Ashen Winter (Ashfall)

glinted in the firelight—it had been filed to a vicious point.
    Dad glanced nervously from Wolfe to me and back again.
    “He got that downer syndrome?” Wolfe asked.
    “Can we buy it?” I said.
    “No,” Dad snapped. “Jesus, what’s gotten into you, Alex?”
    “Need to knock him around a bit. I could have Bull do it if you want to make a lasting impression.” Wolfe gestured at the big guy and chuckled, a noise that made my skin crawl.
    “He needs knocking around, I’ll do it myself,” Dad said. “But maybe the party will straighten him up. Everything ready for us?”
    “It will be,” Wolfe replied. “Slim, go make sure them whores are awake.”
    The pudgy guy trotted out of the garage, leaving Dad, Darla, and me with Wolfe and the big guy, Bull.
    Darla reached down with the small piece of metal and did something to the cuff around her ankle. Her chain fell away.
    “What’s wrong with the Triumph? Can you fix it?” I asked, hoping to keep their attention away from Darla.
    “No,” Wolfe said, “we took it apart so we could bedazzle all the parts and hang them on the wall.”
    Darla stalked toward his back, her shank raised above her head in a two-handed grip. She was thinner, her face more angular, cut by tortured shadows. She was getting close—I had to keep Wolfe’s attention on me.
    I looked him in the eye and tried to control the trembling in my arms. “Figures that Dirty White Boys would use a Bedazzler. You’re probably all too stupid to operate a needle and thread.”
    Wolfe roared and pulled one of the guns from his belt. He raised it over his shoulder, like he was preparing to pistol-whip me.
    Darla plunged the shank into the back of his neck. The tip emerged from his throat, glistening red. She wrenched out the screwdriver, and blood fountained from Wolfe’s neck as he collapsed.
    Bull pulled up his gun. I kicked with my right foot—an inner crescent that caught his wrist and sent the gun flying against the wall with a clatter. I let the momentum of my kick carry me into a spinning left reverse kick. My foot slammed into Bull’s groin hard enough to lift the huge man off his feet and drop him into a crumpled, moaning heap on the floor.
    Dad grabbed Bull’s assault rifle. Darla scooped up both of Wolfe’s revolvers. “You got a way out of here?” she asked, her voice as sharp as the bloody screwdriver she’d just discarded.
    “Truck. Just outside the wall. Three guards between us and it.”
    “Three? Usually only two.”
    “Yep. Three.” I took the rifle off my back and readied it.
    Bull groaned. I heard a wet crunch behind me and glanced over my shoulder. Dad had kicked him in the face. Blood was pouring from his nose and mouth, mixing with Wolfe’s on the concrete floor. The sweet, coppery stink of it filled my nostrils, flooding me with an insane joy. I wanted more, wanted all the DWBs to bleed to death.
    “There’s more than a hundred of them in the apartments,” Darla said. “We’ve got to go. Fast.”
    The three of us approached the open door of the garage. Chad and the two guards by the fire were on their feet, looking in our direction. Chad yelled, “Everything—” Then his eyes widened, and he reached for his gun. He was staring at me. I glanced down—my boots and coverall legs were soaked with Wolfe’s blood.
    All six of us raised our guns.

Chapter 81
    The air burst with gunfire—the crazed sewing-machine rattle of the assault rifles and the metronomic boom, boom, boom of Darla’s revolver. My rifle was snug against my shoulder, my eye on the sight, but I hadn’t pulled the trigger. The three DWBs were down. We’d come out expecting a fight; they were only a second or two slower, but in the new world, the postvolcano world, that was all it took. The difference between life and death was measured in seconds and inches.
    “Got to go. Now . . .” Darla said. Her voice wavered, and I glanced at her, alarmed, just in time to see her crumple. I caught her as she fell, easing her to the ground while I frantically checked for blood.
    I heard a rattle of gunfire from our right. Slim was standing in the doorway of the apartment building, firing an assault rifle at us. “Go!” Dad screamed. He whirled to return fire. I slung Darla’s limp body over my shoulder and ran for the truck.
    I leaped into the truck, laying Darla out in the space behind the passenger seat. “Come on!” I screamed as I turned back toward Dad. Slim had ducked back into