There was a brief moment in time, a few seconds where his attention was captured by the outside noises, - by how bad and wrong it was here, and had been in Arizona, and New Mexico - gunshots, a scream, a louder scream, a bigger gunshot, a rifle shot… a fading scream. Then everything settled back down to the dim quiet of the girl's shallow, fearful breathing, and the howling of the storm now starting to beat against the tent around them.
"Reechard." It was an ugly tone, hinting at the slight insanity most of Cesar's men already suspected.
"I can't. They're my own people."
The Mexican shook a head full of tight, kinked curls, his slanted eyes narrowing into deep lines as a blue vein began to stand out on his forehead. He pointed with his deformed hand. "Me salvó la vida! I spared your life! You will give me what I want!"
Rick kept his mouth shut and waited for the offer, sure there would be one. Why else had he been allowed to live, but to serve? He was a slave, just like the women, only in a harder way.
Against his will, his eyes crawled over the freshly washed teenager again, though he knew it might get him in more trouble. He had never had one that young!
Cesar, whose Mexican nickname was Son of Death (Hijo de la Muerte), waved a hand at the scared girl, "Arrodillarse."
She immediately rolled over and pushed herself up, trembling as her breasts hung low. Rick felt his mouth go dry, body twitching in response.
"You want her, si?"
He nodded just once, carefully. This female and all the Slaver's young harem was off limits to everyone, with no exceptions.
"You will have her for doing what I want."
Stepping forward, Rick fell.
2
Cesar Diaz was a flesh peddler and wanted guerilla captain before the War. When all hell broke loose, he was already on his way to southern Arizona to rescue family being held in American detention centers. With the War, the border patrols and SWAT teams vanished, and America was invaded.
Cesar does not have camp laws, doctors, or plans for organization, and he has no intentions of forming or finding these basics of society. He rules with brute force, and in his world, the strongest live and the weakest die, as they were meant to. Raised at the knee of a dictator, Cesar hates America. He wants to fill the United States with as many of his bastards as he can, leaving it an occupied land.