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it into place when he caught movement out of the corner of his eye. 
    Jewel? He moved closer to the hole for a better look. What was she doing out of the safety of the motel? And by herself?
    He scanned the area, as much as he could see, for any of the monsters. She went directly to a low retaining wall at the edge of the parking lot, looked around and up toward the roofline to see if any of the guards up there might be watching. Sneaky little thing was up to something she didn’t want any of her own people to know about. She walked straight to the edge of the lot which backed up to a wooded gully.
    Alexander looked at the men with him. Only Dez seemed to notice he had stopped with his hand on the cinder block. Shifting, Dez angled his head slightly to get a view of what Alexander was looking at. His brows rose at spotting Jewel out there and then he went back to smoothing the cement on his part of the wall.
    Alexander looked back out. Seemingly satisfied, Jewel took a slip of cardboard from her pocket and stuck it deep within a crack in the cement curb, before darting back toward the front of the motel.
    Now what was that about?
    Not wanting to give her away to her own people, Alexander pushed the cinder block in place and began smoothing the wet cement.
     
     
    ~~~
     
     
    They gathered for supper in the lobby, everyone but the men and women guarding the perimeters and keeping watch from the roof.
    At dusk, everyone lingered, lighting a few candles and lamps, while Tapper, the wiry geezer who had first patted Ethan down, told riveting tales of his life as a marauder before joining Sheppard.
    Staying at the edge of the group near the kitchen, Alexander crossed his arms over his chest. He never would have taken the easy-going fellow as the marauder type, then again, in this time, people did what they had to in order to survive. And he was certain Tapper had done plenty, and more certain he was leaving out the more horrific details for the sake of the children.
    “What about you, strangers?” Tapper forced everyone’s attention onto them. “How did you fellas meet up?”
    Alexander shifted beneath the expectant stares. It was a good opportunity to let these people warm up to them.
    “Ah, well, me and Dez were quite young actually.” Ethan moved into the center of the room, once again drawing the attention off Alexander. He crouched down near two of the younger boys, not quite into their teens. “A little younger than you I’d guess.” He ruffled the younger’s hair.
    “I was hiding in the sewers, running—“
    “From the monsters?” The red-headed girl asked, eyes wide.
    “Not this time. From men who had taken me in.”
    The girl blinked up at him. “Were your mom lost?”
    Ethan paused, glanced around for help, then quietly nodded.
    “Oh,” the child said. “Why did you hide from the men?”
    “They…” Ethan grimaced. “They weren’t good people.” A gross understatement. Ethan wouldn’t talk about just how bad the men who found him first after his family died, but Dez had warned him off after Ethan experienced a particularly nasty nightmare after he’d first joined up with them.
    “Shhh, Gracie,” a woman hushed the child. “Let him go on.”
    Ethan rubbed his palm along the back of his neck, attempting to hide the way his muscles had completely tensed. He blew out a breath to cover his anxiety. Alexander felt Dez also tense beside him.
    But Ethan regrouped and pushed on. “So, I was hiding in the sewers, hadn’t eaten for days. Wasn’t sure I ever could again because the smell down there was horrible. Like a bloated cow’s liver.”
    “Eew,” the kids cried in unison.
    “Left out in the sun,” Ethan added to the children’s delight.
    “Then what?” The older of the boys leaned forward over his crossed legs.
    “I heard something scraping. It was dark in there so I didn’t know what it was. I hoped it was just a rat. The only light came from a grate in the ceiling above me where