weapons."
Joy
looked him in the eyes carefully before following his request,
gathering the discarded weapons on the ground before checking the
pickup truck cabs. Most of the trucks had some sort of cargo boxes in
the back, which Longwei was certain contained more ammunition. Making
his way carefully around the flaming pit, Longwei limped over to the
bunkers, where he had stashed an extra pair of pants. He was a
dragon, but he still felt uncomfortable going around naked in human
form.
*****
Longwei
felt the bandage wrapped around his thigh rub uncomfortably as he
looked down on the wounded Triad. The survivor of the previous
attack, the terrified man was the only one he had let live. Most of
the wounded Triads who fell into the mantraps bled out before the
doctor could even begin to treat their wounds. The others died even
as the doctor worked on them. The traps had been effective.
Longwei
stared at the man who was tied up and shivering. His missing fingers
had been sutured, and his face was still pale from the blood loss.
Picking the man up, Longwei set him in the driver's seat of the
rearmost pickup, which had been turned around carefully. "Now,
do you know the way back to your boss?" he asked carefully,
looking the man in his eyes and speaking in clear Mandarin.
When
the Triad nodded, Longwei continued. "Good. Go back, and tell
your boss two things. First, tell him what happened here. Tell him
this is what happens whenever any of your people even try to come to
this village."
"And
secondly, tell him that the Triads time is coming to a close. I am
coming."
The
Triad nodded fearfully, and Longwei slipped the keys into the
ignition. The engine cranked over, and the Triad shot down the road
towards home, accelerating as he went. Joy came over, and looked at
the rapidly disappearing taillights. "Was that a good idea?"
"I
don't know," Longwei said. "But I'm not going to go killing
prisoners. We killed today because we had to, but I'm not a butcher
of unarmed prisoners. It may be a subtle difference between the Triad
and me, but it's still a difference."
Joy
nodded. "I can accept that difference. Come on, we've got a lot
of cleaning up to do."
Chapter 8
Joy
was stunned by the transformation of the temple. The villagers had
quickly decorated the normally serene temple after the battle with
festive colors, with paper lanterns and streamers hanging everywhere.
Joy had spent the entire afternoon working on cleaning up the battle
site, gathering the guns left behind and burying the bodies of the
Triad. Thankfully, most had died in the deep mantraps, and required
little more than scooping dirt on top of the corpse. The rest were to
be buried in the car trap, which was already over four feet deep.
Joy
had avoided that work for the most part though, as she was one of the
few people in the village who knew how to drive a car. Once the fire
in the car trap went out, they pulled the wreckage out using another
two trucks, then filled in the gap enough to let her slowly drive the
pickups around the barrier, parking them near the school. Over the
next week, the plan was to strip the trucks of everything useful to
the village.
For
Joy, the trembles had begun as she pulled the second truck over the
quickly filled in section of road and started driving to the village.
In her mind, she kept seeing the explosion as the fuel in the car
trap went up, and could hear the bullets pinging off the stone facade
of the bunker. She was proud that she hadn't frozen up, but knew she
needed to purge her feelings.
Stepping
into the temple, which the left behind villagers had adorned so
festively, she felt conflicted. Part of her wanted to celebrate, to
rejoice in the victory and in still being alive. On the other hand,
part of her wanted to scream and cry over the horror she had seen
that day, and the lives she had taken. Even if they were Triad
bastards, they were still human beings.
Avoiding
the celebration, Joy made her way to her room, washing
Laura Andersen
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