Hush (The Infected: Ripped to Shreds Book 1) (19 page)

Subtly enough that saying
anything about it would be poor form, but it was, indeed, happening.

The words were flowing in front
of her eyes as Cindy enjoyed the dressing. It was nearly perfect and there were
two kinds. They even had the cranberry jelly she liked. Not enjoying the food
didn't make any sense, given that it was there, and no one had tried to steal
hers yet. She did eat quickly, knowing that Bridget might just want to have
whatever was left, if she could. The girl, thin and tiny, put food away like a
competitive eating champion. On the good side she wasn't too gross about it,
but the food vanished at a good pace anyway, just over a slightly longer time
period than a contest winner might use.

Her father, golden and attractive
even if he was weird, managed to be slower in his pace that way. Mary ate,
sticking to the potatoes, dressing and non-meat things for the most part. It
was all pretty heavy for her tastes, but it would, the text shared openly, be
rude to decline, if the day was truly only about eating. That seemed strange to
her, but this wasn't her home.

It was
better
. For all
their strange customs and ways, these people were vastly superior to her own.

Then she started thinking about
Hobbs, the red haired man from the library and Denny's. She wondered where he
was, actually and was about to ask when Brie leaned over. Rubbing against her
shoulder in a way that was far too chummy for a woman that had just helped
destroy her life.

"Nope. That was
all
you. You need to do the search yourself. It won't be hard. I'd start with
him." She didn't look around, or hint for anyone else. She meant Hobbs of
course.

Cindy wanted to be rude about it,
but kept her tongue in check, and did what she was told. It was probably
correct anyway. The brown haired woman was still being a bit of a bitch about
it all. It was a holiday dinner.

She'd seen the book, the
instruction manual on fighting the man represented, or that represented him,
and tried to bring it back to mind. It took focus, which took her away from her
food. After a minute or so, she had it, and was then able to find the index, which
got her to the info page as to what he was doing at the moment. Which was, very
simply, sitting on the garage roof out back, meditating on his search for
anything that might be coming for them.

She'd totally missed him before,
in their search. Then, she hadn't checked that high up, not being used to it.
Even hidden she could have noticed it, floating above him. That always happened
with people, and was kind of like a flag. That meant she really needed to step
up her game. She nodded, and Brie, the witch, smiled at her. Flirtatiously.

That it wasn't real was clear,
even without checking that part out.

The woman shook her head.

"Do it anyway?" No one
really seemed to notice the interplay too much. They heard the words, but they
didn't garner much interest.

Stubbornly, Cindy took a bite of
the potatoes with gravy.

"This is all really great.
Thanks, Lyn." She realized it was out of place for the murderer to be
saying, but didn't take it back. It was true and being polite was a useful
tool.

The woman smiled back.

"I'm glad you like it.
Should I get the pies ready?"

No one was really ready for that,
and she had half a plate of food left, so Ron touched her arm, and shook his
head a little bit.

"
Or
we could let them
eat first?" He was relaxed about it all. Not that he could help it. He
didn't just seem calm however, he was a bit cheerful. Mainly because she was
being polite to them.

Not being a fool, she tried to
find the info that she needed from Brie, which was less than fun. It wasn't a
mess or anything, but even organizing things like a book it took a while to get
to the right page, which was deep in the flood of everything. All the
information anyone knew.

However, it turned out that the
woman next to her, who did like Brian a lot, was just being friendly. She was a
bit of a perv, but not disingenuous about it. That she was a killer just didn't
bug the lady all that much. A lot of people were, and if it weren't for the
fact that she wanted to use Cindy, or more exactly, her power, she wouldn't
have said anything. Just leaving a serial murderer running free and possibly
doing the guy she liked for a few days.

It was open minded in a way that
only a person that had hung out with super villains for decades could really
manage. After all, she'd been friends, more or less, with killers and people
that wanted to kill millions of people.

For her part, Cin just didn't
care right back. It wasn't her business what the woman did. The only concern
was what she wanted to use her for. That came down to a mix of data gathering in
locations that she wasn't, and some interesting things that could happen in
bed. With her
and
Brian.

She didn't laugh, just going back
to eating, trying to listen to the conversation, which had nearly stopped
altogether. Finally Ron looked at them all, including her, and smiled. It was a
little dry, and he asked a pretty boring question, not knowing what else to do.

"So, does anyone have plans
for Christmas?"

There was an odd response that
rolled through the room. It started with Brian, who doubted, on a deep, almost
psychic level, that they'd be available then. It was going to take almost all
of them, whatever it was. He didn't know exactly what the nature of it was, but
it was pretty big. The thing was, while she could get all that he hadn't yet
really.

Bridget actually had a
very
similar response. The difference there was that it was about what Brie was going
to tell them, after dinner.

The rest just didn't want to come
visit and didn't want to promise anything really. To that end, she shook her
head.

"No one here will be
available around then. I don't know why, but it's big. I can get that
much." She stopped, but no one seemed to doubt, her, even though Rachel
looked over at her, skeptically. After a second, Brie started to nod however,
getting it too.

Her voice was a bit bemused.

"That's about right I think.
It's about what we talked about Rach. Also, we need to talk about something
else." There was a knowing look between friends that the other woman
simply didn't get. She was willing to wait however and trust the words then.

That left Ron floundering a
little, not knowing what to say, so she bailed him out, because it was nicer
that way. The guy was actually halfway decent, after all.

"So, what kinds of projects
do you have going on Ron? You..." She read fast, and realized what he was
working on was as dry as dust, but went on anyway. "A computer game? That
sounds interesting."

It really wasn't, because the man
was involved in the deep infrastructure of the game mechanics, not the
glamorous parts, like the graphics. Almost as if she were being a pain in the
ass on purpose, Brie started talking shop with him. Perfectly. After about five
minutes they stopped however, with everyone else nodding, even if Charlotte was
jokingly wondering if they were talking about magic.

Then she said the words, out
loud.

"If I would have known we
were practicing magic tonight I would have brought my grimoire." That got
a smile from Brian, and oddly one from Ron, who both got the reference to a
witches spell book.

Cindy got it too, being well
read. In fact she'd read several of the things over the years. She just didn't
want to risk pissing the woman off by laughing at her. She was fine with Ron,
who was harmless and nice to everyone, and Brian, who she had feelings for, but
that might not extend to her, given the moment.

She nodded though, to show she
understood. Then she kept her mouth shut. Except to finish her food. The others
did talk then, covering what kinds of pies they liked. It was pretty open, and
they had a lot of them, so when she was asked Cindy knew that saying hers was
fine, even if it was odd.

"
Definitely
peanut
butter cream pie. Cherry is my second fav. Not that all of them don't sound
great right now." That was due to the stress of her life being over, more
or less. Honestly, even knowing that no one was planning to kill her right
there, of the people in the room, that didn't mean that others might not be, at
a distance. Director Turner for instance.

So, she could have pie, and get
ready to die. She didn't want too, but she was, figuratively, falling off a
cliff, and wasn't able to fly. Worse, it was going to ruin her hobby. Death did
that to everyone, but it was a big problem for her, personally.

She caught an elbow to the ribs,
and fought not to wince. It didn't hurt, but she also got what Brie was doing.
Telling her not to just sit there, but to research her problem. To that end she
brought up Brian's book, and then moved over to Marcia who, internally...

Was worried. Not about
her
either. It took some reading to find out what the real problem was, since the
woman was actively trying to hide it from telepaths, by thinking only about
what she was doing. That wasn't a thing to stop Cin, so a few minutes later the
right data was found inside the woman's book.

The whole thing was probably
pretty dark for everyone else, since there was a fairly large coup going on
inside the IPB. Agents, mainly, but some of the Infected, too. Those where the
people behind the attack the night before. Which, oddly, had been aimed at
Prime, not the rest of them. He was a figure head, like Proxy and Bridget were,
but wasn't quite in their league as fighters. It was meant to weaken the IPB on
that side, but also to send the message to the rest of the world that they
weren't untouchable. Ultimately it was fear of Impulse that was the issue, but
no one had figured out how to do that yet.

It was probably what others would
have thought of as selfish, but Cindy just didn't care much about that. Scott was
an alright guy, in person, but she didn't know him. He wasn't her pet or
anything. Not yet anyway. If someone killed him that wasn't her problem. Now if
they went after her buddy
Wally
, then she'd have an issue. Even Brian
and Bridget could take care of themselves. She didn't really know about Prime,
since he was tough in his own way.

She waited for the elbow to fly
again, but Brie was distracted, looking at her love interest, Brian. Which
was
a bit rude, since serial killer or not, Cindy was his date. Finally she bumped
the woman back, getting a smile and shrug in return, rather than speech. She
knew what it was all about though. She knew pretty much everything.

Which, since Cindy knew her now,
meant that she really did too.

That got the woman to laugh a
bit, chuckling under her breath.

"
There
we go. There
is
power in knowledge too, if you use it right. Now, should we all help with the
pie?"

That got several nods, since a
lot of the food was gone from the table. She did it too, then looked at her
plate.

"We should save some for Mr.
Hobbs. What does he..." She'd been about to ask what he liked, but had
caught the basic idea of the day. She was supposed to actually go and find out,
because otherwise the woman that knew everything would goad her into it. It was
bitchy, but not wrong. Ill timed, given the end of her life coming, but she
kind of got the idea. She was being pushed to survive, if for needs that
weren't her own.

Getting up, she walked to the
kitchen, and got a plate, a fork and a knife, not one of the nice ones, just
the daily ware, since the thing was going outside. She would have used paper,
but Lyn thought that would be tacky, so Cindy went along with it. Ticking off
Proxy's mother wasn't her plan for the day. When she had a nice plate of things,
light on meat, but with a lot of starches, and color to it, and a nice piece of
apple pie, which was his favorite kind, she walked out back.

"Um... Hobbs? I brought some
food? How do I get it to you?" She knew that the answer was to have him
come to her, but to his mind that was a thing that she needed to
ask
him
about. He
would
have done it regardless, only with a sense of deep
grudging inside. That just wasn't the way it had been done back home. You
requested people do things, unless they were under you. Telling him to come
down for her was a command option. This way would mark her as an equal, but not
make him have to fight against a desire to call her on it. Not that he'd kill
her over it, or even fight. It would just make it harder for him to be her
friend that way.

Without exactly understanding
where he'd been, the man moved quickly, and rolled on the cold ground. It was
dirt under that portion and he ended on his feet, walking toward her.

"Ah! Kind of you to think of
me, miss. Being strange to you as I am. Is all well within? I have seen nothing
that I think of as note, as to this point." It was clear from the story
over his head, now that she had picked out the right page of it to not be a
fighting manual, that he was assuming she was both on his side in things, and
going to be reporting what he said.