FSE

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Like every morning since the apocalypse began, I woke up to an unfamiliar ceiling, in a house or building I didn't own. The one for that morning happened to be a single-story suburban home not too far from the main highway.

Not long before I made the abandoned place my shelter for the night, another freak rainstorm occurred. It came without warning after deciding to search through a few neighboring houses. Luckily, the last one I found myself stuck inside had no decaying corpses or black mold in every corner. The previous mammal to loot it though did brutalize the wiring and plumbing though. As well as tearing apart the furniture. Or maybe they were wild animals?

Either way, I fell asleep with my back to the wall. Like every morning, I woke up before dawn. My canine cock also strained with morning wood. Both of which were traits I thanked my Doberman heritage for.

At first, I considered dealing with my erection the traditional way. My fingers already brushed against the growing tent in my dirty jeans and I palmed my neglected cock through the fabric. Then, I started picturing handsome, naked, and rugged men of every species in my head before stopping myself.

“Not now," I muttered to nobody.

I still had a long way to go before reaching the outskirts of Milwaukee. Trekking through Chicago had been a nightmare. The last thing I wanted was to stall a while longer.

Ignoring the erection wasn't too difficult, but it did get harder with each day. My left paw could only do so much, after all. Thankfully, I wasn't a hormonal teenager anymore.

Sitting up and yawning, I whined at feeling my muscles still ache from the previous day's long ride. My uncropped Doberman tail wagged though at seeing sunlight trickle through a broken window and stretched my limbs before warily grabbing my backpack. Waking up alive the next morning didn't necessarily mean someone didn't take my belongings. Thankfully, nothing was out of place; a few reusable bottles full of rainwater, granola bars and sealed food cans, a few state maps, some nuggets of gold, a compass, a few broken electronics, extra clothing, and semi-intact magazines collected over the years.

Mentally, I also counted the switchblade knife in my jeans' back pocket. As well as the empty pistol I kept hidden underneath my jacket. Once upon a time, I had six rounds, but spent all of them defending myself from a marauder trying to rob me in my sleep.

If I was lucky, I could find more bullets.

I didn't know who used to own the abandoned house. Some framed pictures still hung from the cracked, peeling walls though. Pictures of a smiling tiger family—a mother, father, and four cubs of varying ages—posing in front of beautiful scenery, or in front of a decked Christmas tree no longer present. Seeing the father and mother threatened to bring up dark memories I immediately pushed aside, and with folded ears, I went into the house's connected garage.

The previous owners left in a hurry, not even bothering to close the doors to protect it from looters. Let alone the elements. My bicycle was still left leaning against an old van too rusted and damaged to ever drive again. Examining the bike's tire pressure for a second, I decided to try going for another few dozen miles.

I readjusted the straps of my backpack. With perked ears and alert eyes, I swung my legs over the seat and gripped the handlebars. The worn shoe on my left foot pressed on the familiar pedal as my right foot kicked the brakes up. Then, I took off down the littered driveway and onto the desolate road, bobbing and weaving between overgrown plants.

A cold morning breeze tickled my nose as I pedaled between the husks of empty cars. All around me, overgrown lawns could be seen for miles. A normal sight to behold after roughly three years of wandering what used to be the United States.

The apocalypse has arrived with plenty of warning. Everyone knew it would come but not like a feral beast, bouncing from the undergrowth and sticking its sharp fangs in our necks. I had been a high schooler when things slowly began to fall apart. Having grown up in the foster system, then eventually spending almost a year in a prison farm for juvenile offenders, I didn't really focus on politics or world news—at least, not until the superstorms started.

First, a few more hurricanes here and there along the Gulf Coast. Then, a massive ice storm along the American Southwest turned states like California, Arizona and even Texas into frozen hells for several weeks. Severe lightning storms, brutal heatwaves, a season of tornadoes and another pandemic led to society collapsing. The straw that broke the camel's back came in the form of a nationwide blackout. First, the East Coast lost power, then the West Coast, and then the Rockies, and finally, the Midwest. And the power didn't turn back on again.

As mentioned earlier, I'd been a juvenile offender serving my time in a prison farm, for assaulting my foster mother and attempting to murder my foster father. The judge and jury didn't care that it had been in self-defense, only that I had a criminal record (mostly petty stealing, panhandling, running away from home, etc.) at sixteen. In their eyes, I was a delinquent punk who needed a reality check.

Admittedly, in some ways I deserved it.

What I didn't deserve though was nearly getting beaten to a pulp by my then-foster parents. It was they who attacked me after discovering porn under my bed. They couldn't stand that not only was I a deviant, but a homosexual deviant too. They wanted to punish me for it, and so did the other prisoners at the farm when word spread that I liked boys. A few even tried making me their personal fleshlights, or a bitch to pass around like a blunt. I managed to hold my ground though, and by some stroke of luck, didn't get raped during my time at the farm.

After a year of hard labor and shitty food, we woke up one morning to learn society was collapsing. The U.S. government was overwhelmed, so were supply chains, and even the Internet. At first, barely anything changed. The days turned into a couple weeks, and the guards watching over us stopped coming to work at some point. Then, a psychotic lynx named Jeff Wrightstown gutted the warden, leading to a riot that culminated in everyone escaping.

We tried sticking together, but each of us had our own interests. I left after they expected me to be their outlet for sex. Ever since, I'd wandered from settlement to settlement, and survival group to survival group, wherever I could find food. Most of the time, they didn't welcome outsiders for long. In my previous group's case, they didn't take my past very well.

Now, I was heading into Canada. Rumor had it that a stable settlement had been built somewhere along the Hudson Bay. I hoped the rising waters didn't affect it. Otherwise, I could always go back further inland. If not to stay away from the harsh cold up north and the unbearable humidity down south.

Speaking of which, the air itself felt like July, despite it being close to March. Yet I didn't quit pedaling. Suburbia became shopping centers and strip malls. Rotting clothes and overgrown, half-destroyed stores went on for what seemed like miles. An exit onto a highway stood clogged with forgotten cars I easily sped past. Seeing the road ahead was flooded, and I didn't want to know what kinds of infestation swam in the waters, I decided to take the ramp, going the longer route. Within the cars, some of them still intact with unbroken windows, I could see suitcases.

I didn't consider smashing the glass or looting them. Travelling lightly worked wonders for me. The last thing I needed were useless things to weigh me down.

However, I reconsidered it after exiting the highway and turning down an empty boulevard. Nestled beside the concrete pillars of the highway, half-overridden with green plants, I made out the words 'Den Adult Store' in bold lettering. The tattered remains of a gay pride flag hung beneath entangling vines.

My sheath stirred again upon reading it. At several points between journeys, I'd come across sex shops or adult stores, often times with their stock left intact.

It can't hurt to take a quick look, I mused.

Shaking my head, I tried convincing myself not to be stupid.

The legs controlling the bicycle had a mind of their own. Twice, I wanted to cycle past it and twice, I failed to not let my dick think for me. My dick yearned to read and ogle at new content, new pictures as well as muscular mammals fucking each other. Whatever helped made the lonely nights more bearable, or helped my left paw bring me to climax. In the end, I licked up the brakes, climbed off, and stepped around the building to find a back entrance.

Well, I found it. As well as three surprises.

The first surprise came in the form of an outfitted truck, parked in the middle of the small lot. It wasn't abandoned, instead armored and well-used. My immediate attention went to the sounds of moaning and slurping noises coming nearby.

The second surprise came in the form of two men next to the vehicle—a pair of lean and tall black cats, one standing and the other kneeling. The latter was bobbing his head up and down on the former's crotch while he stood with his back to me. The standing feline's blue jeans rested around his knees, his ass thrusting towards the other male cat's jaws and flexing between labored breaths. Behind the thrashing tail, they were two perfectly round globes, obsidian-furred and hardly containing an ounce of fat. From the way my head peeked around the corner, I couldn't get a better view, but I dared not to move. I was too transfixed by an act I only saw in my dreams and in long-ago photos.

The third surprise came when I accidentally stepped on a twig, and without hesitation, the two males immediately whirled around to face me. The cat kneeling held a knife and the other a pistol, and I stepped out with both paws raised up. The one who'd been kneeling asked me something, wiping his chin using the back of his free paw, and I saw their faces.

Very, very similar faces. Almost like doppelgängers.

“Y-You're…You're twins?" I gaped, trapped between shock and sudden lust.

Suddenly, the erection in my jeans went harder than I ever felt. Indeed, the two men I'd accidentally stumbled upon giving/receiving a blowjob were identical. Not just in their amber eyes, handsome jawlines, black fur and marble-white spots around their muzzles and whiskers. I swore that at some point, the two decided to dress the same. Both wore plaid red shirts beneath dark-blue fleece jackets, sporting even similar shoes.

They weren't just two men having sex. They were twin brothers, committing incest.

I was too shocked by the revelation to notice the other twin pull his pants up. I did get pulled back to reality when the cocksucking brother hissed, “What were you doing there?"

“I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I was passing through and just found this place," I stammered out, trying to calm myself as I kept my paws raised. “I'm not looking for any trouble…"

“So, you say," the twin with the pistol smirked. “There's an awful lotta trouble around here."

“I was just getting to the best part, and you had to give us a fuckin' heart attack, didn't you?" The twin wielding the knife stepped closer to me, chuckling and licking his lips. “Hey, Blaine, check out his pants. He's not exactly complaining about what he just saw."

Without thinking, I lowered my left paw to cover my hard-on, blushing as the two laughed. Before I could even say anything though or ask about what I'd just witnessed, all three of us jumped at the sounds of nearby gunfire. Shouting too, from around a few blocks away.

The raging boner in my pants went limp.

“Raiders," I exhaled in shock.

“They're plenty too," the cat referred to earlier as 'Blaine' mentioned. “We better go."

The cocksucking twin rushed over to the opened entrance of the adult store.

“Bro, we gotta go!" He hissed into the darkness, pocketing his knife. Turning to me with my paws still raised, the cat motioned to the outfitted truck as he asked, “Well, are ya coming or not? These raiders aren't exactly gonna talk before shooting at you."

“With you?" I blindly asked, dumbfounded. “Why would I get in the truck with you?"

Further gunfire a few blocks away made our ears perk up high, and Blaine was already turning on the engine.

“It's up to you, stranger!" he hollered.

“Ambrose, c'mon!" The nameless twin growled again with a raised fist, banging on the doorframe.

Standing still, I was left further speechless at who else emerged from the adult store. Yet another carbon copy of the two black cat; except he had a steely-eyed glare directed at me as he carried a box in his arms. The only difference in his clothes were the jeans he wore being black.

“Triplets?" I muttered to myself.

“Who's he?" The third twin asked.

“Don't worry, Bro," Blaine mentioned. “He ain't armed."

“Caught me and Blaine in the parking lot," the nameless twin laughed with a shrug. The one named Ambrose rolled his eyes. “C'mon, dude! We gotta go before they catch us!"

Raiders were unpredictable when in groups. If one were lucky, then they'd kill you first. If not, then it depended on each group whether they'd turn you into their sex slave or a next meal if food was scarce. Not wanting to figure out which category the approaching raiders fell under, I tried to grab my bicycle.

“What're you doing?!" the nameless triplet hissed.

“My bike!" I barked back.

Another gunshot echoed close by, maybe around the other end of the building.

“Leave it, you dumbass! Leave it!"

While Blaine had scooted into the passenger seat and Ambrose went for the driver's seat, the nameless triplet practically dragged me into the backseat with him. Seeing the tailgate, my brain didn't register the secured boxes and bins tied down and tucked together. My nose recognized the scents of gasoline, oil, and traces of unspoiled grain. Metals too.

The outfitted truck lurched out of the tiny parking lot, swerving down the boulevard. My heart raced a thousand miles a minute as I instinctively clutched the black cat's arm, until the shooting we'd heard earlier turned silent.

“You can let go now," the feline mentioned.

“Ah!" I let go, leaning against my window as overrun shops and abandoned stores passed us by. “Sorry about that. Never been in a car for years."

“No problem...I'm sorry about your bike."

I let out a tired, tired sigh. “No, you were right. Better to leave it than risk it."

A heavy silence filled the air for several seconds.

“What's your name, stranger?" The twin sitting beside me in the backseat pointed to himself, then to the one in the passenger seat (clutching the box taken from the store) and the one driving behind the wheel, respectively saying, “I'm Cliff, that's Blaine, and he's Ambrose. We're triplets."

My response came down to, “I can see that."

“Now it's your turn," Cliff motioned to me. “Do you got a name, or am I gonna have to guess?"

“Donovan," I said. Neither of them seemed dangerous. For some odd reason though, instead of bringing up the obvious about catching Cliff and Blaine committing incest while Ambrose was searching through an adult store, I asked, “Uh…can I ask what you three are doing all the way out here? I thought all the roads were blocked."

“Not the ones leading towards Madison," Cliff mentioned.

“Why'd you have him come with us?" Ambrose sternly asked mid-driving. “For all we know, he could've been with the raiders, trying to lure us out."

“I'm not, I'm not!" I waved my arms defensively, still gripping my backpack behind me.

“What's in your bag?" Ambrose asked.

I clutched mine, until Cliff reluctantly motioned to his holstered knife, and I reluctantly opened it to reveal the contents. My food, equipment, and the like. The triplet didn't notice the magazines carefully preserved in a plastic bag. However, he did notice something else when I leaned down to set the bag at my feet.

“Check it out," he swiftly reached over to pluck the switchblade from my back pocket. “Donovan here ain't unarmed after all. You use this to hunt?"

“If I find small game, sure," I replied honestly, “but only if it's desperate."

Cliff shrugged at my answer, opening and closing the switchblade, then handing the knife back to me for safekeeping, Still, he vigilantly watched me put it back in my jeans' rear pocket.

So did Blaine and Ambrose. The former waited for his twins to talk while the latter scrutinized me. “What are you doing all the way out here?" He asked.

“Traveling through, like anyone else," I replied hastily.

His amber eyes dissected me through the rearview mirror, whenever they didn't focus on watching the road ahead of us. “No offense, but you don't seem harmless to me."

I gulped in understanding. “None…None taken."

The driving triplet glanced at the passenger seat. “Blaine?"

“Hey," he answered, “Cliff's the one who suggested it."

“We couldn't just leave him! Food's getting less and less to find, and none of us wanna find out what those raiders wanted to do with us," Cliff pointed out. He smirked lecherously at me. “Besides, if he did wanna kill us, he would've done that instead of watching me suck off Blaine back there."

I tried speaking, “About that—"

“You were sucking Blaine off?" Ambrose groaned. Just as I expected something dramatic or a level of shocked silence, the triplet demanded, “How many times have I told you two not to fuck around when we're outside the walls?"

“We were still keeping guard duty!" Cliff argued, smirking again. “Besides, I'd argue you were just as much having fun in there as any of us would've."

“Speaking of which," Blaine cheerfully investigated the box, “let's see whatcha got!"

I continued sitting in utter silence, watching blankly as Blaine rifled through the box and produced a magazine. A dirty magazine, depicting a manly, bearded bovine in farmer's overalls beginning to strip for whoever held the camera. The crotch barely hid his emerging erection.

Immediately, mine pulsed back to life, upon seeing it.

“Ohohohoho, boy! This is fuckin' great!" Blaine cackled, then turned to hand Cliff another magazine. As well as a booklet. “Check this out, bro! We hit the jackpot over there!"

“Yeah, you wouldn't believe what else I found in there," Ambrose muttered with a knowing smirk. His eyes didn't leave the road. “Shame we had to leave so soon."

“There's always next week," Blaine mentioned, flipping through his magazine.

“If Dad'll let us go on another long run again," Ambrose replied.

Meanwhile, Cliff and I stared in equal lust and shock at what he held in his paws. A magazine from several months before shit hit the fan. On the front page, a kneeling red fox in his early twenties in a rainbow-striped jockstrap faced the camera, while a burly wolf in his mid-fifties wrapped a muscled arm around his shoulder as he wore a similar-colored jockstrap. Behind them was a white background. The wolf kissed the fox's cheek, and both sported visible erections partially hidden by text: “May-December Romances: How Love Ages Like Wine & How You Can Savor It!"

“Dad's gonna love this!" Cliff blushed, already feverishly flipping through the page. “What else did you get, Ambrose?"

“A few other magazines, some DVDs, an unopened coyote dildo, and some lube."

Blaine showed us three tiny bottles before setting them back inside the box. “Thank God," Cliff groaned. “If I have to use corn syrup one more time, I was gonna drown myself in it!"

“You never complained before, hehe," Blaine said with a wink. One for him and one for me.

Finally, I decided to speak up after Ambrose's earlier comment clicked in. “So, wait…you three are like, all gay? For each other? You're…You're—"

“We're incestuous?" Blaine finished for me. “Fuck yeah, we are!"

“Damn right!" Cliff chimed in.

“Holy shit," I exhaled.

“Got a problem with that?" Ambrose asked as he brought us onto a desolate interstate road leading away from the suburb we were in, nimbly dodging vehicles and debris before slowing down next to another exit, “Because you can always walk back to those raiders if you're gonna give us a lecture."

“Lecture about what?" I said without thinking.

“How much it's 'disgusting' or 'wrong', like it even matters anymore," Blaine informed me rather bluntly. He chuckled though. “Then again, you're not looking at the boner between his legs, Ambrose."

Blushing fiercely yet again, I covered my crotch with my bag. All three black cats laughed in their seats, with Ambrose parking the truck in the middle of the road. There, it idly waited until he calmed down.

“Aww, don't be so modest," Cliff jovially patted my shoulder. “It's cute. You think we're hot. All three of us. It ain't often we get an audience to watch me suck off Blaine."

My folded ears were on fire. The betraying boner tenting through my jeans refused to go done, not as recent images of Blaine's flexing ass and the gurgling noises Cliff made at the adult store stayed fresh in my retinas. I wanted to desperately jerk off. I desperately wanted to die. I doubted any of them would do it for me, but it didn't stop me from reaching for the side door.

Failing to open it the first time, I unlocked it on the second try, but Cliff grasped over to close it shut.

“Now, now, hang on there. We're just fuckin' with you," he reassured me, once again offering an approachable smile. “Where are you off to anyway? Heading north?"

The three felines waited for my answer.

“Yeah."

“Neat, so are we," Cliff said with a wag of his tail. “Where to? Manitowoc? Appleton?"

My half-heated ears twitched. “…Hudson Bay, I think."

“If you're going into Canada, it's best to avoid Northern Michigan then," Blaine explained, “There's not that many raiders or marauders up there, but there's too much dense wilderness and you can easily get lost. There is a settlement at Packer Stadium in Green Bay that's open to some trade, but not much."

Cliff chimed in, “If you're desperate, you could try to go to Door County, maybe sneak past Sturgeon Bay and travel all the way up to Washington Island—”

“Though forget about it,” Blaine interrupted. “The residents of Door County are very protective of their borders, very territorial, and don’t even consider taking anyone in unless you got skills they really need. And everyone needs everything nowadays.”

Cliff chimed back in, “Hell, Sturgeon Bay often fights with Packer Stadium over resource-hunting, from what we hear on radio chatter.”

“And don’t even get us started on Madeline Island,” Ambrose mentioned. “Not only are they nuts and shoot anyone on sight, but they—”

“—they’re not all that fond of gay folks like us—me, my bros, and you,” Blaine finished for him. “Long story short: let’s just say they think society’s collapse is a sign from God, and they’ll sooner make a pentagram than let any of us on their island.”

“Right. They’re incredibly dangerous, and we avoid them at all costs. And so should you, if you travel that far north into Upper Michigan.” Ambrose turned to me as he held the keys to the outfitted truck. “We’re going to stop around Wausau for the night, Donovan—was it?” I nodded, less meekly now that the erection went down. “Okay, Donovan, you up for joining us, or going on your way? If you’re going up north, Wausau’s the perfect crossroads. You can go anywhere in the Midwest from there…”

On the one paw, I didn't really know much about Ambrose, Blaine, or Cliff other than they were a pair of triplets who sucked/fucked each other. Brothers who committed real-life incest. For all I knew, they could be psychopaths looking to trick me into a false sense of security, then strike. Then again, I'd be dead twenty different times over by then if that were the case. Plus, Ambrose was right. Wausau would take me anywhere I wanted to go, and traveling there in an outfitted truck was better than a damned bike. Or on foot.

“I, uh…" mulling it over, I didn't need much thought. “Yeah. Yeah, Wausau sounds good to me."

“It's settled then." Ambrose grinned as his brothers cheered, and he restarted the truck.

***

Four and a half hours of driving passed by in the blink of an eye. Before the apocalypse, I never truly appreciated cars, or the distances made with vehicles. I hadn't been in a truck since my transfer from prison to the detention farm. During that, I'd been half-asleep and wondering about the future. With the cat triplets though, I couldn't have been more awake and animated to talk to them.

As unkempt wilderness and ghost towns rushed by the windows, we got to know each other further. Ambrose, Blaine, and Cliff (short for Clifford, really) Sauveterre were fascinating to talk to during the ride. All three black cats turned twenty-four in February, on Valentine's Day. They had been finishing their sophomore year of university together when the Blackout occurred. Ambrose planned to be an engineer, while both Blaine and Cliff desired to do double majors—Business Management and Architecture. Somehow, they all managed to find time to play for their college's volleyball team.

Neither would discuss in detail where they lived. Not yet at least, but I pieced together that they lived with their father and a large group of people in a settlement. They were a self-sustaining community somewhere up north. Ambrose happened to be the eldest triplet—by two minutes—with Blaine being the second youngest and Cliff being the third. They lost their adoring mother to a drunk driver sometime before society collapsed.

Also, Mr. Sauveterre was well-aware of their…unique relationship. In fact, he not only encouraged it, but sometimes participated in it several months after their eighteenth birthdays.

“What?" I sputtered, glancing between each of the nonchalant felines.

“Oh yeah, he likes to fuck us from time to time," Cliff shrugged with a smirk. “And are you hiding another boner behind that backpack of yours, Don? Can I call you 'Don'?"

I didn't answer his question, instead squeezing my eyes shut as I gripped my backpack around my crotch area. The boner in my jeans threatened to burst the buttons off. Or perhaps leave a wet spot through the underwear and denim. The idea of these three hot brothers having sex with each other was already making my sheath swell, but the mental image of a rugged survivalist DILF getting to have foursomes with his own sexy sons, the faceless black feline hugging his three sons as they made out and ground their sexy bodies on a bed…I whimpered.

As Blaine let out a hyena-like cackle in the passenger's seat, Cliff leaned forward to whisper, “We told ya, there's no shame here. What? You never pictured father-son stuff before?"

“Well, with twins, who hasn't?" I replied honestly. “But-But I didn't think stuff like that existed in real-life. Between adults, I mean."

“Consenting adults?" Ambrose asked.

During our conversation, the cloudy sky had grown darker, and droplets of water started to fall on the windows.

“Yeah, consenting adults," I echoed his words. “Only times I ever read about stuff like that happening were in horror stories on the news, and in porn videos. Otherwise, everyone acted like it shouldn't exist."

“We get it," Blaine sighed. “We thought so too. Before the Blackout, we expected the worst from Dad when he discovered us in bed one morning while visiting home, but he didn't yell at us. He told us he didn't think it was wrong. He was only concerned if Ambrose was pressuring us, or we were pressuring him. You'd really like him; Dad's made sure our settlement's off the grid and doesn't take shit from nobody. He even stood up for us when…when…"

Blaine suddenly fell silent. Uncharacteristically, neither of his brothers were quick to finish his sentence like any of them did beforehand. “When what happened?" I asked them.

The rainfall began to pick up, to the point Ambrose couldn't see outside.

“When we got charged," he said, muttering a curse. Once he set the windshield wipers on, the 'eldest' brother glanced between Cliff, Blaine, me, and then glared towards the road. “When Blaine and Dad and I got charged, I mean."

My ears instantly perked up and my boner went limp again. “Charged with what?"

A sudden flash of light blinded us, followed by two seconds of silence, and the loudest single boom I'd ever heard of in my life. Me and Cliff screamed while Blaine let out a startled yelp, and Ambrose jerked the wheel to the side of the road, hitting the brakes. The skies above us turned daytime into night, with the clear windshield almost useless with how much hard rain pelted the glass.

Ambrose grabbed something I didn't notice until then—a handle for a CB radio. Without turning the truck off, he flicked a switch and the rectangular machine buzzed to life.

“You're calling Dad?" Blaine guffawed.

“We're not too far from Wausau anyway." Ambrose held the handle to his whiskers, clearing his throat and gripping the button down. “S.C. Hub, this is Eldest Son. S.C. Hub, this is Eldest Son, do you copy?" he spoke up. “The storm isn't letting up and it's getting dark soon. We're going straight for the Halfway Safehouse to stay there the night. S.C. Hub, do you copy?"

Several seconds later, a gruff voice answered back, “Loud and clear, son. Better go silent. Be safe and get yourselves back here the first thing in the morning."

Ambrose smiled at us, replying, “Roger, S.C. Hub. Over and out."

“Was that your father?" I asked Ambrose, and too an extent, Blaine and Cliff.

“Sure was, and he didn't sound so happy," Cliff mentioned.

“He'll be even more unhappy if we don't get to the safehouse now," Ambrose turned the truck back onto the desolate road. “And Donovan? Unless you wanna bike through this rain or get electrocuted into Kentucky Fried Doberman, I recommend you stay with us."

My hackles rose up from another lightning strike somewhere. “…good idea."

“Aww, don't worry about the thunder," Cliff playfully purred. “We'll keep you safe."

“Shut up," I snarled in annoyance.

“Hehehe." He and Blaine laughed, as did Ambrose, who drove onward.