Chapter 11 Bad Scenario
Bad Scenario
Cass had attributed her mounting unease to the ragged newcomers’ appearance and their resistance to being mentally ‘read’, which occasionally happened among normal folk.
Some people just had natural mental walls, it was rare but not unheard-of.
These soft-spoken, heavily armed, and torn-to-shit guys were certainly a curiosity.
She should have known, she should have sensed.
The world spun, sky and ground changing places in a breathless tumble, and she was suddenly sprawled flat under a stranger’s much larger body as pops and crackles mixed with booms, zings, and the whirring of angry bees—though they wouldn’t sting her, not even if she disturbed a hive. Finding that out had been amazing.
Not bees. Bullets. What the hell?
Screeching, popping roar of live gunfire.
The guy with the grey streak at his temple was atop her, hard edges digging in—knifehilts, his leather harness held at least two, and then there were the buckles—for an excruciating moment before he rolled aside and flickered up into a crouch, using the picnic table as cover.
Somehow the younger but equally tattered guy was next to him, and returning fire with a pair of very businesslike sidearms as well. The noise was incredible.
Bern was cussing up a storm, and so was Grik.
Her head rang, pain suddenly everywhere; Cass rolled, scrabbling.
At least she’d missed the edge of the picnic table’s concrete floor-pad.
A tide of spilled coffee was soaking into the packed dirt and scattered gravel, her mug merrily skipping away as if it wanted nothing to do with this nonsense.
Not a scenario. The scene wouldn’t pause and her reflex to rise above, viewing the environment from every angle, ran up against the wall of waking consciousness. She was trapped in her body, and wondered for a vertiginous moment if she’d lost her cursed talents entirely.
Either that, or her sanity.
The approach of people with guns or failing that, uncharacteristic silence in the trees should have warned her—the great outdoors was rarely ever quiet, despite everyone talking about the peace of the goddamn wilderness.
I hate this. A bright sword of inconsequential anger revolved inside her skull; she thrashed, getting an elbow underneath her and pushing upright despite every hard-trained instinct screaming stay down, stay safe.
She had to see what was attacking, had to help her crew.
Bark exploded, flew from wounded tree trunks.
Ricochets whined and zinged; Trille had hit the deck as well and was lying on his side, hazel eyes wide and wondering.
Cass slithered in his direction, gravel biting her elbows and scratching her jeans, grainy dust slipping down the front of her shirt.
The medic was curling up like a pillbug, as if he had a tummyache, arms wrapped tight around his middle and a deep red stain blooming under them.
No. Oh, no.
A horrifying cry spiraling into agony—the voice was Steve’s, but he’d never sounded like this before save in a really bad scenario. She tried pulling the plug again, instinctively lunging up and away from her shuddering, shivering body, but it didn’t work.
Cass was fully awake; nothing would stop this daytime nightmare.
The younger of the two newcomers stopped firing and ducked swiftly behind the picnic table, hands blurring as he reloaded, blond hair picking up highlights from westering sunshine.
He yelled something, and the older guy—Nigel, what a name—was suddenly beside Cass again, a looming shadow blocking out daylight.
Later, she realized the shots had been coming from almost every angle.
The RV rocked under multiple impacts, the Ducati toppled, sprawling in the dirt.
The pickup’s windshield shattered. Apoc and Bern both yelling, a crescendo of oh fuck not good get down, and Grik howled, the sound abruptly cut off.
She felt the ripping dislocation through the haze of whatever had blunted her cursed sensitivity, and her heart broke even as the world was yanked from underneath her again. He was strong, this Nigel guy, and lifted her like an unwieldy but not terribly heavy doll.
Which added to the strange dreamy quality of events.
It happened so fast, she was never quite sure afterward how they came to be in the trees, moving with eerie speed.
Branches whipped by on either side, undergrowth bending and snapping, and she was over an iron-hard shoulder, carried off like a barbarian’s shrieking prize in one of the romance novels Steve had a fondness for.
My ex-wife loved that shit. Maybe if I’d read a few she woulda… I dunno. Stayed, or somethin’.
Cass never teased him about that. Apoc listened to audiobook Westerns while on long drives, and Bern—
Cass lacked any breath to scream, but it didn’t stop her from trying. Bouncing, jouncing, gasping, her arms flailing like a puppet’s, she was borne away, a twig on a terrible flood.