Chapter 5 #2
"How could I?" she asked before she thought about it. "I need to find the people to do it with, first."
If his checklist was the five W's – who, what, when, where and why, and how tacked on for good measure – she'd just cleared how and who, she thought.
When was now. The gardening and canning had mentioned gardening by the light of the moon, which was full tonight.
Where, then. Her breath caught in her throat.
"Anything you can't live without?"
Anyone. "No."
He was still giving her the parental look. "You go straight from here out the back door. You follow my instructions." The color was returning to his face, though she thought it was artificially induced out of the bottle.
"No," Cassi said, and caught him by surprise.
"You don't say no. You leave without looking back or the deal's off."
"I leave from here, and I don't look back from here. But I need one thing from the bar."
"It's too dangerous."
"Deal's off, otherwise," she said. As if she had any bargaining power at all.
"This is what you said you wanted. What's so important you can't go without it?"
"Me," said Brecca's voice from above them.
The moon was already high but even at ten p.m. the streets were empty. It wasn't safe to be outside even if martial law curfew didn't clamp down until midnight.
The bike purred under them. Brecca's arms around her waist anchored Cassi to a moment that felt surreal.
She'd expected more questions. They were headed to a rendezvous at one of the city's museums and from there they'd be taken into the canyons surrounding Los Angeles and from there into the desert outside the city where they could train.
The Vampyren had conquered the metro areas, but where the invasion could have been expected to spread outward, it had stayed contained.
As if the only humans in need of conquering were those in the cities.
Which left the rural areas both untouched and totally fucked. Because city residents were streaming into the rural areas across the country, none of which were equipped for the sudden population explosion.
That might be why the vamps didn't follow. Rural spaces had too much trouble trying to fit all the pieces together to be worrisome.
The other theory was the showy vampires with their military parades and their warriors, their shoot on sight orders for anyone who looked like a threat, their gladiatorial games and their blood drinking hellish selves, maybe they were just so threatening and dangerous and huge and sexual and off-putting for the men and pheromone charging for the women – maybe they stayed where they were because there were only a limited number of them on Earth.
Cassi thought that theory was wrong and cocked up anyway because of course there was a limited number.
There was a finite number of humans, too, but they'd done a good job of screwing up the planet before the aliens arrived and the aliens had done a good job of screwing up the humans in their year on Earth.
There hadn't been any more questions. Not what will you bring to the canning process, or even a question of what she'd bring to the rebellion once the tomato talk got old.
He'd asked her if she could just walk out the back door and not look back and as long as she had her best friend with her, she could.
He hadn't asked her if she had anything worth living and fighting for, other than Brec. She did.
Would she put anyone else at risk to rescue her mother? No.
Would she put herself at risk to do so?
Definitely.
Halfway across the city: bright flashes first. Muzzle reports second. The guns barked in the quiet city. Gunshots echoed in the steel canyon of city streets.
Close. Someone targeted them. Cassi almost dumped the bike, slewed from one street to the next. Behind her, Brecca tensed, a split second's indecision before she reacted in time to Cassi's lean.
They slid along the street at an impossible angle. Something buzzed over Cassi's shoulder, carrying off a tiny strip of leather jacket.
She felt the heat but the bullet itself was just a buzz of insect tearing past.
They were upright again, speeding away.
Heart pounding, she thought of the Vampyren, tall, impossibly sexy, impossibly violent and terrifying. Of her mother, dragged from the remains of the house because she could be of use.
Of the look the Vampyren had given Cassi that day. Something had deemed her unworthy.
Three more months. Indecisions. Too afraid to go after her mother.
Guilt made her gun the bike.
What would she bring the rebellion?
Not much. A motorcycle. Two willing workers. Rage. Her own agenda. She could fight, but what did a first degree black belt have to offer against an eight foot tall Vampyren?
They headed out of Hollywood and into the canyons. Specific directions. Specific canyons.
"Cassi!"
Brecca's warning came too late.
The shots had chased them into a different corridor of streets, so lined with broken buildings and burned, wrecked cars she followed a tunnel.
That led her straight to a checkpoint.
Lights. Guns. Tall, imposing figures. Human, but the militaristic stances were undeniable.
She blinked, long and slow, letting the bike power down until she straddled the thing, engine just rumbling, and the first of the humans at the checkpoint reached over and twisted the bike off.
It died between her legs.
I'm sorry, everybody.
"Papers."
She didn't have any, of course. Humans moving outside their jurisdiction carried papers, like hastily created in-country passports.
"I'm just going to the Holocaust Museum." It seemed a grim enough destination and it was only a matter of blocks. There weren't usually checkpoints inside the city, were there? Los Angeles was completely under alien control.
"You need papers."
Wasn't it? These were human guards. Most of them were under alien control too, but…
But was she crazy? Or had the guard reacted, just the tiniest bit, when she'd named her destination.
"Get off the bike."
She took her hands from the grips, holding them up carefully while Brecca climbed off behind her. She followed.
The guns remained trained on them. Four hastily conscripted soldiers, all human, which meant somewhere there had to be a vamp contingency watching. If this was important, if this checkpoint mattered to anyone, there'd be a vamp on it.
But scanning the blown up street around them, she didn't see where anyone could be watching.
Just humans.
Young. Her age, early twenties. No commanding officer.
Their uniforms didn't fit right. They were too big and made up of parts.
Cassi turned her attention back to the soldier who had ordered her off the bike. Shock of blond hair. Acne.
Fear in his eyes.
They might not be the resistance, but she'd just found somebody.