Chapter 3
Flies To Honey
Sleeping without sedation was becoming progressively more difficult.
Fortunately, there was plenty to occupy Cass’s waking hours—the armory to keep tiptop, laundromat runs to make, Steve and Grik arguing good-naturedly under the hood of Apoc’s pickup, Apoc swearing under his breath at the bike because he wanted her to have every possible inch of speed, Bern everywhere at once, planning and organizing and making decisions.
Trille, frowning while inventorying medical supplies, shook his head and sucked in his cheeks when Bern asked what the hell.
Which could mean they were low on critical stuff, or just that he didn’t want to get into it since they couldn’t shift her dosages any higher.
Grik went on laundry runs with Cass, his nose buried in a gearhead mag unless it was time to shift loads or fold.
She hunched over the printouts at the unpainted picnic table Bern had commandeered, looking at whatever layouts Apoc could scare up for different banks, batting around ideas and drawbacks, Steve weighing in with the finer points of law enforcement operating procedures or response times in this part of the country.
The landscape was pretty—thickly clustered trees, green even as summer’s heat built in corners and valleys, not a lot of underbrush but what there was lush and varied.
This campground just west of Salem was one of the more pleasant specimens, a stream to the east chuckling on its way to a much larger river Grik and Steve had big ideas about fishing in if the time could be found.
The camp amenities were maintained just enough to work most of the time, ignored enough to mean no employees could be bothered about Cass and the gang’s oddities.
The only problem might be other vacationers, but those mostly assumed she was a young wife or little sister dragged along on a hunting trip; the good weather meant everyone was busy with their own holiday business, having little time to wonder about anyone else’s.
The betting pool for who the next nosey passerby would think she was married to heavily favored rangy beak-nosed Apoc, though Steve was an unexpectedly strong contender despite his weathering and quasi-military buzzcut.
Y’all can tell a real soldier by the way he goes feral-hair on leave, Grik would remark, with a lopsided grin, and Steve would snort that if a high and tight was good enough for his daddy it was good enough for him.
Seeing the terrible sanity-melting things in the world’s undercracks tended to either psychologically loosen a person up or spin them irretrievably into tightass territory, depending on preference.
Most of the guys had swerved relatively hard to the tightass side except Apoc, but even he had a disconcerting gleam in his dark eyes every once in a while.
Cass figured she and Trille were the mellowest of the bunch, despite a generous number of nervous tics shared between them. She drummed her fingers on silvered, splintered wood, shaking a stray strand of chestnut hair from her eyes. “It just doesn’t feel right.”
A heavy, sleepy drone lingered in the treetops; apparently high summer in western Oregon contained cicadas. She hadn’t known they reached this far north. No eucalyptus, though, and she missed the subtle stinging scent.
“Nothing feels right at this point.” Bern had narrowed the choices to two, a big box bank and a smaller credit union.
Both were FDIC-insured, and objections to the nature of their funding inevitably ran up against his contention that the squad was at bottom a government program since they were, after all, performing a public service.
Either way the guvmint pays, he’d drawl, and that usually ended any intense discussion over ethics or morals.
They hadn’t had one of those in a while.
Which Cass could feel good about; the relative relaxation was a mix of her scenario-running keeping casualties way down and stone-cold professionalism among the survivors.
They hadn’t opened tryouts for a while since the mix was working well, everyone got along…
and nobody was quite ready to get attached to a new face yet.
Not after Sam and Dean. Poor kids—but they hadn’t listened, and paid the price. That operation was still the stuff of literal nightmares; one thing about chasing scenarios so hard was the questionable mercy of not suffering hi-res 4K replays of old failures.
The waking world was the current—and much larger—problem.
Bigger banks meant better payoffs, but also more intense security and shorter response times from local law enforcement.
Cass frowned at the street map spread before her, closed her eyes, and shook out her hands.
Running fingertips lightly over each approximate location gave her the tingles, and differentiating what the sensations meant was trial-and-error at best.
Still, it was data. And they needed every scrap to make an informed decision.
Painful pins-and-needles on one hand, a relatively gentle—though bristly—warmth on the other.
She opened her eyes, sunshine and conscious detail flooding in.
Her fingers looked like they should, thank God.
The heavy, dragging underwater sensation of sleep deprivation meant she had to stop several times a day to self-test, just so she could be certain she wasn’t dreaming.
“Not that one.” Her left hand turned without conscious direction, brushing away the credit union. “It hurts.”
“So we have a winner.” Bern rested his elbows on the table. Afternoon glow picked out a few grey hairs in his mop, pulled neatly back with an elastic band he’d no doubt stolen from Cass’s stash.
They all got into her hair stuff, from shampoo to combs to elastics; at least they never bitched about buying her tampons. Or any other item she might put on the grocery lists.
She shook out her fingers, the prickles fading. “More like a strong contender. I don’t like any of them, but beggars—”
“Can’t be choosers, yeah.” A ferocious frown, Frank’s mustache contorting. The hair on his forearms glistened, muscle flickering as he shifted. “Moving north a hundred miles or so might be better.”
“Might.” Cass knew there was little chance; he was right, the cupboards were almost bare. At least none of them were talking about knocking over gas stations—yet. Her role here was to behave as backstop, help Bern think out loud.
“But there’s no room for that,” he grumbled. “It’s this or nothing, and if it goes bad we’ll use Plan CT.”
CT, short for Cover Thine-own-ass. Splitting up was the worst of all possible worlds, not least because whoever got stuck with their resident weirdo had a higher chance of running across a bogey without the rest of the team for backup. It was one place none of them wanted to be.
Especially her.
A shadow fell over her shoulder. “Baby needs a new timing belt,” Grik announced.
His mix of Irish Spring, motor oil, and healthy sweat enfolded Cass for a brief moment as he leaned in to look at the maps and printouts.
His hand rested lightly on the edge of the table, and she didn’t have to flinch at a large, over-muscled male in her personal space.
In fact, the haze of his body heat was comforting, a big brother’s slightly irritating disregard of borders.
“Among other things. How we doin’, sir?”
“Goose ain’t cooked yet, but at least it’s plucked.
” Bern’s gaze rose from the scattered papers, met Cass’s.
A silent question, her own hopeless answer.
They were hanging on by teeth and toenails, and really it was a miracle they’d gotten this far.
“Tell Apoc to have the bike together by dusk. Everyone else, get ready for a recon night.”
“Yessir.” But stocky brunet Grik paused, looking down at her.
Cass glanced up, long enough to see the former Marine’s eyebrows—straight lines, looking almost painted on—drawn together into a single caterpillar, his mouth thin and turned down.
“What?” She did not stick her tongue out or cross her eyes. Someone here had to be the adult.
“You look like shi—uh, you look tired.” He jostled her shoulder, but gently. “Maybe you should go take a nap, eh?”
Considering she’d probably need a bump to keep her awake while piloting a temperamental two-wheeled death rocket tonight anyway, and further considering she had even more trouble sleeping during the day, it was a stupid-ass suggestion.
But he was worried, and any dark circles under Cass’s eyes gave her boys more than enough cause for concern.
They were stand-up fellows, and they did their best to take care of their freaky little mascot.
So she gave a tight smile, and dropped her chin in approximation of a nod.
“Just focus on the barbecue we’ll have in a couple days.
” It was their tradition after a successful bank run, and a good one.
“I want enough of real potato salad to clog my arteries, and don’t you forget it. ”
“Damn right.” He was finally unbending enough for mild swearing in her vicinity, instead of ’scuse me ma’ams and pardon my Frenches.
“Ain’t gonna have that heathen make it.” Both Grik and Cass were of the opinion that raisins had zero place in that particular American culinary standard; Steve, ever the optimist, kept trying to talk them into broadening their taste horizons.
Grik straightened, barely suppressed a salute in Bern’s direction, and ambled away.
The RV’s door banged open and Trille appeared, a yellow plastic cleaning carry-all in one hand; he was on scrub-a-dub duty today.
Apoc glanced up as the medic passed, then went back to work on the bike.
Steve, leaning deep into the pickup’s guts, banged his fingers on something and swore loudly enough to be heard two campsites over.
Cass found herself smiling. “A good crew,” she said, softly.