Ripped Open (The Infected: Ripped to Shreds Book 2)

by P. S. Power

  They were walking briskly, but within what others on the street were doing. The day was cold, at a guess, but neither of them had a jacket on or anything like that. Then, they were Infected and no one that cared to know about that couldn’t figure it out.

  Rachel worked on things mentally, started to panic, if internally, and then took a long, slow, breath.

  “I know. That she’s a good girl. This will change everything, of course. Thank goodness you were there for her. I’ve been trying to be, but…” The fact was that the woman was still coming back online as far as being a parent. She knew how to do it, and was even fairly capable when it came to raising decent human beings who had powers, but she was a bit out of practice.

  Cindy grinned and wrinkled her nose.

  “We’re all there for you. Both of you. I know, I wouldn’t have figured that would be the case either, but it’s really true. I blame Doctor Burrows for that, myself. If she hadn’t stripped away my first mode, I wouldn’t be desperately trying to fill that void in my life, and could have ignored the poor kid like a decent psychopath should. After all,” Cindy rocked forward, falling to the ground as she twisted, trying to right herself in place. She didn’t get what had happened at first. She just suddenly moved.

  Almost a second later, with Rachel staring at her, she was hit again. Not, as she’d started to suspect, by Rachel Chambers. No, someone was shooting at them. More accurately, at her. Worse, they were doing a really good job of it. A third bullet hit her face. Just below her right eye, slamming her head back into the pavement.

  It didn’t hurt, but her body was flopping all around anyway.

  “Stand over me. Pretend that I’m dead?” She whispered the words, and tried to look past the woman, up at the windows in the distance. About two football fields away, on a low rooftop, she noticed a glint, as Rachel was hit in the shoulder. She moved forward too, not being very large.

  That let Cindy bring up the tale of the shooter. It was hard at first, but she focused, and could see where he was just well enough to get a bead on his tale. That was enough though, and she could bring the thing up in front of her as she lay on the ground. Which, after a short bit of skimming, got her to have to fight a smile.

  “Brilliant. Freaking wonderful. They sent in a real agent this time. Not just some guy hired over the phone. They didn’t have time for that. Just to kill me. Which is flattering, I guess. His name is Anthony Levitt. He actually knows people in the group… The people behind what’s been going on?” She felt a bit breathless, and Rachel was actually standing over her, worried that she’d been killed, still. Even if there was no blood, and there had been whispering.

  For his part, Tony was packing up, to get out of there, thinking that Cindy Mableton was well and truly dead. After all, the files on her had only spoken about her old powers, which didn’t include shrugging off bullets to the cranium in particular. With Rachel in the way he couldn’t see blood, but that wasn’t the point. She had him now.

  “We got you, fuckwit.”

  Rachel pulled her down the street, and behind a low concrete wall with steps on the other side of it, leading up into a brick building.

  “Cindy? Are you all right? I don’t see any blood…” She was used to people having powers, and had been told about her new ones, but still checked for wounds. Most people didn’t walk away from being shot by a sniper in the head.

  She might not be as strong as Marcia Turner, or as fast, but she was still pretty hard, when it came to taking damage.

  “All right? I’m great! Those ass hats have finally messed up. Before they kept covering their tracks too well, but that sniper, Anthony Levitt, he’s one of them. Not that high up, but he’s really in on things! I guess they’re kind of panicked that we found their nukes, and stopped them like that. Or that I did. So they tried to have me killed, and this was the first time that I was off base where they knew where I was going to be. Which…”

  It wasn’t that they had anyone inside the IPB now, since that had been cracked open. The computer traffic was being monitored however, which let them get the hotel, and the likely routes that would be taken. Which meant that she was able to skip from Anthony to the rest of his team, and get three more insiders names and data.

  She muttered all that out loud, and then stood up.

  “Tony up there is gone. The others are still in position.”

  Rachel started to move, but Cindy shook her head.

  “Don’t bother. We have them now. From here we can work our way up, and break this open. If we leave them free, for now, then they might find out more that will aid us later, or even try to kill me again. Besides, we have to get to that meeting. After that…”

  Well, as soon as that was done, she was calling Trivia. The woman that knew everything. With a list of names and events, she’d be able to do at least what Cindy could. Christian Poures might be able to as well. With three of them working on it, they might, possibly, be able to get something done. Finally.

  Dusting herself off, Cindy started to walk toward their destination.

  “You know, the real trick is being certain we get the kids in to see the Washington monument. Before it falls over, I mean. That thing looks like it’s listing to me, at least in the pictures I’ve seen. I can’t see it standing for too much longer, can you?”

  Rachel laughed a bit, still slightly worried over the assassination attempt, but Cindy really wasn’t. Her new abilities, which were close to useless otherwise, had really saved the day. This way they wouldn’t even have to postpone the meeting, meaning that they wouldn’t have to spend weeks in D.C. setting it all up again.

  She didn’t have a cell phone, but Rachel did, and she was willing to talk to people as they finished their walk. Marcia wasn’t pleased, at first, since they hadn’t even tried to catch the shooter, but once she got the real plan there was a moment of silence.

  “Oh. Well, no harm done then. You’re coming back tonight?”

  That was for both of them, but Cindy shrugged. After all, she didn’t really know the answer to that one yet.

  “Possibly? If the people here don’t need us for two days. Really, we should at least stay the night, since the hotel is already paid for. Though… Yeah, we’ll come home after the others get back from the Smithsonian.” Just in case the bad guys wanted to kill her still. They’d be hard pressed to do it, but if they blew up a café trying to get her, innocent people might be harmed.

  Sighing a bit, she realized that she was well and truly broken, if she was already caring about people she didn’t even know. That probably meant that whatever Doctor Burrows had done to her wasn’t just changing her first mode, but had, by some chance or happenstance, turned her into a decent person. It wasn’t what she really needed to be, given her job of the moment, but there didn’t seem to be another choice in the matter. The changes had been made, and for the time being she simply had to deal with it.

  So, feeling a little stiff, thanks to being slammed into the ground like she’d been, she and Rachel went to testify in front of Congress. In secret. It went about as well as she would have suspected, given that edgy men and women were looking to blame someone, possibly anyone, for the danger that the country had been in. Even they got that she, personally, wasn’t responsible for the worst of it though.

  No, as odd as it seemed, she, Cindy Mableton, from Vancouver, Washington, a research librarian by trade, had actually saved the day.

  Even better, she was about to make good inroads toward doing that again. She had a real lead now. Not just one, but several. With that, she might just, with some luck, break the whole plot to tear them apart, wide open.

  Ripped open. Like a bloody throat.

  True, that wasn’t the same as killing a man with a knife, but it still felt pretty good. Maybe even enough so that she’d eventually have something in her life worth living for.

  It wasn’t a giant hope, but it was something.

  Which was a start.

  Maybe even enough of one
to get her through the coming months.

  So, smiling, Cindy got to work. There was a lot to do. So much that she barely knew where to start.