Chapter 25 #2
“And snuff any survivors,” Finley mutters while she concentrates on taking care of Cassie’s wound.
A pat on my shoulder from Roxana as I walk by is all it takes to form a lump in my throat.
I kneel next to Finley and Cassie and inspect the freshly bandaged injury on her arm.
“Bullet grazed her. Pretty minor.” Cassie’s eyes tell another story—one of fear, relief, and pain.
Finley sees this as well and smiles at her reassuringly.
“You’re good, Blondie Junior. Your first rendezvous and you came out with a scrape.
My first time? Whew, took the hair clean off my head. ”
I suppose Finley does have some purpose, as the fear melts off Cassie’s face and she lets out a feeble chuckle.
Finley launches into another tall tale and I use it as an excuse to stand near the edge of the boat as we near the wreckage.
Not much to find, and no survivors, but the copter is very clearly olive green.
“She won’t know it was us.” Lucy takes my hand and squeezes it. “Nobody left to tell her.”
“Unless they took photos.” Roxana appears beside me, looking grim. “Shooting a civilian boat without warning? Either they got confirmation on one of our identities, or they had orders to shoot on sight any suspicious vehicles. Both are not good news.”
“We need to get there as fast as we can. If Theia knows we’re on our way to New York, what’s stopping her from leaving?
Flying to, you know, anywhere?” Lucy’s eyes scan the sky, as if Theia might fly by on her broomstick any minute.
It’s a good point, but as I look at Roxana’s face, she is certainly thinking what I’m thinking.
“Theia doesn’t run.”
An hour before sunrise the next day, we safely arrive at our harbor of choice—a rundown former ferry port in the middle of New Jersey, on the Pennsylvania side. We snuck by Philadelphia under the cover of early morning and slipped by any potential trouble near the city.
This harbor no longer functions, and, aside from aggressive crabs and archipelagoes of debris, stands completely deserted. As such, we take our time unloading the boat with our meager provisions.
To one side, Mason and Finley compare tattoos and the size of their arm muscles.
To the other, Delilah inspects Cassie’s wound and applies disinfectant from our first aid kit.
Ahead, Roxana scouts the area with her rifle to ensure we are as alone as it seems. And, with her hand in mine, Luciana Piccolo stands beside me and life condenses to this. Our hands, hearts, lives entwined.
“It’s almost over.” Lucy leans into me. “We’re almost done.”
“I hope you’re right.”
“Let’s go, lovebirds.” I heave a sigh at the sound of Finley’s voice calling us from near the road.
Lucy laughs and it’s like music, and puts a smile on my face. “You’re warming up to her,” she singsongs to me as we turn around and head toward the group.
I lift a duffel bag and carry it crosswise over my torso. “Untrue.”
“Yes, you are. I heard the tiny bit of fondness in that dramatic sigh.”
“Definitely not. Maybe congestion, the air is a bit smoggy down here.”
“Uh-huh.”
A single highway can bring us directly to the tunnel we’ll use to get into the city, but it is dozens of miles on open road.
No telling how many UR checkpoints or tolls we may encounter, or soldiers patrolling the highways looking for smugglers and rebels.
Wild animals that have reclaimed parts of the towns surrounding the roads. It will be a grueling walk.
The most grueling part is in fact that Finley forces everyone to play I Spy, except for me because I declined.
It does, however, keep everyone busy for a couple of miles.
We walk along the highway when it’s clear, and retreat to an embankment that runs parallel when we see anyone coming in either direction.
“Mason, you take point with the map. Roxana, you take our six. The rest of us need to be on our guard for anything suspicious. Any cars that pass us more than once, any aircraft.”
Finley salutes me and gets in step behind me, next to Cassie. “Yes, ma’am, Mini Boss, ma’am.”
Lucy and I walk hand in hand, me with a rifle over my shoulder and she with a pistol strapped to her thigh.
The quiet of an empty road and farms or forest on either side of the highway make for a rather serene walk, if one can ignore the constant chatter of Finley.
Factories burn off smoke in the distance, shooting soot and chemicals into the dark clouds above.
We never spent a lot of time in New Jersey, but it felt like a place yearning for an identity.
Some of the most beautiful forests and mountains I’ve ever seen, and the ugliest, most pollution-ridden factories in existence.
Rolling farmlands and brutal cookie-cutter suburbia for the more fortunate.
Not quite New York, with its mechanical wonders and glass skyscrapers, and not Pennsylvania, with its deep coal veins and thick groves of trees.
Something altogether different, and pretty forgettable.
These transient highway towns blend into one as we get through nearly one-third of our trek.
A quaint factory town is where we decide to stop off for the night. We considered camping, but Delilah refused to “rough it” in such a way, and I got the feeling Lucy agreed with her.
Our weapons get packed away in duffel bags and we try to act like refugees rather than soldiers.
Delilah is unofficially elected our spokesperson as we look for a place to stay.
In between an abandoned laundromat and gas station, a tiny, one-story motel with ten rooms waits with an ominously blinking neon sign in which only the “O” and “T” in motel are illuminated.
We wait outside like children as I overhear Delilah charm the receptionist into giving us four rooms at half the price—and she hands us the keys upon walking out.
“Divide it amongst yourselves. Each room has two twin beds.”
“Okay, so me and Piccolo will take a room,” Finley says, and my immediate flood of indignation is dammed by Lucy and Finley’s laughter. “Had to do it. Mini Boss here is real easy to rile where LP is concerned.”
I huff and attempt a salvage. “I simply did not want Lucy to lose precious sleep listening to your stories all night.”
Finley smirks. “Oh, cute. She’s got jokes.”
As I glance between Cassie and Finley, I’m struck with an unfamiliar notion I can only describe as sisterly.
Not that I think Finley would try to assault Cassie, or consensually put her hands on her, but Cassie is too young to be left alone to her own passions.
“Mason, you room with Finley. Cassie with Roxana. I will sleep with Lucy—”
“I bet you will.”
This time everyone laughs at my expense, so I pout and my cheeks grow warm. Lucy gives me a fond, pitying smile. “You need to stop setting Fin up like that.”
“And Delilah will have a room to herself.”
“As befitting a woman of my station,” Delilah replies, sliding her key into her brassiere.
“The kind receptionist told me there is a hole-in-the-wall where we can get a drink and some food. Let’s put our things in the room and we can head over.
I’m famished, and these pathetic army rations will not do. ”
Roxana grins as we walk across the parking lot toward the row of rooms. “You truly have always been the classiest among us.”
“That was, like, the one thing I had going for me,” Lucy whines.
“Pssht, I got class.” Mason imitates Delilah’s seductive strut to an almost uncanny degree and the group devolves into laughter as we break off to put away our things for the night.
Hole-in-the-wall was an apt descriptor for the place we enter about a half an hour later.
It can only be entered through a door in an alleyway between a defunct strip mall and a furniture store, and one must traverse a rather perilous set of wooden stairs about two feet wide to enter the pub proper.
However, it must be the only decent place for miles because patrons sit at nearly every table from wall to wall.
In the far corner is a billiards table, directly to the right of that a round table with a green felt top for card games.
An expansive bar takes up one entire wall, with more liquor stacked on shelves than I’ve seen in my entire life.
We seat ourselves away from the crowd as much as we can, with Finley acting as our server to bring the orders to the bar. She waits at the bar for the bartender’s attention and the rest of us enjoy the break from her constant chattering.
Cassie pipes up first. “How many more miles do we have to go?”
“No more business talk,” Delilah chides. “We’re here to drink and be merry.”
“About forty,” I reply, garnering a stern look from Delilah. “That is only to the tunnel. The tunnel itself is about a mile and a half long, then we begin the arduous task of somehow getting to the Piccolo mansion without detection by a fleet of Lightbringers.”
Cassie sits back in her chair and crosses her arms. She looks particularly young in this bar—not only because she is the youngest person present, but because she looks thoroughly out of place.
Lucy and Delilah should look out of place, but their easy confidence makes it appear they’d fit in anywhere.
The rest of us look like we would be regulars—old soldiers, criminals, or factory workers.
But Cassie has an innocence about her that sets her apart.
I wonder if her parents know where she is.
I resolve myself once again to getting her back safely.
“I don’t see why you can’t ask for a meeting. Wouldn’t it look suspicious, or at least very odd, if she refused a meeting with one of her cabinet members?” Cassie ponders aloud, far too loudly for the bar, and I sign for her to quiet down. She widens her eyes in panic and mouths an apology.