Wild Beast Mate(32)

I yanked again.

It stayed on the table.

Bending, I peeked under it. Sure enough, it was bolted to the table.

I chuckled. Some things never changed.

On the right, I scouted the wall for metal cutters. There weren’t any, but I found an ancient chainsaw. Picking it up, I pulled the string. It roared to life, and, carefully, I chopped up the wooden table.

The one screw on the landing wheel always loosened, and I’d eat shit into the asphalt if I didn’t tighten it every time I lifted off. Free Kickster in hand, I turned it over to check the wheels. A set of new wheels presented themselves. Man, I love this guy! My eyes widened at the thought.





Chapter Ten





Vice



My wheels touched the high wall of Community Three, and I rolled to a stop. With a glance, I swept the open layout. I tapped my handle, thinking.

“It’s quiet,” Jamie said behind me.

I grunted an affirmative.

“Kids usually run to the bikes when we land. Something stinks.”

“Maybe they’re in class,” I said and dismounted, then came to stand at the edge. A fourteen-foot drop. I bent at the knees and leapt down. My feet hit the dirt. Other feet followed. I stayed in a crouch primarily because my body followed along with my instincts, and they screamed something was off.

Jamie crouched next to me. “Spread out,” he ordered, changing the teams we’d assigned. “One stays here, two secure the women’s housing, and Vice with me in the sanctuary.”

Jamie and I walked across the middle. Someone had just watered the dirt, so the mud stuck to our boots. When I got to the sanctuary, I kicked my heels over the steps and cleaned them.

“You wanna welcome mat?” Jamie said and opened the double door. He walked inside, dirty footsteps on clean marble be damned. I followed and closed the door behind me. The communities didn’t have much in terms of resources, but they sure loved decorating their shrines. Every gold piece they’d salvaged after the nuclear disaster gleamed on the walls. During their holidays, they spent every penny on a feast in the sanctuary and ate with silver spoons, celebrating the births of their prophets, who preached modesty. The irony of the human race never failed to amaze me.

The sanctuary had a high ceiling with high-placed windows. Sunlight pierced through and illuminated the metal circle in the middle on the ground. A carving of a man and a woman with a child graced the top of the circle. They prayed for their families, believed they did the best for their kids.

Jamie stomped right over the circle, paused in the middle, and spun around, arms out, “Come out, come out!” Nothing. “Don’t make me search for you!” He touched his nose and shook his head. I didn’t smell anything either.

The door burst open.

Teeth bared, I spun around.

Torrent stood at the door, an arrow sticking out of his neck. “Ambush,” he said and hit the marble. Men in black swarmed inside the sanctuary. They circled us and aimed arrows at our chests. I backed up until I felt Jamie’s back touch mine. There had to be at least fifty of them, all armed, all dressed in black rags. Men of Earth, I thought. They didn’t speak, their eyes and arrows trained on us.

“That’s a lot of meat,” Jamie mumbled.

“Don’t fuck around.”

“Hey, everyone,” he said, and I wanted the earth to open up and swallow us. Here goes reckless and dangerous. He continued, “You gonna point that shit at me, you better kill me now, ’cause I—”

Jamie grunted.

“What?”

“Motherfucker!” he roared.

From under our feet, the circle slid open.

We fell.



Dewlyn



About a hundred feet above Best Cake and Deco’s roof, I hovered in the air, waiting for Paulina to park her precious delivery van. She’d just bought that monstrosity and didn’t even know how to park it right. As the city became more populated, driving a monster van on the ground was counterproductive to efficiency of cake delivery. At least I thought so. I rode up high in the sky. Although, this morning, even with my tiny skater zipping between the high-rises, I barely avoided the late-morning traffic.

Finally, when she parked it and went inside, I descended and landed with a soft thump, my wheels taking me the rest of the way to the stairs. Paulina and I had never spoken to each other. She pretended not to notice me coming in and out of the side of the building, especially if I carried things with me. It was safer for her and for me. Sometimes we nodded at each other, but most times, I snuck into the basement without her noticing me. In the rare event the pairs ventured outside, they didn’t interact with her either. They preferred to stay under, keep a low profile, fearing one of the beasts would see them, recognize them as one of the pairs, and report them to their beast male counterpart.