Final Crisis

Chapter 24

Reese and Meiser arrived at the warehouse on time enough to see Lane pulling in. She stepped out of her car, taking her hat off and chatting with some of the members near the gate. Eventually, one of them pointed towards Reese who was just now shaking the fence lightly for someone to let him in.

“Heya boss,” A member said as they input the code, “How’d it go? Where’s R—”

“Oh, it went bad,” Reese shook his head, “Damn bastard zombies slashed our tires.”

“What about—?”

“Oh, and there were many zombies along the way. Took us a while to get back.”

“What about Roxy and Elio!?” The member shouted over Reese’s attempts to block their voice out.

Reese let out an exasperated sigh. Lane looked over to the commotion and approached him.

“Ah, she ran off with him…” Reese put a hand on Meiser’s back and made eye contact with Lane. “Said something about wanting to live free…you know what she says. They threatened to shoot us if we followed, and I sure as hell did not want to deal with that, so we let them go. I am sure they will make up their minds and will hopefully come back soon.”

“What…? Roxy wouldn’t do that.” Lane said.

“Matter of fact, that is why I need to speak with you, Lane. I need to get to the bottom of this situation.”

He quickly stepped aside and walked with Lane, putting his arm around her.

He spoke in a hushed manner. “Listen, I do not know what is going on with her. She just got up and left with him without warning. Hell, Meiser can vouch for me.“

“Why didn’t you just tell me that from the start?”

“I just did not want to alarm you any more than I possibly already was. I was worried and exhausted from having fought off a few zombies, and I was maybe hoping that if she did tell you something beforehand, you could let me know.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Why did you even go out in the first place?”

“They wanted to go get clothes and offered for me to come with them. I felt that I needed to go out and clear my mind and stretch out my legs, so I agreed. We yielded nothing from the apparel shop because they decided to leave. I tried to convince them not to, but to no avail.”

“Right.”

“I am exhausted…would you like to just…’chill’ in my office with me? I have some peach wine left over.”

She laughed. “I don’t know about talking with you, but I’ll accept some wine I guess. Can’t have too much though, I need to get back out there.”

“No, you do not need to. You are dismissed for today.”

“Huh, really?” Lane tsk tsked, “I guess I’ll have to betray the boss’s orders for today, cause that mission is pretty important. We need to get those families somewhere safe—the warehouse isn’t right now.”

“I know, but…” Reese sighed, “Thirty minutes, please? I am sure that group can handle themselves out there. Maybe I can cook us a small lunch. I know you like what I cook. Also, Uriel claims that he can make a very good peach cobbler. Maybe we can have some later at dinner?”

“Yeah, yeah, sounds good,” Lane rubbed her stomach, “I guess some peach cobbler does sound good. And maybe a steak or some fish or something that you can cook up.”

“Ah, well right now it is nothing too fancy. For lunch, maybe we can have a classic American cheeseburger with some soda.”

“Since when were you a burger person?”