Chapter 130: Chapter 130 - Her Winnings
Three days passed after the military finally pulled out.
Three days of heightened checks, shortened tempers, boots and rifles crowding every corridor, until the tension felt suffocating.
Night settled over the Route in a way that felt almost deliberate, as if even darkness here followed a schedule.
Lanterns traced the paths in clean, even lines, light spaced with care, nothing accidental about it. The gardens were immaculate, rows cut with precision, soil turned and tended like every inch had been measured and planned.
Vines climbed their frames neatly. Greens grew in disciplined patches. The air smelled of damp earth and leaf and something faintly sweet, cultivated and contained.
Iyisha walked beside Cyborg at an unhurried pace, Malcolm a step behind her as always, quiet, watchful, his presence steady at her back.
Beyond the gardens were the barns.
Large. Solid. Full.
Cows shifted in their stalls, low sounds rumbling in their chests. Chickens clustered behind wire, feathers rustling softly. Feed bins sat full. Water troughs were clean. Everything here spoke of continuity, of a system designed not just to survive but to keep going.
Iyisha watched the people working among them, moving with practiced efficiency, shoulders bent, hands busy, lives folded neatly into routine.
"So you buy slaves," she said, her voice flat.
Cyborg laughed easily. "Oh come on," he said, waving a hand. "I buy their freedom. They work to pay it off."
He grinned at her like he thought that explained everything.
"Sean," he called.
The man closest to them straightened, wiped his hands on his pants, and walked over without hesitation. He looked lean but healthy, eyes clear, posture relaxed.
"How many months left?" Cyborg asked.
"One," Sean said, grinning. "But I’m staying after."
Cyborg clapped him lightly on the shoulder and shooed him back toward the barns. "Go on."
Iyisha watched him leave, then turned back to Cyborg, her expression sharp. "It’s your fault people are getting abducted."
Cyborg lifted his shoulders in a casual shrug. "People are going to get abducted whether the Route exist or not," he said. "Some groups take them to kill them. Some to steal from them. Some eat them."
He glanced at her. "At least here they live."
"Yeah," she said dryly. "And you’re the savior."
Cyborg grinned wider. "See. You get it." He laughed, genuinely amused.
Iyisha looked back at the barns, at the workers, at the careful order wrapped around everything, and hated how convincing it all looked.
Malcolm said nothing.
"Are you under the government?" she asked suddenly, looking at Cyborg.
She had noticed it earlier, the way the screening and clinic ran too smoothly, the equipment too intact, the supplies too well stocked for a place that claimed to sit outside official control.
Cyborg’s grin stalled, just a fraction.
"You’ve got sharp instincts," he said.
Iyisha looked away. "Not really." Her gaze flicked back to the buildings, the lights, the order. "The equipment gave it away."
Something about it didn’t sit right. This wasn’t labeled a safe zone. It wasn’t openly government run. And yet the support was obvious.
She looked back at him. "You’re still part of the military."
Cyborg glanced at Malcolm, then grinned wider. "You’ve got a sharp one here," he said.
Malcolm only nodded once in acknowledgment.
Iyisha felt heat creep up her cheeks at that, annoyance mixing with something else she didn’t want to name. "Answer me," she said.
Cyborg lifted a shoulder. "You could say we have connections with the ERF."
She stiffened.
"Malcolm got away from their grasp," Cyborg went on easily. "Me, I stayed. True blue Navy. Always was. Even with the leg gone." There was something firm underneath the humor now, a line he clearly hadn’t crossed. "Loyal, whether I like it or not. Malcolm on the other hand, got recruited and gone."
Iyisha’s brows drew together. "Malcolm got recruited?"
Her eyes shifted to him, and she caught the warning there immediately, sharp and unmistakable.
Cyborg saw it too and smirked anyway, the expression almost playful. "My chief here got picked up by the CIA," he said lightly. "Trained then fucking disappeared."
Iyisha turned fully to Malcolm, seeing him differently all at once, old pieces sliding into place. "What," she said, accusation slipping into her voice as she stared at him. "Is that true?"
Malcolm clicked his tongue, a sharp sound of irritation, then turned away without answering, already walking ahead of them like the conversation was finished.
Like he was done.
"He really was in the CIA?" she asked, the question slipping out before she could temper it, a mix of disbelief and reluctant awe in her voice as she followed after Malcolm.
Cyborg slowed, then stopped, watching Malcolm’s back for a moment before answering. "Recruited in the Navy," he said. "After that..." He shrugged. "I don’t know if he was officially CIA by the time the epidemic hit. We lost contact."
He glanced at her. "You know Malcolm."
Iyisha blinked and looked ahead again, at the broad line of his shoulders, the way he moved with that same contained awareness she had grown used to.
Yeah. She did.
"With his skills," she said quietly, more to herself than to Cyborg, "I wouldn’t doubt it."
She shook her head once, a faint breath leaving her. She had always known he was dangerous, capable, someone forged for survival.
She just hadn’t guessed how deep it went.
Cyborg grinned, falling into step beside her. "Plus," he added lightly, "good looking, eh? What else could a girl want."
Iyisha rolled her eyes at him. "We told you we’re not in that kind of relationship," she muttered.
The words felt true even as they scraped. Nights blurred together, bodies finding each other out of habit and heat and exhaustion, but that didn’t make it a promise. It didn’t make it anything she could name.
Cyborg nodded, gaze shifting ahead to Malcolm. "He’s got priorities," he said. Then his eyes slid back to her. "And you’ve got yours."
She nodded once.
Finding Cena was the goal. Always had been. Malcolm was a way through the world as it was now, a sharp edge to lean on, a path that moved forward when everything else stalled. He knew that. She knew that he knew.
She watched Malcolm’s back as he walked, steady and unbothered, and felt something sink low and quiet inside her, the uncomfortable awareness that whatever she was to him, it wasn’t the same thing he was to her.
They turned toward the mechanic’s bay.
The place was still awake. Bright lights. Loud metal clanks. The sharp smell of oil and heat. People moved with tired precision, hands black with grease, eyes red from lack of sleep.
Cyborg slowed and smiled to himself. "You’ll never believe this. Told them not to stop," he said. "They worked on it for three days straight."
A man stepped away from the vehicle and wiped his hands on a rag. He looked exhausted and alert at the same time.
"Fran," Cyborg said, clapping a hand on his shoulder. "Head mechanic. Genius. The reason half the route doesn’t fall apart."
Fran nodded once. "You must be them."
Iyisha blinked. "Us?"
Cyborg pointed. "Your winnings paid for this. I told him. Do whatever you think keeps them alive."
Iyisha looking at Cyborg. "They told me I won a fortune. This should be good."
Cyborg laughed. "Oh this isn’t just good." He grinned.
Fran stepped aside.
Iyisha stopped walking.
The land cruiser didn’t look like theirs anymore.
The front had been changed completely. Thick metal jutted out like a wedge, angled forward.
Iyisha took another step, eyes narrowing as she really looked at it.
Malcolm crouched, checked the welds, gave a small nod.
Iyisha barely heard the rest. Her eyes stayed on the wedge of metal bolted to the front, the way it jutted forward with purpose. She looked at the wedge of metal bolted to the front and understood what it was for.
Fran’s voice cut back in. "Frame’s tied straight into the chassis. Skid plates underneath."
Malcolm shifted to the side, running his hand along the door. "Windows?"
"Ballistic laminate," Fran said.
Iyisha looked at the glass. The windshield was darker than before, thicker, the angle just slightly off.
"Slanted," Fran added. "Helps rounds deflect instead of hitting straight on. It’ll stop most bullets."
Iyisha knocked on the new windows.
Suspension’s recalibrated," Fran continued crouching beside the new tire. "Tires are run-flat. Country roads won’t slow you down."
Malcolm nodded again.
Fran opened the rear.
The inside stopped her short.
No seats. Just a flat platform bolted down, storage built neatly underneath. Clean. Tight. Efficient. A small fridge hummed from one side panel.
Cyborg hopped up onto the platform, testing it with his weight, then stretched out casually. "You can both rest here," he said, lifting his brows in suggestion.
She rolled her eyes. The windows are barred inside.
Fran was still talking. "Reinforced locks. Hinges."
Malcolm leaned closer to the door, testing the weight. "Breaches."
"Harder now," Fran said.
He tapped a concealed panel. "Side dispersal. For pursuits."
Her gaze slid to the roof just as Fran activated another control.
Metal shifted.
A weapon mount came into view.
Cyborg chuckled at their face. "Surprise!"
"Yes, thank you," she muttered.
Her fingers brushed the control without thinking, nudging the joystick to one side.
Above them, metal shifted.
The gun moved.
Iyisha froze. "Oh—"
"Damn," Fran said quickly. "Careful. That button will fire it."
Her hand snapped back at once, pulse jumping, eyes lifting toward the roof as if the thing might move on its own.
"Noted," she said quietly, a little more alert now.
Fran popped the hood and leaned in, already talking again.
"Chassis is reinforced underneath too," he said to Malcolm. "We tied it into the frame. Fuel lines rerouted. Wiring shielded."
Malcolm joined him, crouching low, eyes tracking every connection. Cyborg followed, pointing something out, the three of them disappearing into the open guts of the vehicle, voices dropping into technical shorthand Iyisha didn’t bother trying to follow.
She stepped away.
The passenger door opened with more resistance than she remembered. Heavier. Solid. She slid inside and shut it, the sound deeper now, final.
The seat felt the same.
Everything else didn’t.
The glass was thicker. The door heavier. The quiet inside sharper, more complete, like the world outside had been pushed a step farther away. She rested her hands on her thighs and looked forward through the windshield, taking in the changed angle, the way the reinforced glass caught the light.
She could hear them outside, muted now. Malcolm’s voice low. Cyborg laughing once. Fran answering with something precise.
Iyisha exhaled slowly.
Whatever this thing had become, it wasn’t just a way out anymore.
It was something built to carry them forward.
She leaned back against the seat, eyes still on the road ahead, and let the moment settle.
Tomorrow, they would leave.
