“Get the hell out of here,” he snarled. Shocking himself. He didn’t feel fear like the others. He didn’t usually feel. Cayenne disturbed him in ways he didn’t understand.

The soldier walked toward him. Walked. Not ran. He didn’t stop to pick up the weapon he’d dropped, he just came at Trap as if he was out for a Sunday stroll. Trap swore between clenched teeth. He studied his opponent as the man came toward him, using the eye of scientist. He was good at finding weaknesses in everything around him – especially people. He catalogued and filed away the shambling walk. The blood draining from each hole in the man. The way he moved his arms and opened and closed his fists.

Trap’s mind reduced the hulk to numbers, a stack of them shuffling through the dirt toward him. He calculated and calibrated and waited until the last possible moment, right before those big, beefy hands swung at him. He’d already figured the odds of the attack and exactly how the soldier would come at him. He had a few vulnerable spots, but not too many.

As the supersoldier reached with his large, ham-like hands, Trap ducked inside those arms and hit him full on the Adam’s apple. It should have stunned him if not killed him. Trap had immense strength. It rocked the soldier, but those huge arms closed around him like a vise and began to squeeze. The thick skull slammed down into Trap’s head. Stars burst behind his eyes.

Silken thread rained down, spinning fast around the soldier’s head, covering his mouth and nose and eyes like a white mummy’s hood. The soldier coughed, but he didn’t let go.

Cayenne dropped from the tree above them, landing on the soldier’s shoulders, wrapping her arm around his neck and sinking her teeth into the artery there. Instantly, the soldier flung Trap from him, reached back and ripped Cayenne off his back. Again he rained punches on her body while he held her in the air, fury and something close to hatred and revulsion in his eyes.

She didn’t make a sound. Not a single one. As if she’d been punched like that before. Trap dragged himself up just as the soldier dropped her, aimed a kick and sent her flying. Trap was on him instantly, this time, ducking inside, but going for the kill, slamming his knife under the raised arm, directly into the armpit. He shoved it in, using every bit of strength he possessed.

The soldier didn’t have any armor there. He screamed and went down, taking Trap with him. Trap ripped the blade loose and plunged it in a second time, this time, twisting it hard for maximum damage. The moment he had the blade out, he went for the throat, slicing through arteries to ensure this one wouldn’t rise again.

He crawled backward like a crab away from the man and turned his head to find Cayenne. She was moving. Slow. Again there was no sound. He hated that. Rage was there all over again.

“We can’t stay down,” he said, making his way to her. He wiped the blood from his blade on the grass and shoved the knife back down into his boot. “Can you walk?”

She lifted her head and looked at him. Looked at the hand he held out to get her on her feet. She made no move to take his hand. He actually felt the blast of distrust. No fear. Only that disdain. Contempt even.

“How bad is it? Can you get on your feet? I’m a medic, I can help.”

He started to move his hands over her body and she rolled away fast, kicking out at him. Something wild crept into her eyes.

“Fine. Get the hell up.” Trap was out of patience. “I’ve got men fighting these things and they need help. You like it better on your own, you’ve got it.”

He stalked away from her, letting the fury have him for just a moment. Letting it consume him when he was always still inside. Always quiet. Emotions didn’t figure in his world. They couldn’t. He jogged. Then sprinted. Straight for hell. He knew hell and he belonged there. It was a world of kill or be killed. Black-and-white rules. He understood those rules and accepted them.

By the time he’d rounded the corner of the house, his mind was still again. She was gone as if she’d never been. Draden was down, under the weight of a sandy-haired soldier who would have looked more at home lifting weights on the beach than he did fighting. The muscles in his arms and back were so big, his head looked a little like a pin sitting atop a giant marshmallow.

Go for his armpit, Draden, Trap advised as he ran toward the two struggling men.

Draden’s face was nearly purple as the soldier relentlessly clamped his hands around Draden’s neck and squeezed.

Shoot, Mordichai. Take the shot, Draden ordered.

Still not clear, he’s throwing you all around, Mordichai said.

Draden’s boot heel smashed into his opponent’s thigh repeatedly, but the soldier didn’t so much as flinch.

Trap pulled a gun as he sprinted toward Draden. He knew Mordichai’s approximate position and kept out of the line of fire, just in case, but truthfully, he was wholly focused on the soldier strangling Draden.

He shot him through the back of the neck, which should have instantly paralyzed the soldier, but Trap wasn’t taking chances. He shot him again twice, and then as he got on top of him, he shoved the gun into the man’s ear and squeezed the trigger. Blood sprayed over Draden’s face and body. The grip seemed to tighten for a moment, and then the soldier slumped over. Trap tore his fingers from around Draden’s throat.

Draden dragged air into his lungs. “Wyatt’s right. Braden started the zombie apocalypse,” he wheezed.

Trap shoved the soldier off his friend. “It’s going to be a hell of a long night getting rid of bodies. We’ll take them back to the crematorium when we go to visit Braden.”