Apocalypsis 02 - Warpaint

like me, I know dat. Pretty soon you will say dat I can be Mr. Bryn. Dat will be my birthday present dis year.”
    He passed by us and went into the bedroom area, lying down on his back and putting his good arm behind his head. The other remained at his side. “Somebodyyyyyy …,” he called out. “Bodo is hungryyyyyy.”
    I looked at Peter. “You do it. I’m liable to shove it up his nose if I have to wait on him.”
    Peter chuckled. “Your wish is my command, Mrs. Bodo.”
    “Ha, ha,” I said, refusing to rise to his bait. I didn’t want to say anything else and have him analyzing my tone and deciding that I sounded as if I really kind of liked the idea of being officially attached to this German nutcase.
    ***
    My first order of business when I woke up was to go talk to Celia. I was happy to find Coli there with her when I arrived, after only getting lost twice on my way. When I’d first come to the swamp a few days ago, everything looked the same to me, but now I was able to tell some of the trees apart and I was recognizing different patterns to their arrangement, making it easier to find my way around.
    “Hey, Celia, what’s up?” I asked as I walked past Coli and approached her bedside. She was sitting up and actually looked pretty good, all things considered. Coli stayed outside the hut, allowing us some privacy.
    “Well, I’m still missing part of an arm,” Celia said sarcastically, not even looking at me.
    “If that’s supposed to make me feel bad for you, it’s not working,” I said. Actually, it did remind me how much crap she’d been through, and I did feel bad for her about that, but I knew the last thing she needed right now was pity.
    “You’re too much of a hardass to feel bad for me.”
    “Not true. I didn’t mock your mom’s shell art when I could have. That’s my soft side keeping my mouth shut.”
    She finally acknowledged my presence enough to glare at me. “I see your softer side has taken a vacation today, though.”
    “Yeah, well, we can’t be marshmallows all the time. I knew a girl one time who could swing a mean baseball bat. She taught me that.”
    Celia smiled absently and then went serious again. “That girl is dead.”
    “Nope,” I said, refusing to give into her pity party, “that girl is sitting right here in front of me and is about to help me lay plans to annihilate some bad guys.”
    I sat down next to her, cross-legged, searching her face. “I’m not going to play the poor Celia game with you every time I see you now. It’s over. We’re past it. If you want to cry about your terrible life, pick someone else other than me to whine to. My job is to get you back on your feet and kicking A. And I need your help with figuring out how to take these guys down.”
    “You suck, Bryn.”
    “Yeah. So I’ve heard. So tell me … how many canners were in that group that was keeping you and the other kids?”
    She answered me in monotones. “I saw eight.”
    “How old are they?”
    “The oldest was probably eighteen. The youngest about twelve. The meanest one was probably about seventeen.”
    “So the oldest wasn’t the leader?”
    “No. The oldest one was kind of dumb or something. They called him Brick, as in brick-head. He mostly just did what he was told. He was the muscle. His job was to …” She put her head down, unable to finish her sentence.
    I finished it for her. “He was the one who took the kids and hurt them, right?”
    She nodded her head silently, a tear going down her face and dropping into her hands below.
    “Okay, what about the others? What did they do?”
    She took a deep breath and said, “Some of them just stayed quiet, doing whatever Loco told them to do. Others were really loud and wild. Like really wild. Like crazy.”
    “The leader’s name is Loco?” How appropriate.
    “No. I don’t think that’s what his parents named him. I think it’s a nickname the kids who were locked up made for him. His friends called him Dave.”
    “You said they stay in a big house?”
    “Yeah. A mansion by the ocean. It has a high wall around it and lots of trees. The house is huge with marble floors and stuff.”
    “Where did you stay? And the other kids … were they with you or somewhere else?”
    “There’s a small house kind of, by the pool. We were all kept in there.”
    “How did you get away?”
    “There was a big fight one night, in the pool house. Some of the new kids tried to attack the canners. I slipped out in all