Chapter 22
Cassi
Some of them might be lost.
She hated those odds.
Sitting side by side with Brecca, Cassi cut into her wrists, pulling the mics free of her skin, cleaning the blood off them, and then she and Brecca at the same time sent their code names and their locations and what was happening.
The pain was sharp and focused, nothing like the dull ache she'd grown used to.
Blood welled from the tiny incisions and she pressed her thumbs hard against her wrists, smearing red across her palms. Brecca's face was tight with concentration, her own wrists bleeding freely, but her hands were steady.
They'd carried the mics for weeks. Weeks of sex and fighting and fear that could have jarred them loose or pushed them deeper.
Getting them out felt like cutting away the last piece of the life she'd had before.
There was no more need for stealth. There were enough women here to pinpoint every Vampyren location anyone could want.
The time for pretense and sneaking was over. Time for the cavalry to ride in.
They sent their messages and hoped.
They didn't have to overpower the guards.
Because when the guard showed unexpectedly at the cell doors and simply opened them, then stepped back, they didn't waste time but surged for the exit.
The guards' faces were livid with rage. The instant she was through the doors Cassi understood. Danton stood there, with weapons, and with some of the women who had orchestrated the killing attacks.
His eyes found hers across the chaos and something passed between them that had nothing to do with pheromones or captivity or any of the things she'd told herself to explain what she felt. He had turned on his own kind. For all of them, maybe. But the look he gave her was only for her.
Free. And armed.
Guns were spread through the group to the best markswomen. Those without guns were herded to the center of the group.
They moved fast and silent and they swarmed up the stairs and into the sunlight, making their way to the same vehicles that had brought them here and would now deliver them into the beleaguered rural communities in California and Nevada.
Maybe their resources were being overwhelmed, but the women themselves were resources, and resourceful, and coming together to change the world.
Laser fire cracked behind them. Someone screamed — one of the women, hit in the shoulder, stumbling — and two others caught her without breaking stride. They couldn't stop. Couldn't slow down. The Vampyren were regrouping and the window Danton had opened wouldn't stay open long.
Cassi had already seen a change in her own part of it. She reached out for Danton's hand, not knowing if that was a custom on his world. He looked puzzled, briefly, then took her hand.
The first of any change is hard. The world had a long way to go, and humanity wasn't guaranteed to survive the journey, though neither were the Vampyren invaders.
"I need to find the tank farms," she told Danton as they ran for the vehicles they'd take.
Already the resistance was arriving, spreading out with their weapons, driving back the Vampyren that came pouring up out of the school, turning the prison they'd used for humans to a prison to hold the alien invaders themselves.
"I'll see you there," he told her. "Then you can take your family and run."
She stopped in her tracks. "I'm not going anywhere without you."
He stared at her as if she'd said something in a language he didn't speak. Around them the world was gunfire and shouting and the sharp ozone smell of discharged laser rifles, and she was standing still, telling an alien invader she wouldn't leave him behind.
It wasn't the pheromones. She was sure of that now. Whatever had started as chemistry had become something else, something she didn't have a word for yet, something that had nothing to do with his species or hers and everything to do with the choices he'd made when no one was watching.
"He won't be welcome in the rurals," Brecca said, coming up behind them. She carried a semi-automatic with complete assurance, covering them as they stood, inadvisably taking the time to argue.
"They'll have to learn," Cassi said. "We all will.
" She gave Danton a long look. "We don't have to go where there are others.
We can run into the Mojave. There's a lot of empty space there.
" She looked at all the women moving to the vehicles, looked at her best friend and thought about what they'd both learned from the resistance and about not pooling their resources where they could all be trapped at the same time.
Brecca said it before she did. "Might not be a bad idea to start a splinter group."
Cassi high fived her and turned to Danton. "And we could use insight into how the Vampyren military is formed and how they think."
She thought she was holding her breath, waiting for his answer.
His gaze was distant for a second before he turned and looked at her and answered. "The Mojave. That's desert?"
"Very hot, very dry, very desert," she said.
It was the first real smile she'd seen from him. Not the ghost of amusement, not the controlled almost-expression he allowed himself. A smile. Brief and startled, as if he'd forgotten his face could do that.
"Then let's go," he said, and held out his hand.
She took it. His skin was cool against hers, the way it always was, and she held on tight as they ran for the last vehicle, Brecca covering their six with the semi-automatic held like she'd been born to it.
Behind them the school burned. Ahead of them the desert waited, vast and empty and blisteringly hot, and none of them knew what came next.
But for the first time since the Vampyren came, Cassi thought she might find out.
The first step of any new venture is difficult. Without it, though, nothing ever changes.