RULE THE WORLD | D.DIXON

041

In a moment, the man with bat hit him on the head before the man with the blades slit his throat. Violet turned away, bile ran up her throat. The men did the same to the next four men when they finally got to Glenn. Blood had splattered across the young girl's face as a door opened and Gareth strolled in, a pen in hand.

"Hey, guys. What were your shot counts?"

"38." The man with the bat said. He was about to hit Glenn before stopping as his leader spoke.

"Hey! Shot count?"

"Crap, man, I'm sorry. It was my first roundup."

"After you're done here, go back to your point and count the shells. Kaylee won't be gatherin them until tomorrow."

The man nodded before Gareth walked closer, his eyes flicked towards them and then to his journal. The men behind them took a small break as Violet heard muffled speech coming from her right. Gareth didn't pay attention to it as he contunured writing in his journal.

"Four from A, four from D?" Gareth said, but stopped when he saw Violet. "I said only four men, why did you bring the kid?" king at his men.

"She was the closest." The man who took Violet said.

Gareth nodded as Bob tried yelling though his gag again, until the man gave in. He walked over to Bob, pulling his gag out of his mouth.

"Don't do this. We can fix this."

"No, you can't." Gareth said, going to put his gag back.

"You don't have to do this. We told you there's a way out of all this. You just have to take a chance. We have a man who knows how to stop it. He has a cure. We just have to get him to Washington." Bob explained.

Violet zoned out, focusing on getting her knife out of her packet. Once she got it out, she was meet with a cool metal of a blade against her neck. She looked up to see Gareth smiling down at her.

Fear ran through her body as she heard Rick and others yelling though their gag. Gareth grabbed her's knife out of her hand, tossing it to the side before letting go her and kneeled down next to her as he reached out pulling out Rick's gag.

"We saw you go into the woods with a bag and come out without it. Had to pull my spotters back before we could go look for it. What was in it?" Gareth asked, looking at Rick.

"Let her go." Rick said, glancing at the young girl.

"You hid it, right? In case things went bad? Smart. Still, we'll find it. But it's too dangerous to go out there right now." Gareth says, ignoring Rick's request and grabbed Violet again, leaning her into the basin with his knife to her neck.

"Let go of her!" Rick shouted, struggled against the zip ties.

"What was in it? I'm curious. And it was a big bag. You really gona let me do this? Kill the kid?"

"Well, let me take you out there. I'll show you."

"Not gonna happen. This might." Gareth said, pressing harder on the knife making Violet to whimper feeling a smallest trickle of blood run down her throat.