Chapter 9
Cassi
There was food. That was the first thing.
Cassi hadn't expected ever to go back to the house on Spring Street, but the first thing after having been asked if there was anything she'd miss was being told to go back and collect anything worthwhile.
She figured that would be fine. She and Brecca were going together, first her house, then Brec's. Her best friend had lived alone before the Vampyren came, and her apartment was probably either thrashed or colonized even though she'd only been gone one night.
They were being sent a guard. His name was Michael and he was almost as big as the Vampyren, over six feet easily. Blond hair, shocking blue eyes, a very strong chin with a shallow cleft and she thought if he ever smiled, he'd have dimples.
No way to prove that, though. He was polite and distant and smiled at nothing. He made both Cassi and Brecca feel like looking over their shoulders time after time.
He followed them on the bike, keeping a distance, parking the van around the corner and coming to Cassi's parents' house through backyards. There was no one left in the neighborhood to object to the trespass.
He tapped on the glass door and Brec let him in while Cassi foraged.
Her father had been something of an end of the world hoarder so there were bottles of water in the garage, treated somehow so they didn't go stagnant but always smelled slightly of Clorox.
There were cans of beans and jars of salted meat and dried fruits, then he'd started buying MRE – Meals Ready to Eat.
"This is a treasure trove," Michael said. "Pile everything in the center of the garage and I'll bring the van around when we're ready to load."
The afternoon heated up while Brec worked in the kitchen, salvaging first aid kits and canned goods Cassi hadn't eaten during her months alone.
Cassi worked with Michael, their hands touching as they moved crates of silvery military grade packaged food into piles, their eyes meeting again over a bottle of water or a box of her clothes she'd thought she might diet into.
They probably fit now – the alien invasion diet was great for making her lose her appetite – but she thought donating them to anyone who could wear them would be better than wearing the memories they'd bring back.
As the afternoon progressed, as they became more hot and sticky, she noticed their hands lingered more with the innocent brushes against each other. Hands. Then eyes. Until Cassi went inside to get a glass of water and found Brecca had fallen asleep on the living room sofa.
She went back into the garage with a glass for Michael and stood watching him as he drank. Watching the way his throat moved. His lips, with one drop of water he licked off, his eyes not leaving hers.
His hands on the glass, long fingers, corded forearms slicked with sweat.
He handed her back the glass, his fingers grazing hers. She put it down without looking, heard the plastic tumbler roll to the garage floor even as she reached for him.
His mouth on hers was salty and sweet. He had full lips that covered hers. His tongue snaked into her mouth and found hers.
She pressed herself against him, feeling her nipples harden and her body respond to his, heartrate speeding up, pulse jumping, her legs feeling weaker, like she needed him to hold her up. The heat inside her increased. Her body felt liquid, giving, ready to receive.
They jerked apart from each other when they heard Brecca coming toward them from the house, calling out that she'd fallen asleep but now she was awake, what could she do to help and make up for her dereliction of duty?
She stopped in the doorway, looking out at them as if she sensed something had changed but wasn't quite sure what.
Cassi licked her lips. Michael gestured at the piles they'd made and asked if Brecca would finish out the last of the useables from the house while he went to get the van.
By the time he'd left, Brec was smothering a smile. When his running footsteps died away, she gave a tilted half smile at Cassi. "Did I interrupt something there?"
And Cassi, inclined to dissemble until she knew for certain, decided life was too uncertain at the moment to know anything except that Brec was her best friend.
"I don't know," she said honestly, looking out the open garage door where Michael had gone. "But I hope so."
Back at the redesigned boutique, they started training. First was the trial by fire self-defense workshop for Brecca, who complained she felt like she'd fallen into a video game. At the end of two weeks she was moving less like a confident rebel and more like somebody's arthritic grandmother.
"I never wanted to be a warrior like you," she half-kidded Cassi while they tried to fall asleep in the tiny room they shared.
"Get out."
"No, seriously. I've always admired your bad-assery. I just never wanted to copy it."
Maybe, Cassi thought. But Brecca was doing something she wasn't sharing anything about. Because she'd disappear for hours on end, especially at twilight, and come back lit as if she were drunk. That seemed to be some kind of confidence rush.
It was hard not to ask. But Brec was her best friend. When she was ready to confide, she would.
Until then, Cassi thought she might enjoy watching her best friend train as a warrior. Vividly she remembered her first days in martial arts. Watching it on Brecca was amusing. Brecca was currently trying to pound the cot into something resembling comfortable.
"Eventually it becomes a kind of obsession," she told Brec. "If you don't train, you don't feel right." She smothered a smile, waiting.
Brecca threw her a look that said You're out of your damned mind. She rolled over on the cot and groaned. "My teeth even hurt. Is that even possible?"
Cassi just grinned. Martial arts did that. Whatever she might say, Brec was a runner and she was in good shape. She'd figure it all out.
Meanwhile Cassi needed to figure out Michael.
Because this seemed like a really bad time to get involved with someone but the whole time Brecca was training in mixed martial arts, Cassi was learning to handle firearms. Brecca didn't have to – before the war she'd had two very gun nut brothers who collected, were responsible with and seemed to love their handguns and rifles.
They didn't hunt. They never went crazy and killed anybody.
And as far as Brecca knew, she sometimes kidded, they'd never robbed any banks.
"Or if they did, they didn't share with me. "
Which was to say Brecca didn't have to have firearms training, so it was just Cassi that Michael was training to handle firearms.
And Michael was handling her. Showing her how to aim, how to fire, how not to jerk at the expected explosion and when to breathe, he stood behind her, his arms circling her, and sometimes he moved close enough his heat enveloped her more than the sultry summer heat.
Sometimes she could feel how hard he was, pressed up against her, and she'd turn in the circle of his arms and face him. Mouth to mouth, before they'd pull back and study each other, eyes full of want and questions.
Routinely someone interrupted them. Routinely Cassi thought she saw the same mix of frustration and relief in Michael's eyes that was in her own.
It just wasn't the right time, her mind said.
Fuck that, and fuck me too, her body said.
She hadn't said anything to Brecca about it because she didn't know what to say. Brec would probably tell her to jump him because it would diffuse the tension and let them get on with Cassi's training.
Or it would start something new and add a different level of tension but at least they'd know they could take care of it.
And there was a logic there, except that she and Brecca had different ideas about sex. Brecca was more masculine about it, Cassi always thought – if it felt good, she did it, and didn't see the problem. Guys did it. Why shouldn't she?
Cassi had tried that, fresh out of high school and wanting to be out of her parents' house, but found intimacy mixed with emotions for her.
It still did.
And she did not want to get attached to Michael.
At the end of the third week, reports were coming in across the grapevine that reached them even in the cut off section of new recruits. Across the city there were attacks, anywhere Vampyren gathered, and there were body counts rising.
So far, none of the people in the hall where they were staying admitted to knowing anything about the attacks, but rumors were they were women perpetrating them, who were able to get in and out maybe as a part of whatever vile entertainment the vampires had put together.
"They'll figure it out before much longer, and be able to stop them," Val opined. She was a tiny Asian girl with attitude to spare and sometimes hung out in their room at night.
"Maybe," Brecca said. "But they haven't caught them this far and they don't seem to be doing the same thing twice."
"How do you know?" Cassi asked, but the answer was obvious before the question was finished.
If the Vampyren had caught any of the women doing the killing, news of the public executions would be all over the news and all over the unofficial gossip networks that ran through everything anymore.
There'd be no way to miss it.
"You think they're -- ?" Val asked and circled a finger around in the air to signify the place they were and the people all three of them were training with.
"If so, they're doing a good job of keeping it secret," Cassi said and Brecca echoed the sentiment, though a little slowly, Cassi thought.
And wondered.
At the end of the third week, Michael came to get her in the evening before dinner.
"Last minute test on guns and weapons," he said, leading her to the firing range. "Because tomorrow, you're headed out."
The boredom that had been creeping up on her, the in-a-rut feeling like she'd had before the invasion ever happened, evaporated like a freak snowfall landing on Los Angeles.
Suddenly she was terrified and wide awake.