Chapter 7
Cassi
Plain white van with no windows in the back and the ghostly remnants of some business name on the side. Cassi and Brecca were handcuffed to what looked like racks that might have transported pastries in a nicer time.
Or wedding cakes. Times like those especially she remembered Jayce. He thought they had a future. She'd thought that was sweet. But wrong.
He hadn't deserved what happened to him.
First whiff of rebellion and he'd gone. They'd fought about it their last night together, Jayce insisting she come with and Cassi insisting the so-called rebels might be well intentioned but it was too soon and they were too new and somebody was going to get killed.
It turned out to be Jayce, spectacularly publicly.
Maybe that's part of why it had taken her months to go after her mother. Even now she wasn't sure she was going about it the right way. Joining the rebels was a means to an end for her, not a way to save the planet.
She didn't think the planet was going to be saved by cells of enthusiastic do-it-yourself rebels. She was willing to be wrong, though.
"You okay?" Brecca asked.
Cassi shifted her glance from middle of nowhere to Brecca and sighed. "Yeah." Before she could ask, You? Brecca went on.
"Oh, good. Because I'm not. If I'd known this was your idea, I'd have stayed in the bar."
Her voice was flat and attempting hostile.
Cassi had known her too long. "No, you wouldn't have."
Brecca glared and gave up. "No, I wouldn't have." A pause and then, since nobody had pounded on the back of the van from the cab, "Where do you suppose we're going?"
"Not the Holocaust Museum."
"Not our stated destination? Shocking."
Cassi smiled. Neither of them had been hurt. The bike was following the van, ridden by somebody from the checkpoint, she could tell by the special engine miss that probably had something to do with the carburetor or the spark plugs. She hadn't had time to check it out.
She missed the days when she didn't know about such things.
Before either of them said anything else the van stopped, the doors opened, and they were un-cuffed from the pastry racks, and led inside through the back loading area of some business.
Four people walked them in. The one in front held the flashlight. The two on either side of them held firearms, just automatic handguns, Cassi noticed. The one behind them was the one with the semi-automatic.
The one behind them was also female.
She was the one to address them once they got inside. "Wait. It'll be a couple minutes." She looked at them curiously, tilting her head to one side. She wore a big, full afro, a black tank top under a tactical vest, and black cargo pants. Her muscles were badass and her expression wasn't welcoming.
Neither was the gun.
For the first time Cassi wondered if this was a bad move for more than just the fact that her values didn't totally align with the rebels.
Next second it didn't matter anymore because she and Brec were led inside what seemed like the admin office for a boutique.
First thing Cassi noticed was the man she'd put down in the warehouse. Her heart started pounding until the woman behind the desk, big, blonde and pushing sixty, grinned and said, "That one? That little thing?" and the man Cassi had put on the ground growled, "She got the drop on me."
What she wanted to do was go back home. But there was no home. And because of that, Cassi made a split second decision not to be the doormat she'd felt like since Jayce was taken out.
She crossed to one of the chairs in front of the desk without waiting for invite and sat. "Got the drop on you?" she said to her attacker. "You were behind me with your arm on my neck and I still put you on the ground." She said the last of that to the woman behind the desk, who started to smile.
They were mostly women, Debra told them. Whether or not any of the names she and Brecca were given were real made no difference.
What did matter was what they learned in short order, some of it through information they were given. Some through observation.
Some because they had to be told something before they were sent out to prove themselves.
Though she didn't know why. Because what they were being asked to do sounded like nothing anybody would ever come back from.
But it also sounded like she might be able to get to her mom that way.
Debra didn't pace and after laughing at Jack, she didn't laugh about anything else.
She'd lost her husband and three grown sons to the Vampyren and she wasn't amused by much.
She'd almost lost her life, she told them, revealing an ugly scar on her neck where one of the vamps had grabbed her and tried to drain her.
She was long past breeding age, which made her less than nothing to the alien overlords.
She'd killed the vampire before he could drain her and something inside her had sparked. There were cells of rebellion all over the US, especially in rural areas where the Vampyren weren't interested in going and people could move more freely, plus the conditions were so much worse.
People were starving in the rural areas.
People there were also mad enough to pick up guns and fight back. But with all systems down from cell towers to utilities, coming together to plan coordinated attacks on the city-dwelling vamps was difficult. It was hard to get into the metro areas, too, from the outside.
"What's the point of the checkpoints?" Brecca had asked and they were told there were a limited number of areas held by the humans, at least in LA. Those areas were defended to the death if necessary and they were working to widen them, fighting back a little every day.
What Cassi observed was the lack of men. She'd seen them in the bar, every night, but they were the beta males who didn't fight, the ones who hunkered down like the governments and decided to act like everything was normal until the day it was again.
The rebellion was being led by women.
Really, really angry women.
"You were brought here because of Jack," Debra said and Jack grunted like the memory wasn't a good one. "You handled yourself. We can use that."
Which made Cassi swallow and shoot an involuntary glance at Brecca, who must have had the same feeling of not taking so much lying down anymore.
"What about me?" she asked. Because Brecca was a runner and a dancer but she was not a martial artist.
"We'll find something for you," Debra said, and the look Brecca and Cassi shared said neither were relieved by the statement.