Hush (The Infected: Ripped to Shreds Book 1) (17 page)

Her words were better than her
feelings really. Still a bit catty, but not the near violence she felt at the
moment.

"That's a good point, dear.
We should sit and watch the game?"

They
did
, though it was
clear that the only person there that knew all the rules was actually
Charlotte, and everyone else was preoccupied with various other things. Bridget
was worried,
and
hungry, so Cin got up to get more snacks from the
kitchen, which smelled wonderful already. She was met by scared expressions at
the door, but smiled and held up the chip bowl.

"Chips and dips? Bridget's
spine is about to be eaten through." Scott was in a similar state, but it
wasn't
as
intense. It was strange, but the large man, with all his
muscle and power, only needed to eat half of what his tiny daughter did. Then,
from what she was reading from him on the topic that was because Bridget was,
most likely the most powerful physical being in the world.

Which really didn't surprise Cin
in the slightest. After all, everyone had watched her slaughter thousands of
people all over the country, for months. No one had even slowed her down,
including some Infected that would have given full military battalions a hard
time.

She looked at Brian's mother, who
moved very quickly to set things up for her. Too fast, by about twice what a
bustling woman should have been able to manage. That was due to her power,
which came up over her head, explaining the idea. She'd thought, for a long
time that she was just faster than most, able to move like she was at the
moment, and run about three times the speed that normal people could. It turned
out that it wasn't physical however. She was, subtly, manipulating time
instead. It still burned enough calories that she was lean, without having to
really fight too hard to stay that way.

Then another thing occurred to
Cindy.

"You know, in the bustle
earlier, I didn't really get your name. Going around calling you Brian's mom
seems just a bit to childish really." She grinned, and got one in return
from the woman.

"Lyn. We should get together
and talk soon? It never hurts to have more friends." The lady was polite,
and managed friendly well, but it was also spelled out that she really wanted
to find out what Cindy liked to do, and help her do better at it.

Even if she didn't want to
herself. On the good side she was trying to fight the impulse, even if she
wasn't exactly winning the day. Part of that was down to the stress of
everything going on. New people, and ex-girlfriend in the other room, and
people trying to kill her family two days in a row.

It was time to nod, and look
pleased by the idea. Since she didn't care at all, it wasn't that hard. They
probably didn't have a lot in common, but they were both Infected, and she was
yet another potential line to Brian and Bridget. Prime too, since they were all
related, and even on decent terms.

"We should! In a week or two
though? I just came out as Infected at work, so I need to make sure I stay on
top of that really well. So far it's going better than expected, but things
change."

There was a knowing look, from
the woman that really didn't seem to be old enough to be Proxy's mom, and a
large tray of high calorie snack foods being handed off.

"That's true. Often in
unexpected ways. Get my number before you leave." Then she moved, fast,
back to work. Doing the work of two or three people, while Brian moved fast
himself. Not that he was really able to keep up that way. He was in shape and
used to pushing himself, even around people with powers, but that didn't make
him a chef. He had to keep checking the directions on this, which cost him
about twenty-five percent of his time, if not slightly over that.

Still, she wasn't needed there so
turned carefully, trying not to cast food all over the place and got the four
decently large bowls back to the front room in less time than she would have
normally expected. It wasn't that she was running, since that was the exact
opposite of the truth. She was moving in a smooth and slow fashion the whole
time.

At the door, she was met by
Ronald, who took the trays even more smoothly.

It was well done enough that she
stared over his head, reading all about him. There was just as much going on in
his world as anyone else had. It was just softer, and more normal, being that
his first mode was, more or less, feeling peaceful. His power was all about
muscular coordination, and while it did make him really good at most sports, he
worked in computer programming. Being a bald older seeming man with gold wire
rimmed glasses, that fit. He was thin, and had a lean muscularity however,
which she should have noticed before. It was enough to keep him from looking
raw boned however, so more or less he could pass as normal in most places.

His big concern for the day was
Brian, not any of the others, since for some reason, a lot like her, he kind of
feared that the boy would show up one day and kill him. The big difference was
that he wasn't a serial killer, or even a tax evader. No, his only crime had
been marrying Lyn, who really had been divorced when he'd met her. That story
was a pretty common seeming one. They'd met in a grocery store, and he'd
started talking to her, noticing that her quickness was just a bit off. Being
attuned to how people moved being part of his own coordination power.

Then, one thing led to another.

It wasn't a thing she'd picked up
from Brian on the topic, but Ron was really concerned that he might just end up
dead sometime, without anyone being the wiser as to who had done it. For all
the news occasionally covered the numbers of people that Brian was forced to
kill, it was a lot higher. Sometimes he had to go and kill upward of three
people a day. Even that morning he'd had two fights, in different places, with
one death.

So if one day Ronald just happened
to be one of them, or even vanish, it might not be noticed by anyone important
enough to count.

On the good side, the man also
knew, on some level, that he was being silly, and that Brian Yi, his wife's
son, was a good man. All the way down, too. That probably meant that if he ever
suddenly showed up, it would be to
save
him from something, not remove
him from the world for being a mother-fucker.

Cindy smiled, since the text had
actually told her that last bit directly. It was true, but for anyone to think
of themselves that way was just... Odd.

The snacks were passed out, and
Bridget looked up at her, shining and twitching rapidly at the same time.

"You know Cindy, I'm only a
little bi, but if the thing with Brian doesn't work out, I'm willing to give it
a try." The look was
all
for the food though, and she was only a
tiny bit serious.

She really did like Cin pretty
well so far, and had done enough with women to know that it wasn't that bad of
the thing. That she'd done more that way than Cindy ever had, both with men and
women, kind of set her back for a few seconds. It wasn't just a little bit
either. She, an adult, had been with five men. That was it. That included a few
longer term relationships, from before she'd become Infected, so there was a
lot of sex and other things, but not the raw numbers.

Bridget was up in the high double
digits, and had only been legal for about eight months in her home state. Then,
most of that had been before her sixteenth birthday.

The responses to the words were
odd, from the others. Mary looked at the girl, and nodded almost imperceptibly.
In her world the powerful could court anyone they wanted. That Cindy, this new
woman, was powerful as well, was clear to her however. That was due mainly to
how she'd handled things correctly earlier. Treating Mary as she expected. The
customs were so different that even being able to learn, or guess at, how that
would be done meant that Cin was a person to watch, and not treat too casually.
So to her mind, her great-granddaughter was being prudent and even wise.

Scott was a bit concerned, but
for pretty different reasons. Bridget was being either joking or really forward,
and it could be hard to tell which one of those it was for a lot of people. He
was her
father
and didn't get it all the time.

The girl's mom was a bit miffed,
her reaction being the strongest, since Brian needed someone, and it was just
possible that Bridget could steal Cin away from him. She was young, and famous,
so that was a possibility. Given how she felt herself about Brian, that
wouldn't be a good thing to her mind.

Still, Bridget was just trying to
be nice and playful, so she winked at the girl, to show she got it.

"Eat up. You too Scott.
There's more in the kitchen, if you need it. Bags of the stuff." She'd
noticed that, so it was true. These two weren't going to spoil their appetites
either. They functionally couldn't.

Reading carefully, looking at the
television and pulling the information from Prime around, she understood a few
things that she hadn't really gotten before. He
was
very hungry, but the
man, who was massive, and weighed even more than he looked like, nearly three
hundred pounds, didn't need to consume even half as much each day as the
seventy-odd pound girl.

That was because the tiny waif
was actually, at least as far as anyone knew, the most powerful being on the
planet. Physically. There were a few people with energy and mental based
abilities that could do more damage, but as far as what a body could do,
Bridget was at the top, or so near it no one could tell any difference.

In a way, Cindy knew that one
already. She'd seen the girl fighting hundreds of Infected at one time once.
They just died. All of them. Over the months of the unrest, it had been, as
often as not, this one girl that was on the television stopping the fighting.
By herself.

There had been some others, after
a bit, but anyone seeing Impulse knew not to piss her off now. They should have
anyway.

The cost of that power was a
metabolic rate that was so intense that Bridget would probably die of hunger if
she didn't eat for longer than a day or two. She just didn't have enough mass
to work with for anything else, and so far there had been no way to slow that
part down. She ate, or died.

On the great side, she liked
food, so it wasn't that big of an issue for her.

Settling again, next to Bridget
on the large sofa, she took a single cheese flavored corn chip, and seeing her
little buddy scooping up ranch dressing by the tablespoon with each bit, tried
a smaller coating of it herself. It didn't seem like it would work, but the
whole thing actually meshed well enough really. The girl looked at her, smiled
charmingly and nodded. Then she waved at the television.

"You know, this is a bit
sad. Half of us could take on those guys at their own sport, and win. The other
half could do it if they worked together." Bridget glanced at her mother
and shrugged. "They don't seem to have power blasts allowed, so you might
not do that well."

That got a chuckle, as if it were
a joke, which it was after a fashion. A lot of Infected were able to do some
amazing things, but it didn't all translate to every part of their life.

Cindy grinned.

"I'll be the coach, if it's
all the same? Being smashed by a two hundred pound man doesn't sound all that
fun to me."

That got the red headed girl to
cross her eyes and wrinkle her nose.

"Wimp. That probably is the
best use of your skills. You can steal the other team's plays and what they
plan to do, which would be a big edge. That would probably work for other
things too. Gambling, or the stock market? Get insider information and all
that. No one would be able to catch you if you did it right. Start a hedge
fund, or whatever that's called, and return high rates consistently, but only
do as well as your best competitor. Boom, rich." It wasn't meant to be
instructive, but it wasn't a horrible idea either.

If she weren't a hobbyist like
she was, Cindy might even have looked into the idea. The truth was that she
didn't want the obvious attention that being suddenly successful might bring,
so had avoided a lot of things like that. The library wasn't just a job she was
good at, but one that made her nearly invisible to most people. Financial
tycoon, that would get her noticed. It could be bad, so she didn't do it.

The girl jumped up so fast that
she had to catch the multi-colored chips before they could hit anything in the
all white room. Only super powers let her save the day there, but she barely
notice, setting the nice wooden bowl on the table and heading toward the door.
Scott was on his feet as well, and actually sniffed the air, then nodded, his
face a bit troubled.

"Rachel, and...
Trivia?" That got a look at his daughter, who, it seemed, knew the other
woman better. It didn't really seem that important, since both the new comers
were well liked, if unexpected.

Mary smiled, a bit less tightly
than she had been and stood too, which got Ron to do it as well. That left her
as the only one sitting, so she did it as well, not wanting to call attention
to herself, or not seem like a team player. Charlotte moved to the door first
however, opening it carefully. She managed to get along with both women fairly
well, and had mentioned to Rachel when dinner was going to be. It would have
required them to fly in, but that wasn't too uncommon, and while not related by
blood, Rachel was family.