“Tammy I have to get out of this thing.”

“Same here.” Then she yelled out in pain.

Cates was there in seconds, killing the breeder with one sharp slice to the back of his neck. Tammy spun around and planted her blade under the left arm pit of the one who was trying to reach deeper than my flesh. That’s when I began ripping at the huge skirt. I pulled with everything I had and it would not budge. “Son-of-a-bitch!” I couldn’t lift the thing up to get the hoop undergarment out and was fixing to die for my efforts.

“Renee, watch out!” Sydney yelled.

I turned in time to see his blade spinning through the air at the back of an armor wearing breeder that was coming down at my back with his blade. I closed my eyes waiting for the sharp sting and felt his body crash into mine instead. His weight was ridiculous and I could not move him no matter what I tried. I was sprawled out on my stomach, pulling on the floor as if it had handles, trying to free myself from the solid form that pinned me down. He hadn’t changed at all, meaning he must have been a very new breeder.

“Cates!” I screamed at the top of my lungs.

The body rolled off of me and Sydney smiled reaching out his hand. “I’m not the big man, but I’ll do in a pinch.”

“You sure will,” I said, getting to my feet. “Now help me get this damn thing off!”

“Are you sure?”

“Just cut the damn thing. Do you really think I wanna die in this?” I turned around and Sydney did as I had ordered and cut the whole back of the dress from my mid back to the top of my legs. I grabbed the top, right before my breasts were exposed to the entire room.

“Maybe I didn’t mean the top. Mind if a lady asked for your shirt?”

He quickly took off his jacket and threw it to the floor and pulled his button up shirt over his head and handed it to me. While I put it on, he grabbed his blade. I looked over and saw Cates cutting Tammy’s skirt from the bottom up and shook my head wondering why we hadn’t thought about that. He then turned her and sliced up the other side and yanked her hoop undergarment off.

Jacob and Derek had dropped the last two as Fala slung his query across the floor. He had shifted sometime during the commotion. My eyes found the stage where the twins had been but the only thing there was their thrones. Lord Cheree was doing his best to get around his throne, with the two young males clinging to the garment that he wore. It seemed he couldn’t control the walking dead as much as he had thought and they wouldn’t move out of his way.

“Kill them you foul beast.” He pushed one back. “Do you do nothing that you are told?”

“They are dead. What do you expect, Lord Cheree?” Jacob called out and the large man froze.

“He’s almost as big as that man we killed in Cuba, isn’t he Renee? I wonder what kind of a mess he would make?” Derek laughed.

“Tell you what Derek, why don’t you and Fala find out. We have some twins to go find. “Do me a favor…find out who created these dead things before you kill that sick bastard. I’d really like to know.”

“Mind if I stay and help?” Tammy asked.

“Not at all,” I half grinned. We all knew that Tammy had been through hell and it was time for her to get a little payback.

“Tell Bernard I’ll be waiting to have a little chat with him too,” Tammy winked, then got up on her tiptoes and kissed Cates on the mouth. “Now, be a good man and go help your mistress kick some bad breeder backside.”

“As My Lady asks.”

“I wonder where everyone went. None of them jumped in to fight?” Garvin inquired.

“Looks like the rest of their people have followed them to their safe area,” Cates surmised.

“They will have an advantage. It will be much harder to penetrate Angelica’s fortress than it was Yvette’s,” Jacob spoke as he jumped up on the stage. “They could have already left this place and fled to another.”

A cloaked figured dropped down and kicked Jacob in the back, knocking him into the far left throne, sending both crashing to the floor. The figure threw the cloak and showed himself to be, none other than, one of the assassins.  Together, we stormed the stage as the sword was rising in the air to come down at Jacob who was pushing the chair away and trying to get up.

“Jacob move,” I called out, seeing the sword of the assassin come down. The second assassin ran onto the stage with his sword in the air, yelling out his battle cry, and at that very moment I saw Jacob’s death and my heart fell from my chest. The one running slid and slammed his blade into the others and the fight was on. Jacob got to his feet with both of his black blades in hand, as he watched the two fight. Sparks flew as their metal met as they swung with precise measure. I would have never thought that I would have seen such shock on Jacob’s face as I did at that very moment. But it was priceless. You could tell that he wanted nothing more than to join the battle but he didn’t know where to begin or who to fight.

Blood sprayed across the stage as one of the black wearing assassins dropped to his knees. Several of us took in sharp breaths. Who was who, we couldn’t tell. Not until one finally spoke.

“I warned you to leave him alone but you refused to listen and now you will die.”

“The elders will make you pay for your treason, Monroe. You will not get away with this.” Then the breeder fell back, turning to a fine ash before his body could hit the ground.

“They can try,” he whispered and dropped to his knees.

Jacob took a step forward, and the assassin spun with his blade up so fast, it was almost too fast to witness. “Who are you?” Jacob had his right arm extended with the tip of his black blade at the breeder’s face.

“My name is Monroe and we were sent to find and take as many of you out as we could, all but her,” he turned his head and looked out at me, then slowly back at Jacob. “But…”

“But, what?” Jacob took a step closer putting the tip of his blade under the man’s chin.

“But, I know you from a past that you would have no memory of.”

“That is impossible.”

The man began taking the black wrap off of his head as he continued to speak. “I was nine when they came to our farm. Mother was with child when they took her and killed my father. I never knew what became of the child she carried, until now.” He took the last of his mask off and stood. His braided hair fell well past his butt and was as jet black as Jacob’s own. He was taller than Jacob and what I could see from where I was, looked very much like him.

“You have our mother’s eyes.”

“As you have the eyes of my twin sister,” Jacob replied. “I would argue, but I cannot. Looking at you is like looking into her soul.”

“I have seen her. She is very beautiful.” Jacob grabbed his arm.

“I kept Reed in the city. We never went back to the coast’s edge. No harm came to her or the others. Not that my eyes have seen.”

Jacob slowly released his arm. “If you are here then you know what is about to happen. Are you with us, or were you here to just save my life…brother?”

A grunt and then a cloud of ash that filled the air had us turning to look back at Derek, who was wiping his face. The large man was no more. “He tried to hit me!” Fala grabbed the two walking dead by their heads and smashed them together so hard, that his hands came close enough to make contact, as the creatures dropped like the dead they should have been. “All done,” Derek smiled through an ash covered face. “Just thought we would hurry and join ya.”

“Thought I was supposed to help find out answers?” Tammy snapped.

“He tried to hit me…really,” Derek snapped back.

“With what? One of those little men,” Tammy bumped her breasts into Derek’s chest.

“Get your woman, big man,” Derek looked over at Cates who just put his hand and nub in the air and went back to watching Jacob and Monroe.