Ahead of him, Gabriel and Victoria were already posted at the small wall around the edge of the building. Victoria was leaning against the wall, her pair of binoculars just barely peering above it.
The breeze kissed his sweaty skin, and he took a moment to enjoy it. Gabriel had forced him to wear his plate carrier, and the extra weight was dragging. It was too big and dug into his neck, but he hadn’t protested putting it on. It had once made him feel like a badass.
Now it just made him feel like a turtle.
“There’s adequate space,” Victoria said, her voice so low Blake almost missed it.
Gabriel hummed, taking the binoculars from her and scanning the street. He finished his pass by the time Blake joined them. He tried to keep his breathing even so they wouldn’t know just how pathetic he was.
It was the first time he’d been back to the city since the Insulin mission. The drive had felt claustrophobic in a way the city never had before. Blake wouldn’t say he had any kind of affinity for concrete jungles, but he’d never minded back then. It was loud, but he could also get a taco at three am, so it evened out.
But now it felt stifling. The hairs on the back of his neck were constantly tickling, sure that every nook and shadow was a hiding spot for evil. Where the Potomac View Motel had bed bugs and cheap sheets, the city seemed insidious, like the buildings were looming over them, watching. Waiting.
He had tried to keep his flinching to a minimum, but Gabriel had noticed. His big hand squeezed Blake’s thigh, and he’d focused on that. Like a focal point to keep him from jumping out of his skin.
Now they were sitting on top of a squat brick building that looked like it used to be a community center. The fire escape had been in decent shape, and they’d made quick work once they split up from Phin, Judd, and Tommy.
On a recon mission, Alvarez had suggested these coordinates for their final showdown. Two blocks to the east, there was aMetro stop. From street level, it looked like a concrete set of stairs to nowhere, with gum-riddled handrails and the stink of damp. But underneath it was in good shape, at least according to Tommy.
He was scoping out the power substation, making sure the mechanical components hadn’t been destroyed, and then working to bypass the fried electricalsystems so they could rig up some kind of extra-large extraterrestrial bug zapper.
Judd had some decent hands-on experience from working on the farm and a mechanics course he took with the army, and he was helping. According to Tommy, Judd was also not worried about spiders and sticking his hand in dark fuse boxes.
Phin was with them because he couldn’t stand to have Tommy out of arm’s reach. Even if he’d rather rip out his own tongue than admit it.
Which left the remaining members of Team Oh Shit to scope out the street.
And that would have been fine, Blake was good at that, but they were uncomfortably close to the vet clinic.
Irving said they needed to stay in that area because it was the last known location of the Queen. If the Monkey Cats weren’t moving her, it was best to lure the Off Formers here. That way, all teams would be in the same area for communication and extraction.
Upon hearing that, Judd had made a face, saying he’d give his left nut for a walkie-talkie. Phin told him it wasn’t a fair trade. They’d knocked over two tables in the scuffle.
Fingers digging into the brick, Blake looked over the half-wall and tried not to look too closely at the details. Which would probably be fine for anyone else. But for him, impossible.
He could see the charred marks from the car he’d lost Sara and her mom behind. The small alley where he’d watched the woman give her life. His throat tightened up as he rememberedher turning the corner, dragging her leg, and the Off Former twisting to aim down its gun at her.
It was probably quick.
Shaking his head, he tried to focus on what Gabriel and Victoria were saying.
“There’s enough debris on the east side, but we’ve got some holes to plug on the west.” Victoria pointed to the large openings in alleyways and destroyed buildings.
Gabriel had come up with the plan. The goal was to have a team lure the Off Formers into this street, funnel them into the center, and light them up.
In theory? Simple.
In practice? It was like fishing. Except the team would be the worm. And the worm was purposefully impaling themselves on a hook, jumping into the water, and hoping they could outswim the fish. Only, it wasn’t fish, it was an eight-foot-tall death suit driven by aliens with access to incendiary ammunition and foot soldiers who liked to chew.
Judd wanted to call it:Mission Unaliving Themselves.Blake thought it wasn’t too far off.
Gabriel and Victoria discussed the logistics while Blake found his attention drifting. Above them, so high the clouds drifted below them, the spaceships hovered. Or whatever they did. The Off Former’s were the first ship, and it looked much like a big, black marble. The Monkey Cat’s ship was farther away, hidden by clouds and the weakened human eye. It looked more oblong, maybe smaller.
Not for the first time, Blake wondered why they were even here. And if they killed the Monkey Cat Queen, would the Monkey Cat ship leave? Before communications had gone, they knew there was a ship above almost every major city in the world. But that was assumed to be the Off Formers, like in DC.Did that mean there was a Monkey Cat ship to match? Or was DC just lucky?
The soldiers didn’t care. To them, the enemy was the one on the other side of the gun. The reasons for it didn’t matter. That single-mindedness saved their lives, kept them from losing themselves to the gray of morality.
But Blake wasn’t a soldier, and he wanted to know more about these assholes and if Earth was just a convenient battlefield or if they landed here for a reason.
