by Lyn Brittan
One of them shouted and pointed to the sky. Allie gave her hidden weapon a reassuring pat as she repositioned herself for a better view.
She caught it just in time to see something fizzle and spark above in a light so blinding that she shielded her eyes.
Whatever had just happened didn’t faze the men. They high-fived one another and went about their patrol up and down the street.
That meant one thing - an electrical security net. So that was how they kept the creatures out of town. What had Mike said? That people could come and go as they pleased?
Of course they could. They’d have a few hours of freedom before nightfall when mutated freaks of nature did Graham’s handiwork.
She bent, straining to look upward, but didn’t see any gooey remains. Maybe they didn’t shock to kill them, just to deter them. Good to know.
It would have also been good to have someone to discuss this with. One look over at the felled giant confirmed that said discussion would be delayed.
She’d read Vin his rights first thing in the morning. For now, she secured the door with the table and for the pleasure of anyone watching, slid into bed and curled up next to Vin.
Chapter Seven
Vin cringed against the morning sunlight and ran to the sink for the fifth time. He hated life. Hated liquor. Hated everything.
“You should be ashamed of yourself, Vin Dhoma.”
And temporarily hated her.
“I’m dying, Allie. Can it wait?”
“And whose fault is that?”
“Seriously? The crazy guy’s.”
“Yours.”
He braced himself against the metallic edge of the sink and waited for the world to stop flipping around. Had this been any sort of real quadrant, he could have dragged himself into a cleansing unit, waited a few moments, and walked out not reeking of sweat and vomit. “I need a tab for my mouth.”
“Doubtful they’d have them.”
He turned some knobs until water came out and rinsed his mouth as best he could. “I don’t want to be a diva, but—”
“Next time we talk things out before you rush into something stupid.”
“My stomach is rioting.”
“We’re in this together. We discuss and plan and—”
He slid down the wall, cupping his head in his hands. “My liver is giving up on life.”
“Do you think that because I’m a woman I can’t protect myself? News flash, I’m tough. I’m smart. I’m OSA. I’m not saying it wasn’t a good idea, or that it was. Who knows one way or the other? I don’t, because you couldn’t be bothered to talk to me.”
“Allie—”
“You’re almost as misogynistic as they are. So paranoid that...well... that I’ll...that some man...you know.”
“Say it. Get raped?”
She slapped him, but he didn’t move, and his eyes never left hers.
So she slapped him again.
“Say it, Allie. The word. Rape. Too hard for you? Too ugly a word?”
“How dare you?”
“Because it happened to me.” He rose then, unblinking, solid and unshaking. “A long time ago, when I was a new recruit. He was my commanding officer. Get gender out of your head, Allie. It’s not about what’s between the legs of the survivors or the attackers. It’s not about sex or...fuck.”
“Vin, I’m sorry and—”
He wiped his face, pathetically gone wet, then shoved a finger in her chest. “There’s a whole bunch of power play crap going on around here. It breeds that shit.”
“I didn’t know.”
Vin’s hand dropped and he let out a deep breath. He tried to force a smile, but knew he hadn’t come close. “I know it pisses you off sometimes, but it took years and lots of work to get my smile back. I didn’t have a chance to fight, Allie. Last night, I couldn’t get us out of there. They wanted us drunk...there was no way around it. I needed you to have a chance in case...”
“In case I had to fight.”
“No one knows, Allie. Not even my brother. I prefer it stay that way.”
“Of course. Can I hug you? I mean... is that even okay to ask?”
“I’m not glass, Allie. It didn’t break me. I don’t need to be coddled.”
“I know that. Maybe I just want to hug you for caring about what happened to me.”
He chuckled, hoarse and low even to his own ears. “I dry humped you once, so I guess.”
She walked the few steps over, slow and measured. A source of strength and warmth, something true in this disgusting place.
Then for the first time in many years, he cried in front of a woman. It wasn’t sexy or alpha or anything he’d ever dreamed of doing in his life. Only a small group of other survivors of their attacker ever saw him like this.
Belatedly, it occurred to him that they might still be watched, but today he and Allie would make a move one way or the other, and he needed her to know what was on the table. She’d have to fight and never stop fighting.
Her hands patted up and down his back, but he didn’t feel small in anyway. Just secure. Safe. Everything he’d worked so hard to make sure she felt. His chin rested on top of her head and she turned a little.
“What about... I mean, it’s not my place, but was he prosecuted?”
“My commanding officer? You’re right, not your place to ask,” he said but softened it with a reassuring squeeze. “But he died a few years ago - knife in the skull.”
She didn’t ask any more questions, and for that, he was grateful. As grateful as he had been for a knife that day and a group of angry young men desperate to make sure the bastard never attacked anyone else.
That same flame of vengeance lit anew.
“Allie?”
“Yes?”
“I think it’s time we take a walk.”
Chapter Eight
How was it that someone else’s horror caused doubt within herself?
As Allie straightened her dress and walked outside with Vin, the idiotic thought occurred to her that she didn’t know him. The more quiet, yet supremely rational side reminded her that she’d never bothered to learn.
For the first week she’d known him, she’d followed him around the base, omnitablet in hand, looking for ways to lay marks against his personnel record.
Now what would she say? That the man was a quiet hero, hidden below a gallivanting, smiling mask?
She wove her arm through his, too ashamed to look up as her feet shuffled along the wooden sidewalk. Maybe it wasn’t a mask but just him, and as it turned out, just him wasn’t so bad after all.
Just him was not only working out how to save their butts but had been both smart and generous enough to use her in the process. He didn’t have to. A lesser person of his speed and skill could have snuck out and made a run for it alone.
Or worse.
She didn’t give credit for being decent. Everyone had an obligation for that. But Vin had been kind in a situation in which cowardice, cruelty, and self-preservation could be forgiven.
“You hold my hand any tighter Inspector Ert’zod, and I’m going to start thinking that you care.”
“Against all better judgment, I think I do.”
Vin sighed and slowed to a shuffle. His bright smile shone down on her in sadness. “That’s why I don’t tell people. It’s not the shame—I didn’t do anything to be ashamed of. It’s the pity.”
“It’s not that. If I pitied you, I wouldn’t be cataloging all the billion and a half infractions you’ve racked up since we met.”
“Fuck,” he said with a laugh. “Fuckity, fuck, fuck.”
“However...”
“Yes?”
“There’s not a single man I’d rather be here with.”
Vin brought her hand up to his lips. “Yeah, weird, ain’t it? There’s no other woman I’d rather be here with. Except for one with a very big rocket and lots and lots of guns. I might rather have such a woman here, but...” He shrugged and looked back to the street. �
��Whaddya gonna do?”
She tapped her forehead. “Brains beats guns, but the two aren’t mutually exclusive.”
Vin’s blond, bushy eyebrows drew close in a deep V. “Go on. ‘Cause if you’ve got guns, we don’t have a problem.”
“Not yet, except there’s kinda a massive one right above us.”
Vin’s veiny, muscled neck snapped up and his eyes scanned the skies. “Where?”
“Everywhere.”
He let her go and moved a few steps up then back. “The light’s glinting off something.”
“Sure is. I’d have never noticed if I weren’t by the window last night. It’s electrical netting.”
“The thing’s damned near invisible.”
“Yep.”
The smile on his face warmed her heart.
No. That wasn’t right.
Allie amended the thought to his smile filling her with hope. That was much safer. She ignored the twinkle in his eyes too.
Or at least put up a good effort of trying.
“So what you’re saying is that my plan last night helped us? Basically, me being drunk saved our lives. I mean, if you hadn’t been sober and I hadn’t been wasted, you’ve have never seen it.” He bent until they were eye level and snapped his teeth like an eager puppy. “Say it.”
“Say what?”
“The one thing that can make this day better.”
“We’re being rescued?”
“Okay, the second best thing.”
“Fine. You were right.”
“Hah!” The fool clapped and fist-pumped the air, drawing looks of surprise and a few smirks from people on the street. That was the other bizarre thing.
People were friendlier today, at least to him.
And at least the men. With the way he’d dragged her out of there, they must have seen him as one of their own.
Last night changed things in many ways, she supposed and all for the better. “Finished gloating?”
He patted his stomach. “Yep. Things still aren’t so settled on the home front anyway. So we have an electrical net. If we can find the control panel—”
“We don’t need to. It shocks, and just like anything electrical, it needs to complete a circuit to do its duty. All wires eventually lead to a charger and grounding unit.”
Vin pulled her close as they passed a group of Tans. “We destroy that—”
“Or break the connection and the netting goes.”
“Brilliant Allie, but how does that help us now?”
It didn’t, not directly. Still... “We threaten Graham and Mama with wrecking it.”
“That puts innocent people in danger. Can’t do it without a damned good reason. Plus, we’d have to be separated. One with the target and one talking to Graham and... look, I ain’t calling her Mama. Anyway, we’re not splitting up. That’s what they want.”
“What if we stayed another day?” She hated the notion as soon as the words crossed her lips. The longer they stayed, the more likely the chance of these idiots finding their means of transportation. Almost certainly, they would go out looking for it today. “Kill that. We have to get to our shuttle before they do.”
“Since you brought it up, we can’t just leave either. I’m not abandoning—”
“I know that. That’s the one thing I know for sure. We need that shuttle, though. We get it, then we can use it to threaten the net. Together. Mike said that people are free to leave anytime they want. So, we leave. Just go get it.”
That cute eyebrow of his went to work again. “Time out. In your head, you see them letting us out that gate?”
“We’ll call them out on what they claim. That way if they say no, it exposes more of the lie. We need to chip away at the façade. If they say yes, we go.”
“Publicly. At lunch. Or whatever bell they call it. I’m in.”
Which also meant hanging around until then. It didn’t, however, have to be without purpose. Allie patted down her dress, removing the small vial of lotion given to her last night. With a casualness she sure as crap didn’t feel, she slathered some on her ridiculously exposed chest and turned toward the doctor’s office as she rubbed it in. “Wonder if Mike’s working?”
She glanced at Vin and instantly regretted the last two seconds. He pinched his nose and let out a huff of air. “That still stinks.”
She snapped the lid, but some of the cream splurted on her shoes. Vin’s “Awww, lovely” was mostly ignored as she tried to wipe the excess away. Still bent, she nodded to her primary objective. “We should talk to him. He wants out. You know he does. He can be our man on the inside.”
“Maybe, with a little help from Poppy.”
“Maybe is better than no. He might even let us slip into the doctor’s building.”
Turns out he couldn’t, because he wasn’t there. What they did find was a passed-out Tan reeking of last night’s liquor. His shirt was clean and unwrinkled—he hadn’t slept in it. By all appearances, he’d partied hard, dragged himself to work, and gave up the fight soon after.
Allie tiptoed past him with Vin fast on her heels.
Five steps led up to the front door. There, Vin jiggled the knob. “It’s locked.”
“No problem. Ert’zods have been popping locks for generations. Help me lift my dress. No jokes.”
“No problem.” Vin gathered the folds of her garment in his arms, then reached down to slip out the stiletto from her thigh holster and handed it over.
Her grandfather had run and still ran into people wanting to kill him on a regular basis. Locks, be they mechanical, electrical, or even rope, were meant to be conquered. “Your parents taught you how to play as a kid. My family taught me this.”
“I’ll applaud them later,” he said, looking behind them as the door creaked open.
The napping guard hadn’t stirred. All the same, rather than reholster her blade, she placed it in the pocket of her dress for the time being.
The building was dark, and her skin pebbled at the sudden change to chillier air. “Why is it so cold?”
“Do you hear that?”
She did. A scratching sound like dulled nails inching across steel, while the light from outside cast long, grotesque shadows. “Why do I feel like a kid hearing monsters under the bed?”
“I wouldn’t say under the bed. They’re right over there.”
His arm and pointed finger landed on her shoulder, and she followed the path to something that stopped her heart cold. Cages full of them.
Hairy.
Huge.
Gossamer-winged.
Scary-ass spiders.
They moved slowly at first, almost as if coming out of some sort of haze. But the closer she and Vin got to the cages, the more they rattled within them.
Vin rapped his knuckles against the top of a container. “They’re breeding them.”
“What did you tell me earlier? Only say what we know for sure? We know they have them. Maybe they’re studying them. There’s nothing to indicate breeding.”
“Because they’re too good for that?”
Well, no.
The monstrous things were the stuff of nightmares. Eight-legged with fur that looked as threatening as the saliva that dripped from their mouths. She’d never known spiders to snarl.
These did.
Then again, she’d never known spiders to fly.
They lurched towards her, pushing against their prison walls. Some of them had legs thin enough to get through the bars—twitching towards them, clawing the air.
“We need our omnitablets for this. No one will believe it. Nature didn’t do this. Nature is slow. Methodical. There’s nothing here requiring this evolutionary step. This was purposeful.”
She didn’t bother asking why. If what he said was true, and you didn’t have to be a science genius to see the sense in it, this had been done for one reason.
Power.
Scared people were gullible and controllable.
As she moved alongside the cages, she no
ticed that the things were in various stages of health. Some vibrant and strong, others slow and jerky.
One damn near dead, eaten from the inside, if the white, wiggling, fat maggots crawling out its flesh were any indication.
Vin said something, but even at this close distance, it was hard to hear with the clattering in the cages as growing numbers of the creatures livened up.
When she didn’t respond, Vin eased up next to her and nudged her shoulder. “I said, I don’t think they notice me.”
“You’re crazy. These things are going nuts trying to get at us.”
“Nope, just you. Look.” He waved his hand in front of one, and it jerked it his direction.
Temporarily.
But soon it was trained back on her. Each time she moved, spittle dripped from its engorged mandibles. She leaned in and the thing went nuts—its legs clenching as if to grab her.
“Vin, I think—ow!”
He’d shoved her to the floor, placing himself between her and one of the escaped creatures. His chivalrous efforts were cute but ultimately unsuccessful.
Wings and stuff. Wings gave two craps about honorable men.
The things flew right over his head and onto hers, landing with its brushy hairs sweeping her nose and eyelids. She wanted to scream, wanted to yell, but that meant opening her mouth, and she’d lie down and die before one of those things scraped its furry legs on her tongue.
She didn’t give up though, rolling around and trying to wrestle herself free.
Somewhere along the way, the blade in her pocket twisted, jamming into her leg. This time, she couldn’t help but cry out.
Vin ripped the massive beast off, and she crab-crawled away, losing her shoe in the process.
The spider righted itself in an instant, rushing straight for Vin. Allie did what she could. She grabbed her shoe and threw it. It bounced off the creature’s back and ricocheted into a corner.
Scrambling to her knees, gritting her teeth against the pain, she prepped for an attack that didn’t come.
“Shit!” Vin dropped to his knees in front of her. “Is this knife in as deep as it looks?” At her jerky nod, he swore again. “We’ve gotta get it out of you.”
“But the spider?”
“Occupied.”
