Chapter Eighteen
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“SON OF A BIARCH!” CATERINA shouted when she suddenly felt like she was being stabbed in the back. Staggering off the freeway, she lurched over to some trees and dropped down onto a log. Clenching her teeth, she shucked off her bags, then hunched forward, holding onto her knees.
Hot pain sliced into her again, then it felt like someone was digging around inside her flesh. It felt so real that she had to turn her head to make sure she really was still alone. Tears squeezed from her eyes as she waited for the torment to end.
Finally, it was over and the agony slowly began to ebb.
“Who the hell just dug that bullet out of my alien?” she asked hoarsely.
There was no way anyone could have operated on themselves like that.
While Caterina was flexible, she had her limits.
Not even she could have used a scalpel and what had felt like tweezers to extract a bullet from right next to her shoulder blade.
Sweat had popped up on her brow. Wiping it away with her sleeve, she decided to take a break.
The cambion munched on an energy bar and washed it down with water.
Movement from the corner of her eye drew her attention.
She looked over to see a cute rabbit cautiously emerging from the tall grass.
Going still, she was mostly hidden in the shade, so it didn’t spot her.
So far, Caterina had only eaten canned and packaged food during her journey. She should probably fry the rabbit with her power, but she was too entranced by it. Whiskers twitching, the animal hopped a few feet, then began chewing on a daisy.
“Aww,” Caterina whispered in delight at how peaceful and adorable the scene was.
The slight rustling of feathers was her only warning that she wasn’t the only one watching the rabbit. A hawk swooped past her so closely that its wingtip brushed against her arm. It snatched the rabbit up with its talons, then rapidly flew away.
“There goes my potential dinner,” Caterina complained, not that she’d had the heart to kill the rabbit. “There’s probably a life lesson there,” she told herself. “Opportunities don’t come along very often now. I should grab hold of them when they turn up, or I could miss out on something big.”
Her peptalk didn’t do much to lift her mood. She was still devastated about what had happened with Luca. “Why did he have to attack me?” Caterina muttered. “Why couldn’t he just let me go?”
She knew why. Luca had been unhealthily obsessed with getting her into his bed. He couldn’t understand why she wasn’t attracted to him. All of the other single girls had given in and he’d expected her to join his lists of conquests.
Remembering back to when she’d just turned fourteen, she shuddered again at the first time her distant cousin had tried to woo her.
They were staying in a camping area that had male and female showers.
The water was cold, but at least they didn’t have to use their own reserves that were stored in their caravans.
Caterina had always showered in her underwear in public bathrooms just in case some idiot walked in on her. Luca had been the idiot who’d stepped into the bathroom. She sensed she was no longer alone and switched the water off. Pulling a towel around herself, she opened the door to her cubicle.
“Hey, little kitty,” Luca said with a leer, peering down at her. She’d grown a few more inches since then, but had been far shorter than him at the time.
“This is the female showers, Luca,” Caterina said. She hated being called kitty by anyone, but especially by him.
“I wanted to talk to you alone,” Luca said, blocking the way to the exit.
“Why?” she asked bluntly. Her toiletries were still in the shower cubicle, but she wasn’t about to retrieve them and allow herself to become trapped in the small space.
He looked her up and down as if she was naked instead of wearing underwear and a towel. “You’re turning into a beautiful woman, kitty,” he said in admiration. The other girls might find him charming, but he’d always seemed creepy to her.
“I’m fourteen, which means I’m still a child,” Caterina said. “I won’t be an adult for four more years.”
Luca grinned, but he was getting annoyed that she wasn’t falling for his charisma. “We have our own rules in this clan, kitty,” he reminded her. “You’re the only woman left who still hasn’t taken someone to her bed.”
“I’m not a woman, I’m a kid,” she repeated. “But I’m not a weak pushover like my cousins. I’m not going to cave in and sleep with someone I’m not even attracted to.”
That statement had been a direct hit to Luca’s overwhelming ego. “You know you want me,” he declared hotly. “We’re meant to be together, little kitty. Why wait until you’re older when you can start feeling pleasure now?”
Staring into his dark, arrogant eyes, Caterina spoke slowly and clearly. “I don’t want you, Luca. It’s never going to happen. Get that into your thick head.”
Rage flared and his hands shot out to close over her shoulders. Her power had only recently manifested and she reacted instinctively. Cursing, Luca yanked his hands away from her suddenly hot flesh. “This isn’t over, kitty,” he said, then hurried out of the room.
“He was right,” Caterina said as she put her water bottle away. “It wasn’t over,” she went on sourly. “Luca hounded me for sex for nine years after that horrible experience.”
Her distant cousin believed he would take over the clan when Granny Blaze died. He expected Caterina to become his partner. She would be the main attraction and bring in the money and he’d spend it however he saw fit.
“But Granny Blaze outlived you, Luca,” the cambion said spitefully.
“You were just a smalltime loser with delusions of grandeur.” She knew for a fact that Luca had gotten several of the girls pregnant over the years.
While it was good to increase their clan, they had to be careful to avoid inbreeding.
Usually, they met up with other clans they had ties with.
Most pregnancies occurred during the festivals that ran for a couple of weeks.
They’d had to exchange babies a few times, raising other women’s kids as their own and vice versa.
“That’s all over now,” Caterina said mournfully.
There was no way to contact their friends who were spread out all over the country.
They hadn’t seen any of them during the past nine months.
With luck, the other clans had survived the Rapture and were thriving, but she’d probably never learn their fates.
The phantom pain had faded enough for her to grab her gear and resume her trek.
Caterina wished she could stop thinking about the past so much, but it was difficult.
She didn’t have anything to keep her mind occupied while she was running northward.
It would have been easier to keep herself distracted if she’d been driving a car if she was still in the past. She would have sung along to the music on the radio.
Now most vehicles were no longer operational and music had died.
“Along with everything else,” she said sourly, spotting a pileup as she rounded a bend in the freeway.
A semitrailer had veered off the road and was blocking the way.
She figured the driver had been raptured.
Cars had come around the bend and had smashed into it, then into each other at some point after that.
They hadn’t had enough time to screech to a halt.
Caterina saw a body lying half in and half out of the final vehicle that had crashed into the pileup.
Just a skeleton by now, the driver might have survived if they’d been able to call for an ambulance.
The world had already been in chaos by then, dooming survivors to death or a miserable existence.