CHAPTER 7 #2
Sanguines were treated as addicts and whores by much of the human population, sellouts who were betraying their species.
And since most sanguines were young and female, angry male voices sought to silence them, insisting they should have found other options when their families were starving and about to be put out on the streets.
“I don’t want any trouble,” she said carefully.
“Whores like you who sell yourself to the leeches are the reason they keep getting stronger.”
Dani wanted to laugh at this, even knowing it was a mistake to antagonize an angry mob.
“You actually think if the auction houses ceased to exist tomorrow that the vampires would stop taking human blood?” When the man’s jaw hardened and his cheeks reddened, she continued.
“We both know perfectly well that they wouldn’t. They’d just take it by force.”
“Spoken like a collaborator whore who’d rather suck off the oligarchs and spread her legs for the vampire prince because she thinks she’s too good for the hard-working men who keep this city safe.
” Rage flared in his eyes. “We’ll get the leeches to listen to us in the end.
Even if we have to burn this sector to the ground. ”
Strong arms grabbed Dani from behind. Someone ripped off her satchel, laughing as they began pawing through it.
“No, please don’t. Just let me go." She struggled, fighting to get her hands free, but with her gloves on, she had no hope of making skin to skin contact. Her power was too weak to work without it.
The female rebel pulled out her phone. “What’s your code?” When Dani remained silent, she narrowed her eyes. “I don’t want to hurt you, so don’t make this any harder than it needs to be.”
The arm behind her back twisted painfully, practically ripping her shoulder out of joint.
“Let me go,” she gasped. “Stop it.”
“Give us the code,” the female insurgent insisted. “This can all stop.”
Without warning, the two men restraining her fell to the ground, lifeless and dazed. They blinked up at the sky overhead, expressions blank as snow continued to fall.
“What did you do to them?” The girl holding her phone gaped, dumbfounded. “Oh my gods. You’re an aberrant?”
“Give me my phone,” Dani demanded.
She could see the hesitation in the girl’s eyes, the sudden fear. Dani could tell she was considering calling for help, but before she could, there was a shout from the caravan of delivery vans that was making its way down the road. Over the wind, Dani could barely make the voices out.
“What’s the hold up?” The male rebel leader hurried towards the stalled trucks. A group of insurgents followed in his wake. “You need to get going or you won’t make it to the crossing before they get more guards posted.”
“All three stalled out at the same time. Can they turn them off remotely?”
“Yeah. They’re all wired that way now. We need to open them up,” someone else said. “Bypass the starter system.”
Dani and the girl had both turned to watch what was unfolding when a terrible orange fireball lit up the sky.
The girl screamed. Dani threw herself on top of her, knocking them both to the ground as hunks of burning metal and shrapnel rained down around them.
She made herself as small as she could in the drainage ditch on the side of the road as two more explosions shattered the snowy landscape, each blast landing like a punch in the center of her sternum.
“They triggered the explosion remotely,” the girl shouted from underneath her. “Those monsters would rather blow up their own trucks, not caring how many people they kill, than have a few packages stolen.”
Dani slowly got to her knees, feeling like every bone in her body ached from the force of her impact with the ground. She pressed a hand to the girl’s cheek.
“Your forehead is bleeding. You need to put something on it.” She felt her vision begin to tunnel, and lowered her head until the black spots cleared. After a minute, her pulse evened out. Grabbing her phone from the girl’s hand, she stalked off to find her satchel in the debris.
“Do… do I know you?” the girl called uncertainly after her. “I’m so confused. I don’t know what I’m doing here. Was there an accident?”
“Put some pressure on that wound,” Dani called. “And don’t even think about following me.”
It took her the better part of an hour to get back to the meatpacking district.
She was forced to skirt groups of rioters that seemed to be made up of both humans and vampires.
Several streets from home, she could have sworn she saw a group of shifters throwing bricks at a guard unit, but from a distance, couldn’t be sure.
With their wild, dark hair and golden eyes, wolf shifters could mostly blend in and pass.
“Oh, Dani, I was so worried,” Ava said when she staggered through the door. “Evan said you would be home soon. When you didn’t show up, I thought you’d been picked up by a patrol. They said on the news that they’re arresting people all over the sector. I haven’t heard anything from her since.”
Dani stomped the snow from her boots and hung her wet coat on its peg by the door. “She texted me an hour ago. She’s okay.”
“Is she coming home soon?” Ava asked hopefully.
“She didn’t say when. But I’m sure she’s fine. Evan knows how to take care of herself.”
Ava’s face fell. They both knew that whatever was going on, Evan was probably in the thick of it.
“Help me move the bookcase over. We need to barricade the door.”
Her mother had always said that when things looked dire, it was best to keep busy, assign tasks.
In a crisis, it helped to make everyone part of the solution, rather than having them sit around feeling helpless.
From the time she and Evan had been small, they’d been assigned to count cans of beans during raids and blackouts, brew tea, make the beds.
Gods, she missed her mother so much in moments like these that it hurt.
“Will that help if it’s vampires?” Ava asked dubiously. “If they’re coming to arrest one of us, they’ll just materialize straight through the wall and deploy knockout gas.”
Dani rubbed her temples. Evan really had to stop talking about siege tactics at the breakfast table.
She made a mental note to limit all discussion topics to the figure skaters Ava was currently swooning over, and the cozy cat mysteries they checked out from the library, which Cinder loved having read to her at night.
“You’re probably right, but it will make me feel better.
” She decided not to tell Ava about the werewolves she’d seen.
Together, they shoved the bookshelf into place.
“Good. Now, can you please check that all the blackout curtains are shut tight? I’m going to make sure all our empty jugs are full of water in case they shut it off. ”
“You think they’ll do that?” Ava’s blue eyes widened.
“They will if the riots go on for too long.”
“Then I want to take a shower,” Ava decided. “Just in case we can’t for a few days.”
“That’s a good idea.” Dani wrapped her little sister in a hug. “I’ll start dinner. How does grilled chicken with pasta and broccoli sound?”
An hour later, they’d both had showers and Dani was finishing up the dishes from dinner when Evan finally texted.
Evan: Are both of you safe?
Dani set her dishtowel aside and leaned against the counter. Her dizziness and headache had improved after eating something, but she still felt off.
Dani: We’re both home. Power just went out. We’re using candles. Call when you have a chance, please.
She knew better than to ask if Evan was coming home soon.
Her phone rang.
“I only have a minute,” Evan said by way of greeting. Dani could make out muffled shouts in the background. “What’s going on?”
“So, I got stopped on the road coming home tonight,” Dani said in a low voice. “There was a group intercepting delivery trucks, and someone recognized me from the tabloids. They were going to hold me until they could extract some sort of ransom.”
“Damn. I’m sorry.” Evan swore. “There are a lot of factions working together on this. Some of them are a bit shady. Are you okay?”
Ava came into the kitchen from where she’d been working on her homework, an old quilt wrapped around her shoulders.
“I’m fine. I resisted when they tried to take me, told them to stop, and two of the men holding me dropped to the ground. I was wearing gloves. I couldn’t touch them. I can’t explain how I could have wiped them without direct contact.”
“And you’re sure it was your magic?”
“Yes.” Dani hadn’t wanted to admit it before, but now as she remembered the two rebel insurrectionists staring blankly up at the sky, she felt certain. “I’ve never been able to focus that much power before. As soon as it happened, I felt drained.”
“Did anyone see you?”
“There was a girl trying to break into my phone. She was the one who recognized I was an aberrant. But we were both pretty shaken up when the trucks exploded, and I managed to wipe the last few minutes and her memories of me. But there’s always the chance that someone saw. It all happened so fast.”
Ava leaned over the kitchen table to get a piece of bread that had been leftover from dinner, the edge of the quilt dangling too close to the flickering candle flame. Dani pushed away from the counter, lips forming a warning—
—just as her vision went spotty.
The ground rushed up to meet her, the room spinning like her head was full of water.
“Dani,” Ava gasped, voice small and terrified.
In the background, she heard her sisters talking.
She tried to hang onto the words, tried to make out what they were saying, and couldn’t. But her head was starting to clear.
“Ava, I’m okay.” She sat up.
Her sister hurried over.
“Drink this.” Ava helped her to sit up, pressing a glass of juice to her lips. “Evan is on her way home. She’s calling Sera.”
“I just need to rest. I probably got shaken up when I was knocked to the ground.”
“You’ve been off all day,” Ava said sternly. “You have to take better care of yourself.”