Lulu:Has he talked to you about marriage at all?
Rosita:He has. A little. But not lately. He’s very…simple when it comes to that sort of stuff. He’ll ask when he’s ready.
Lulu:Rosita, my brother is a moron, but trust me on this. He loves you. Don’t worry. I’ll beat some sense into him for you. You want a proposal? I’ll make it happen.
Rosita:Please don’t say anything to him. I kinda want him to figure out things on his own. He closes in on himself if he’s feeling pressured.
Lulu:He keeps his head buried up his ass, is what you mean.
Rosita:We’ll see what he does.
Lulu:Well, hopefully he won’t take too long. I saw your name checked off at the pharmacy when I was there the other day. So I know you’ve taken the pill. I don’t want no niece of mine to be a bastard. So if you do end up pregnant and my idiot brother doesn’t step up, I can’t promise you I won’t kick his ass on your behalf, whether you like it or not.
Rosita:That’s fair, Isuppose.
Day Five
ofFive
Chapter 37
“We are absolutely screwed,” I said as we entered the command room. “They’re going to steamroll right over us.”
Sam, Tito and Axel, Rosita, and Ariceli also entered the room. I gave Roger a questioning look.
“I have called them here, along with Lulu friend number six and Oliver friend number seven, but both declined.” Those were Harriet and Miguel 1. “We need to have a group planning session for the final battle.”
We all just stood there, all of us trying not to react to the term “final battle.”
“Harriet is too scared to come outside,” Sam said. He gave me a look. “I was just talking to her. She yelled at me for smoking that cigarette.”
Rosita came up and put her arm around me.
“I’m sorry about your house,” she said. “After this, you all can stay with me. You know, if I still have one.”
We still didn’t know what was happening with her house and greenhouse. We’d known RMI soldiers were holed up there the previous day, but we hadn’t heard anything since. Roger hadn’t been able to spare a UAV to check.
Betty Sue the chicken wandered into the room. Outside, Cindy the pig snorted loudly, pushing against her stall.
“Oliver, please close the door,” Roger said. I did as Sam scooped up Betty Sue.
An electric hum filled the room. “We are now shielded from listening devices,” Roger said. “We have multiple things to discuss, but first we should attempt to make contact with Eli Opel.”
“I agree,” I said.
“Very well. Lulu, will you please continue to be our voice? Please remember your name is Cindy for these interactions.”
The screen changed to the pad device still sitting in the woods, only it was now pitch-black outside.
Around the room, everyone except Lulu and myself gasped when they saw the message on the screen. Instead of the number of drop ships, it said, “Number of sign-ups for battle: 93%.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Sam said. “How many is that?”
“Approximately seventy-five hundred,” Roger said.
“We can’t fight off that many,” Sam said, waving his arm. From his grip, Betty Sue also flapped her wings. “Are you all insane? What are we going to do?”
“We can run,” Axel said. “Lulu and Oliver don’t have a house anymore. As soon as the battle is done, they’re all going to go away. Maybe we should just go into the woods and hide until the day after tomorrow like the others are doing.”
