Page 30 of Powerless
I opened the door and slammed it shut with all my might behind me.
The tears started before I made it to my own room. I hurriedly unlocked the door through blurry eyes and entered a room that felt like someone else’s.
I did what I had to. He would’ve broken my heart so much worse if I hadn’t. It was shitty, but I had to put self-preservation first. That was what post-Collapse life demanded. I provoked a response out of him to protect myself.
So why did my heart still feel broken into a million pieces?
Twelve
GUNNER
As much as I loved riding with my club, a solo ride had a certain kind of magic to it. There was nothing like exploring the world on the open road set out before me. I was the captain of my own ship, the president of Club Me, Myself, and I. The only thing that could beat this was if a beautiful woman hung onto me from behind.
And not just any woman.
Mariposa's face when I said I was leaving still tugged at my heart strings from two hundred miles away. If she tugged any harder, I might turn around and head right back to her.
Reaper better be good to you, baby girl, I thought, tightening my hold on my grips.
I had the utmost respect for my president and would defend his life in an instant. We were good friends, brothers, even. However, we had vastly different views on women.
While my parents worked, my grandparents watched me and taught me old-school values as I grew up. For instance, even if a woman had a good career, the man always paid for dates and treated her with small surprise gifts like jewelry or flowers. He opened doors and pulled out chairs for her. He gave her his jacket off his back if she got cold. Women were smaller, more fragile, and meant to be taken care of. A man's job was to provide her with security and protection.
It took me a while to wrap my head around Reaper's whole matriarchy upbringing, and I still didn't fully understand. To be honest, it sounded like a cult to me. In my world, some women you had fun with, others you married, but his culture threw that all out the window. Women with multiple husbands? How could anyone be okay with that?
My grandparents were together for over fifty years and were each other's worlds. How could a relationship feel special if it was crowded with a bunch of people? Why would a woman miss you if she had other guys to fill up her time?
So much I didn't understand. But if that was what Mari wanted, too, I'd wish her the best and keep my distance.
When I stopped for a piss break, I let my eyes close and my awareness sink into what I called my second-consciousness. It wasn't my subconscious but a place deep and instinctual, underneath the layers of my human awareness and tucked away in the depths of my lizard brain.
At least I thought so. I wasn't sure exactly how it worked. All I knew was it my connection to Horus, and it gave me the ability to see and feel everything he did like I was in his body.
"Gross, man," I muttered.
I checked in at a bad time, as Horus was currently ripping apart a rabbit carcass with his beak. But through the mess of blood, guts, and fur just under his talons, the Sandia Mountain outpost laid out before him.
It was quiet and without much movement, which didn't surprise me. The place was huge and sprawling with over a hundred guest rooms, each with mountain views, and we only took up nine of those rooms.
Well, eight if Mari was sharing a room with Reaper now.
As if he could hear my thought, Horus let out a disappointed squawk.
"Where is she?" I asked.
My raptor tore off another hunk of rabbit and swallowed it whole before turning his gaze to the southeast. He let out a soft chirp as if to say,there.
A small pen of animals was tucked between the kitchen and a steep hill. There was no clear outside path to it, only a single door on the building which I assumed to be the back door of the kitchen.
So that's where the chicken and eggs came from, I realized.
About twenty chickens milled about the pen—pecking, clucking, doing their chicken thing. Mari was scratching a goat behind the ears and smiling.
I finished pissing a whole few minutes ago, but didn't want to stop watching her. Still, I pulled my awareness away from Horus and back into my own body. With a sigh, I tucked myself back into my pants and zipped up. I had more of an already long ride ahead of me.
The terrain and atmosphere gradually changed the further north I rode. Dry, dusty desert grew rockier with cool, dark earth and more greenery alongside the road. The thick, hot air grew thinner and cooler as I climbed in elevation. Cactus and desert shrubs gave way to trees that grew steadily taller. When the early afternoon sun became dappled by the forest I rode through, I knew I reached the Colorado territory.
Or whatever it was named now. If I went looking, I could probably find the old "Welcome to Colorado" highway sign—covered in rust and filled with bullet holes, most likely.
