“What’s that mean?” I asked.

“That means Peter did a little cleaning,” said Jamal, smiling.

“Oh, geez, Peter. Did you have to?” I asked.

Peter huffed out a breath. “Some people cower in offices when they’re stressed,” he said glaring at the twins. “Other people do things to keep their mind off the boredom.”

“Like clean out an abandoned, destroyed retail shop that no one is ever going to use again,” said Ronald.

“Until it was so clean you could eat off the floor,” added Jamal.

I shook my head. “I’m not even going to look. I had hoped you would have gotten some sleep, but whatever. Everyone here will be very happy for Peter’s tendencies when we get to our new place. I have a feeling it’s going to need some work.”

Peter lifted his chin, smiling proudly. “I told you Bryn appreciates it.”

I didn’t have the heart to burst his bubble and tell him the shell shop could have stayed a wreck and I wouldn’t have cared. But maybe if Celia ever saw it again, she’d be happy.

“Come on. Let’s go. We’re burning daylight.” I gladly released the crotch-crushing bike and took my big-butt-seated one back, depositing Buster in the basket and getting onboard. “We’re going to the Everglades prison. Kiersten said it’s about two days from here, which is great news. That means we only have to sleep one night on the road.”

“Who’s Kiersten?” asked Ronald.

“We’ll tell you about it on the way,” said Winky. “Let’s jam.”

“Let’s jam?” asked Jamal, as we pulled away from the shop.

“I’m kickin’ it old school,” said Winky. “Try to keep up.” She took off ahead of everyone, waving a middle finger over her head.

“What’s gotten into her?” asked Peter, smiling at her back.

“I think she’s stared death in the face and has come back to enjoy life or something.”

“Maybe getting out of that swamp has something to do with it,” said Ronald.

“I don’t feel so good,” said Bodo, before leaning sideways to throw up again, falling off his bike into the gravel on the side of the road.

***

We were delayed another fifteen minutes while Bodo was rehydrated and given some bread to calm his stomach. As soon as Bodo looked able to ride again, I pulled him to his feet.

Buster danced nervously around, probably picking up on everyone’s worried vibes. I let go of one of Bodo’s hands to scoop him up, putting him back in my bike’s basket before letting go of Bodo’s hand.

“Ready?” I asked.

“Not really,” he said weakly. “I’m sorry for dis, guyss. Maybe you shouldt go ahead without me. I will stay here and go later.”

“No way,” I said, standing his bike up and patting the seat. “Mount up. We’re all staying together, and we’re all going now. You barf again and you’re just going to have to keep riding.”

He took the handlebars and threw his leg over the top of the bike to straddle it. “You are a cruel woman.”

“Yes. I know.” I got on my bike and pointed at the road. “Go. We need to get on the highway right now. You have five minutes to be on that striped asphalt, so start pedaling.” I felt like a military commander or something, but I knew tough love was the only thing that would get him going.

Bodo grumbled, but he went. I waited until everyone was moving before I followed. Winky was in front of our crew now and I was in back. It was sad to think that the two of us were looking out for four guys who, unless you counted their contributions as man meat, were more liabilities than assets. I was looking forward to starting the training for everyone again. My classes would be smaller, but that would make it easier to focus on them individually. I put together practice routines as we made our way to the interstate highway.

Peter dropped back to ride beside me, once we were on the highway going south negotiating the husks of burned out cars and scattered bits of glass.

“So what’s the plan?” he asked.

“Plan? Plan for what? Getting there? Living there? Narrow it down for me.”

“All of the above, but we can start with the plan for food and water. We have enough for a few days if we stretch it.”

“Well, you can leave Winky and me out of the meals for the first day. We ate at the Amazons’ place.”

“You will be telling me all about that, every last detail, as soon as I’m done getting this info.”

“Maybe have Winky tell it. She’s the baby murderer. It’ll be more interesting from her perspective.”

“I’m going to pretend you didn’t just say that and move on. Tell me about food and water.”

“Well, short term, we find what we can and make do. We’re not far from the ocean and the Everglades, so we can fish. Longer term, I have seeds for a garden and Bodo says he can put that together. And I plan to find some cattle and goats and stuff for our meat and milk, and maybe some horses for transportation.”

“And where will we be getting said livestock?”

“I hope we either can find it wandering around out on the old ranches, or maybe we can convince the tribes to give us some that we can breed on our own.”

“So you know how to breed cattle, then?” he asked in a deceptively innocent voice.

“I’m pretty sure they take care of the breeding part themselves,” I said wryly.

“Perhaps,” he said. “But to get baby cows, you need a bull. And bulls are dangerous.”

I shrugged. “So we find a cowboy. It can’t be that hard. We live in Florida. There are ranches all over the place here.”

“In Miami?”

Ronald dropped back to listen in on the conversation. “Actually, down in Homestead, there are quite a few ranches. We might get lucky.”

“Really?” I asked, surprised to hear that. “Ranches?”

“Yeah. Crazy, huh? I mean, with Miami so close and all.”

“Nothing’s crazy to me anymore,” I said. “That word really shouldn’t exist for us at this point, considering what we’ve seen.”

Ronald nodded. “Yeah. Tell me about it.”

“Okay, so we are going to grow our own food,” said Peter. “I like the concept. Execution’s going to be difficult, but I think we’re capable.”

“If someone had told me a couple years ago that I’d be riding my bike down south to live in a prison with a bunch of strangers to raise cattle and tomatoes, I’d have turned and walked the other direction, thinking they needed to be checked into the nearest mental health facility,” said Ronald. “It’s wild how much your life can change in such a short time.”

“What were you doing two years ago?” I asked. “I mean, what was your life like?”

“Well, I guess I have to think about that for a second.” He changed gears on his bike, pedaling through the clanking noises. “I was in high school, for one. Our dad was a pastor at our church, so most weekends I was with him visiting sick or elderly parishioners. There were always functions to attend, too. I also had a girlfriend.” He stopped talking, lost in his memories.

“What happened? To your girlfriend?” asked Peter.

I was worried about the answer and wished he hadn’t asked. They were loaded questions these days.

Ronald took a deep breath and said, “She died. She was older than me by a few years.”

I hadn’t been expecting that. “Wow, I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Yeah, sorry. My sympathies,” said Peter.

“Thanks. I appreciate it. It’s been a while now, though, so I’m doing pretty well. In the beginning, it was tough. Not just to lose her but our father, all the people from our church. There weren’t a lot of young people in the congregation, so we lost a lot of friends. A lot. It’s been a tough year for us. Sometimes I think my girlfriend was the blessed one, being taken with the others. Like maybe we were left here as punishment for our sins.”

“I don’t believe that at all,” said Peter. “I may have had an impure thought or two, but I’m not a bad person who needs to be punished with cannibals eating my family members and trying to kill me, thank you very much.”

Ronald looked at him in alarm. “I’m sorry, Peter. I didn’t mean it like that. I’m sorry about your sister, I hope you know that.”

I wondered how Ronald knew about her, but then realized Peter and he had plenty of time to spill their guts while we negotiated with Amazonian man-meat ranchers.

“Yeah, I know,” said Peter, sounding stronger than normal where his sister was concerned. “No offense taken. I’m just saying … none of us in this group or in the swamp are being punished. We’re being given an opportunity to get things right. It’s our job to remake this world into the one it should have been.”

“You have no idea how much you sound like the head Amazon over there in Cannerville,” I said, smiling.

“She sounds incredibly brilliant,” said Peter, sniffing. “I wish I could have met her.”

“Actually, she is incredibly brilliant, or so we heard from her gigolo. She was already in college and working with scientists on the cure to the virus that killed everyone.”

“No!” said Peter and Ronald in unison.

“Yep. She wasn’t the head scientist or anything, but I guess she saw what was going on from the inside.”

“So it was a virus,” said Ronald, considering the idea.

“Yeah. Brought on by people messing around with genetics or bioengineering or some crap I’ll never understand.”

“So she’s talking about doing things different now, too?” prompted Peter.

“Yeah. She’s going to help repopulate the earth with peaceful people.”

Winky added from the front, “And if they don’t comply, she’s going to cut off their wieners!”

Peter giggled until he realized we weren’t laughing with him. “She’s kidding, right?”

I shook my head. “Nope. Comply or lose your salami. That’s the deal.”

“Holy crap. Now I’m not so sure I like being compared to her.”

“Well, her way is working right now. She’s got loverboy Alejandro fertilizing all their eggs, and a group of badass chicks there to protect the brood. Peace, love, harmony, and wiener chopping. Sounds perfect to me,” I said.

“Where does love and companionship come into the mix?” asked Ronald.

“Not sure that’s a requirement from the men,” I said. “They give it to each other. Girl power.”

“That kind of girl power just gives me the willies,” said Jamal. “I like strong women, don’t get me wrong, but that strong? I’m not so sure.”

Ronald laughed. “Who are you kidding? You were in love with that girl, Jade, and don’t try to say you weren’t.”

“Ronnie, you must be smokin’ something if you think that’s the case.”

Ronald looked at me and Peter, dropping his voice. “Jade would’ve happily beat his behind as soon as look at him, and he would have thanked her for it. Trust me. The boy was sick with it.”

“What happened to her?” asked Peter, whispering.

I glared at him. “Must you, Peter?”

“What?” he asked innocently.

“Ask the question that always comes with the difficult answers?”

“Oh,” he said, looking like he hadn’t considered that. “I guess you can strike that question. Forget I asked.”

“No, that’s alright. We have to be able to talk about our pasts. It’ll help us move towards a better future, right? She just disappeared one day with a group of kids. They went off to start up a life somewhere, away from our town.”