Page 13 of The White Rider
“We’ll get your friends out, Daria. After we take out the bullet warehouse, we’ll hit up the cathedral. Maybe Cinnamon is still there. We’ll get anyone out that we can. Isaiah is next, and then we’ll round everyone up,” Asher said.
Asher just went up a few points in my book for wanting to help those women before making a move on my father.
Chapter 8
I
f we managed to pull this off, I would grab Leif and not let him go for at least two weeks. I knew he had a vital role to play in all this, but I still fucking missed him. I missed sitting in his lab and shooting the shit while he worked on the vaccine, and I missed our chats aboutBlood Feud.
I barely got to see Leif anymore. Aeron was with him, helping vaccinate people. Dice would have been with them, too, if he wasn’t so worried about Daria. I think all the Horsemen finally got that the Marthas hadn’t broken her, and she wanted nothing more than to bring them down.
By the time Asher took me back to the Washington Monument, I had finished my sketches of the Witch and several of the Marthas who had been in the cathedral with Daria. I’d never been in it before, but Daria was able to tell Asher and Dice what she remembered about the layout and where they were keeping people.
Daria let a few things drop about what they were doing that lit a fire under Asher and Dice. Everyone always talked about what happened when War and Death worked together, but I was in the room when War and Conquest got angry. They bounced ideas off each other, and it was pretty obvious they’d been doing it for a while.
“The resistance is going to need weapons if they are going to help us round everyone up,” Dice said. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
I hoped they said it out loud. I was pretty fucked in the head, at least by normal standards, but not even I could figure out how the Horseman of War’s brain worked during the apocalypse. Asher extended his arm and bumped fists with Dice.
“Make the enemy work for us? I love it when we make them do what we want.”
Aeron and Leif finally appeared in the monument and collapsed on the mattress. Aeron was still mad at Asher.
“You’d better trust those women who saw Ariel.”
“Oh, I do, and I questioned Daria myself. She gave us a ton of helpful intel on the Marthas that I didn’t have. Dice and I have a better idea. It’ll free some women and better arm the resistance when we round everyone up after we take out Isaiah.”
Aeron started laughing.
“I love it when we get them to help us, and they don’t even realize it.”
Leif found the whole thing hilarious, too, and I didn’t know what the fuck was going on.
“The sad thing is, when it’s all said and done, they won’t recognize our genius.”
I raised my hand and cleared my throat.
“I’ll praise your asses all day, but I don’t know what the fuck is going on.”
Dice grabbed me and yanked me onto the mattress. Leif dove in and snuggled into me. Aeron glared at them because there wasn’t an inch left of me to snuggle. Asher just rolled his eyes.
“The Bubbas think they are sitting pretty, being this close to Isaiah. They think they can do whatever they want. Isaiah gives them his blessing, and they have access to make more ammo. The resistance only has the bullets they find on raids. They think they are untouchable. So, we are going to prove them wrong,” Dice said.
“What do people who think they are winning and have access to a bullet factory do when they take an unexpected loss? They try to crank out more bullets because they know more attacks are coming,” Leif said. “We’ve done this before. There’s something poetic about arming people with the weapons you tricked your enemy into making for you.”
I could see their plan now. I knew what they were going to do. They would attack the cathedral and get some of those women out before they were tortured too much. I had one major question. Daria had given us a fair bit of intel about what went on there.
“Are you going to hit the cathedral before or after the Witch and the bad Marthas leave?”
Asher smirked at me. Honestly, he had been a dick to me, but he seemed to handle the apocalypse in a certain way. As if he was following some kind of rule book that he just couldn’t stray from. He shocked the shit out of me.
“We were going to round them up and put them on trial, anyway. Let’s see how the Bubbas like it when it’s their women getting kidnapped. I’ll have to talk to Pepper. Someone will need to guard them. Daria was helpful, but I don’t trust her around them, not after what they did.”
“Then make her feel useful,” Leif said. “We can bring her with us when we get them out. Redirect her. She might know someone we rescue. Let her focus on helping the prisoners instead of getting her revenge for now.”
I grabbed Leif and kissed him. He growled and bit my lower lip. He was just so fucking sweet, and he always seemed to understand women. Asher walked over, grabbed Leif, and yanked him away from me.
“No fucking in my monument!”
