Maybe they boogied from the National Guard. AWOL, or maybe just out of the regular service.
Then she actually finished processing what they’d said about a vaccine and it slammed home.
This is not shit I want to be a part of.
“Look, can you take me back to my apartment?”
“Not yet,” the driver said. Brown eyes peered at her over the top of his surgical mask, and he sounded like he’d just jumped a subway train straight from Brooklyn. “We need to get her safe first. Then we’ll get someone to take you home.”
“We can’t let her see,” the green-eyed passenger said.
“Shit,” the driver muttered. “Blindfold her.”
“Who, me?” Dolce asked.
“Yeah, you,” Brooklyn shot back, not taking his eyes off the road. “Not the damn Queen of England, lady.”
“Why don’t you blindfold her, too?”
“She’s supposed to be with us,” driver said. “You were not. Blindfold, and lie down on the seat, or I stop this truck and we part ways right here.”
Right here was not exactly where she wanted to be, minutes from the mob and miles from home.
Fuck.
Chapter Thirteen
Dolce suspected she didn’t have a choice, other than to go along with the men. It was that, or get dumped out of the truck where they were and finding her own way back.
Not an option she relished. Especially when she didn’t know exactly where the mobs were, or if she’d be able to get back to her crappy car and get it started again.
Then again, considering she was pretty sure that was suppressive fire the weekend warrior boys had been laying down and not just defensive fire, maybe she didn’t want to go back to her car.
I’d be better off stealing one.
She let them blindfold her and she lay down on the seat, not bothering to try to peek. Hell, if they’d wanted to kill her, they would have done it already.
About twenty minutes later, the truck slowed and she heard the sound of a gate being rolled open. The truck apparently pulled through and the gate rolled shut behind them again. They pulled into what sounded like a garage from the echoes the engine made. Then the driver shut the engine off and she heard the sound of a garage door rolling shut behind them.
“Okay,” Brooklyn said. “You can sit up and take the blindfold off.”
She laughed when she saw where they were. No other cars were parked inside the garage, just them and an RV. “Well, if you’d told me we were coming here, I could have saved you the drama and the trouble,” she said. Even though they’d parked inside the garage, she knew exactly where they were.
The two men looked startled.
“Guys, I did some work for the McCarthy School before they shut down. Worked on one of their busses.”
“Dammit,” the driver muttered.
The other woman still looked terrified. Dolce didn’t blame her.
“So who are you people?” the woman asked again, the shrill edge of hysteria coloring her tone.
A door on the far side of the garage opened and two men walked down the stairs. The other woman went from looking terrified to laughing as she shoved the passenger door open and ran around the front of the truck to embrace the two men.
“I take it she knows them?” Dolce asked.
“You’ve handled all of this remarkably well for a woman we sort of kidnapped,” Brooklyn said.
“I don’t think it’s technically kidnapping if the person willingly goes with you rather than risking her chances with a mob,” she shot back, eyeing them. “Military, right?”
The men exchanged a glance.
She arched an eyebrow at them. “Dudes, listen. I was in until a little over a year ago. Apparently I got out just in time and missed all this crap.”
“We need Papa,” the driver said. “He needs to talk to her.”
“Going to tell you two up front that I’m armed,” she said. “And no offense, but I’m not handing it over. A little quid pro quo, here, since I saved your asses, okay?”
“I’ll go get Papa and bring him down here,” the driver said.
“You do that, sunshine,” she told him, reaching for the door handle. She got out and leaned against the side of the truck. “I’ll stay right here until you bring him back.”
After giving the other woman a stick test, she and the two men had disappeared back into the school. The passenger tossed her a test kit. Dolce stuck herself and held up the clear strip. Then she stretched and leaned against the side of the truck again.
She hoped she was acting a lot more nonchalant than she felt. She strongly suspected these guys were SOTIF. She’d met a team of them once while she was in the military, and they had the same feel to them.
If they were SOTIF, and she wasn’t part of their plan, it would be stupid easy for them to take her out.
The only reason she’d told them she had the gun in the first place was maybe so they’d understand she wasn’t just a pushover who’d go quietly into that night, good or bad.
She’d go kicking and screaming and hopefully covered in other people’s blood in the process, but going quietly wasn’t part of her plan.
At all.
The other guy stood there, a hand resting at his hip at what she knew was likely the butt-end of a concealed sidearm. She kept her arms crossed over her chest, nowhere near where her own sidearm was securely holstered in her waistband, and wished she had a way to contact Mark.
She hoped he was okay. She didn’t want to leave him alone, but now she had no idea how to get him to safety with her car gone.
I guess I could steal one.
Not like anyone would be checking license plate violations with a riot on their hands.
The driver returned a moment later, accompanied by four other guys. One of them seemed to be their CO, because he took the lead after they all descended the stairs and walked over to the truck.
The two men bringing up the rear carried rifles, AR-269s, if she had to guess. Not pointed at her, but from their ready position across their bodies, she knew they would be faster draws than her.
“I guess I owe you a huge thanks for saving their asses,” the lead man said.
“You’re welcome.”
“I’m Papa.” He extended his hand.
She shook with him. “Dolce.”
“They said you used to be in?”
She nodded. “Yep. Mechanic.”
“Family around here?”
She struggled and won the brief inner battle not to think about Karlee, Sarah, or the others. “No family.”
“So what’s your deal?”
She eyed him. “Shouldn’t it be my turn to ask that question of you guys?”
“Not when we have the firepower, no. You first.”
Why the hell not? What could it hurt, and maybe they could help her. She quickly detailed her missing friends, and Mark, and their situation. As she did, she noticed the man’s body language relaxed.
“Okay,” he said. “You want to play let’s make a deal?”
“Depends on what you’re offering.”
He smiled. “I like you. I think you’d be a good addition to our group. And you’re welcomed to bring your friend Mark, after I get a chance to talk to him first and feel him out to make sure he’s not going to rat us out.”
“That sounds suspiciously one-sided in our favor. So I’m going to ask what’s the catch, and why are you worried about being ratted out?”
“You have no idea who that woman is, or who those two other men you saw were, do you?”
She shook her head.
“What if I told you we have a damn good shot at coming up with a vaccine for Kite, and we’re under orders to protect the people working on that?”
“I’d say you need to give me a little more of the story.”
He did. Just enough to chill her to the core, but she suspected not the whole story.
Now she leaned against the truck for support as she digested wha
t he’d told her. “Holy crap,” she whispered. “That’s fucked up.”
“No shit,” the driver said. “Why you think we’re pretty desperate to try to stay hidden?”
Rolling it through in her mind, she knew she needed to join this group. It was the only logical solution, and might possibly be the only way they’d stay alive and get out of the city in one piece. “Okay. So I need to go talk to Mark and feel him out for you,” she said. “Although based on what he’s told me, I know he wants out of this city and might be a valuable asset for you guys.”
“You think he might try to turn us in for the reward for those three?” Papa asked.
“I doubt it. He’s retired and more interested in staying alive than he is in staying in his apartment, if that tells you anything. But I have a condition of my own.”
“Okay.”
“I want to go try to find my friends. You look like friend-finding kind of guys. Give me Frick and Frack here and a reliable vehicle to go take a quick road trip once Mark and I get settled in.”
Papa lifted his hand to silence the two men when it looked like they were going to complain. “Road trip where?”
“CaliTeliSatCom work yard in Downey. Either my friends are there…or they’re not. I’m really hoping they’re there and hunkered down. If they aren’t, and if no one there knows where they are, then I have no idea where they are and I won’t be able to track them down.” She fought back a stronger wave of sadness. “I don’t want to just abandon them without one last attempt. I’d like to make an effort to try to find them.”
“You can’t call them?”
She snorted. “Are you kidding me? We can’t even afford burners right now. And, oh yeah, duh. If I could have called them, don’t you think I would have?”
“Com techs might come in handy,” one of the armed guys said.
Papa seemed to consider it. “If they’re not there, what is your plan?”
“To leave a note for them at the apartment,” she quietly said, “and hope they get out of the city okay.”
Papa held up a staying finger and turned to talk to the armed guy who’d made the comment about her friends being com techs.
When they finished their little talk, Papa turned back to her. “I can do you one better. If you don’t find them, I’ll give you a burner you can leave for them in your apartment, with a note and a phone number to call. Won’t be for us, it’ll be for a trusted contact who can tell them how to get to us. Or how we can get to them, if we need to extract them.”
“You mean if you can extract them by then,” Dolce softly said. “Because by that point, no telling what LA might be like.”
“You are a realist, aren’t you?”
“What was your first clue? The fact that I chose a group of armed men I didn’t know over an approaching rioting crowd, or the fact that I’m willing to jump into this with you because I think that LA’s days are severely numbered?”
Papa smiled and pointed to the green-eyed guy. “That’s Niner,” he said, and then pointed to Brooklyn. “And that’s Roscoe.” He glanced at his men. “You brought her in, so she’s your package. You know the drill.” He started to walk back toward the stairs.
“Hey!” Roscoe said, taking a step toward their leader. “Don’t we get a say here?”
Papa turned. “You need me to phrase it as a direct order and be an asshole about it?”
Dolce snorted, her pride burning in a way it hadn’t in a couple of years. “I’m not that ugly, guys.”
* * * *
Roscoe turned back to her. No, ugly was one of the last things he thought when he looked at her.
Scratch that, it wasn’t even on the list. Was she movie-star gorgeous? No. But those kinds of women didn’t exist outside of the movies anyway. He liked his women real and rugged and able to stand on their own feet.
So far, Dolce seemed to fit that bill perfectly, from what little he knew about her. Her brown hair was just long enough for her to pull back with an elastic band into a ponytail, and her hazel eyes sparked with attitude. She wasn’t fat, but she had a little meat on her bones in all the right ways.
“We don’t think that,” he and Niner said together.
“Yeah, well, you’re doing a good job freaking out about this. I doubt you two are chickenshit, so there’s got to be a reason you don’t want to be stuck with me.”
Papa turned and grinned. “Oh, you boys are sooo fucked.” He tipped them a two-fingered salute from his temple. “I think you two get to go with her to talk to her friend. You won’t need me. Report back to me if my presence will be required. Otherwise, arrange with Omega a place to meet up nearby and I’ll talk with him there before you bring him here.”
Roscoe shared a glance with Niner before they both turned to Dolce.
She was now studying her shoes.
He felt bad they’d hurt her feelings. “Seriously,” he said, trying to soothe things over. “I didn’t mean it like that.”
“No, it’s okay,” she said, not looking up. “You don’t need to humor me. Believe me, the military cured me of any romantic ideals I might have had about my future. If it hadn’t been for goddamned TMFU totally tanking what was left of our economy, I’d still have a decent job, and my friends would likely still be—”
She clamped her lips shut over the logical end of that statement.
Would likely still be alive.
She obviously wanted to find them, but she was definitely a realist about the odds of finding them alive and well.
He felt badly for her.
He also respected her for not wanting to give up on her friends. A lot of people might not do that, given the dire circumstances in parts of the city. No one would blame her for giving up on them, either.
“Hey,” Roscoe said, “let’s go upstairs and look at a map and plan this. We’ll take you back to your place, talk to your friend, and figure out the next move from there.”
“Fine.” She pushed herself away from the truck and, without waiting for them, headed for the stairs where Papa had gone.
Lima and Quack, weapons ready but a little less on alert now, followed behind them.
“Great job, asshole,” Niner muttered to Roscoe as he fell into step next to him. “You’re four for four pissing off women in this group now. Pandora’s liable to toss a whole goddamned skillet at you if she hears about this.”
“Shut the fuck up.”
Chapter Fourteen
They spent less than twenty minutes introducing Dolce to the others and consulting a map to plan their route back to her apartment. After grabbing the keys to a different vehicle, the three of them took off again for Dolce’s building.
The power was still on in her building, Dolce was glad to see. But where she normally always saw at least one or two people in the lobby, checking their mail or waiting for the elevator, it was odd to see no one there in the middle of the day.
It felt…empty.
In a bad way.
Ignoring the creeping feeling, she headed for the stairwell door next to the elevator.
“Uh, what’s wrong with this?” Roscoe asked as he pointed at the elevator.
“Nope,” she said. “We’re walking it.”
“Doesn’t it work?”
“It works. I don’t like using it. If you can’t keep up with me, feel free to meet me on five.”
The men exchanged a glance and followed her to the stairwell.
On the way upstairs to Mark’s apartment, she stopped at her floor. “Hold on. I need to make a side trip.”
“Why?” the men asked.
“I doubt they have, but I just want to double-check to make sure my roommates haven’t come home yet. I want to leave the phone for them now and grab a couple of things.”
She dug out her key, aware of the men following her down the hall to her apartment.
When she opened the door, she knew immediately from the stale feel of the place that her friends hadn’t returned.
The undisturbed note
on the table also revealed that much. They wouldn’t have suddenly popped in after being gone for so long and not have left her a note in return before zipping away again.
Would. Not. Happen.
She stared at the note, and at the phone. Despite knowing deep in her heart it would never be used, she added a little to the original note.
If you guys get this note, please, use this phone to call me. I met some people and will be with them. We’ll try to get back here to help you get out. Call this number.
She added it, leaving the phone sitting on the note where they’d be sure to see it.
“Maybe we can help you find your friends,” Niner gently said. “We’ll try.”
“I hope so.” She walked into her bedroom and rooted through her drawers, grabbing some more clothes and shoving them into cloth grocery bags. “Since we’re leaving the building for good, I need to grab a few extra things.”
She also grabbed her old rucksack from the closet, the one she’d had in the military, and jammed more clothes into that, too, and a few other things she hadn’t grabbed before. The little picture viewer she had all her family photos stored on. She didn’t want to leave that behind. She’d hoped her stay at Mark’s would only be temporary but she now had to face hard, cold reality. And she reached into her dresser, feeling up under the bottom of the second drawer, where she’d taped her parents’ wedding rings.
The only “jewelry” she owned.
She slipped them onto her fingers. “Don’t want to lose these,” she said. Normally, she didn’t wear them, not wanting to get them messed up, lose them, or have them stolen. She wore her dad’s ring on her left thumb, and her mom’s rings on her left ring finger.
“From your parents?” Niner asked from the doorway.
“Yeah. State sold off everything else of theirs when they died, and put the money in an account for me. Wasn’t much. They weren’t rich. I took these off their bodies myself when they died.”
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