“I should never have kept all those scavenged things,” Patrice said for the tenth time. She fiddled with the half-knitted sweater she was holding, clicked her needles together.
“You weren’t to know,” Mari said.
“That’s true, but I can still kick myself. I should have dumped everything outside the walls, let them have a free-for-all.”
Neither woman had slept. How could they, after that siren went off? It sounded again, preempting further conversation. The wail rose long and thin before dwindling away. Yet the fact that it was continuing to sound gave them both hope.
“I’d like to shove it up an alien’s…oh, damn it.” Patrice scowled as a knitting needle clattered to the floor. “Why am I doing this in the first place? Abigail isn’t going to come back, and I won’t have the room to schlep this out of here.”
“Well, it’s better to fiddle with a sweater than your shotgun,” Mari pointed out.
Patrice snorted. “I’ve always tried to be pragmatic. That’s why I stayed here in the first place. I knew the area, I knew my neighbors, and I liked my house. I should have left five years ago, but I couldn’t bear it if my granddaughter came back and found me gone.”
“Do you want to leave a note? In case…” Mari trailed off, not wanting to finish the sentence. Scar City’s fall was inevitable at this point, but speaking it out loud—especially while it was still dark—felt too risky. Silly for her to think that way, especially when the Twins were out there, fighting—oh please let them be alive and well—but she couldn’t help herself.
“That’s a good idea.” Patrice set the sweater aside and rose, peering warily through the slats of the boarded-up window. “Twenty minutes until dawn. Sky’s lightening, but it won’t be enough UV to drive the Barks underground yet.”
Mari shivered as the siren went off again. “I want to go to the wall.”
“Oh no. Those boys would have my head if I let you out of the house, Gareth especially.”
They both jumped as someone knocked on the door. Mari rushed to peer out the keyhole, heart thumping in dread. The Twins wouldn’t have abandoned the wall before dawn unless there was something very wrong.
“Which Twin is it?” Patrice’s voice shook.
Mari blinked. “It’s…neither. There’s a woman out there. Unarmed.”
Patrice didn’t bother speaking. She rushed forward and yanked the door open. “Abigail? Oh.”
“I’m Gina, sorry. But I’m a friend of Abigail’s.”
“You’ll forgive me if I don’t believe you.” Patrice’s brows drew down. “You didn’t offer up the name Abigail without me first saying it. So why are you here?”
“She’s twenty-five, about five foot six, curly brown hair, likes Rottweilers, and her last name is Brooks. You want to know her shoe size too? And her favorite food?”
Patrice drew a shaky breath. “Used to be pizza. Cheese pizza, light on the sauce, heavy on the mozzarella.”
“She still likes pizza when she can get it.” Gina flicked a gaze upward as the klaxon went off again. “I can’t stay long. I aim to get the first train out of here. Was on my way to the coast when this all went down…only planned to stay here overnight. Instead I ended up carrying supplies to the people fighting on the wall.”
“Did you see any Twins?” Mari demanded.
“Oh yeah. Handsome as anything. One’s hurt—I got a good look at him in the infirmary—but the other one pretty much singlehandedly held the breach in the wall. Everyone thought we were goners, but the dude got up and started hand-to-hand with that crazy UV sword of his. He was still doing that when I left, fighting a massive leader alien. Probably killed it by now.”
Relief nearly choked her. She slumped a little against the wall, laying her palms flat against the strong, solid wood. Next to her, Patrice sighed. “Thank you. You’ve brought a powerful lot of good news. Do you want anything to eat?”
“No, I have to go. I promised Abigail I’d deliver you this letter, though, so here it is.” Gina handed over a small yellow envelope. She was about to draw back when Patrice took her hand and gripped it tightly.
“Thank you for coming. If you ever need anything…”
“Hey, Abigail saved my life. I owed her one. She’s a good person.”
“Thank you,” Patrice repeated, and they both watched Gina go, rushing off in the direction of the train station. Moments later, the sun cleared the horizon, bathing her fleeing form in brightness. Then she was gone, the only evidence of her presence an upscattering of dust and old scraps of newspaper.
“I’m going to the wall to find Gareth and Finn,” Mari said. That way she’d kill two birds with one stone: giving Patrice privacy to read the letter, and seeing the Twins with her own eyes. The fact that Gareth had been fighting the leader made her nervous—was he the alien she’d shot from the train? The way he’d stared at her still made her shiver.
“Take the dog,” Patrice said. “Here’s the leash, and don’t you dare be out for long, or I’ll have to come after you myself.”
Mari hurried toward the wall, Tank bounding beside her. The Rottweiler had access to a decently large backyard, where Patrice threw battered tennis balls for him to fetch, but his excitement at going on a walk was clear. She broke into a jog, then a run, and was breathless by the time she arrived at the wall.
“Oh my God.”
Tank looked up at her under-the-breath exclamation, but she only had eyes for the half-destroyed wall. A barricade of sorts blocked part of it, with wood and barbed wire scattered atop a huge mound of rubble, and vehicles parked at the edges. Several barrels of oil still burned, coughing thin black smoke into the air.
Corpses of aliens were everywhere. At first she stared at them, afraid to move lest they suddenly rise up and attack. Then, as she saw the sunlight slowly blackening their pale skin, she moved forward.
Where were the Twins? There were plenty of humans around, running to and fro. She saw Ramsey being stretchered down a flight of stairs, still rattling out orders to an aide. Mari caught the words evacuation, four trains and no time before Ramsey was taken out of earshot.
One soldier trailed behind, frowning at a clipboard. She moved to intercept him. “Sorry to bother you, but have you seen the Twins? I’m looking for them.”
He looked up, the frown remaining upon his face. “Yes, but one of them was hurt. I’d check the infirmary if I were you. Good luck.”
She gasped a response over her shoulder, already running up the steps that Ramsey had just been stretchered down. Mari could smell and hear the infirmary before she saw it—a stench of blood and bodily fluids mingled with the cries of the wounded. When she rounded the corner, Tank heeling at her side, she saw Finn seated near a bed, helping a soldier splint his ankle. Although Finn’s arm was in a sling, he seemed calm and collected, and from that Mari deduced that Gareth must be okay and that Finn himself wasn’t too badly injured. She sagged a little, that terrible, worried energy that had carried her to the wall dissipating somewhat as lack of sleep set in.
Before Finn could spot her, she withdrew, leading Tank back around the corner and down the stairs. At the bottom, a soldier struggled to load a set of lasers onto the back of a jeep, and Mari automatically reached to help him.
“Thanks.” He gave her an exhausted smile as they heaved the equipment into the folded-down backseat. “Do you need a ride to the station?”
“No, she doesn’t.” The voice was familiar, sparking both chagrin and delight. She turned to face Gareth, mercifully uninjured save for a few scratches. Without even looking at the other man, he approached her, a hard set to his jaw. “Let’s go, Mari.”
Tank trotted alongside them as they walked away from the wall. Gareth’s strides were purposeful, and he didn’t touch her at all. After thirty seconds of silence, Mari stopped in her tracks.
“I refuse to be frog-marched back to Patrice’s.”
Gareth stopped a few strides farther down the road. He turned, eyes blazing. “You shouldn’t have left the house in the first place!”
“Oh, of course not,” she shot back. “What I should have done was sit there like a good girl until you came and patted me on the back. I shouldn’t have worried my pretty little head, right?”
“She’s got you there, brother.”
Gareth wheeled, turning his glare on Finn. “I don’t want her running around where she could be hurt.”
“She doesn’t want to be hurt either,” Mari snapped. “And I’m standing right here, thank you very much, so you can address your concerns directly to me.”
Gareth opened his mouth, then immediately shut it again. He ran a frustrated hand through his short black hair, glaring up at the early morning sky. The pink streaks of dawn were slowly leaching from the brightening blue sky. It was going to be a warm day.
“I guess you had the dog with you,” Gareth finally managed.
“And my gun.”
“Hailey, my foster-mother, had a gun too. Didn’t help her. She died anyway.”
“I’m not Hailey,” Mari almost regretted her sharp tongue when Gareth’s fierce expression slipped.
“No, you’re not. And like Finn keeps telling me, I need to…let go. But by all that’s holy, seeing you walking around after we nearly lost the City, seeing you standing within striking distance of those alien corpses, talking to someone I don’t know… I lost it.”
Mari went to him, wrapping her arms around him as far as they would go. A few seconds later, Finn pressed against her back, embracing her around the waist with his good arm as Gareth held her shoulders. She sighed deeply, appreciating the warmth, comfort and tacit apology.
“I needed to see that you were all right.”
“We understand, sweetheart,” Finn murmured, his voice rumbling pleasantly against her.
“Just…try to be gentle with us until we get somewhere safe,” Gareth added.
“I wasn’t aware you preferred gentle,” Mari said, deliberately brushing against his groin.
His fingers tightened, bunching in the light jacket she wore, and he let out a groan. “I prefer it any way you want it.”
Tank broke the mood by winding the leash around their legs, and Mari pulled back with a smile. “I’d better take him back to Patrice.”
“Do you want an escort, or would you like to go alone?” Gareth looked as if the words tasted hideous, but he got them out anyway, and she squeezed his hand in appreciation.
“I’m good with an escort, but only if he’s extra handsome.”
“Stop stroking his ego,” Finn said. “His head won’t be able to fit inside the plane—or whatever they send to evacuate us. Speaking of which, I’m going back to our place to pack up. It would be fantastic if you two could rustle up some breakfast.”
Gareth tucked her under his arm as they began walking. “I don’t…do very well with surprises,” he said. “I like knowing what’s going to happen, who’s where, all that. So there will be times when I’m gruff, and I’m sorry.”
“A place for everything, and everything in its place,” she quoted. “The problem with that is life keeps getting in the way. Even you would get tired of micromanaging things after a while, and people don’t stay tidily in boxes—not without changing for the worse.”
Mari held her breath, hardly daring to watch him out of the corner of her eye. She was beginning to fall in love with these men, but she wouldn’t tolerate being ruled with an iron fist. Some women could, welcoming the order in their lives, but it wasn’t Mari’s style.
“All right,” Gareth said finally. “Rule number one—don’t put Mari in a box.”
“Unless there’s chocolate inside,” she hastened to clarify.
“If there was, I’d be in there eating it off you.” He adopted a more serious tone. “Was everything all right last night at Patrice’s?”
“Well, we didn’t sleep, but everything was fairly quiet. Around dawn, a woman delivered a letter from her granddaughter, Abigail. Apparently she was passing through town, but the train couldn’t leave until this morning because there were too many Barks circling the walls.”
“There’s going to be a real issue getting everyone out of here,” Gareth said. “So, this message—was it good news?”
“I left her to read it by herself.” Worry made her step her pace up. “The woman who delivered it, Gina, said Abigail was fine, so I assume she’s alive, but I wanted to give Patrice space to digest everything.”
“Sounds like you did the right thing.” Gareth knocked on Patrice’s front door, boots creaking on the front porch. It seemed like an age ago that Mari had walked up to this house and accepted an offer of hospitality. How naïve she’d been—about everything, but most especially her father’s supposedly valuable device.
Yet if she’d known there was no fortune, she might have accepted Tim Johnston’s offer of marriage. And she would never have met the Twins.
“Come in.” Patrice bent to greet Tank, almost but not quite hiding her red-rimmed eyes. “Glad you’re all right, Gareth.”
“Thanks. It was a long night.”
“And Finn?” Patrice shuffled over to her armchair and sank into it with a sigh.
“Idiot broke his arm when the wall fell. He’s back at our place, packing stuff up.”
“About that…”
“You’re coming with us.” Both Gareth and Mari spoke together, making the old woman snort.
“I don’t dispute that. I want to open this place up, though. Open the windows so the Barks can’t hide in here during daylight. I hate the thought of those aliens using my wonderful home as a…a lair.” She dabbed fiercely at her face, cleared her throat.
“Of course we can do that. You mind if we have breakfast first?”
“Nope. At this point, we might as well raid the pantry and eat as much food as we can stuff ourselves with.”
An hour later, the four of them had hacked the protective boards off all the windows, flooding the old house with light. That was enough to tucker out the Twins, and Mari and Patrice kept watch while the men slept. After a three hour nap, they were up again, as fresh as if they’d slept for eight. Finn’s broken arm had much improved, although he kept it in its splint, since it was still tender and could easily re-break.
“I envy them,” Patrice said as the men sawed a hole in the roof to render the attic useless to Barks. “Though they do eat like horses.”
Mari laughed. “They deserve to.”
“That’s true enough.” Patrice sighed. “I always used to worry about Abigail not getting enough to eat.”
“Is she okay?” Mari hadn’t wanted to pry. Since Patrice had brought up the subject herself, though, she figured she might as well ask.
“Well, the letter was innocuous. Too innocuous, I’d say. There was too much chatter about mundane stuff, not enough about who she was with and why she was writing. Don’t know why she’d send a letter like that.”
“You mind if we take a look?” Finn rounded the corner. “Sorry, didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but it’s kind of hard for us to not overhear.”
“Be my guest.” Patrice pulled out a folded-up piece of paper. “What, you think she wrote in code or something?”
Finn scanned it, frowned. “Yep. Hold on. Right here… It’s not too hard to crack. I think you would have eventually worked it out. The first and last letters of some of the words are different, so…”
Patrice snatched the paper. “Oh God. ‘Gran, being held at the Shadow Fed HQ. Will try to get out. If can’t, all my love.’ What’s HQ?”
“Headquarters. The Shadow Feds are holed up in former Washington, DC.” Finn’s voice was neutral, but Mari could tell he was worried. Remembering Hobart, the self-styled reporter, she tended to agree with his view.
Patrice banged her fists on the armrests of her chair. “What do they want with my granddaughter?”
“Could be as simple as using her as an indentured servant. Or maybe she has some information they want, and they’re keeping her until she coughs it up.”
“Why didn’t Gina tell me this?” Patrice demanded. “Damn. I’ll need to go there, try to get her out. When is our transport coming?”
“We haven’t yet been notified.” Gareth spoke up. Due to his close telepathic link with his Twin, there was no need to explain what had just happened. He clearly knew, from the somber expression on his face. “There are Twins running a mission near DC next week. I can tell them to keep an eye out for Abigail, if you’ll give me a description.”
“Realistically, that’s the best I can hope for, isn’t it?” Patrice scowled down at her body. “If I were twenty years younger, even ten…oh, Abigail. Give me a little while, I need to lie down on my bed.”
At a loss for what to do, Mari packed her things, sorting them ruthlessly into piles of decreasing priority until she was down to one suitcase and a backpack. She placed her father’s trunk with its hidden compartment in the living room. Even if she could take it, she wasn’t sure she wanted to.
The devices were linked together now, and none of them knew what implications that held for the world.
* * * * *
By mid-afternoon, Mari was starting to get nervous. Mainly that was because the Twins themselves were nervous, with Finn constantly checking his commtab and Gareth pacing the house. He’d gone out several times to check on the City, and Mari insisted upon coming with him, because she was about to go crazy being cooped up in Patrice’s now very drafty living room.
There was nobody on the wall. It had been stripped of weapons, and alien corpses still littered the ground. The gates were wide open, and as they watched, a caravan of soldiers rolled out in an armored truck. Although they were leaving late, the truck was sturdy enough to withstand a small attack of Barks. If they drove fast enough, they could get out of the area by nightfall and find somewhere secluded to park.
All the streets were quiet, with no junkies hanging out on the corner. Gareth frowned. “Wish the National Guard had been able to come clear this place out. I hate to think of some drug-addled person thinking they’ll be able to hole up somewhere and hide from the aliens. Won’t happen, they’ll sniff ’em out eventually. If not tonight, tomorrow night.”
“It seems quiet,” Mari said. Too quiet. It was eerie walking in a deserted City.
Yet when they reached the train station, everything was chaos. A guard stopped them at the entrance. “There’s no places left on this or the next train—you’re going to have to wait.”
Mari followed his pointing finger and gaped at the line of refugees that stretched from the train platform along the fence. “All these people still need to be evacuated?”
“Yes, and we’re tight on time. We only got about half the population evacuated. Next train’s due in soon, and I hope to hell it’s got a full complement of carriages. We need all the space we can get.”
Panic blossomed in her stomach. There were so many people here, and the walls had fallen. Civilians outnumbered soldiers at least ten to one, ranging from the elderly to families clutching young children. The sun was already heading toward the horizon.
“How many trains are due to come?” Gareth fixed the guard with an unblinking green stare.
“Four. There’s going to be standing room only, but if they hurry up we can start shifting people out of this cursed unsafe City.” The man cast an anxious look in the direction of the fallen wall. “We’ve set up a locker system where people can safely leave their bulkier stuff. The priority now is people over belongings.”
“Will four trains be enough?”
The guard shifted, his booted feet scraping against concrete. “Keep your voice down. No, if more people come along, four is going to be pushing it. But you let that information out, and people will start fighting each other to get on the next train, and things are going to get ugly.”
“My lips are sealed. Anything I can do?”
“From what I hear, you did enough last night. Getting everyone down and then holding the gap was what saved this City. I guess if you have any sway with the government, you could try to make sure none of the women get caught up in those goddamn breeder-wife trafficking schemes.”
The hoot of an incoming train propelled the guard away from them. He strode toward the platform, calling out orders as people rose wearily to their feet, holding belongings, children, and pets as they watched the train pull through the open double gates.
“That man deserves a commendation. If I ever bothered to deal with the higher-ups, I’d recommend it.” Gareth paused, then snorted. “Finn says he’ll do it for me. I think he’s finally realized he’s got a bone to pick with the authorities.”
Still flirting with the edges of panic, Mari managed to nod. She tried to let the solidness of the man next to her anchor her down, keep her from being carried away with this overwhelming fear. Deep breaths weren’t cutting it—she was beginning to tremble, her legs growing weak.
The walls are down. There’s nothing between us and the Barks. They’ll eat us just like they ate Carter. Mari clenched her teeth. She wanted to run to the train, push ahead of everyone else and curl up, shaking, in a corner.
Anything to prevent being left here in this defenseless City.
“Hey. Hey, Mari.”
Gareth’s hands were on her shoulders. He was shaking her slightly, but she couldn’t seem to focus.
“Mari! Breathe!” He shook her harder, and the world came rushing back. The station, with all its sounds, colors and smells seemed suddenly like an alien world, as if the Barks well and truly owned Earth now. She slanted a look sideways, embarrassed to find a few curious people staring at her.
“C’mon.” Gareth led her away from the station—away from the train out of here!—and his grip was inexorable when she faltered. “Mari. Now. I need you to stay with me.”
“I can’t,” she protested. “Need to get out of here, out of this City.”
“I know. But we’re not going on the trains. There’s not enough room, not enough time. Dr. Felton said—” Gareth cut himself off midsentence. “Fucking Dr. Felton.”
Startled enough to glance up at him, Mari recognized the intense look in Gareth’s eyes—he was communicating with his brother. She breathed deeply, evenly, concentrating on the air going in and out of her body.
“Goddammit!”
Her breath faltered, recovered. On the outbreath, she whispered, “What’s wrong?”
“He never put through the request for a cargo plane! He lied about it. Nobody bothered to actually check until now.”
When he began to run, she ran along with him, glad of something physical to do to soften the impact of adrenaline coursing through her body. Through all the sensations battering at her, she felt Gareth’s keen fury, his bitterness at being betrayed. So Dr. Felton hadn’t ordered a plane? Nobody was coming to save them?
“He wanted us to die!” Gareth roared as they entered Patrice’s house. “The little weaselly asshole didn’t bother to push through our personal evac order!”
“Yeah, it looks that way.” Finn kept his cool, tugging Mari into his lap as she walked near. She’d been planning to go lie in bed, hiding from the world, but Finn didn’t let her, holding her firmly as she squirmed atop his muscular thighs.
“Is there a way you can get even with him?” Patrice held her shotgun in her lap, and the question was a serious one.
It also seemed to calm Gareth right down. “I don’t want to get even with just him. I want fair treatment. I want them to stop treating us like some sort of combination of manservant and lethal weapon.”
“Which means a minor revolution,” Finn said. “I’m going to make a few calls to other Twins. No, stay here, Mari. You’re shaking.”
“I’ll make a cup of tea,” Patrice said, and set down her gun.
A quarter of an hour later, Mari sipped tea and leaned against Finn’s solid chest, listening to the rumble of his voice as he called Twin after Twin. The hell of panic attacks was compounded by the fact that other people couldn’t always comfort her. In fact, the Twins were the only ones who’d ever been able to touch her when she was in the throes of one. She remembered sitting outside the walls of Flagstaff City, shaking and nearly vomiting with the stress of going outside. She couldn’t stand being touched, couldn’t do anything but walk back into the shipping container she shared with her father and lie in bed until it passed.
After that, she hadn’t gone outside until she had to leave for Scar City.
Finn rubbed a lazy circle on her back, discussing planes, times and scientists with whoever he was talking to. After a few more minutes, he hung up and tucked his commtab back into his belt.
“They’ve scrambled a cargo plane. Looks like Dr. Felton led people into thinking he’d sent a plane, then nixed the order at the last minute. He’s left the Complex, and some of us think he’s defected to the Shadow Feds after deliberately sabotaging stuff.”
“Like our evacuation,” Gareth snarled. “When’s the plane getting in?”
“At the last minute. We’re going to need to be on the airstrip ready to load in, because the sun will be teetering right on the edge of disappearing.”
“Great.” Gareth stopped pacing. “Okay. I’m going to the airstrip. The soldiers left some equipment behind, so I’ll see what I can do about setting up a few last-ditch defenses.”
“I’ll go prepare dinner,” Patrice said. “We’ll want it on the plane.”
That left Finn and Mari alone in the living room. He rose with his good arm around her shoulders and began to guide her up the stairs. “I think we ought to have a shower before we leave,” he suggested.
“A shower?”
“There’s still hot water. Besides, we might be the last people taking a shower in the entire City. Our names will go down in history.”
She couldn’t help but smile. Then she gasped as he set her on the bed and started to undress her. “I can do that myself.”
“Yeah, but I prefer it this way.” He undid buttons with consummate care, lifting her thighs to ease her pants and underwear down. Now and then he paused to caress her, press a kiss against bare skin until she was shivering with need rather than nerves. How did he know how badly she needed to be distracted? Grateful for his presence, she reached a finger out to touch his splint.
“How’s your arm?” she asked. The fingers moved just fine, but she was still concerned.
“Better every hour. Clean break, nothing serious. Right now it feels like nothing worse than a sprain.”
When she was naked, he stripped himself, revealing his body in all its glory, his not-quite-human perfect muscles and his smooth, dark golden skin.
“In we go.” He pressed against her in the shower as warm water cascaded down onto them.
“Won’t Gareth mind?” she asked.
“He’ll have one hell of a hard-on, but no. He knows I can’t do anything else until the plane comes, and he’d rather I enjoy myself than overthink things and continue to bug him. Besides, I think you need the distraction. Am I right, Mari?”
She nodded. “And so does Gareth.”
His eyes warmed. “You’re right. He’s pissed off enough to cause trouble, especially if someone tries to cross him. But he’ll feel what we’re doing, and that’ll tone him down some.”
When Finn went to his knees, she squeaked in surprise. The shower had a shallow ledge, and she wound up atop it, legs spread. Her hands sifted through his wet black hair as he bent between her knees, his hot mouth suckling between her thighs. She was glad of the plastic wall at her back as she arched against it, throwing her head back as pleasure sliced deep.
The man was a demon with his tongue, licking relentlessly, ruthlessly until all the world narrowed down to the shower cubicle, to the hot water cascading down upon them both as she came. When she was done, he washed her clean, then turned her so that she was leaning against the wall, her buttocks curving against his thighs.
After making sure she was braced, he entered her, slamming home with a harsh exclamation. “God, yeah. You feel so good. Hold on, honey.”
The ledge was slippery, but she obeyed, gasping as he found a rhythm that suited them both. She was already on the edge, and when his hand slipped around to caress her clit, she went over again, her cries rising above the rush of water, over Finn’s own gasps of pleasure.
Afterward, he held her, his arms and legs forming a kind of human cage around her body. She reveled in the feeling of being completely contained, totally safe—at least for now. Only when the water raining upon them became cool did they bother to move.
“You think Gareth’s less angry now?” she murmured against his neck.
Finn’s chest shook as he chuckled. “Yeah, although I suspect he’ll try to get revenge for this at some point. You still think you can handle both of us?”
She raised her chin to meet his eyes. “If we get out of here in one piece.”
“We’ll do our very best.”
Finn helped her dress afterward, a necessity since her fingers were too fumbling to do anything complicated. They lay on her bed, spooning, waning sunlight bathing them both in gold. Were it not for the deadline that loomed, Mari would have been content to soak in the moment, luxuriating in postcoital bliss.
Yet whenever she opened her eyes, she saw the wide-open, unboarded window. The room was completely austere now. Save for the faded bedspread, Patrice had bundled everything into a locked storage unit in the living room. Although there was only a miniscule chance she’d ever be able to return for the items, the elderly woman didn’t want the aliens or other looters to have access to her belongings.
Finn’s commtab buzzed, and he sat up to take the call. “Finn 01223. Hey, Lee. No kidding? Thanks for doing that—and letting me know. Yep, see you in a few hours.”
Mari rolled over, searching his face for any sign of bad news. Her unspoken concern must have been evident, for he reassured her with a smile. “It’s okay. Lee and a few of the boys are aboard the evac plane. He wanted to let me know.”
“Has this caused any friction with the higher-ups?” There was worry as well as relief in his face, and Mari hated seeing his eyes so shadowed. He’d seemed so upbeat when she had first met him, almost boyishly pleased with the world. Now it was if the world was a weight on his shoulders.
“It better not. Lee says there’re rumors Dr. Felton was working for the Shadow Feds all along, trying to get the current government to commit a massive screw-up. Seems like he might have achieved that goal if this device was able to wake up the dormant breeders.”
“You won’t take the blame, though. Right?”
“Gareth wouldn’t hear of it, sweetheart. Besides, everything on this commtab is logged, so if anyone screams for a court-martial, we’ll be exonerated.”
Mari sat up, finger-combing her hair in an excess of agitated energy. “All right. I hate seeing you so worried, though.”
He tugged her down atop him. “I’m mostly worried about you.”
“Me?” She squirmed into a more comfortable position, aware that she was shamelessly straddling him.
“Yeah, you. Gareth said you were struggling a bit with the idea of evacuation.”
Struggling a bit. Now there was a way to rephrase panic attack. Mari looked away, out at the late afternoon sun. “It’s difficult to come to terms with the fact that the City has breached walls,” she said finally. “I’ve been refusing to think otherwise. It saves my sanity. Once darkness falls, I think I’ll be on shakier emotional ground.”
“Will you cope if we leave the house and head down to the airfield?”
“I’ll have to. But I reserve the right to fall completely apart afterward.”
“And I’ll be right there to put you back together. Although I think Gareth will claim you first. He’s not best pleased about missing out earlier.”
Mari bit her lip. “He’s not mad, is he?”
“Nah. Just sporting wood while he works.”
She blushed, then gasped as she felt Finn’s own erection against her leg. “How could you possibly…?”
“Can’t help it,” was his lazy response. He put his arms behind his head and grinned at her. “Not my fault if the scientists created us to strongly react to some women.”
“So it’s not me, it’s my pheromones.” She openly laughed at his sudden worried look. “Just so long as you don’t run around chasing all the women with the right chemical makeup.”
“Definitely not. Given the amount of time it took to find you, I doubt we’ll ever meet another eligible woman anyhow.” He moved underneath her, flipping her onto the bed with a grin. “Time to get up.”
Time to put on a brave face, pretend she was okay walking out the front door. Time to pretend they were only going on a walk, a tour of the airfield. Mari concentrated on breathing, carrying her backpack as she followed Finn out the door. Patrice juggled her bag and Tank’s leash, turning around as she closed the door behind her. Her dark brown eyes were suspiciously bright.
“Well, I’ll remember this house,” she said after a long moment. “Come on. No use in me mooning any further. How many people can fit on this plane anyway?”
“A hundred or thereabouts.” Finn hefted a suitcase, leading the way down the deserted road.
“Enough to fit some of the people at the train station?” Mari asked.
“Yep. Gareth’s liaising with the guard, trying to do this in a way that doesn’t involve people scrambling over each other. He’s handpicking people who are willing to fight, since the plane’s going to be landing at twilight.”
Mari swallowed and nodded. Twilight. They could make it. The aliens would start to emerge as soon as the sun went down, but they wouldn’t necessarily be able to reach the City right away. That would give them…what, twenty minutes? Fewer? To give her mind something to chew on, she racked her brain, digesting the numbers en route to the airfield.
Or what passed as an airfield. She blinked at the overgrown runway, wondering what kind of pilot would risk landing on it at twilight. Her chest tightened, heart rate rising. Then she saw what Gareth was doing. Before the encroaching panic attack could fully take hold, she ran to help him, setting her backpack down where the grass met concrete.
Gareth greeted her with an almost predatory smile. “Hey, baby. Heard you and Finn had some fun.”
“A little.” She lifted an oilcan and followed him down the runway. In the absence of actual runway lights, a long corridor of fire would have to do.
“Only a little?”
“It was nice.” She blushed, unused to discussing sex after the fact. “It was quick and…distracting.”
He plunked his can down on the concrete and grinned over his shoulder. “Distracting is a good word for it.”
“Do you really feel everything your brother does?”
“Yeah. Not as strongly as he feels it, of course, but it’s a bit like having a ghost limb. The pain isn’t real, but it registers as real enough. Same for pleasure—I wasn’t exactly making a mess in my jeans, but it was close.”
No wonder they preferred to share a woman. Mari trundled her oilcan a little farther along before setting it down at Gareth’s direction. Then they walked back to fetch more cans. He kept shooting her looks, but said nothing as they worked.
“What is it?” she finally asked.
“Does it make you uncomfortable?”
“What, that you feel everything Finn does?”
“Yes. The…sex part of that. Some women say we’re voyeuristic.”
Mari blinked. “But you can’t help it. You’re wired that way, always connected to Finn. It affects you more than me, anyway, but anyone calling you a voyeur is wrong.”
His oilcan crunched in the gravel at the end of the runway. For a moment, he was quiet, and Mari turned to look anxiously up at him as he studied the skies. Had she been too direct? For that matter, was she handling this relationship—relationships, she amended—in a correct manner? She’d only ever had Tim Johnston on her radar, and he’d never sparked anything. Certainly not the storm the Twins provoked within her.
She was on the cusp of asking whether everything was all right when Gareth turned to her, his green eyes holding a tender look that she rarely saw in him. “Thanks, Mari. I guess that voyeur comment has been eating away at me for a few years. Come on, let’s go sit down. We’ve done everything we can for now.”
A few minutes later, seated between the Twins, Mari felt cozy, comfortable and protected. They were calm, if alert. She couldn’t help testing herself for any vestiges of panic, but her heart rate was only a little bit elevated, and she was feeling downright levelheaded. Patrice and Tank perched on an old battered bench nearby, the former making occasional acerbic comments about the state of the City. Mari listened, occasionally cracking a smile at a particularly witty comment.
At the other end of the airfield, a small group of people occupied the former air control tower. Gareth saw where she was looking and draped a companionable arm around her shoulders. “Those refugees are from the train station. I dropped them a quiet word and they chose to come here since they were last in line. The soldier managing the platform said there was a chance they wouldn’t be able to fit on the last train.”
Finn frowned. “Yeah, thought I told you to get single, able-bodied men. There’s a woman in there with a baby.”
“Then she’ll have to board first,” Gareth said. “I’m not turning anyone away.”
“Even her?” Patrice nodded toward a woman sidling through the broken airfield gates.
Finn shook his head as the woman drew closer. “Junkie.”
“Hey.” Gareth’s sharp tone surprised them all. “She might have had an addiction in the past, judging from the state of her face and body, but that woman was right there helping out last night. Couldn’t say the same for some of the soldiers. So if she wants a place on the plane, she can have one.”
“Fair enough,” Patrice said. She got to her feet, waving her cane at the woman until she changed direction and hesitantly approached them. She clearly recognized Gareth, dipping her head in a quick nod.
“You’re welcome here,” Gareth told her. “I won’t forget the way you lit that fire and called out that countdown to dawn.”
“I hope it helped,” the woman said. Her face was blotched around the mouth, a clear sign of addiction to Turquoise, although upon further scrutiny, Mari noticed the marks were older and scabbed over. “I couldn’t sit and do nothin’. You really mean that about me being welcome?”
“Yeah. Plane’s due at twilight, so as long as you hop on quick, you’re good,” Gareth said.
“Thanks. I really appreciate that. The train guard said there was no more room for anyone on the last one. He told me to check here.”
“How many people are stranded?” Finn got to his feet, brushing off his jeans.
“Only a handful, and I came here with them. Then, of course, there’s those that are staying in the City. They’ve holed up in the basement of one of the big buildings, boarded it right up and taken their drugs and bags inside with ’em. I don’t think you got a shot at convincing them to come out.”
“Are there any children in there?” Mari asked.
“No, purely adults. They’re responsible in their irresponsibility.” The woman shrugged. “Some other folks went to the gates, driving their own cars. A handful went with the guard in that armored truck of his, but I could tell he didn’t want me in there, so I came here.”
“We’re heading to Antarctica, you know,” Finn deadpanned.
“Pull the other one. Aren’t there sleeping aliens there?”
“That’s the theory, although they might not be sleeping any longer.” Gareth tucked a hand into his pocket as he stood. “What’s your name, anyway?”
“I’m Kendal. I’ve been…in a bad place for the past six months, and I reckon that’s evident. So I’d like to thank you for letting me evac with you.”
“Don’t thank us yet,” Gareth said, nodding at the sky. Everyone’s gaze went toward the horizon, where the sun was large and golden—and rapidly descending into twilight. All conversation evaporated as the Twins began to light the oil in the cans. That drew the knot of people at the far end of the airfield over to them, and soon Mari stood in the middle of about forty nervous people, of which two were babies. They were quiet too.
The fact that she was sandwiched between the Twins went a long way to reassure her. Nobody spoke for long minutes, but Mari noticed that several people held weapons and were surreptitiously fanning out, ready to defend themselves to the last.
The sound of the cargo plane was a distant rumble, nearly eclipsed by the first howls of the aliens. The unearthly, ghoulish cries made her shiver, and Tank let out a hoarse growl. Gareth shifted, brushing against Mari’s arm as he peered upward.
“Gonna be five minutes before they land,” he said. “There might be incoming around that time, depends on how fast the fuckers can clear the gap.”
Mari looked at the horizon. The last glint of gold disappeared even as she watched, leaving the sky a mottled dark blue with a rapidly-dissipating line of pink. Her breath came quicker—she was both terrified and ready to fight. But not, she realized, in the throes of a panic attack. Her head was clear, even if her heart raced.
The cargo plane cleared the wall, coming in low and fast. There was a chorus of muttered curses when it aborted the landing and roared past for a go-around. As it executed a sharp turn, its lights illuminated the pale forms of Barks running through the City.
“Bastards must have holed up nearby to get here so quickly,” someone muttered.
“Or they’re developing a resistance to UV light,” Kendal quipped. “Which is just what the world needs.”
The plane’s engines roared, drowning out further conversation. Mari was suddenly propelled forward as the Twins half dragged, half carried her along, running toward the end of the runway where the cargo plane ground to a halt. Its rear compartment opened, and a complement of soldiers jumped out, all wielding lasers and bright, UV headlamps.
As Mari ran, several men pointed their lasers right at them and fired. The world seemed to implode as she slammed into the cracked concrete of the runway.