“You will, child,” she said, smiling as she wavered out of existence.
“Wait!” Cassie shouted, but it didn’t matter. Her mother was gone.
When Rafe brought Cassie out, she felt melancholy and more lost than ever. She’d spent all the night before in her room. The next morning, Rafe had asked for her to come back to work in The Program. It was the last thing she wanted to do. Every fiber of her being wanted to run away and never have to enter The Program again.
“What was that?” he asked her as she slid off the terminal chair.
“It was the same hologram that led me out of the dome.”
She shrugged and walked away, not listening to him barking behind her. She was tired of being given orders. If he wanted the information, he could at least ask nicely. All the half-understood impressions of the truth left her weary. She passed the troop and ignored Neil when he called her from the front of the exercise line.
She flicked her hand at him, walked right past, and went inside. What did she need martial arts training for?
She lay down on her bed and got under the covers, curling into a fetal position as tightly as she could. The door swung open, and she heard breathing behind her.
“Do you want to tell me exactly what this insubordination is about?”
“What?” she said, not turning. “I’m not part of your pack. You can’t order me around. If you want the information in my head, you can be nice about it. Otherwise, go ahead and kick me out. I don’t care. I don’t want to be here anyway.”
He sighed heavily and strode around her cot to plop down on Selina’s bed. He put his hands on his knees supporting his elbows over his widespread legs. He stared at her. His lips pursed, and his amber eyes darkened.
He sighed again and relaxed his posture, crossing his arms and leaning in to get a better look at her. Cassie didn’t speak and didn’t care what he thought.
“Look, Cassandra, this pack operates in a certain way. I am their general, their leader. Everyone follows my commands, and that is how we maintain order. Without a leader, this group of shifters would be in chaos. I’ve been able to keep them safe for five years. We do need your help to get to the bottom of Pyramid Corp’s plans. Don’t you want to know what’s going on? Don’t you want to find out their connection to those vampires flying around in the sky?”
“Yeah…” she said under her breath and under the blanket covering half her face.
“I know you aren’t a spy. If that makes you feel better. I can give you a special rank to reflect the fact that you have a special operation to perform. It will afford you a certain level of respect within the pack. How does that sound?”
“And does it afford me respect with you?”
He sighed again and looked out the window. His gaze darted back to Cassie, his golden eyes sharp. “We’ve never had a human among us. I can’t be seen as giving you favoritism. I’m the leader here. My word is law. Do you understand?”
“I guess,” she said noncommittally.
“Let’s strike a bargain. When we are alone, I will regard you as an equal. When we are with the rest of the pack, you are my subordinate. Don’t question me, and under no circumstances roll your eyes at me. Do I make myself clear?”
“Fine.”
“I hope we have an understanding.”
He stood. Cassie remained silent and sank further under her blankets. She knew she was being childish, but she needed to burn off some of her frustration. Her emotions had been building since she left the dome, and now they were boiling out of control.
Rafe stood over her, his amber eyes still dark. To Cassie’s utter surprise, he reached down and stroked her hair. A slow smile curved on his lips as Cassie looked up at him in shock.
His touch radiated hot desire through her body. Her lips parted. She turned over on her back, and her legs fell slightly open, as if on instinct. Her nipples pricked against the thick wool blanket. His nostrils flared as he sniffed the air that carried her arousal. Their eyes locked, and he slowly bent toward her.
“Hey, sorry, sir. Are you busy?” Selina said from the doorway.
Rafe growled at her, and Selina shrunk away, disappearing into the hall. He glanced back at Cassie, his expression clearing of the arousal they’d just shared. He squared his shoulders, brushing off the emotion.
“So, we have an understanding. Carry on with your troop until further notice.”
“All right,” she said, breathless. When he walked away, Cassie felt faint. It was as if he took all the oxygen with him when he left. She sat up in bed and glared at Selina when she walked into the room.
“What? Why does it smell like sex in here?” she asked, sniffing.
“I don’t know. Have you been having sex in here?”
“No. I don’t have sex in my bunk. I do it in the woods like a normal werewolf.”
“So that’s where werewolves like to do it?” she asked.
“Eh, sure. Did you have some plans to mate with the alpha?”
“No. Of course not.”
“Could have fooled me,” she said, sniffing again. “The way you two were looking at each other and the smell of this place, I’d say it’s inevitable. He has his choice of females around here, you know.”
“Does he… mate with a lot of women?”
“I don’t know. I smell females on him sometimes.”
Cassie felt a sudden surge of jealousy. Not that she understood why. Rafe was like thirty, totally not her type, and he was rude. “What did I miss today in training?” she asked, changing the subject.
“Same old, same old. Neil took your insubordination out on all of us though. So thanks. We had to do six extra laps round the yard. I hate training in human form, blah. It’s so weak and sweaty.”
“Sorry.”
“Well, he canceled combat practice. Said he had to talk to the alpha. So, we have the whole afternoon free.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I was going to go hunting with Toby. Might be able to snag a few rabbits and mate in the woods.”
“Ew. I don’t want to know about your love life.”
Selina leaned forward on her cot and sniffed the air around Cassie. Her eyes grew large, and she laughed. “You’re a virgin!”
“Shut up. It’s none of your business.”
“Didn’t they let you do it in the dome?”
“No. Strictly forbidden. I don’t want to talk about it. Just go,” Cassie said, throwing her pillow at Selina.
Selina continued laughing but took the hint and left for her rendezvous with Toby. As soon as Selina left, Cassie instantly felt bored. There was nothing to do if she wasn’t training or working with Rafe in The Program.
In the dome, they had activities that took up most of their time. Only a small fraction of that time was taken up with physical exercise. They had lessons in history, mathematics, sciences, humanities, and language for most of the day. Later they had arts and crafts. After dinner, they were allowed to use the computer terminals to access pre-war entertainment such as television and movies.
She got up from her cot and wandered out into the yard. There was a second troop doing combat training. Cassie didn’t think she’d ever get good at being so violent.
She walked through the green grass, around the exercising troop, and climbed the fence that bordered the vegetable garden. She ambled down a row of strawberries and plucked a ripe red fruit from the vine. The sweet flavor burst on her tongue.
Her mother had loved strawberries and used to grow them and buy huge bushels of them from the farmer’s market to make homemade strawberry jam. Cassie sank down between the row of strawberries and the row of broccoli and let a tear roll down her cheek.
After she had entered the dome, her grief for her parents swiftly abated. Shock at the destruction of the world never quite sank in. As she sat in the werewolves’ garden, eating the juicy red strawberry, she realized she hadn’t cried about losing her parents, even once. She’d never felt anything.
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All the anger and sadness that had been suppressed welled to the surface. A frantic cry shuddered through her lips; she jumped to her feet and ran. She sprinted through the garden, jumped the fence, and darted past the outer perimeter of the compound into the woods.
Under the shade of the forest, she sprinted through the underbrush until her lungs burned. She doubled over, sucking in air. Collapsing on the forest floor, she let herself express all the hurt and rage that had been pushed deep down inside.
She cried herself weak until all that was left was a quiet shudder. She could feel the forest absorb her emotions. The trees sucked in all her pain as if they were taking in carbon monoxide and giving out oxygen.
Cassie looked around at the gray trunks of blue spruce and white and black aspen stands. The air seemed to sparkle with life, leaving her refreshed. She smiled, relaxing. Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted movement.
Her gaze shot to it. She blinked, regarding the changing expression of a face in the bark of a tree. Cassie jumped to her feet, suddenly terrified. She examined the figure as it emerged from the trunk.
A fully formed human woman with bark skin and leafy hair stood before her. Cassie took a step backward, her back hitting the tree behind her. The tree woman smiled at Cassie and took a step forward. Cassie could feel the tree woman communicate inside her mind. “There is nothing to fear,” she soothed. “You can hear me; it makes me glad, human.”
“Hi,” Cassie said, giving the tree woman a halfhearted wave. She didn’t know how to mind communicate but hoped the tree woman would get her meaning anyway.
Cassie bit her lip and tried to calm her thumping heart. Selina had said something about dryads. Humans really turned into plants during the radiation blasts. Weird!
“The forest cleanses your heart. Human. You have suffered much. You had your truth taken. The forest is with you, warrior seer. Farewell.”
With that, the dryad’s body turned to leaves that blew away on the wind. Cassie, awestruck, watched the green fragments of what had been a whole body flutter away. It wasn’t until a moment later that it registered that the dryad had called her “warrior seer.” That was the last thing Cassie would call herself.
She walked a few yards farther and heard the sound of yelping and moaning. She remembered the conversation she’d had with Selina about sex in the woods. Yuck. She didn’t want to see that. She turned on her heel and walked back toward the compound.
It was dusk by the time she made it back. Dinner was being served. She felt like being alone, so she scooped up a dinner of boar hamburger and garden salad to take back to her room.
When she got to her bunk, she found a handful of books sitting on her cot. There was a note attached.
Thought you might like something to read.
Rafe
The books were a mixture of fiction and nonfiction, including books on physics, history, biology, metaphysics, and philosophy, a few adventures, and a romance or two. The books were a huge relief to Cassie, who’d spent the majority of her time for the last five years in intensive study.
In the compound, everyone was obsessed with physical ability. It left her brain practically begging for something to read and learn.
Rafe had known exactly what she needed. She hadn’t even realized it herself. She stacked the books in the box under her bed and took out the one on metaphysics. It was a subject that they did not explore inside the dome.
She read about how everything in the universe is energy. The collective human mind worked with that energy to create a shared projection that was much like a hologram. Cassie lay back on her bed, resting the book on her chest, to ponder the idea.
If the collective mind created reality, why would they create World War III?
Chapter 10
Cassie woke in the night, drenched in sweat and breathing harshly. Danger. Her mind rang with alarm. Something was wrong.
She jumped from her bed and turned on the light. Selina was not there. Was she on a hunt? Had she ever returned last night?
Quickly pulling on her clothes and shoes, she tried to clear her head to understand what was wrong. The dryad had called her warrior seer, but she didn’t see anything. She knew, at a visceral level, that danger was imminent. Cassie could feel the cold hand of fear grip her chest and squeeze her heart. She had to alert someone.
She ran down the hallway of the bunkhouse and out into the darkness. There were no signs of activity in the compound. She didn’t know whether the hunters were gone or sleeping in their beds. All she knew was that she had to tell Rafe about her feeling. He was the only one who would understand.
She ran to the building that held his private quarters. Somehow, she knew exactly where to go. She ran down a hallway and flung open his door to find him sleeping in bed, illuminated by the dim moonlight streaming through a window. He shot out of bed and met her in the doorway in a flash.
He stood before her, naked, the curves of his hard muscles catching the faint light. Cassie’s breath hitched, and she couldn’t speak. She almost forgot why she’d come. His body drew near, and he put his hands on her shoulders. Tilting back her head, her lips parted as she gazed into his amber eyes.
She could feel him grow hard against her as he drew her closer to his exposed flesh. He growled low in his throat and tipped his head forward to smell the crook of her neck.
“There is something wrong,” she whispered, finally finding her voice. “I can feel it. I had to warn you.”
He stood back and flipped on the light. It blared in Cassie’s eyes, making her squint and shield them with her hand. Her gaze lingered on his still stiffened shaft.
“What is it,” he said, turning to get dressed.
“I don’t know. Just danger. I can’t explain it.” She felt like an idiot for even coming. She felt even worse that what had been about to happen was no longer happening. “I got this feeling in my gut: danger, fear, warning. It’s like an alarm bell ringing in my ears.”
“All right, I believe you,” he said, pulling his shirt down over his chiseled chest. She sucked her bottom lip as he covered the last of his luscious body with clothing. He sat on the bed and pulled on his black boots. “Let’s wake everyone up.”
She followed him into the yard under the pale light of the crescent moon. He turned toward the terminal room, but before he could open the door, a form dropped from the roof and knocked him down. Cassie screamed.
Rafe fought the intruder, hurling it off his back and launching a sidekick right into its stomach. The intruder let out a sickening moan and snarled at Rafe.
“Zombies!” Rafe shouted. He elbowed the unrelenting being in the throat and threw open the door to the terminal chamber. Cassie ran after him as the creature’s hands grabbed at her from behind. Inside the room, he pressed a button, and sirens wailed through the compound. Through the window, Cassie could see a floodlight drench the yard in a bright glow.
“Are these things really… undead?” she asked, gulping.
“They’re damn hard to kill, if that’s what you mean. And their favorite food happens to be people.” He grabbed a sword from a rack behind his computer terminal. He opened a drawer and extracted a pistol and a dagger. He handed her the dagger. “Follow me,” he said, as he walked toward the door. “If anything jumps at you, slice its head off.”
He thrust open the door, firing shots as he strode through the yard. Cassie hurried after him. The beings that came at them looked human, but they had a glowing greenish cast and dead, vacant eyes. One of them gnashed its black teeth at Cassie and tried to bite her arm. She screamed and jumped backward. Rafe swung with his sword in a movement of fluid grace, slicing the zombie’s head right off.
“Come on,” Rafe shouted as he ducked inside the bunkhouse. People were awake and lined up outside a weapons storage room. Neil stood in the door, handing out swords.
“Why don’t you use guns or just fight them in wolf form?” she asked.
“They have a kind of virus. It won’
t turn you into one of them, but it can cause death if you taste their blood or flesh or they bite you,” Rafe said. “And the only way to kill them is to cut off their heads.” He walked away and joined Neil at the front of the line.
Cassie stood at the back, holding her dagger awkwardly at her side. A loud crash of breaking glass sounded from the cafeteria. Everyone poured down the hallway and into the dining area where glowing green cannibals surged through the broken window.
Neil blew them back with a shotgun blast, but the horde of bodies kept advancing. The hunters rushed forward, swords in hand, slashing at the oncoming menace. Heads toppled. Green blood spurted and trickled to the floor.
Rafe led a team of fighters out the side door to flank the insurgents, while Neil led the group inside the cafeteria. Cassie stumbled backward, holding her dagger in both hands at chest height. She hit the wall behind her and watched the invasion in shocked horror.
Selina was still nowhere to be found. She hadn’t been with Rafe’s group. She wasn’t with Neil’s group. Cassie hadn’t seen Toby either.
The loud moans of the hungry zombies and the shouting of the defending werewolves overwhelmed Cassie’s senses as her heart pounded in her ears. She’d had exactly one day of combat training, one day she’d been loathed to participate in. Now she understood why it was so necessary.
Neil decapitated a slobbering zombie who stuck its head through the broken window. The head rolled across the floor in a spray of oozing green blood and ended up at Cassie’s feet. Her stomach lurched, and she doubled over to empty the contents of her stomach on someone’s shoes.
She looked up to see Clark looking down at her, disgusted at the vomit on his feet. Fear shone behind his disgust. He was smaller than Cassie was and hadn’t been much more advanced in martial arts than her either.
“Come on,” he said, taking her by the elbow. She followed him down the hall and away from the sounds of battle.
“Where are we going?”
“We can hide out in my room.”
They ducked into one of the rooms in the bunkhouse, and Clark closed the door behind them. Muffled screams and the grunts of the dying filtered through the glass in the window.