Hush (The Infected: Ripped to Shreds Book 1) (25 page)

Clark Clarkson. The kiddy
fiddler.

When Devorah Timberland, the evil
Braid, had tried to use that against Bridget, the girl had let him die, rather
than not do her duty. That was a person who she
loved
. So just sucking
it up and having sex with her wasn't enough to get Cin clear that way. It was
better to be her friend, but nothing would save her that way. Not from Impulse.

It wasn't fair. Not to either of
them.

She shrugged, and turned to the
girl, who was starting to get a little tired already.

"You can take the sofa? I
have some extra bedding. It should be big enough for you."

That got a cute smile, and a head
shake. It wasn't a no, just a rueful expression.

"Sounds about right. Let me
do a perimeter check. You should, too. Look for people and all that? We should
be safe enough, but it never hurts to check things out if we get a
chance." She moved, right on top of the last word, heading for the door,
from what seemed to be a standing start, even though she'd been sitting while
she spoke. It was just a sign of her real power that way.

Cin did her part, because dying
before she had to would mean she didn't get to escape, ever. How that was going
to happen she didn't know. It might not be possible, given Proxy and his power.
Then, Brian wasn't immortal that she knew of. Not that she was plotting his
death, but if something happened there, she might just have a chance to get
away. Maybe even if he were to be side tracked for long enough.

That meant giving up might be premature,
so she did the right thing and would keep going with it. Doing anything else
was insane. Not that she wasn't, but there were different kinds of mental
illness and hers wasn't one of the dumb ones.

Bridget was tucked in on the
sofa, a loose sheet over her, instead of a blanket, since cool out or not, she
slept hot. It was kind of hard to drift off, for Cindy, but she managed it
eventually, expecting to have the girl tapping her on the head at five. The
alarm was set for four-thirty, but they were going to bed pretty early, which
made that nearly enough sleep.

It was the buzzer that got her
going, and it was her that had to wake up the little super powered being. Which
she did safely from the other side of the room, the kids words telling her that
standing right there wasn't the best plan in existence, since one flailing
thwap might just kill her. It came too, as she called out.

"Bridget? Rise, and get your
butt up. We need to get ready... Bridget?
Briiiidgeeet
!" She yelled
on the last one, and it really worked, but the promised flailing seemed a lot
more like combat moves, and were so fast, even from a dead sleep, that she
moved an extra step away even from her position by the door.

As soon as the girl blearily
looked at her, Cindy dashed to the other room, and got two of the larger
containers of leftovers. This was in the fridge, and was cold, but she got a
spoon and fork to go with it. The kid cared not at all about cold food, and
simply started to eat. Hard. Enough so that Cindy, feeling none too steady
herself, went and got the rest of it from the other room, including the
remaining pies, and set them on the sofa.

Bridget nodded, but kept eating,
almost mechanically.

Looking around, she shook her
head, knowing that she was never really going to see the little house again.
Once she walked out the front door that morning, her old life, in many ways,
was gone. Dust and smoke, left to drift away. Like it had never really been
anything at all.

The only thing that was going
with her, other than a few changes of clothing, would be the killings she'd
done. So at least she had her memories of that. It didn't feel like enough. Not
when she would have traded everything she owned just to keep that one little
thing. Her right to kill whoever she wanted.

"I need to shower, then
pack. Eat all that, and anything else you want that I have? I won't need to eat
today." She moved off, and didn't stop until there was a knock on the
door, at ten minutes before six. She checked it first, to see who was there,
expecting Brian, her capture, but it was actually Scott. The others were in the
van. She could tell that because of the words that were showing through the
side of the thing.

That they had one of those, a
large vehicle, made sense, given that there were so many of them.

She opened the door, to find the
golden man smiling at her, his lavender eyes shining just a bit. He was in a
suit, to travel in. For her part she'd picked jeans, a t-shirt, and a hoody. It
was blue, but warm. Plus, if she needed to kill anyone, she was ready. Over
that she was going to have a jacket, but hadn't gotten it on yet. Bridget had
their things staged, and had already told her to put the keys on the kitchen
table. Their people would just break in, and not need them, when they came to
collect her stuff. Not that she wasn't taking her papers with her, packed up
already. That and most of her clothing, and knives. She'd gotten those dug up
from the back, not wanting to just leave them.

A part of her still felt like she
was going to need them. For her hobby.

Bridget was dressed in nicer
clothing than she was, too. It wasn't a dress like the day before however. Just
slacks and a girly, but flowing, shirt. That way she could move, and fight, in
it if the need came up.

Prime, at the door, looked in and
nodded.

"You're both up and ready?
Great! We were all a bit worried that you'd stay up all night, partying and
carrying on. You know how you girls can get. So, shall we hit the road? Do you
need to eat, or go to the bathroom first? We're on a military flight, since
it's around the holidays." To him that made perfect sense.

She read about it, and got the
idea. The IPB didn't fly commercial most of the time, to protect the public in
case of attack. That meant they either went with the military, which was most
of the time, or on a private jet. Chris Pours, the telepath, had one of those.
She lent it out to everyone, not being stingy, even if it cost a lot to run. At
the moment however it had been lent to other people, ones from Team Two, so
that they could get home for the holiday. Some of the less attractive people
had problems even on the military flights.

That meant, when they got to the
black van, which had government plates, that they weren't headed to PDX, but
rather a base someplace that she'd never even heard of. Inside of the vehicle,
up in the front, were two men in black. One of them was thin, blond and was in
the driver's seat. The other was darker skinned, but was watching the world
around them so closely that it was clear he expected attack, even if she wasn't
able to read that about him.

They all kind of were. These two
were agents, but on their side. Neither had even been approached about
betraying anyone. That meant whoever was doing it, trying to take over and kill
off the leadership, would be after them too. The smaller man had worked that
out instantly, the night before, as soon as the news hit.

Brian had gotten out too, and was
watching as well. Everyone else was resting, half asleep, in the van.

"Hey! You didn't run off in
the night. Glad to see it.
That
would have made me look good with the
boss, after vouching for you like I did."

From behind her Hobbs approached.
She turned to look at him, his clothing the same as the day before. He was
clean, and tried to stay that way, but wasn't prone to assuming airs, it
seemed. There was a smile from the man, but his mind was busy with other things
at the moment. Almost everyone there was, early or not.

Bridget took the bags, secured
the front door, and then moved to climb in, pulling Cin with her.

"Things went fine here. I
already ate. We need to make sure that Lyn gets her Tupperware back. I left a
note with the address on it for the packers." Then, almost as if it made
sense, they moved toward the very back, and Cindy was wedged into place next to
Brie and Rachel. There were only three seat belts however, which meant Bridget
moved up a row. Before she could ask why the girl needed one, she explained.

"Even the hard to hurt
people need them, so if there's an accident we don't fly around whapping the
rest of you in the head." There was a little pantomime to go with it,
including sound effects and hand gestures. The girl had turned around to look
at her, as she was pressed against the wall of the thing.

"Ah. Good to know. Well... I
guess this is goodbye to the good life?" She meant it, since the one thing
she cared about was going to be well and truly lost. It already was, really,
but this was the final sign of that.

No one got it except Trivia, who
leaned forward to smile at her, past Rachel.

"Yeah. The old goes away, to
be replaced by something new and different. It won't always be easy, but you'll
live. Anyway, we should be in the air inside two hours. One nice thing about
flying with the military is that they
hardly
ever assume you need a body
cavity search first. Not to knock the TSA, but they
are
about as Mickey
Mouse as you can get and not actually be helping the terrorist climb on board
on purpose." She didn't even smile at that bit.

Which, given the way things had
been going in the world didn't really leave her feeling all that safe and
secure. Her life wasn't about that, and hadn't been for years, so she didn't worry
about it. The others all got in, including Hobbs, and they left quickly. The
man at the wheel drove like his granny was with him, going exactly the speed
limit, and using his signals all the time. Unless they were being followed, he
simply
would
be doing that.

Then, if that happened, all the
rules would suddenly change. Most of the others, except Charlotte, were looking
around for threats, so she did that too. By reading
them
. She started
with Brie, the woman, who looked far too good for that early in the day, having
been trying to find anyone that might be thinking about them. She knew what
everyone else in the world did, but that was a lot of people, so pin pointing
one that wasn't in front of her, or at least known took
skill
. Really,
in a lot of ways, the woman wasn't that much better off than Cindy was. A bit
better at using her powers, if being twenty times more skillful counted as that,
and her ability to actually use abilities was nearly total, once she needed
them, even if she couldn't find the exact source, which was cool, but in
finding people using her powers, she was kind of in the same boat.

So that part didn't help much.

Brian was edgy, but that was his
way, she realized. He was a combat vet who had seen more sudden violence than
anyone in the world ever had. Others had killed more, like Bridget, but Proxy
was the one that had been in more fights. One and two people at a time, to the
death, for the most part. That meant his brain was riddled with problems now,
because fighter or not, that didn't make you immune to post traumatic stress.

It was Bridget that had the
needed information for them all. Her subconscious mind pointed out that they
were going to have smooth sailing, back to the base. It was psychic thing, too.
Not just a guess. That didn't keep her from being watchful however, not being
consciously aware of the fact.

Cindy pretended to do the same
then, since it would make her look good.

Like a team player that actually
cared about the others with her.

It was funny, but she noticed
that the driver was at least as big of a psycho as she was. Not a killer,
however. He liked to hurt people, but had buried all of that in his work. He
did a good job, all the time, and was conscientious about it, but he didn't
have any real empathy. There was no crying for Old Yeller at the end of the
movie in his past, and he knew it. He
also
didn't care, since it didn't
hurt his work.

The other man in black was more
normal that way, but so cold inside that it was almost the same thing. If he
killed innocent people he might lose some sleep, but that wouldn't stop him
from doing what he had to.

The others were actually all
nicer than that, being regular people who'd been tossed into the fray of life
by the Infection. Prime was even
nice
, inside. Kind and not as
egotistical as everyone had always said. Charlotte was a bitch, but that was
her first mode, more or less. She fought it, trying not to be that hard all the
time, but it mainly didn't work. Even at that, and feeling annoyed by the early
wake up, the woman wasn't taking it out on any of them yet, so there was that.

Rachel was feeling a little
horny. Past that her mind was on work, like everyone else was.

So, they were a strange bunch of
freaks, but not evil inside. The worst person there that way was, without a
doubt, her. Hobbs was just focused, and mentally active the whole time, not
emotional at all.

It was telling about things, she
thought.

When they got to the airport, the
military base, they were passed through quickly, being expected. Inside the
chain link fence they went right to the airfield, which was still a good drive
away, taking several minutes, and unloaded quickly. Well, everyone except
Charlotte did. She took her time about it, since being rushed made her mad.