Brisk looked at his lover. “Once you pump me full of painkillers,I’llfeelbetter.”
She chuckled. “Come on, let’s get you up and see if anythingleaks.”
Oh God, is that the technicalterm?
With Nox’s help, she hoisted the huge Marine into a standing position. A hole on the back of his thigh started to drip blood and Ronnie stapled it, making Briskflinch.
“A little warning?” hegrowled.
She winced. “Sorry, I forgot you weren’tmedicated.”
“Brisk, I’m sorry. The lake idea was stupid,” I apologized as I came up next tohim.
He waved an arm. “I’m still alive. And it was a good idea, because I don’t hear that thing after usanymore.”
He was right. We’d been there a while and the giant seemed to be stationary. Maybe itwasa goodidea.
“Take the thing,” I told Ronnie, handing the kitten sack off toher.
She rolled her eyes. “Lucy. Cats live twelve to eighteen years, so you better start calling her by her name.” shewarned.
Damn. I’ll have to put up with this furball for eighteen years? That’s a sobering statistic.Maybe Ronnie was right and I should try to make friends withit.
I put my hand near her head, about to pet her when she full-on attacked me, leaping out of her sack and clinging to my hand with every single clawoutstretched.
“Mother fu—” I shook her off and Ronnie caughther.
“Kit! Stop scaring her!” Ronnie looked at meincredulously.
My jaw was slack. “Are you serious rightnow?”
Ronnie just kissed the top of Lucy’s head and tucked her back into her pouch, turning away fromme.
It was official, I’d lost my best friend to a one-pound, psychotic furball hopped up on too muchcoffee.
Awesome.
Ten
“All right, let’s hunker down,”I told the group, then made my way to the rock cave. There were tons of these little ghoul-made caves all over the Dream Wars, three large flat rocks propped up to make shelter. The ghouls had always astounded me. They were one part barbaric, and one part highly advanced. It wasn’t what I thought an alien race would belike.
I helped get Brisk into the cave, where he sat and watched Jeremy play tic-tac-toe over and over again with Josephine, who had the patience of a saint. By my twentieth game, I would’ve lost my mind, but I knew the repetition brought Jeremy comfort, soothed his mind enough to let him cope with thesituation.
All in all, we had two plasma bricks, so we positioned them at the entrance of the cave where I was crouched with Damien, keepingwatch.
Over the next few hours,we heard those ground-shaking footsteps but nothing that felt too close. Then I heard something weird, like a scratchingnoise.
“Shh,” I told mycrew.
It could’ve been footsteps or it could’ve beennothing.
“Did that heat seeker thing make it through?” I whispered to Damien. The device would come in handy right aboutnow.
He shook hishead.
Frick.
If it was a bunch of sentries, we might be hosed. Only half of us had our plasma bands on, and the rocks holding up the back of our cave could be pulled down by someone motivatedenough.
