Allie's War Season Three (121 page)

Para-military groups working for those same private contractors guarded food and water reserves and doled out rations once a day, generally in the morning, starting around dawn. Those reserve dumps reportedly existed in six or seven locations across the island.

The official United States military had a lockdown over the power grid used by Manhattan itself. Mysteriously, similar resources didn't appear to be available for power stations in any other part of the state, or in most parts of the country.

We’d already heard stories about people hoarding food.

We’d also heard reports of ‘territories’ being carved out, some protected by yet more private security and OBEs, but a few probably being run by organized crime syndicates, as well. I imagined a few new faces were in the mix, too...individuals whose more psychopathic tendencies were aroused by the
Lord of the Flies
-type environment erupting in the city.

Somehow, that depressed me as much as the actual death and disease.

"How are we even going to get inside?" I asked him, as much to distract myself as anything.

Revik stared out the window, frowning without answering me.

I could tell from his expression he’d heard some if not all of my thoughts. I also could feel that he was worrying about the damage to his aleimi again.

More to the point, he was worrying about his ability to do much with it, if we found ourselves in a serious situation and needed to fight our way out. The one part of him that Balidor and Tarsi both agreed wouldn't be operational for some time yet was what he used to perform the telekinesis.

"...Does Balidor have that worked out?" I added, a little more sharply, trying to distract him that time. "Our entry plan?"

He looked at me. After a short pause, he shrugged. His eyes flickered down over my body then, and briefly, I saw a different look rise to his eyes.

I found myself staring back at the expression there, a little thrown.

"Seriously?" I said. "Now? How can you be thinking about that now?"

He smiled, wrapping a hand around my hip.

With his other hand, he caressed my throat with his fingers, and I felt a slow tugging there, faint but perceptible. His pain worsened, enough that I knew he might be using it to distract me, or maybe to keep my eyes off the view outside the Humvee’s window.

"You're unbelievable," I said, laughing a little in spite of myself. "Or else a full-blown sociopath, I'm not sure which."

From his other side, Wreg smacked Revik roughly on the shoulder with the palm of his hand. "Cut it out, Nenz,” he growled. “Seriously. I'm not up for it right now."

"Or maybe you're a little too up for it, Commander Wreg?" Revik said, grinning over his shoulder at him.

"You really are a fucking pervert, you know that? Where's your sense of decorum?"

"About where you left yours around 1891, I imagine,” Revik smirked.

"Fuck you very much, Illustrious Sword. I at least have the decency not to be thinking with my
dick
every damned minute..."

“Sure you do,” Revik laughed, and Wreg hit him again, harder.

"Shut up, goddamn it!" he said, his voice still low. He pointed down at the other man sprawled in his lap. "You're going to wake him up. And I finally got him to sleep...so keep your damned opinions about my
light
to yourself. You're the one with the self-control of a drunk adolescent..."

Revik laughed again, but quieter that time.

He still didn't let go of me, and I couldn't help agreeing with Wreg, at least in part.

Those same pulses of heat continued to slide through his fingers as he maneuvered his hand under the armored vest I wore, and then the shirt underneath that. If he was trying to distract me, it was working...but then, he'd been in a pretty weird space since we left Argentina.

Truthfully, I was starting to wonder about him a bit.

He was the first to admit that he'd been having 'issues' with his aleimi around me, pretty much since the wedding, although he wouldn't tell me why, or what he thought it meant. Whatever it was, it was making his light even more volatile than usual.

I'd asked him if the injuries from Shadow were affecting him in that area, too, but he never really answered me. At this point, all I really
did
know was that there was something he didn't want to tell me, at least in regard to his light.

I considered asking him again now, especially when I saw the ring of his irises glowing faintly in the low light from the armored vehicle's floor. Dismissing it when I saw him looking at my mouth, I glanced around him to the other seer, who pointed at his lap.

"Keep your man under control, Esteemed Bridge," Wreg advised me curtly.

"You say that like it was a remote possibility," I sighed.

Revik chuckled again, right before he leaned down to kiss my neck. When he started putting light into his tongue, I felt myself flush and glanced again at Wreg, who frowned at me openly.

"Hit him again, would you?" I said.

"Hey." Revik raised his head. "Loyalty, wife. Does the word mean nothing to you?"

"You seriously need to think about your priorities right now, husband." I had trouble holding onto my train of thought when he pressed against me again. “Seriously,” I murmured. “...Or I’ll have Jorag hit you with the dart gun the next time the traffic gets backed up.”

Revik chuckled softly, probably so he wouldn’t wake Jon.

My adoptive brother lay half-sprawled in the lap of Wreg, who continued to frown at both of us from Revik's other side. I understood why Wreg was annoyed. I knew how exhausted Jon was, and how little sleep he'd gotten in the past two weeks.

Unlike me, Jon’s powers of denial and self-delusion weren't quite as well-honed. He'd pretty much been a wreck since we reached the first population center outside the airport.

"You won't wake him," Revik said into my ear. "Wreg knocked him out."

"Boyfriend therapy?" I said with a smile, glad again for the excuse to look away from the window and now away from Revik, too, whose eyes still glowed at me in the near-dark. I gazed down at my crashed-out brother's tense-looking face. "Do you do that to me, too? When I'm being a pain in the ass?"

Revik rolled his eyes. "Jon isn't Elaerian, wife. We may not know
what
he is, exactly...but we know he isn't that. Besides, according to his overprotective boyfriend, he hasn't slept in four days..."

"I'm right here, you know," Wreg grumbled. "Not like you'd notice."

Revik chuckled, but didn’t look at him. "...Anyway, we might need Jon later, so we can't afford to let him make himself sick."

"So you ordered it, then?" I smiled up at him.

"Let's just say I approved the recommendation."

"Still sitting right here," Wreg muttered.

Shaking my head, I smiled again, but a part of me remembered it wasn't all that funny.

None of us had gotten much sleep during those days we spent in Shadow's construct. I'd spent most of my time staring at Revik's aleimi, making sure Shadow and his infiltrators weren't getting anywhere near it. Whoever this Shadow guy ended up being, he...or they...knew Revik a little too well, in my opinion.

Pushing that out of my mind, too, I grimaced.

Revik slid his arm tighter around me. I hadn't realized I was cold until I found myself burrowing deeper into his jacket. I didn't know for sure if he'd continued listening to my thoughts until he spoke in a low voice.

"Allie," he said. "We've got people working to figure out who Shadow is...there's no point falling for their scare tactics."

I nodded, shifting my back around to burrow deeper into his coat. I studiously ignored the flare I felt off his light in response, much less the physical reaction that accompanied it. For his part, he seemed to be dialing it down a bit, too. I felt him actively controlling his light, or at least shielding more of it from where I could feel it.

I pretended not to notice that, either.

"So Jon really didn't sleep the whole trip?" I said, speaking to Wreg as much as Revik that time. "That's impressive...even for him."

From the other side of Revik, Wreg grunted.

I glanced over in time to see the ex-rebel give me a wan attempt at a smile. He was stroking Jon's hair in his lap, but I felt the worry in his light, along with sparks of something that reminded me a little too much of what I'd just been feeling on Revik.

Great. Him, too.

Revik hadn’t been entirely kidding when he’d been teasing Wreg. Clearly, Wreg’s issue was sexual in some way, too, and clearly, it was aimed at Jon.

I had to admit, I could sometimes understand why a lot of humans thought all seers were nymphomaniacs who didn’t have normal emotions like other people.

"You guys have seen way too many wars," I muttered, closing my eyes briefly as I leaned into Revik. I felt Revik's fingers tighten, but Wreg only grunted.

“Ain’t that the truth,” he exhaled.

Wreg, my brother's new boyfriend, or whatever they were to one another, was a good guy. He really was...I knew that...but truthfully, I was still adjusting to their relationship. The Chinese-looking seer was muscular, handsome, covered in tattoos and had stunning, obsidian-black eyes, but he’d once worked under Menlim, too, just like my husband. I didn't worry about Wreg's loyalty, per se; Wreg was like the most loyal guy on the planet.

He was a pretty intense guy, though. He’d also been targeted by Shadow and the Dreng, who’d used the image of Menlim to mess with his head, just like they had with Revik.

I tried to push the thought from my mind, yet again.

"He really didn't sleep?" I said. "Not at all? Is that your fault, brother Wreg?"

Wreg gave me another look, his lips quirked, but the humor didn't reach his eyes. Instead he shrugged, glancing back down at Jon.

I found myself looking back out the windows, almost in spite of myself.

The first few legs of the drive hadn’t been too bad. The private airport was pretty deserted, although trying to land had still been chaotic, given the lack of Air Traffic Control and the nearby Albany International Airport. A lot of wealthier and more connected people still seemed to be attempting to flee from the latter, given the chatter over the radio fielded by our pilots, so they had to be damned careful on the approach. We ran into a squad of military planes near D.C., too. Luckily, they had no seers on board, at least none backing the cockpit directly. As a result, Wreg had been able to push them into thinking we were one of them.

"We're nearing the rendezvous point," Revik told me in a murmur, kissing my temple as he continued massaging my neck.

I nodded, looking outside again, without pulling away from where I rested inside his coat. I told myself I had to look, so I'd have some idea of what we were in for, especially since I was our one and only telekinetic seer. Revik would participate in any fighting that went down, but when it came to the manipulation stuff, I was pretty much on my own.

"Training starts as soon as we get back," he reminded me, softer again.

"I know," I said, barely pausing before I added, unnecessarily, since we'd already talked about this. "...None of them can get near Jon."

Revik held me tighter, rubbing my shoulder. "No one will touch him," he assured me.

I was worried, though. I couldn't help it.

The gas station at the end of the private airport’s access road was where it started.

It was where we’d seen the first signs of what we were in for, anyway. Balidor had warned us before we actually saw it, of course. He'd seen things degenerate even in the 36 hours since he and his team first arrived in Albany.

Somehow, I still hadn't been prepared for it.

Maybe I was too fried from everything that happened in Argentina, or maybe it was just too up close and personal. Either way, I cried out in horrified shock when I saw my first act of real violence in this New America.

For me, it was a guy in his thirties, wearing jeans and a polo shirt like some soccer dad from the suburbs, slamming a crowbar into the face of a woman wearing khaki pants and a silk blouse. Crying out again in shock, I watched him hit her two more times in the back of the head, saw her skull crack and a spray of blood and brains that hit his polo shirt.