Of Blood and Bone (Chronicles of The One #2)(124)



“I wanted to plot out some routes, for supplies, for recruits. I’ve seen some settlements. I have a crystal.”

He glanced over where she’d set it on a little table. “Handy.”

“And rescues,” she added. “I know places where people are held. Some have to wait until we have more soldiers and arms, but some we could take.”

“I’ll help you.” He sat on the floor. After a moment, she sat with him.

“You could show me where you and your people have been, where you’ve scouted, where we can eliminate. I’m most interested in south and west. We came from the north. From here.” She touched the map where she’d marked the farm. “Traveled along here, looped there, and then here. But I’ve never been south or west of those points. Except here.”

She tapped Cape Hatteras on the map.

“What’s there?”

“A prison, for those like us—empty now. When we need it, we’ll use it. But for now, I need to know places you know that I don’t.”

“Yeah, I can show you. I knew you were here.”

She looked up to find his eyes on her.

“Before I saw you, I knew. I felt you. It’s like a rush in the blood. What do you make of that?”

“Shared ancestry.”

“I share even closer with my mother. I don’t always know when she’s around. Not every single time with Tonia, either, and we lived damn close for nine months. But with you? There’s that rush.”

His eyes were a deep, deep green, like the shadows in faerie-land. She wanted to look away from them, but didn’t want to show weakness.

“I don’t know how you feel or why.”

“How about this then? How do I know you’ve got a weak spot for Rainbow Cake when I’m not even sure what the hell that is? Or that you like to read, in front of a fire or under a tree? That you like to build things with your hands? How do I know that?”

She knew he liked to listen to music. He had a friend, a shifter named Denzel, he thought of as a brother. She knew his favorite gift was a box filled with pencils and paints a man named Austin had given him.

Austin—not his father, but someone who had, for a short time, stood as one for him.

She didn’t want to know these small, intimate things about him. Or for him to know hers.

“Those aren’t important things.”

“I think they are. I think there’s a reason I know those things. I’m not sure I’m going to like the reason, or you are, either.”

Just as her heart started to hammer, he looked down at the map. “Okay, so here, picked clean.”

Over the next few days, she built things with her hands. With scavenged and salvaged supplies, she and her father worked with various teams to repair and expand two houses that would serve as barracks. Other teams worked on readying more to house families, children. Some would camp, so trailers, tents, RVs formed groups outside what would become the training area.

With Simon she cut and soldered angle iron to form frames for solar panels. They’d done the same years before for the farm and several neighbors, but New Hope had hit a treasure trove of solar cells, hauled them out, used them, stored them.

She’d learned New Hope had volunteers for everything, something they’d implemented from the start. Rotating teams scouted outlying houses, and those abandoned, fallen into disrepair, or damaged beyond any practical repair were stripped of everything useful.

Wood, nails, pipes, hinges, tiles, shingles, windows, window glass, doors, wiring. Another team sorted, inventoried, and stored everything in a barn next to their feed and grain operation.

She checked the caulking on another frame, glanced around at the hive of activity. Some built the ropes course or hauled in old tires for the obstacle course, built the climbing wall while others framed in what would be the expanded kitchen and mess hall.

An army had to eat.

She knew her mother was off with Fred and some others working on the first stages of the complicated spell to create a tropical area. Her brothers remained in town at the summer program with Colin, who, no matter how he tried to deadpan it, was relishing his role as instructor.

She glanced over at the laughter rising over the sounds of hammers and saws, frowned as Duncan did a slow somersault off the roof, then floated back up with a stack of completed panels.

Inside himself, Simon sighed. He knew when a guy was showing off for a girl, and was pretty sure he spotted more than a spark of interest under Fallon’s frown.

As if war and survival weren’t enough to worry about, now he had a boy sniffing around his baby.

They finished the next run of panels, and not to be outdone, Fallon floated them up to Duncan and his crew. Simon took off his cap, swiped the sweat off his face, then jaw-pointed to an oncoming van.

Bill Anderson climbed out from the driver’s side, and a pretty girl with dark blond hair slipped out the other door.

“Hot day for this,” Bill called out, and set his hands on his hips to study the progress. “You’re sure getting it done. We brought out some wild boar barbecue, coleslaw, and other eats from the community kitchen. Got a couple vats of cold tea and more water.”

“You’re the man,” Simon told him.

“Got someplace we can set this up?”

“We’ll make someplace.”

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