"Everybody is going to be here soon," he said, changing the subject.
"I know. Got the memo." It had been lying next to my pillow. Some people woke to roses after a night of sex, I woke to war meeting details.
"I brought up a few of your things. They're on the top shelf of the closet," he said as he headed out of the room.
I grabbed the cover off the bed and walked into the closet and saw the stack of my stuff. I guess no one ever explained to Cormac a few meant three. Don't freak, it's just some stuff.
I should have expected this. My actions last night, especially the ones that had coincided with lots of groaning, pretty much declared I was all in. I wanted Cormac, and I didn't want him with anyone else. Even the idea made me want to kill someone.
I tugged on jeans I didn't remember owning and a snug v-neck tee as I took another calming breath. This was the end of the world. Why sweat a long-term relationship if I might not live another week? I decided to look on the bright side: if I died tomorrow, one day did not a relationship make. And, in the meantime, I needed to get as much sex as I could before I died. Lots of hot sex was currently number one on my bucket list.
I cleaned myself up and headed into the living room, just as Dark walked in carrying a couple of boxes stacked on top of each other.
"Where do you want them?" he asked Cormac.
"My room, thanks."
"Gotchya. Dodd is a couple seconds behind me with the rest," Dark said.
"What's in them?" I asked Dark as he was walking past me.
"Your stuff," he said with a smile, apparently happy about our change in situation.
I took another deep breath. It's okay. I could be dead tomorrow.
I took a few steps closer to Cormac and said in a hushed voice, "I'm not saying I have a problem with it, but don't you think you should've told me before you had my stuff moved?"
"Why?" He reached down and popped a grape into his mouth from the bowl on the table.
"Where did we get grapes?" I asked, fresh fruit making all other subjects pale in comparison. I greedily grabbed one. My mouth watered like crazy, as I bit down on the juicy sweetness. I missed fresh fruit more than most things. All the produce in the casino and the immediate area had gone rotten.
"Now that we know which people won't get eaten they were able to scout out a bigger distance. They brought them back this morning," Cormac explained. "And while we're on the subject of food, stop giving yours away."
He eyed me up as if he already knew all the details but I played stupid anyway. "Huh?" I said as I popped a couple of grapes quickly in my mouth so I didn't have to talk.
"I know you've been sneaking some of yours to the kids," he stood there and waited for me to finish chewing.
"Do you have my every move watched?"
"This is my casino...castle, or whatever it is now. I know everything that happens here. And I mean everything." He stopped to pop another grape in his mouth and I digested what that meant.
I looked at him, trying to gauge if he really did, but didn't comment.
"And everyone is getting plenty to eat. Stop giving yours away. We aren't indestructible. You still need food and you're getting too thin." He ran a hand over the side of my waist. He pounded on my back when I nearly choked on my grape.
I'd seen people act like this. This was normal couple behavior. I am officially part of a couple now.
I caught the look on Cormac's face. "Why are you smirking?"
"Because I know what you're thinking."
"No you don't." I pushed the hair from my face.
"Oh, yes I do."
He lifted a stem with a single grape hanging from it and brought it to my mouth. Instead of taking it with my mouth, I plucked the grape with my fingers. "Fine. Maybe you do."
I chewed on it while he laughed.
"And you're not as funny as you think you are," I said once I finished.
"Don't be upset, snookums."
I didn't respond as I heard the door open and Rogo walked in the room. He greeted us both but only looked my way for a fraction of a second. It was enough to see the hatred.
He was still pissed off about me showing him up at his place. I waited for Cormac's reaction. If he knew what had gone down, he wasn't saying, but that didn't mean anything.
Dodd and Buzz came in shortly after carrying what appeared to be some more of my stuff that they deposited in the corner. Vitor came in next. Kirk, the Fae that was filling the vacuum created by Burrom's disappearance, showed up too.
I was surprised when Adam, spokesperson for the humans, showed up with Colleen in tow. From the glances they got, I wasn't the only one. How had Adam even known about the meeting? I didn't think anyone ever put him on the need to know list.
Dark came back in as everyone was getting settled.
The reaction to Crash's arrival was the strongest. He came alone, which showed balls. I was the only person in the room who wasn't shooting him daggers with their eyes.
"I'd like the floor for a minute," Adam said, drawing the attention back to him, the second least appreciated man in the room. No one spoke. That was about as much encouragement as you were going to get with this crowd.
"We know about the meetings."
"Really? You do? I thought it was just a stroke of luck you were here right now," Rogo said, laying on the sarcasm.
My inner wiseass wanted to laugh, but I wouldn't let it. I refused to laugh at anything Rogo said. I'd laugh at him, but not with him. I also felt bad for Colleen who, no matter how she tried to fake it, was visibly nervous.
"Let him talk," I said, looking for an excuse to antagonize Rogo.
Rogo looked at me, then around the room, snorted and nodded his head. He didn't need to say a word, it was clear as day to everyone in the room what he was implying. I needed the guys to back me or I'd be easy pickings. It was a complete lie and he knew it.
A smarter person would have let him save face. I'd emotionally castrated his ego the other day. Just for relations, I should let his pride have this salve. Then I saw Cormac's face and decided it would be better if I put him in his place than have Cormac kill him. Rogo did have his uses.
I walked closer to him. "Get up."
"Why? So your goons can jump me?"
"No, this stays between us. I don't need them to take you on and we both know it."
He didn't stand. "I don't fight girls," he said and swallowed hard.
"Coward." I walked away, not wanting the close proximity.
"Adam?" I said, handing him the floor.
"We want an equal say, a real say, in what goes down from now on," he said with a slight tremble in his voice.
Silence reigned for a few seconds while everyone digested this new slice of information, then the cacophony roared.
Rogo screamed something about them going back to huddling in the corners. Burrom's replacement, Kirk, yelled that they ate up the resources everyone else brought in. Cormac started explaining in his slightly condescending tone that he was generous enough to allow them to stay…but. Even Vitor got into the action, looking more alive than I'd seen him in weeks, declaring how they took up too much room in the casino.
It boiled down to the same question, "Why did they deserve input?" The consensus was that the humans had become the leeches of civilization.
A crack filled the air with a flash of light and brought silence again. Colleen, with her vivid purple eyes stood there, hand raised and her fingers smoking. The humans had discovered they had a trump card, the changed, and it looked like they were ready to play it.
"What was that?" I asked, figuring they'd have the least hostility toward me, at least in this moment. I was the only one who hadn't been shouting down their rights the minute they walked in the door.
"It's my lightning." Her voice was loud but I knew a false bravado when I heard it. She was nervous to be here but she came anyway and Colleen leaped in my esteem. "I've been practicing," she continued.
"I say that buys them a vo
te." I raised my hand and looked around the room. "Come on, she just shot lightning into the air. Controlled lightning, I might add, since the place isn't burning up right now."
I looked at Cormac for back up. He was leaning a hip against the bar and shrugged in an "I don't care either way” manner.
Nice back up, buddy. I should've written a contract up before we slept together so he understood exactly what it entailed outside the bedroom. It meant you have to agree with everything I say, especially when people I don't like are present. He was going to need some work at this relationship stuff too.
"What about the rest of the changed? Can they do shit like this?" Rogo asked, a bit less abrasive.
No, it wasn't just not abrasive, there was a tone to it that I couldn't place. Then I saw how Colleen looked at him. Oh, hell no! Rogo wasn't a bad looking guy but it was hard for me to admit it because he made my skin crawl. Colleen was noticing though.
"Yes, they can, on differing levels," I said and moved into a closer position to Colleen, while simultaneously throwing Rogo a dirty look.
"I vote yes," Rogo said, ignoring my dirty looks.
"Yes," Dark said from the corner, where he was being suspiciously quiet.
Cormac shrugged again and everyone else looked like they were prepared to accept the new situation.
"Now that your internal matters are under control, can we move on to the other issue at hand?" Crash said.
Cormac stepped forward. "Buzz?"
Buzz moved to the table and laid a large sheet of what looked like architectural plans on the table.
"We managed to find these where the company that owned the plant used to have offices," Cormac explained. "We've got to assume that however many Colleen saw and what we viewed that night is only a fraction of what is really there."
"So we use stealth," I said and looked up from the plans.
"Yes," Cormac said.
"Agreed," Crash said.
"We get our people out, then we go back and obliterate them." I felt his hand on my shoulder and I saw him look directly at Crash. "They knew they were taking something that was mine. People don't cross me and get away with it."
"If we come at them from the southeast, we'll get a better advantage I think," I said trying to move the topic along from Cormac's cave man claiming of me.
Cormac moved into a different war mode and switched gears. "There were three lookouts on the tops of these towers." He leaned over where I stood to point to the locations on the plans. Feeling him behind me made it hard to concentrate and I could've sworn he was messing with me.
"We get snipers to take those out simultaneously. My best guess is that they'll be holding our people in the most inner building, the one surrounded by the rippers."
"I'll handle the rippers," I said. The entire room stared at me, except Cormac.
"They're controlling them. Are you sure you can handle it?" Crash asked.
"Yes." No, not really, but I had the best shot.
"Jo," Crash said, "there were more than fifty of them in this area." He pointed to another building. "And there might have been even more behind here. How are you going to possibly keep them contained?"
No one spoke; I'm sure they were waiting for me to explain. Anyone that hadn't seen me keep them at bay by this point had still heard the whispers that I had some sort of strange connection with them, everyone but Crash, that is.
"I've got it. I'll take one other with me, but I can handle this," I reaffirmed. I looked to the rest of the group, wondering if I was going to experience any more opposition, but no one looked directly at me, not even Rogo.
"What is going on here?" Crash asked.
"Leave it alone," Cormac said.
"You're going to let her go in there alone?"
"If she says she can handle this, I believe her."
"What is wrong with you people? Especially you! No one can handle that many rippers."
"I said to drop it."
Crash just shook his head in disgust. He thought they were feeding me to the lions as a diversion. He didn't get it, I was the lion. It's why when the subject came up, no one wanted to look at me. They'd prefer to pretend whatever I had going on didn't exist. If they acknowledged it, they might not be able to walk the halls of this place with me.
"We need Katie." I looked at Adam, to see how willing he was going to be to offer up his people. "You're either on the team or you're not. There's no half measures," I said when he took a minute too long to reply.
"I'll ask her. Ultimately, it's her call."
"Agreed," I said.
"I'm going," Colleen said. "Don't even think to argue. I can take down a man three times my size with no noise. Well unless they scream."
To know that, she's had some practice. I wanted to laugh but didn't want to steal her thunder.
"How is that possible?" Dodd asked.
"She uses it like a taser gun," I said, guessing. Colleen's smile confirmed I was correct.
"I'm more than willing to offer a demo," she said, looking around the room.
Not surprisingly, no one accepted to be the crash test dummy.
"I'm in," Dark said.
"Are your guys any good with a sniper?" Cormac asked Crash.
"Half my men were Green Berets before this. They're good at everything."
"You and your guys will hang back over here and take out the watchmen. Jo, who do you want to take with you to handle the rippers?"
"I'll take Colleen." I knew bullets wouldn't take out a ripper but Colleen's lightning might work.
"Done. You two keep the rippers in check. If our people aren't in this building, it could be any of these. I'll take this one with Katie, as long as she agrees. We still need more bodies. I want Dark to take this one with somebody and then we need people to cover this one."
"I'll cover one of them," Rogo said.
"Really?" Dark asked.
"Yes," Rogo snapped.
What's this guy's angle? Was it Colleen? Did he think if he could manipulate her and gain some control of the changed? Could we even trust him? And the most important question, did it matter? We didn't have the luxury of turning anyone down. He was among the wolves that the rippers wouldn't bother. It wasn't just about getting our people back, it was also about keeping everyone alive.
"We're still short two. And no," Cormac said as Dodd was about to argue why he should be going. "I'm sorry; Dodd, but you'd be a liability."
"Vitor? Kirk?" I asked, looking at both factions of the Fae.
"With all due respect," Kirk said, "this isn't our fight."
"You guys make me ashamed of my heritage," I said to the two of them.
"They aren't wrong," Cormac said. "It's not."
"What about the fact that they live here?"
"And they carry their weight."
I knew the Fae worked daily at reinforcing the wards around the Lacard, but the fact that they never put any skin in the game was getting old.
"They're our people. I'll get the two we're short," Adam said.
"Make sure they understand all the details," I stressed. "Make sure they know they might not be coming back."
Chapter Twenty-Two
There she was. I'd been searching for Katie for over an hour.
"Katie," I yelled when I saw her blond head bopping around. She turned and smiled when she saw me running down the hall of the main floor of the casino to catch up to her.
"I'm in," she said as I neared, still smiling. "Do you know when we're leaving?"
"Not yet. Colleen and Adam are getting more recruits." I looked at her and couldn't help but be jealous at the way, even after everything that had happened, she could still smile and seem happy. How could anyone roll with these kinds of punches and still smile all the time? I looked at her a little closer and thought maybe she was just crazy. Yeah, that made more sense. Nobody in their right mind could be this happy, with everything that was happening.
"I'm not actually here for that," I explained.
&nbs
p; "Oh? What's up?"
I paused for a minute, embarrassed at the question I was about to ask. "You said there was a seer in the Lacard. Do you know where I could find her?"
"Yeah, usually she's on the main floor but I haven't seen her down here today. I'd try her room. She's in four twenty-two."
"Thanks." I smiled back at her even though I wanted to grimace. She was located in the heart of the humans, and not even the changed, who didn't harbor the same animosity towards me, but plain old Mary Jane and Dick. Oh well, it is what it is.
I took the stairs up to the fourth floor, put my hand on the doorknob and tried to settle my nerves. It was the middle of the afternoon, so it shouldn't be too crazy, with most people doing their socializing and duties elsewhere. That was just an assumption, because I hadn't been to this floor once since before the shattering.
Like I'd expected, there weren't too many people out and about. A group of teens loitered at the end of the hall and a few adults walked from one room to the next. It was a good thing because they all stopped and stared in my direction. Their faces all displayed the same sentiment. What the fuck do you think you're doing here?
I did the same thing I did downstairs. I lifted my chin and replied in a physical demeanor that said "I'm here and I don't give a shit if you like it or not." It was the farthest thing from the truth, but they'd never know that.
I walked down the hallway, getting closer and closer to the group of teens. Still so young and stupid, they were more of a problem than the adults, who actually thought of the consequences of their actions.
The six of them, four boys and two girls, spread out now and actually blocked the hallway. The adults suddenly disappeared into their rooms, not wanting to stop the trouble but making sure they didn't witness anything that could get them booted from the safety of the casino.
Dumb kids, didn't they listen to the gossip? I might take a couple of hits but they would be the ones recouping for weeks. Me getting hurt wasn't my fear. What if I accidentally killed one of them?
"You don't want to do this," I said when I was close enough for them to hear me in a quiet voice.
"She's scared," the largest boy said and they all started to laugh.
Shattered (Alchemy Series Book #3) Page 15