Page 35 of The White Rider
Chapter 20
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o one was mad at me for improvising. Or getting kidnapped again, for that matter. Making shit up as you go was probablynothow you were supposed to handle the end of the world, but I’d metenough Bubbas and Marthas by now to know what would happen if we sent the resistance in with guns stolen from these warehouses.
None of us were dumb enough to think blowing up this factory would disarm them. These assholes had probably been stockpilingammosince before the apocalypse. That wouldn’t have changed now. It was probably worse now that there were zombies and World War III had happened. My father had turned everyone who didn’t think like them into their mortal enemies. They had probably turned all kinds of shit into weapons and slept with them under their pillow.
I mean, I didn’t let Smurfette out of my sight.
I didn’t know how Aeron repeatedly did this. I was covered in Bubba brains, and I wasn’t talking about what was on my one good pair of head stomping boots. I’d done what I needed to do, but how else could I help? I didn’t inherit angel pockets from my mother, so I couldn’t help with clearing out the warehouses.
We’d have company soon. I should keep an eye on that. I didn’t have super vision like the angels did, but I did have a pretty good eye. One of these Bubbas had binoculars, and I had no problem looting them from his corpse.
I stepped back into the warehouse, and Asher had done a damn fine job clearing things out. If he were human, most of those boxes would still be there.
“I’m going to keep an eye out for company,” I said, waving the binoculars at him.
“Don’t let them get too close and warn us when you see them. They aren’t here for us. Isaiah sent them for you.”
“I know, but I refuse to be kidnapped for the third fuckingtime.”
“Well, you know what they say… third time’s a charm!”
“I’d really like to hit you right now.”
“So violent, Nephilim. You already bashed the brains out of several Bubbas.”
Was Asher hitting on me? He had this smirk on his face like he was. Oddly, I didn’t mind. I’d gotten to know him a little, and he was cool. He’d always be the one that gave me a hard time. Aeron could be difficult and stubborn, sure, but only if he thought it was to protect me. Leif had a tipping point I never intended to get to. I’d be just as kind to Leif as he always was with me. Dice was a handful in that he was utterly insane, but everything he ever threw at me was to get something good out of me, like memories or developing my powers.
Asher would give me a hard time because that was who he was. I wasn’t a delicate flower who couldn’t take some ribbing. I wouldn’t have lasted ten minutes on my roller derby team if that was the case. Iloveda good roasting, to be honest. And I could give just as good as I got.
“Then you’ve seen what I do to men who piss me off. Don’t push your luck, angel.”
Okay, Asher wasdefinitelyhitting on me. He straight up smacked me on the ass then, like he was Dice, and tried to send me on my way. I just stood there with my mouth hanging open. He had acted like hehatedme when we first met, and now here he was giving out the good kind of ass slaps? He just laughed at me.
“You’re dating Dice. Iknowthat’s not the first time an angel has spanked you, Speedy.”
Asher cracked up laughing as I stood there stammering. What the fucked happened to the uptight Horseman of Conquest who wouldn’t even play sports with the other angels? Turns out that Asher can be pretty damn playful when he took the stick out of his ass.
“Since when are you actually fun?” I demanded.
“When I’m winning, and you helped. You could have just killed them, and we all would have let you. You looked at the big picture, and it’s going to save lives. Good job, Speedy.”
Well, shit. I guess a good thing came out of these assholes trying to kidnap me. We didn’t need to risk jeopardizing the good parts of humanity that didn’t turn into Rage Heads, and Asher was now aboard the Speedy train. I liked this side of him.
We certainly weren’t at the point in our relationship where Oval Office orgies were a possibility, and this was super awkward, so I just did my job and vacated the warehouse. My Nephilim mojo stunned five of them in an enclosed space, but I didn’t want to test it out in the open with a whole busload of these fuckers whose only goal was to haul me back to my father.
I picked a vantage point where I could see the road. Why the fuck didn’t we have radios? I got they had this whole angel thing where they could commune telepathically across the entire country, but I didn’t have that ability. I didn’t want to sit there shrieking like a banshee and risk giving away my location to a bunch of armed assholes following the orders of the Antichrist.
There were four angels in three different warehouses and then me… without a radio or a single ounce of telepathy. Shit. At least I could glow.
I hoped the Horsemen got what we needed because I could see a bus headed our way. I was closest to Asher, and I knew where that warehouse was. Teleportation would have been nifty too if they didn’t think to give me a radio.
“There’s a bus full of Bubbas headed our way. Do you think the others got enough?”
“Oh, yeah. You see how much I got working alone? Let’s get out of here. They’ll meet us outside.”
I could see the bus without the binoculars when we met in the center of all the warehouses. The Horsemen formed a protective circle around me, and the next thing I knew, I was a reasonable distance from the warehouse. Dice wrapped his arms around my waist and rested his cheek on my blood-soaked hair.
