December 12th, 2030

Juliet crossed her arms for warmth in a broken, rusted lawn chair and leaned back as far as the torture device would allow her. She had sat most uncomfortably in the chair for the past six hours, probably even longer, waiting for any sign that the man lying practically lifeless on the cot across the room would wake again. And yet despite her best efforts to keep herself awake, the temporary shut-down known as sleep was creeping up on her.

Across the room, lying on a cot just inches away from a barred and boarded window, slept David Penner. It was such an irony that he could sleep and she couldn’t, but given the circumstances, the idea of irony could be done away with entirely and it would be to no one’s disappointment.

At least, that was how Juliet felt. And now that she’d begun this intricate thinking concerning irony, she realized how ironic it was that she no longer remembered the date. It was understandable, of course, because she very rarely left her home and even then didn’t see any reason to uphold the idea of a system for monitoring time’s passing. After all, the world had ended three years ago as far as most were concerned. What good was keeping track of time anymore?

This line of thinking led her to remember the events of the end. She may not have remembered the date, but she could remember every small, insignificant detail of the incident that had landed her there in the first place. No doubt everyone could.

First and foremost, there was the Accident, in which thermonuclear warheads had detonated in Chernobyl, Mexico City, and Winnipeg. Based on the principles of nuclear fission and exponentially increased by the latest dark matter warp field technology, the warheads had basically created nuclear black holes in three heavily populated areas. The singularities hadn’t been strong enough to envelop the planet whole, but they’d lived for approximately two seconds, allowing them to eradicate everything within a spherical area of fifty miles. People, buildings, and even the earth itself had simply been eaten up by the dark matter, all in a matter of seconds. Not even the physicists who had been working with dark matter for their entire careers had expected the amount of chaos that had ensued.

At that time, the casualties weren’t even a fraction of what they would become.

The following disaster wasn’t accurately explained until a year after the Accident. The earth’s loss of mass allowed the sun’s gravity to draw it closer, then push it further, increasing the distance from the sun to the earth. This unprecedented astronomical phenomena caused the odd side-affects in the earth’s development: vast temperature and climate changes, changes in wind and ocean patterns, and rapid plant and animal growth; quickly followed by just the opposite. Being farther away from the solar system's heat source, the earth had become much colder and inhospitable over the years.

The worst disaster caused by the earth’s change in proximity to the sun was the disease. David and Juliet became aware of it two days after the Accident; several survivors living near them began exerting symptoms of sickness such as fevers and nausea, and mere hours later they were completely out of their mind. Almost like animals. Docile, but still animals.

They died soon after their mammal instincts took over and their social functions disappeared. Without proper lab equipment David couldn’t tell for sure, but he’d suspected multiple brain aneurisms in addition to dehydration⎯they hadn’t even been concerned about keeping themselves fed and hydrated. It was laziness taken to a new level. No other disease in recorded history did what the Plague had done.

Because of it, the roughly estimated population dropped from eight billion to around four hundred thousand.

Following the Plague, there was the fight of the Division, during which survivors in America disagreed on how to reestablish government. The groups had many sub- factions, as was to be expected, but everyone in a group agreed on the most important thing: democracy or autocracy. Some wanted to reestablish democracy, as had been the ruling king of the developed Western world, while others thought a change in pace to something resembling a dictatorship was in order.

The war was ended after two weeks due to a lack of weapons and any real desire to continue fighting. Vehicles quickly ran out of fuel without oil miners to resupply them, and guns eventually became useless when weeks passed with no fresh ammunition being produced. People were simply beating each other with their fists whenever they learned of each other’s political views, and eventually they lost hope of ever establishing a normal world again. Without hope, there was no reason to fight.

So from the ashes of the Division rose a new form of government: a triumvirate. With no one to resist them and actually a few willing to aid them, the Centrals⎯three people who managed to cling to what little power was left--began establishing their own makeshift government. The Reunification.

The first logical step was to establish some form of executive power, so to speak. Anyone who wished to have a moderate position of power volunteered to be a form of police, only given power by the Centrals to detain and punish anyone who violated the laws of the land.

Those laws were based on moral right and wrong: no killing, stealing, or actions based on malevolence, etc. If a Centralite, as the civilian police came to be called, saw someone doing something wrong, they acted on it. Often the offender resisted and forced the Centralite to kill him, but crime had decreased dramatically compared to crime before the Accident. The only qualm Juliet had with the ‘government’ was that pleasurable crimes, such as drug use, excessive drinking, and prostitution, were legal. A true socialist state, to define it in terms of the old world. Anyone who wanted to make the apocalyptic misery go away couldn’t be blamed.

David had almost volunteered to become a Centralite for the weapons and food it would give him access to, but Juliet stopped him from such foolishness.

After order was established, communication was next. Because of the Accident and Plague, satellites no longer functioned⎯most likely they either crashed into the planet or were thrown out into space⎯and large chunks of landlines were simply gone. The Centrals offered a new proposition: couriers. Most of the people left in America lived in scattered regions on the coast but, if placed properly, a few dozen people could get news from the Centrals to the major colonies every month or so, and the smaller colonies would send someone to receive news from the larger colonies. It was an extremely unstable method of communication as couriers would often go missing or arrive late, but it had worked with no major flaws for the past year and a half.

And so, with the nation restored as best they could get it, the Centrals were able to relax and focus on simply maintaining what they had created. There had been assassination attempts on their lives, of course, made by men who wished to take over what was left of America, but it was rumored that their personal guard were some of the only men alive who’d had experience guarding VIPs before the Accident. The Reunification had worked for the past two years.

Accident, Plague, Division, Reunification. The four horsemen had visited the earth and nearly wiped it clean, and for that Juliet remembered them all quite clearly.

APDR. She wouldn’t be surprised if someone decided to find an alternate meaning for such an acronym. It would be an occupation for one’s mind, at least. Something to take one’s thoughts off of the darker parts of life, such as the Renegades.

The thought of them made Juliet’s heart skip a beat. She was just lucky that she lived in the fifth floor of an abandoned and destroyed hospital, otherwise they probably would have found she and David.

The Renegades were a simple band of mercenaries who liked the color black and creepy ninja-esque outfits too much. Men and women who murdered and stole anyone unlucky enough to be found by them, striking fear into the Centrals’ hearts as well as the multitudes of people under their jurisdiction in less than a month. It was a wonder the Centrals had stayed in power with all the fear that had mounted in the past two months.

Fortunately, living in the fifth floor of a hospital with virtually no way for the average person to get further than the second had its advantages, the most useful at the moment being protection from the threat of the Renegades. Juliet wasn’t afraid of them, certainly not, but if the average person in this era was willing to take advantage of a woman, the Renegades would probably do much worse than that.

It seemed that dark thoughts were the only kind that Juliet knew how to think now. Three years earlier, when normality was something that actually existed, she had convinced herself that there was nothing she couldn’t accomplish with her mind. A lot of good that self-sufficiency had done her. Now she was one of maybe a few hundred thousand people alive, and the only man who cared for her was unconscious on a rickety cot ten feet away. Learning humility can sometimes be so devastating.

A small glass lamp cast dim if not entirely non-existent light onto the walls of The Morgue. It was a morbid name that they had come up with, but it was the only appropriate one because of all the bodies in the lower floors.

The first floor was the worst part of The Morgue, containing over fifty human corpses and even more animals. The animals, they assumed, were killed for food by those who couldn’t manage to climb the elevator shaft, and the humans were likely killed by the infected ones.

Juliet had to purposefully decide not to think on such things. These were dark times, and as David was so famous for saying, “When you step out of the shadow, darkness submits to the light.” It was something he used to tell people right after the Accident to inspire them, to give them hope, but they rarely took it in a positive manner. Instead they simply blamed him for the end of the world.

Juliet still couldn’t understand why they all felt as they did. What did they expect when they put all their hope in one man to make a decision that no one could have possibly made? Facing literally insurmountable odds, not to mention his own personal problems, David had tried what billions had been too scared to: saving the world. Juliet knew she couldn’t have done it, and that was what made David the man she loved. He had been able to keep his head attached⎯albeit with a little help⎯and he’d refused to simply stand by and watch as the world was brought to its knees.

Unfortunately, not everyone saw it that way. All they chose to see was that they’d given David the responsibility of saving them and he’d failed, never mind that they hadn’t wanted to help him in any way. Sure, everyone was titled to a few mistakes, just not David.

Juliet didn’t know how he’d put up with it. If an insane lunatic kidnapped the person she loved most she would try to save him even if it meant the end of the world, and no doubt thousands felt the same. The only problem was that this thought was hypothetical. Everyone loves to think that they would be the romantic hero⎯saving the one over the one hundred because the one is just as important⎯but when faith and fear collide they panic and can’t react. David’s faiths and fears all collided as one, and not wanting to be the idiot who just stood there while the world died, he had tried what seemed the most logical course of action.

And he had made a mistake.

Juliet’s thoughts were interrupted when she heard a ping come from below; a soft clang of what she assumed was tin banging on the laminate flooring.

David?

Juliet lifted her head and looked across the room at David’s silhouette. He was there, still sleeping on the metal-framed cot barely visible in the dim lamp-light. If he was still there, then something out of the ordinary had just happened. No one ever dared to come into The Morgue because the people in the nearby village of Calmant warned them of who lived inside. Now the only two souls to ever enter or exit the abandoned hospital were the two who lived in it.

So if it wasn’t a villager and it wasn’t David, that only left two choices: scavengers or animals. Either way, Juliet hadn’t had any excitement for the past month, so she decided to take a look for herself.

She stood from her chair on wobbly legs, reaching out to the cold wall for support. Her legs adjusted after a few seconds of almost collapsing and she stretched for the coat-rack on the adjacent wall. A single black hoodie was left on the third claw of the rack, so she slipped it on quickly, leaving the hood up to cover most of her face.

There was only one exit from the Quarter, as they often called the fifth floor of the Morgue, and that was the elevator. More specifically, the huge vertical corridor that was usually occupied by an elevator. The moving stairwell had been completely destroyed by David during the Plague so that the infected couldn’t reach, which left basically a large hole connecting the five floors of The Morgue. After that David had found a rifle and hundreds of boxes of ammunition in a nearby hunting store, insistent that they keep some form of weapon on them at all times. Since they didn’t have any more elevators to drop on people, a gun would work.

Juliet grabbed a rope that was anchored to a large wheel on the ceiling of the elevator corridor and then again to two closely-linked wheels bolted into the floor of the Quarter. When used in this fashion Juliet would be lowered slowly down the elevator shaft until the rope had passed the two wheels in the ground. Being the genius that he was, David had designed it so that the rope was long enough to lower Juliet to the ground, but also to allow them to use both ropes to heave themselves back up: usually by standing in a loop on one rope and pulling the other, lifting them to the fifth floor again.

With her descent secure, Juliet grabbed a second rope that was anchored directly into the floor and tossed it down the corridor so she would have a way back up. Finally, she found the foot-hole in the first rope, slid her right foot through, and stepped into the elevator shaft.

The pulley system did its job as Juliet was slid down the deep, dark shaft, and soon after she had reached the bottom Juliet could smell it. The bodies, rotten and decaying in The Morgue, filled her lungs with putrid and musty air. Luckily, she had prepared for this by bringing along a surgical mask. It wouldn’t make the deathly stench go away, but it would keep her from breathing in anything dangerous.

Juliet slipped the rope off her arm and let it hang on a nail in the wall to the left. On the adjacent wall there was a small shape that looked like a drawer handle, and Juliet pulled it out. It opened to what appeared to be a vast, empty space of darkness, but in reality it was just a three foot wide cabinet with a gun inside.

The bolt-action Remington lay completely undisturbed since the last time she had used it to go hunting, and the boxes of ammunition were still there. She grabbed both the gun and a handful of bullets, pressing one into the chamber and shoving the rest of the ammo into the pocket of her jeans.

Juliet turned around and faced the opening to the basement ready for what awaited her. Scavenger or animal, neither could be prepared for a beautiful woman holding a gun that was almost as big as she was.

Were it anything else . . .

Juliet shoved the thought from her mind just as quickly as it had surfaced⎯a handy mental tool she would need to implement much more often⎯and stepped out of the elevator shaft, sweeping over the reception room with the rifle just like she’d been taught.

Always check your corners.

The room was clear of any active life, so Juliet let the gun down and carried it at her hips. She noticed that this level of The Morgue virtually had no floor anymore, just bodies and dried blood covered by growing grass and moss. How inviting.

Stay focused, remember the layout.

Right, always be on the defensive side. Though she hadn’t been in any active-combat situations for the past three years, she could hardly forget the way her father had drilled her over and over. He’d had good intentions in mind⎯always wanting to keep his daughters safe⎯but he was never what one might consider a gentle man.

Daddy issues aside, though, Juliet had learned everything she could ever want to know and more about keeping herself alive. It was the Adams blood, her father had said. “Never was an Adams who couldn’t live off his own knife and the land God gave him.”

A lot of good God had done these past few years. Sure, maybe he’d allowed a few thousand people to survive, but what about the billions dead? As far as Juliet was concerned, God couldn’t be trusted. The only things she could trust were the man she loved and her own two eyes.

Eyes that were, at the moment, wishing they were somewhere else.

Juliet remembered the floor plan well enough and the exact route that most scavengers and animals used to enter The Morgue, but she didn’t remember the bodies being so horrifying to look at. Her gag reflex was finally getting its fair share of use.

Barely containing herself, Juliet angled for the right and tried to keep her feet from stepping on the bodies. It was a much more impossible task than she would have thought because of the sheer number of them, but since they couldn’t be buried they at least deserved to be left alone. Plus Juliet didn’t think she could handle the feeling of her foot splitting into a corpse.

The reason they couldn’t be buried was a complete mystery to Juliet. The first time she and David had come down after the Division, David had warned her not to touch the bodies⎯not even to smell them. He insisted that they retreat immediately and find masks, like the one Juliet wore now. She’d asked why they couldn’t bury the poor souls, but he’d replied only that they should be considered hazardous. No further or less cryptic explanation.

And so Juliet avoided the bodies, carefully and quite silently making her way across the reception area and to a hallway that contained an exit from The Morgue. Back against the wall, rifle held firmly in her grasp, Juliet leaned her head over just enough to let her see into the hall.

There he was. The intruder who had made the sound Juliet heard from four stories up. A lone figure dressed in black from head to foot: black head wraps covering a small skull, loose black tunic with long coattails down the back and front, black sleeves, black gloves, black boots, and even a black-handled knife and pistol strapped to a black leather belt.

A Renegade. He⎯because Juliet knew it wasn’t a woman’s figure⎯carried a large metal contraption resembling a NASA space probe out the main entrance of The Morgue. He slipped around the corner and out the door without a sound, something very few people were able to do because of the dense thickets covering the entrance.

Should she follow? Absolutely, and at the same time absolutely not. He had to want the contraption for a reason, and anything that had to do with the Renegades was certainly worth finding out. On the other hand, he was a Renegade. The people who kidnapped and murdered others at will.

But then, what was all that combat training for if Juliet never intended to use it? Her more curious side got the better of her, so Juliet decided to follow the mysterious man. He was well out of earshot by now, no doubt; even if Juliet stepped out of place and made a noise, he wouldn’t notice.

That was when she wondered if there might be something wrong with her. Before all this⎯before she had endured the world tearing itself apart and surviving in a dead hospital for three years⎯she would have considered it completely insane to follow a gothic-looking member of a clan that murdered and kidnapped people into a virtual graveyard. Now she was embracing the idea whole-heartedly; anything to add a little excitement to her day.

But that could hardly be considered crazy. Anyone who was as secluded as Juliet was would probably do the same thing, right? At least, that was the conclusion Juliet decided she liked best, so she meandered carefully down the hallway.

Excitement rushed in. Adrenaline started flowing. Juliet’s eyes widened and a smile began to pull at the corners of her mouth. Another step through a thick gathering of vines and bushes, and she was outside, where the moon shone brightly overhead and the sky seemed to stand still in this nighttime beauty.

The actual landscape was appalling to Juliet. The trees and foliage had been growing much more rapidly than normal recently, but the looming forest that now surrounded The Morgue on all sides was a shocking spectacle. Three months earlier it had been no more than a valley that was once a strip mall and parking lot complex. Now it was an entire jungle covered in all varieties of tree and bush and thicket. Vines and weeds and mosses crawled up the wall of the Morgue, making it look more like a large square hill than a hospital building. It was a wonder the greenery had only crept into the first floor inside.

Juliet tried to get her bearings by looking for familiar surroundings, but in three months’ time the land had completely changed. There was nothing, not even the trail David had etched into the ground from the thousands of times he walked the same path. Instead a black mound of something unrecognizable covered a circular area about twenty feet in diameter.

And there in the black something was a footprint. Size twelve by the look of it. Completely fresh.

So the Renegade was a man, approximately six foot two if the shoe was any indication. He could pose quite a formidable threat compared to Juliet’s five foot eight. She carried on carefully, silently, not wanting to draw the Ren into close-quarters combat.

And then the thought dawned on Juliet seriously for the first time. She was following a known murderer into an ocean of green in the middle of the night. Ambush could be in wait anywhere. How absurd was it? She’d come down simply to scare off whatever vermin was rooting around in The Morgue, and now she’d accomplished that task.

Yet for some unknown reason, Juliet felt compelled to go after the Renegade. Perhaps he could lead her to where they came from, or maybe she could even catch him and find out what they were doing and why. At the very least, she would be able to brag to David about how she tailed one of the most dangerous people alive and managed to get away without ever alerting him.

So, mind made up, Juliet crossed the threshold of vines and branches that separated the jungle from the Morgue. She entered into a clearing with trees and every other kind of greenery forming a high oval wall, reminding Juliet of the Coliseum in Rome. Overhead, the black sky was illuminated by the full moon, shrunken in size due to the Accident. In fact, if she remembered correctly, the ocean tides were now much smaller due to the moon being further away. At least, that’s what David had said when⎯

In the corner of her eye, Juliet saw a blur of black streak towards her head. In that moment, shocked that she’d been caught off guard but still prepared for such an outcome, she thought only two things. First: if she wanted to avoid whatever it was coming at her from the side⎯likely the Renegade’s knife⎯she would have to throw the gun and fall flat on her face, then square off with a man who held two weapons while she held none. Second: if the dark instrument of pain sliced into her midsection with that amount of momentum on its side, Juliet would be gutted like a fish. Her own curiosity had begun the process of killing her.

Since there was really only one logical choice, Juliet quickly dropped to the ground, effectively losing her grasp on the rifle and sending it rolling along the grass in front of her. The hood around her face also fell off, letting Juliet’s long brunette mane sweep into her eyes, but that was only important because it impaired her ability to hold off against this maniac.

Juliet shifted her weight on the ground and rolled to the right in time to avoid a downward stab from the Renegade’s knife. It dug deeply into the dirt⎯apparently he hadn’t expected to miss⎯which gave Juliet the time to perform a backwards roll up to her feet.

Seeming to be fed up with the knife, the Renegade chucked it with more speed than Juliet thought possible. She dropped to her shoulders and rolled to avoid the blade, and fortunately that was the same direction as the rifle.

Unfortunately, the Ren was pulling his own gun out.

Without thinking enough and looking even less, Juliet grabbed the barrel of the rifle with one hand and swung it over her head, performing a 180-spin as she did. The stock of the rifle came down on the Renegade’s outstretched pistol, knocking it out of his hand and, if Juliet saw correctly, breaking the trigger mechanism.

This small victory was easily overcome, however. The Renegade quickly grabbed the stock of Juliet’s rifle and pulled her in close enough to connect to her gut with his fist. Easily winded by such a harsh blow but equally as angered, Juliet did the only thing she could think of: she slammed her knee up where no man ever wants to be kicked.

The Renegade released his hold both on the rifle and on Juliet, and they both staggered backward to catch their breath.

The pistol was only a few feet away. It was a long shot, because the Ren may or may not have seen the trigger fracture, but it was all she had.

Juliet acted before she thought and dove for the pistol, landing on her right side and swinging to the left, gun secure in both hands.

The Renegade had made a move of his own, as well. He stood about six feet away with the knife held in the air next to his head, ready to be thrown. He’d already proven his ability as a knife marksman and the blade looked as though it could cut through an I-beam. If either of them so much as twitched, the other would more than likely react and both would be dead.

So they stared at each other. Five seconds. Then ten.

“I believe we have come to a standstill,” the Renegade said. A deep, raspy voice that sounded like a smoker.

That was the first time Juliet had ever heard one speak. Come to think of it, it was the first time she’d even seen one, let alone heard one speak.

It was also the first time she’d been in a fight with one.

Almost forgetting that the man had spoken, Juliet remembered that she had to open her mouth too if she wanted to get anywhere. “What do you want?” she asked, trying to portray herself as a threat. If the man had any sense, he already saw her that way because of their skirmish.

“I may ask you the same question,” the man returned, and it was then that Juliet heard the Russian accent playing in his smoky voice. “No one has ever followed us, let alone stood enough of a chance to get to speak to one of us. You are quite brave indeed, and quite skilled.”

He was definitely articulate, almost highly intelligent. That didn’t seem possible for a thug like him.

Juliet remembered the part about being a threat. “I expect a direct answer.”

The Renegade chuckled, but didn’t drop out of his aggressive stance. “And you shall have one. Tell me, which question would you like to answer? Why I am here? What it is I have stolen from you? Or the most important of all: who am I, and why do my kind do the things we are infamous for doing?”

“I’ll settle for the first question I asked.”

“Ah, but there is a catch. I shall only directly answer one question. After that, you will have to settle for whatever cryptic answers I choose to confound you with.”

He wasn’t what Juliet expected, not at all. If he weren’t standing over her with a knife ready to be thrown into her skull, she might not have been threatened by him at all.

“Who are you?” Juliet asked, deciding that the reasons he was there and why he’d stolen a seemingly useless space probe replica were inconsequential compared to what the Renegades truly were and what they wanted. “And what do your people want with us?”

The man very slowly twisted his head to the left, but it was a small, incremental shift that made Juliet wonder if he really had moved. “I am a Renegade, as you no doubt know. Word has spread of our endeavors, yes?”

“If by endeavors you mean murder, then yes.”

The man waved his free hand as if Juliet’s statement was simply a childhood insult he’d grown accustomed to. “Ignorance and exaggeration, all of it. We are, each of us, specialists devoted to the promotion of peace.”

He couldn’t be serious. “Peace?”

“Yes.”

“Don’t you see the contradiction in what you do?”

“Ah, you think that because you do not know the full extent of our work. You see merely the byproducts⎯the trials and errors. To finish answering your question, we want nothing more than to restore the greatness of the old world with none of its faults. We wish to rebuild the world with a new set of ideals, centered around the prolonging of each human life and the betterment of everyone.”

He was insane. Surely he couldn’t expect Juliet to believe such a thing? That he and his kind ran tests of live human subjects in order to achieve ‘the betterment of everyone’? It was preposterous. The kind of crazy that this kind of life could bring upon a person if they weren’t careful.

“Why are you here?” Juliet asked, hoping she could get one sane answer. “In the Morgue, I mean.”

The Renegade motioned back to the decrepit hospital. “You live in this . . . Morgue?”

Juliet paused, wondering about David. She couldn’t tell him, naturally. His people were known murderers, and if everybody else wanted to blame David for their misery, it was a safe bet that a known murderer and recently-diagnosed lunatic would, as well.

“Yes,” she finally replied. “I don’t trust others. Are you going to answer the question?”

The black-clad warrior stood still for what seemed an eternal stretch of silence, presumably going over the ramifications of telling Juliet the truth. Then again, if he didn’t, he may end up in a tango leading to an event involving lead and flesh.

How he stood so still for so long, knife in the air, was a mystery to Juliet.

“All I wanted was the machine,” the Renegade finally replied, his voice now laced with a solemnity and danger that hadn’t been present before. “If you go back now, I may choose to spare you.”

The statement sent a chill through Juliet’s spine. I may choose to spare you. It was like he was taunting her, exhibiting absolute power and domination by basically saying he could do whatever he wanted.

“Surely you did not expect to live?” the man asked, as if it should have been blatantly obvious. “Anonymity and mystery are our primary weapons. Without them, we would not be as feared as we are.”

“You’re not as powerful as you might think,” Juliet countered quickly. “There are people just like me who will stand up to you if they’re given the chance.”

“I doubt that very seriously.” Instead of arrogantly, as Juliet had normally heard a person say that phrase, this Renegade said it more matter-of-factly. He was supremely confident in his and his cohorts’ abilities. Were it arrogance in his voice, Juliet would have been more at ease, but since it was confidence she just then fully understood the danger this one man presented.

And how much she would like to stop him.

“Then you’ve already lost,” she said, just to get under his skin. “When you use random people at will you’re going to run into someone who will fight back with everything he has.”

Though his face was shrouded by what looked like black gauze, Juliet could swear the man’s eyebrows darted downward. “Random?” he asked, the first question he truly didn’t understand. Then the frown lightened and the man might as well have rolled on the floor laughing. “Ah, yes. Random.”

He was suggesting that there was a pattern to the murders and kidnappings? “What are you saying?”

“I am not saying anything. Simply what you tell me.”

The conversation stalled for a full ten seconds, and Juliet could think of nothing else to say to this deluded maniac to get him to speak. Eventually, she realized, his people may come looking for him, and if they brought more than one there was no way she could hold her own. Time to end the conversation with the mental patient.

“Say whatever you want, just leave this place and never come back. You know I’ll take you down without a second thought.”

That was a bit overkill, Juliet immediately thought. He might have noticed it and heard that she was lying. That was the kind of thing she’d learned from her mother and all her psychological BS.

“Indeed you would,” the Renegade replied simply. “But you should know that I will come back for him.”

What? How did he⎯?

“And know that it will not be pleasant.”