Perfect Gravity (Wanted and Wired #2)(52)
Around suppertime, another one of those drone-launched smartbombs found its way into an illegal-services rendezvous hub in Sammamish. Kellen knew some folks there, and watching their hub blow up squeezed something painful inside him. Watching people die hurt. Being unable to do anything about it hurt even more.
All over the country, intercepts had been popping off incoming bombs all day, and contracts for more were lighting up the darknet freelancer hives. Heron had talked Mari out of taking on at least two. Chloe’d been up in the sky since before noon, keeping the Pentarc hidden as only she could. She didn’t get tired like other folk, but she had to be bored off her nanorobotic ass.
They’d called in some favors, and the Chiba nonallied space station was moving into orbit, ready to retaliate if the Pentarc was attacked, so maybe she could get a rest soon. Pieces on the global board were lining up, too.
Damn, Kellen hated this part.
Garrett had rounded up a team and started moving all the valuables underground, just in case, and Adele and Fanaida were doing the same with the people and critters, respectively. Angela had run back to her room, with escort, to fetch her meager belongings for their trip. The Pentarc rumbled with activity, and maybe a touch of fear.
Weirdest thing, though: Kellen usually would be right in the middle of a soft evacuation like this, making sure all his wards were safe and healthy and happy. That’s the kind of thing that filled up his spiritual tanks. But right now, when other people were taking care of those tasks in his stead, he was…okay with it.
Because of her. Because she needed him. Because she wanted him. Most of all because he didn’t want her to leave this place without him, definitely not when she was a target and the whole country was on fire and she was heading to goddamned motherfucking Texas.
It was time to admit a nasty truth. He was smitten. Incurably so. Probably had never gotten himself fully unsmut after that first bout, years ago.
Huh. That confession should have felt scarier.
“We can’t go out in the plane, you know,” he called from the med lab back into the Vault. “We’d have to bust through Chloe, and I don’t want her to have to handle that kind of rearranging. She’s got a lot on her mind already.”
“Air travel is unwise at any rate,” Heron replied. “All air traffic on the continent has been grounded until further notice, probably so the interceptors can get a better bead on the attack drones. Landjets are down, pods too. Not sure exactly why. I’d give you my car, but the interface is kind of…unique.”
Kellen peeked down the short hall. His buddy was still sitting in that big-ass command chair, wired into the mech-clone, experimenting with controlling both his own body and the mech’s, even while he monitored the world and oversaw the evacuation of his home. Unique didn’t begin to describe Heron’s mind.
“You kidlets can take my dragon,” came a voice from the Vault door.
Kellen set down his unzipped bag and headed that way just as Fanaida breezed in. She looked tired, stressed, and magnificent.
“Hey, beautiful,” he said, opening his arms and bending so she could kiss him on either cheek.
“Que Dios te bendiga, mijo.” She raised her eyebrows at the rest of the room. “What, no love from the rest of you lowlifes?”
“Hullo, Mum.” Heron acknowledged her without tearing his gaze off the bank of monitors. Mari nodded, then drew Fan aside and filled her in. Fanaida took it all like a champ, like she’d seen crazy stuff before. Kellen had too, but most disasters didn’t feel like they were aimed at him or folk he loved.
Angela arrived shortly after with one extremely self-important cat on her heels. She carried her overstuffed bag slung over a shoulder and sported a new pair of shoes. Plastic printed Mary Janes, possibly borrowed from one of the refugees. He had definitely seen Adele wearing that nut-brown peacoat a time or two. Definitely the same coat. Thing was so ugly nobody’d want to make another one, having laid eyes on the first. Almost certainly it was a loaner.
It struck him Angela hadn’t had a change of clothes since she’d arrived, had been wearing the same outfit for weeks. Months. They were good quality clothes, and her room was equipped with an organics removal unit so they didn’t smell too gamey, but she had to be feeling the lack. She’d always dolled up so pretty on the vids.
Why hadn’t she talked to somebody about getting new togs? It wasn’t like he was without resources. The Pentarc had a whole room full of additive fabricators. Had she not known who to ask, or had she just been reluctant to ask him?
At any rate, probably wasn’t wise to tell her she looked a thousand times more beautiful to him right now, even in those wrinkled clothes and borrowed shoes. It wasn’t even physical, the beauty he saw in her. She’d come to the Pentarc defeated, scared, but now, bent on vengeance, she looked fierce. Ready to ride the world. Something had shifted up there at the barn with the mech-clone bearing down on her. She wasn’t scared anymore.
She was his warrior queen, and he was prepared to follow her into whatever battles she waged. That was the price for being in her court. Fine. He’d pay up.
She met his gaze from across the room and kicked up one of those black-wing eyebrows. “Are you ready?”
“As I’ll ever be. Just lemme fetch my stuff.” He ducked into the med lab, grabbed his med kit and bag, but Mari stalled him on the way back in. She pressed something into his hand, a heavy something. He looked down. A gun.