“In case you hurt us? What say you wise, Vargr?”
“Us? Uhhh, yeah?”
She punched his arm and glowered at Rutger.
“Okay! Enough assaulting me!” Vargr reached up and dragged her down, kissing her ear and inhaling as if she smelled good to him. “Joking. Pretty sure you’d manage to kick our balls in even tied up, if you wanted to, pretty lady?”
She thought it through. She would, or similar. Enough to warn them for sure. “True. I will henceforth use kicking your balls as my safeword.”
“Shit. Look what you did.” Rutger smiled though and he lifted his hand to trace along her eyebrow then delicately down her face past cheek and lip to her chin. He thumbed her mouth. “You happy?”
“Mmm. I am. I like us together, just… When are we cleaning up?” Mess bugged her. If only the apocalypse had more showers, and hadn’t she vowed to remedy this last time? She began to rise and they both snagged her and pulled her flat.
“Soon.” They both said in unison, and she gave in, stayed quiet.
This was a good time to just be together. There might not be a lot of quiet and wonderful times like this once they reached the Radiation Zone. She had a question about that and Maura. Beasters had been proven radiation resistant in the past, and so she was likely that too, but what about humans like Maura?
Ask later. For now, be grateful for what she had.
41
As was often the case,Cyn found Willow doing important leader-type stuff. Where the floor had fractured away near a stairwell, she was sighting downward through binoculars and helping direct the route. Her blue hair made the biotechie easy to find, as did the winged Mads beside her, and Toother the faithful nanodog. She’d never ridden Toother and that seemed to suit them both fine. Orm had once dreamed of a cavalry of nanodogs and their riders but with no one else sharing his vision, that was unlikely to ever happen.
Cyn picked her way closer to the trio.
This close to the Rad Zone where a missile had exploded, the buildings were spattered with holes, dust, and debris, and were partially collapsed. There was no real edge here. The Edge where the quarter ended had crumbled. It was an area of devastation, but Ground Floor was within reach. For some, this was a frightening prospect. After surviving in the relatively untouched upper stories of the scrapers, with canned food in most cupboards, clean sheets on a hundred thousand empty beds, and with water to be found in every second apartmentalong with weapons, books, and a dozen random luxuries, they had a fear of the wilderness.
Down there your boots rested upon concrete that rested on actual soil.
Descending deeper after Ground Floor meant entering the bowels of the world.
What if the rumors of packs of feral nanodogs were true?
What if the Ghoul Lords had spread lies and were waiting for them?
The true ground of Earth had become their boogie man and the place where monsters dwelled. Her friends who made up this convoy would’ve been thought monsters back in the days before the invasion. Friends. Cyn let a smile curve her mouth. After days of travel, when she did nothing terrible most had been reassured. They’d seen her current weakness before the Lure, and of course Vargr and Rutger treated her like she was their sexy goddess.
She’d shaken hands with or listened to more than a few of them, had breakfast chats where they’d apologized for thinking her mad or dangerous. Though mad and dangerous had its plusses. She eyed the minute trail of red scales winding up her arm. Who’d ever heard of a red mermaid?
Maybe mad and dangerous was her destiny? Dealing with evil demanded unconventional actions and doing things in ways that no one else could imagine. These beasters too were unconventional to extremes. Theycouldchange this world. She needed posters saying things likeKill a Ghoul Lord, Save the World.
Willow remained at the top of the wrecked stairwell where the pretty glass-and-iron railing guarding the edge was either missing or dangling over the space of the stairwell.
“I have a concern, Willow. Is there time to speak to me?”
“Sure.” She swung, smiling, and held out her hand. “Let’s go over here. Mads will take care of everything for a while.” She tossed her partner the binoculars. “What’s the problem?”
“It’s Maura. I’ve heard that beasters never suffer from radiation sickness?”
“Well, no one has tested that to the fullest by going into the middle of anything like this.” She gestured toward where the destruction was worst, and the scrapers were piles of rubble.
“No, but it’s based on observed fact, right?”
“Yes.”
She kicked a rock out past what was left of a wall, watched it spiral down and out of sight. “Maura is human. How will we protect her?”
“We’ve begun already. She’s taking iodine tablets. I check her daily. I found in the past that I could cure radiation sickness in humans, if it was caught early. We can’t get her a radiation proof suit, but I’m informed that breathing in the dust and eating contaminated food is one of the easiest ways to get high doses, so once we reach Ground, we’ll be fetching her a vehicle, sealing it, and going through the Rad Zone fast. Toother and some of the beasters will tow it if we haven’t a fueled-up functioning engine. She’ll come out once a day only, for a brief period, then back in again.”
