Chapter Twenty
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brIA WAS MISERABLE. She’d cried for half an hour after Urzra had left, overwhelmed with guilt for hurting him.
It had torn her heart open when he’d told her she should have let the sharks take him.
Their link was so faint she couldn’t even feel him now.
She was alone just like she wanted, but she’d hurt a good man who didn’t deserve it in the process.
She pulled herself together and found some tissues in the bathroom.
Her eyes were red and swollen and she looked terrible.
“How can he even want me?” she asked incredulously.
Her dark blonde hair was half falling out of the ponytail and dirt streaked her face.
Her t-shirt was covered in blood and she’d had to tear it open to let Urzra treat her wound.
Letting out a watery sigh, she tossed the tissues into the trash can in the corner of the bathroom.
She headed to the kitchen and found bottles of water in the pantry.
Chugging some down, she wet a washcloth she found in the linen cupboard and washed her face, hands, arms and torso.
She redid her hair so it was tidy again as well.
“I need to retrieve my gear,” Bria said morosely, then trudged over to the door.
She headed back to where she’d left her cart full of provisions.
“It’s gone!” she exclaimed in annoyance.
Turning in a circle, she saw the tracks the wheels had made.
They were leading directly to the town a few hundred yards away.
“They stole my stuff!” she complained. Her e-reader and clothes were in one of the duffle bags.
While she could always find more food, she wasn’t about to let them steal her precious e-reader.
Filled with determination, Bria strode towards the town. Someone spotted her and shouted. People spilled out of the houses, holding rifles. “I’m unarmed!” she said, holding her hands up. “You guys stole my stuff and I want it back!”
“Are you the owner of the cart we found?” the guy with all the tattoos called out.
“Yeah, it’s mine!” she called back.
“I’m sorry, miss, but we need those supplies,” he said in a hard tone.
“Fine, keep them!” she said angrily. “Can I at least have my clothes and e-reader back?”
He motioned for one of the women to move closer and whispered to her. “What’s an e-reader?” he asked, unaware that the cambion could hear him.
“It’s a device that stores lots of books on it,” she whispered back.
He nodded in response. “Grab her gear. Leave her enough food for a couple of days as well.”
Bria stood there with her hands in the air for a few minutes while the order was carried out.
Fury boiled inside her. She’d used her power to save their lives, then Urzra had wiped out half of their attackers.
Now they were stealing her provisions and leaving her with practically nothing.
They had no idea she’d assisted them, but she was still angry at the injustice of how they were treating her.
One of the men took the two duffle bags from the woman when she retrieved them. He jogged over to Bria and put them on the ground. “Sorry,” he said, avoiding her eyes. “We’d take you in, but we don’t know you.”
“I wouldn’t want to live in a town full of people who steal from folks who are just passing by,” she snapped, snatching up her belongings. She checked to make sure her e-reader and charging cord were inside, then turned away and strode off in a huff.
Taking a circuitous route, Bria returned to the house where Urzra had patched her up. It was stupid, but she almost expected him to be there, waiting for her. He wasn’t, of course.
“This sucks,” she said bitterly. “Now I don’t have a cart and I barely have any food. I have to scrounge for more supplies and I don’t have anything to carry them in.”
She was close to tears of sheer frustration now. Searching the house, she found a couple of backpacks and stuffed canned food into them. Muttering beneath her breath, she figured she was lucky the townsfolk hadn’t stripped every nearby residence of provisions yet.
“They prefer to steal from people who are just traveling past,” she said sourly. Or maybe they had other reasons why they’d left this place untouched. It wasn’t as dusty as most of the homes she’d searched. Someone might have been living there until recently.
It was too dangerous to stay here, so Bria shouldered her gear and began backtracking along the path she’d taken.
Her mind was set on returning to her home sometime soon, so she didn’t want to head further inland.
She walked until nightfall and picked an empty house.
It was unlocked and the car was gone. From the religious items she found in the living room, they’d probably gone to their church and had been raptured.
“This will do,” she said with a heavy sigh and dumped her bags on the floor.
Bria wasn’t the type to feel lonely, but she had to admit she missed Urzra’s company.
He’d been ridiculously protective of her, but she realized she hadn’t been frightened of him.
Kale had made her feel disturbed as his obsession had grown.
Urzra had been intense, but she’d sensed he only wanted to keep her safe.
“It doesn’t matter now,” she told herself. “He’s gone and he has far more important things to worry about than me.” The knight had a war to fight and that should be his top priority. It was crazy that he’d expended so much effort to follow her so far from Manhattan where his enemies were based.
“And where Deumos is,” she said with a shiver of dread.
The possibility that her father might find her again was too horrible to contemplate.
Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to return to Block Island.
But she’d just been given a glimpse of what life on the mainland was like.
Everyone was out for themselves. She was lucky she’d been able to get her e-reader and clothes back, as well as her toiletries.
“Not to mention my toilet paper,” she said with a scowl.
“That stuff’s going to be a lot harder to find now. ”
Brooding until nightfall, she tried to read, but couldn’t concentrate. Her thoughts kept returning to Urzra’s devastated face when she’d rejected him again.
Bria used the couch for a bed and was awake at dawn.
“I’m going to choose an isolated house closer to the coast,” she said.
“I’ll use it for a base and gather enough supplies for winter.
Maybe I’ll get lucky and find a ham radio that runs on batteries.
I’ll listen to the Mad Prophet and wait for the war to be over.
Once everything clears, I’ll head home to Block Island. ”
She felt slightly better now that she’d come up with a solid, hopefully safe plan and grabbed her gear.
Bria kept up a fast walk as she headed southeastward.
A brisk wind began to blow, almost feeling like it was trying to push her southward.
“Fate, if you’re trying to get me to head to Manhattan, you can get bent,” she muttered.
A branch came from out of nowhere in a gust of wind and smacked her upside the head.
“Ow!” she cried out, rubbing the small lump that had formed.
A chill ran down her spine and she stopped dead.
“Holy crap,” she whispered. “Did Fate hear me?” She looked around, searching for proof that it hadn’t been a coincidence.
“Okay, if you’re there, Fate, give me a definitive sign that Urzra and I are supposed to be a team,” she demanded.
A roar came from some nearby trees, but it didn’t come from the knight this time. An animal crashed through the foliage and emerged into the sunlight. Rearing up on its hind legs, the black bear stared straight at her and roared again.
Bria took off running and the bear lumbered after her. The beast was herding her southward, exactly where she didn’t want to go. “Okay, okay!” she shouted. “I get it! I’ll head to Manhattan and find Urzra!”
There was no way the bear could have kept up with her speed. She glanced back to see it had halted, but it was still glowering in her direction. As far as signs went, it had been a pretty damn direct one.
Now that the danger was over, she slowed to a steady run. Her radar would tell her if any humans were nearby so she could hide if she had to. It was a long way to the city, but she figured she would reach it by midafternoon.