster.
This wasn’t negotiation.
This was someone who had come to settle something.
Revenge or cleanup. Maybe both.
Malcolm did not answer.
Then the shot came.
The crack tore across the yard sharp and sudden, the round slamming into the front of the house with a violent report, wood splintering near the window frame as fragments sprayed inward and hit the floor hard enough to make everyone flinch.
Iyisha sucked in a breath.
The message was clear.
We see you. We have angles. We are not bluffing.
A laugh followed, distant and hollow, carrying from somewhere Iyisha could not pinpoint, slipping between vehicles, trees, and the broken fencing beyond the lawn. As if they are moving in constant.
"Inside," Malcolm said.
They moved immediately, retreating deeper into the living room as Malcolm shifted position, weapon trained on the doorway.
Iyisha caught Malcolm’s attention and followed his gaze.
He gave a small nod toward the back of the house.
Waldo nodded.
He moved carefully, staying low, slipping along the wall beneath broken windows and overturned furniture, using shadow and debris as cover as he made his way toward the rear hall. Every movement was slow and controlled, fearing to make any sound.
Outside, the voice came again.
"Get out," it called, carrying easily through shattered glass and open space. "Maybe we let some of you walk away. Stay there and you die."
No one answered.
Marybeth did not wait.
She followed Waldo almost immediately, crawling low across the floor, rifle tight to her chest, impatience sharp in the way she moved like stillness was something she no longer trusted. She disappeared down the back corridor after him without looking back.
Iyisha stayed where she was.
Her hands began to shake again, exhaustion and delayed fear crashing back in now that there was a pause, now that her body remembered what it had been holding back. She reached for Malcolm without thinking, fingers closing around his wrist, then his hand, grounding herself in the solid heat of him.
Just for a second.
He let her.
His grip tightened around hers briefly, steady and real, a silent promise that he was still there, that she was not drifting.
Then he let go.
Malcolm dropped low and moved toward the back himself, silent, efficient, disappearing from her sight as he followed the path Waldo and Marybeth had taken.
Iyisha stayed crouched near the doorway, pistol raised, heart pounding hard enough to blur her hearing, every distant sound outside setting her nerves on edge.
Moments stretched.
Then Malcolm came back.
He slid into the room low and fast, breath controlled, eyes sharp. He stopped close enough that she could see the tension riding just under his skin.
"Three," he whispered.
Iyisha’s stomach clenched.
He crouched low near the window frame, shotgun braced, eyes trained outside through broken glass and shadow, tracking movement by sound more than sight. He waited exactly long enough for shapes to shift.
Then he fired.
Once.
Twice.
The blasts punched through the quiet, thunderous and controlled, and curses erupted outside immediately. The voices sounded sharp and startled as bodies scrambled for cover.
"We can’t stay here," Malcolm said.
His voice was calm but final.
Iyisha opened her mouth to answer.
She never got the chance.
Movement exploded at the edge of her vision.
The woman who had been raped suddenly lurched to her feet like something had snapped inside her, eyes wild, breath ragged.
She bolted straight for the front door, screaming incoherently, hands clawing at the handle as if escape alone could undo what had already been done.
"No," Iyisha whispered.
Too late.
The door flew open.
Sunlight flooded in.
Two men were there waiting patiently.
They didn’t hesitate.
The shots cracked sharp and brutal, tearing through the air, and the woman’s body snapped sideways mid stride, momentum carrying her into the doorway before she crumpled hard onto the ground, limbs folding wrong, the scream cut off in an instant.
Iyisha froze.
Her mind refused to accept it even as her eyes registered the way the body lay still, half in the light, half in shadow.
Malcolm reacted without thought.
He fired.
Waldo fired too from the back, rifle barking once then again.
The two men dropped almost simultaneously, bodies jerking and collapsing into the dirt where they stood, weapons clattering uselessly beside them.
Silence hit hard.
Iyisha couldn’t move.
Her legs locked. Her chest seized. The world narrowed to the woman lying in the doorway, dress stained dark, eyes staring at nothing.
She wanted to run.
She wanted to reach her.
Her body refused.
Malcolm was suddenly in front of her, one hand gripping her shoulder hard enough to ground her, not rough but unyielding.
"Leave her. Let’s go," Malcolm said.
He pulled Iyisha forward and they burst onto the front lawn.
They stopped cold.
2 men were furiously looking at them with the guns raised. Some are coming from the back and on the distance...
Five men were already coming toward them, spread out, rifles up.
A truck rolled behind them at a crawl. To the side, a pickup idled, a man standing in the bed behind a mounted machine gun already trained their way.
Iyisha’s eyes widened.
They hadn’t heard anything.
Malcolm’s grip tightened on her arm.
Too close to run.
Too open to hide.
The men kept coming.
