Cassie walked through the ruins of an old building, trying to keep her foot from getting caught between pieces of rubble. The building was destroyed in a nuclear blast long before she was born, as was everything else around her.
She had to find tools to repair the generator in their settlement or else their power would collapse and leave them much more vulnerable to attack by the Ceaseless Crowns--a new power in the region which was taking over land by force.
There were gunshots to the west. That was coming from the area Daren was supposed to be scavenging. She pulled out her revolver from the holster on her belt and ran as fast as she could, her red hair flowing behind her as the gunshots grew louder.
She finally saw him, pinned down by gunfire. However, from her angle, she couldn't see who was shooting. She started creeping up to a nearby half-destroyed window, hopefully she could see them from there and get a sneaky shot off.
Before she could get to the window, Daren saw her and yelled, "Cassie, please fucking help." Damn it, he just revealed that she was there. He sounded terrified.
Something flew in the air and landed next to Daren. Shit, that was a grenade. She turned to run and heard it explode behind her. Upon looking back, she saw the remains of his body lying there. No use in trying to fight them anymore, she should try to get out of here.
She didn't make it very far when someone slammed into her from the side and pushed her to the ground. She tried to aim her gun at him but he grabbed her wrist and knocked the gun away--he was too strong.
"I caught her," the man yelled. He started to tie her hands behind her back in a manner that was rather painful.
She saw two other soldiers walk over in the corner of her eye, although her head was pinned down so she couldn't turn her head enough to get a good look. They were both dressed in black with red trimmings, and one had a gas mask hanging from his belt.
"It's too risky to try to capture them like that, you're lucky she didn't shoot you," the one with the gas mask said.
Cassie was dragged up by the rope on her hands. The guy who captured her grabbed her face and turned it to face him. His eyes were scary as hell.
"She is a pretty thing though, big tits too."
The walk back was hard. If she began to slow down even a little bit, they would hit her butt with the stock of their rifle. It was rather humiliating and made her even more worried about what they might do to her once they got to their destination. She did find out their names though--the one with the gas mask was Adom, their Leader. The one who captured her was Nikova, and the third one was Marcus. Marcus was the only one who didn't seem to talk much and he was only focused on walking.
"It's almost nighttime, let's set up camp here. There's good cover," Adom said.
Nikova tied her to a tree with a piece of rope, which was extremely uncomfortable as the bark scratched her skin. As she watched them start to cook their food, she wondered if they would find her settlement. If they raped her, that would be one thing, but she really didn't want them to get to her daughter. Hope was only nineteen years old and Cassie didn't think she could handle being captured.
Nevertheless, she tried to go to sleep, but it was difficult in such an awkward position and she kept waking up shortly after drifting off.
The next day they went back to walking. Instead of just tying her hands this time, they also put a metal collar around her neck which was attached to her wrists by a rope. They made sure to tie her hands together in front instead of keeping them behind her back, they did this so they could attach another rope to her wrists which one of the soldiers used to drag her along. Why did they do that this time? She had no idea. There was no way she would have been able to escape with the way they normally tied her, so the metal collar seemed very unnecessary.
After what seemed like an eternity, she finally saw their base in the distance, and it was closer to an actual city than a base. Most of the buildings were made up of wooden boards, but there were a few that were made of construction material that looked like it could have come from the world before the blast. They were intimidating with large spikes at the top, and she could see soldiers patrolling around.
As they walked through the street, people stopped and stared at her. She met all of their gazes, glaring back at them defiantly. Adom took her into a small room and took off the bindings, which was a relief as they were very uncomfortable. A strange man wearing an old fedora and a suit came out, sat down in his chair, and said, "Hello there, miss..?"
"Cassie," she said.
"Ok, Cassie. I'm going to be blunt with you. We're looking for the locations of new territories into which we can expand. I know for certain that you come from a settlement, so just make it easy for us and cooperate."
"Why do you want to take us over so badly? We just want to live in peace, autonomously."
