I let the backpack slide off my shoulders to hit the ground and used my foot to nudge it further away so it wouldn’t get in my way. I settled my weight on the balls of my feet, my muscles tensed and ready to spring into action.
“Mateo,” I said evenly, “I’ve made it very clear to you that I’m not interested in that kind of friendship. You need to leave now.”
“I have been very patient with you, querida. But it is time to stop playing games.”
“This isn’t a game, Mateo! Go away. Go now.”
“I am very disappointed to hear this. You are being very unkind, and I have been nothing but pleasant to you.”
I was marveling at his complete lack of comprehension, and I let my guard down for just a moment. He took immediate advantage, lunging forward to wrap his arms around me. He was not a big man, but he was solid and very strong. His arms were like steel bands holding me against him and trapping my arms and hands between our chests.
He ground his mouth into mine, kissing me roughly. When I tried to turn my head away, he reached up with one hand to painfully grab a handful of my short hair and hold my head still. This loosened his grip on my arms, and I was able to pull my right hand free. I punched him in the side of the throat as I stomped on his instep with my booted foot. I didn’t do much damage, but I did startle him enough that he stopped kissing me.
“Stop this, Poppy,” he snarled. “You will not win this fight.”
Before I could respond, I heard a familiar yowling cry and Roomie leapt from the crumbling wall behind us to land on Mateo’s shoulders. His wicked claws slashed at Mateo’s back, causing him to finally let me go as he flailed at the cat. Before I could intervene, Mateo got a good grip on Roomie and flung him violently through the air.
The cat hit the front window of the café with a sickening crunch, followed by the dissonant clatter of breaking glass. The entire front window collapsed into jagged shards, burying Roomie in the sharp pile of glass fragments. He didn’t move or make a sound.
Furious, I rounded on Mateo, ready to beat him to a pulp. I punched him twice in the stomach before he could react to my approach and he doubled over, gasping for breath. I would have continued if I hadn’t heard a faint, pathetic meow.
Whirling, I ran back to the café and carefully unearthed Roomie from the pile of glass. I knew he was hurt when he actually let me pick him and carry him out to the sidewalk. I knelt on the ground with him, gently running my hands over him to try and locate his injuries. I wasn’t a veterinarian though. I couldn’t find any open wounds or obvious deformities, so I had no idea what might be wrong. I could only stroke him gently and try to comfort him.
Though I was focused on Roomie, I hadn’t forgotten Mateo. I paid enough attention to him that he was unable to take me by surprise when he rushed up behind me. I moved unexpectedly, sticking out a foot to tangle his legs and trip him up. He fell gracelessly, striking his head on the pavement. He wasn’t unconscious, but he was definitely woozy and seemed unable to focus enough to get up and cause more trouble.
I left him where he was and turned back to my cat. I carefully cradled Roomie in my arms as I scooped my backpack off the street and walked back inside the café. I settled the cat inside my backpack, trying to make him as comfortable as possible. I left him there to rest while I gathered my sparse belongings and bundled them into one of the large cloaks. I used some of my twine to tie the bundle to the back of the mag-lev bike. I carefully pulled the backpack onto my shoulders, moving slowly and gently so I wouldn’t disturb Roomie.
I grabbed the handlebars of the bike and rolled it out of the kitchen, through the shattered glass littering the floor of the front room, and out the front door. Now that Mateo had discovered my refuge, I knew it would never feel safe again. I was leaving.
I swung my leg over the bike and settled onto the seat as I inserted the ignition stick and turned on the bike. I rolled right past Mateo’s prone form without a second thought. He was still groaning and moving a bit. He wasn’t dead, so he’d just have to take care of himself.
I clicked onto the first clear mag-lev rail I came to and switched the bike to full mag-lev mode. The engine purred to life. I twisted the accelerator and shot forward, leaving my first home in Denver behind.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
During the past few months I’d scoped out a few potential places for refuge in case my home base was compromised, and now I maneuvered my bike through the debris-strewn streets on my way to one of my backup shelters. I moved northwest, headed for the old football stadium.
I had learned that while the stadium itself was held by the small La Soltura pack, the neighborhoods around the stadium were unclaimed territory. These buildings were in serious disrepair, discouraging most people from using them as shelter, and any building still standing had been explored and cleared of anything useful long ago. No one around here would care if I spent a few nights in the area, and I was far enough from my previous neighborhood that Mateo would be unlikely to stumble across me. For the moment, that was all I was looking for.
I worked my way deeper into the neighborhood, stopping occasionally to move chunks of concrete or other rubble blocking my path. Finally, I reached the small set of doctor’s offices I had chosen as my hideaway. Though the front lobby area no longer existed, it was just barely possible to walk my bike through an unroofed hallway to reach the lone treatment room that still boasted four walls, a door, and most of the roof.
I wheeled the bike into the tiny room and squeezed past it to enter the room myself. I had to shift the bike around a couple of times to make space for the door to swing closed, but I managed to shut the door behind me and flipped the small thumb lock on the doorknob for the small bit of extra security that it offered.
A chunk of ceiling and the walls were missing in the southwest corner of the room, letting in the last bit of light from the setting sun. Soon it would be completely dark in here, so I knew I needed to unpack quickly if I wanted any light to work with.
I climbed onto the exam table that was still bolted to the center of the floor. Though the faux leather covering was aged and cracked, at least the table was slightly padded. It was probably a better bed than the corner of the kitchen floor I’d used back in my café.
Sitting cross-legged on the table, I took off my backpack and pulled it into my lap. Opening the flap, I peered inside to check on Roomie. The poor cat opened his eyes and meowed pitifully. I knew he was in rough shape when he didn’t even try to swipe at me as I cautiously put my hand inside the pack to stroke his head.
“I’m sorry, buddy,” I murmured. “I wish I knew how to help you feel better. If it helps any, I stomped Mateo hard for what he did to you.” Though it was only a coincidence, I liked to think that the reason Roomie began to purr at that moment was because he was glad to hear that I’d made Mateo pay for his rough treatment.
I rummaged in the front pocket of the bag for a moment and found the last bits of rabbit from lunch. I had saved this small packet when I’d shared my leftovers earlier, thinking I could give it to Roomie as a dinnertime treat. Plucking the shreds of meat from the leaves it was wrapped in, I hand-fed the little pieces to the lethargic cat. When he had finished the rabbit, he licked my fingers clean of the grease and then fell asleep.
I wrapped myself in both of my cloaks, then carefully settled the backpack at the top of the exam table and curled myself around it to sleep.
CHAPTER TWENTY
I was shaking with cold when I woke the next morning. Small snowflakes drifted lazily through the gap in the ceiling to land on my face, which certainly didn’t help. I wrapped myself more tightly in my cloaks and hugged the backpack to my chest hoping for some extra warmth from Roomie’s body heat. He grumbled a little at the jostling but didn’t try to escape my embrace.
I snaked one hand into the opening at the top of the bag, lightly stroking Roomie’s head and chin while I thought about my options. I hated running from Mateo, but I wasn’t willing to stay and
make a target of myself either. He was going to be very angry now. Well fine, I was angry too. But I was also sensible enough that I wasn’t going to go searching for another confrontation. Better to just get out of the situation, especially since I’d already started to think about leaving.
Since winter had begun approaching in earnest, I’d come to realize that I wouldn’t be able to continue on my own. Food was getting hard to find and resources would only be getting scarcer. And this first taste of really cold weather had me shivering so violently that the exam table rattled a little. Two heavy cloaks and my trusty boots made up the sum total of my winter gear; this wasn’t going to protect me against any extreme weather or cold. I was going to have to team up with one of the local packs for protection. I just needed to decide who to approach. In spite of my friendship with Rivers, recent argument notwithstanding, I wasn’t willing to join his pack; voluntarily putting myself in Eddie’s reach seemed like an even worse idea than hanging out with Mateo.
La Soltura was conveniently close to me at the moment, but I didn’t know anyone in that pack. According to Rivers, they were a small pack with a very loose group structure. They were more like a collection of tenants who happened to all share space in the same building. That meant that they might be more open to adding another person to their pack. But the casual group structure meant that everyone was pretty much fending for themselves rather than working together. I would still have to figure out how to feed and clothe myself during the winter, but at least I would have shelter.
Mémoire was also close to my current location, but they were stubbornly French-nationalistic and still disapproved of merging Canada into the North American Alliance. Since I couldn’t lay claim to a drop of French-Canadian blood, I wouldn’t be welcome in that pack.
Similarly, the Rebels wouldn’t welcome me, at least not as a full pack member, because they allowed only men to join. There were women in the pack compound, but they were very subservient to the males. That was certainly not something I was willing to do.
Monarch was a possibility. Their territory started a mile or so north of my café and bordered the Wolf pack’s zone. I knew very little about Monarch or their leader, Jessie. But Leeza didn’t particularly care for Jessie, though she’d never said why. Moreover, Mateo liked Jessie a lot; his approval made me immediately inclined to dislike her.
Liberty pack was the largest alliance in the downtown area and controlled the largest territory. I knew only that they occupied land somewhere north and east of my café. Oh, and Mateo was a Liberty pack member. That pretty much had me crossing the group off my list immediately.
Further north and east there were more packs that I knew little about. They were far enough away that I hadn’t met anyone from those packs during my time in the city. As far as I knew Aguilar, Five Points, Surenos, and Phénix packs were all possibilities; at least, I hadn’t heard anything that caused me to rule them out.
I did know enough to avoid MS-13 territory. MS-13 was the remnant of a vicious gang that had terrorized large areas of the Denver metro area before and during the war. They had declined in size and influence over the intervening years, but it was still critical to stay out of their territory and out of their way. Both Rivers and Leeza had warned me about MS-13 and taught me to watch for the stylized graffiti the gang used to mark their boundaries.
Finally, I could go looking for Sharra. Though Leeza didn’t know which pack Sharra belonged to, she had given me vague directions that would probably lead me to Sharra – eventually. If I started asking around once I was in that northeast neighborhood, chances were good that I could track her down. There weren’t so many people living rough that you could just disappear as part of the crowd, and that bright aqua and pink hair would make her pretty memorable.
I didn’t know Sharra well, but she had helped me get out of Goodland. I had felt an immediate connection with her when we met – enough to make me follow her here to Denver. Now that I needed to abandon my solitary lifestyle, finding Sharra felt like the right thing to do. After all, nothing was going to force me to stay with her if I didn’t like her or her pack after all. I would stay here for a day or two to nurse Roomie back to health, and then I would go looking for a friend and a pack to take me in.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Decision made, I supposed it was time to drag myself out of my slightly warm bed, so I pushed the cloak aside and slid off the exam table that had been my bed for the night. I did a few stretches and jogged in place for a couple of minutes to warm up a little and work out the kinks of sleeping on the exam table. Even for someone of my short stature, the table was too short and narrow to be comfortable.
I needed to scout around for water. I was hungry too, but we could go longer without food than without water. I grabbed one of my cloaks and bundled up against the cold. I managed to tie the cloak around me in such a way that it looked odd but kept me fairly warm and didn’t impede movement too much.
I peeked into the backpack to check on Roomie. He was sleeping but woke quickly when I lifted the flap. I petted his head gingerly, encouraged when he actually tilted his head to give me better access to stroke his ears. I carefully ran my fingers along his sides and down each of his legs. He growled once and snapped at me when I gently pressed on what I thought were probably his ribs. That made sense – his ribs could certainly be bruised from crashing through the window.
He was still lethargic but otherwise seemed okay for now, so I just tried not to disturb him too much as I reached past him to find the small bowl I had scavenged from a house near my old location. It wasn’t large, but it would hold a little water to bring back for Roomie.
I left the remains of the medical clinic and chose a direction at random, hoping to find water before I’d gone too far. The odds were in my favor really. I’d learned from Rivers that several dams in the area had been destroyed in the bombings. The resulting floods as the reservoirs emptied had destroyed even more of the city. But with the water no longer held in reservoirs, many small creeks and streams had reestablished themselves across the landscape. There was plenty of water to be found in Denver; most of it was even clean enough to drink.
I only had to walk a few blocks before I found what I was looking for. A decent-sized stream tumbled through the rubble. It looked clear and clean. It seemed safe to give it a try.
I dipped my bowl into the stream and lifted it to my lips. I took a careful sip, holding the water in my mouth for a moment to check for any strange taste. Nothing seemed off; the water was cold and refreshing. Since I had no way to check any more carefully than this, I simply tipped the bowl and drank the rest of the water. I even refilled it and had another big drink. I was parched after having had nothing to drink since last night.
Normally I would have taken this chance for a sponge bath, at the very least, but the air was cold and the water frigid. I also didn’t know the area well enough to be sure there was no one around to see me, so I didn’t want to strip down. I was very grimy though and it just felt unpleasant. After a few minutes of thought, I hit upon a solution and quickly stripped off my tank top before wrapping myself in the cloak again. I rinsed the tank top thoroughly in the rushing water and balled up the dripping fabric in one hand. With the other hand I scooped up another bowl of water, this one to take back for Roomie.
Thanks to the cold water dripping from the cloth in my left hand and the water sloshing over the edges of the bowl in my right hand, my fingers felt painfully frozen by the time I made it back to the clinic. Every time a gust of wind brushed over my hands, the sharp prickles of cold made my fingers cramp. As soon as I was inside the exam room I dropped the bowl and tank top onto the table and tucked my icy hands into my armpits to warm them.
It took longer than I’d hoped, but my hands eventually stopped aching with cold. They were a little stiff but I didn’t think I’d picked up any frostbite from my short time in the bitter cold. It was cold inside too, but there was still a little insulation in the old walls that h
eld off the worst of the chill. Just having walls and (most of) a ceiling to block the wind was a huge help.
Roomie crawled out of the backpack to lap at the water in the bowl. He drank thirstily for several minutes, emptying the bowl. While he busied himself with the water dish, I used my still sodden tank top as a washcloth for a quick but thorough sponge bath and searched out a set of clean, dry clothes from my bundle of belongings. They looked pretty much identical to the clothing I’d just removed but smelled a lot better.
After changing into the clean clothing I pulled out my makeup and mirror to apply the dramatic eye makeup I’d come to favor and freshened the inked pattern running down the right side of my face. I even used my knife to trim my hair. I’d kept up with this pretty regularly, so I needed only a few minutes to take care of a few patches that had grown out a little too far. Getting cleaned up helped me feel much better, with the added benefit that looking more put together would help make a better first impression when I went looking for potential new packs.
My touch-ups complete, I bundled up in the cloak again and headed out to look for food. My stomach was aching with hunger, and I knew Roomie needed food too. He would recover more quickly if he had enough to eat. I didn’t know what I might be able to find in this area, but I had to give it a try.
Since I’d seen nothing promising on my water-gathering excursion earlier, I headed in the opposite direction this time. Food was scarce now. I found only a few dandelion plants withered by the snow and cold and a scant handful of berries remaining on a couple of bushes. This wasn’t going to do much to fill our empty bellies. I sat to rest for a few minutes as I tried to think of more options for finding food. My contemplation was interrupted by a quiet scratching and scurrying in the debris to my right. Turning only my head in order to avoid frightening whatever little animal was in the rubble, I saw it – a big, fat rat.
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