“They’ll look up to you, and want to impress you. You’re good with a sword, you’re good with your fists. You’re an expert at bullying and cajoling two younger brothers.”
“I want to fight, not babysit.”
“It’s not babysitting. If a boy or girl of twelve isn’t trained, isn’t taught how to defend, how to fight, when to run, when to strike, they’ll die in what’s coming. Some will die anyway. Help me so more don’t die.”
“I guess.”
“You’d be in charge,” she said, knowing him. And smiled. “You’d be president.”
He gave a snort. “Maybe. Sure. But the home theater?”
“I’ll work on it.”
“Deal. I’m going to get something to eat. Mom sure is crazy about the kitchen up there. When we get back to the farm, I bet she talks Dad into fiddling with ours.”
She went to her room, shut the door. Sitting on the floor, she spread out her maps, began to plot the best routes arrowing out of New Hope.
She felt the ripple in the air, surged to her feet. Since her sword stood across the room, she raised her fists. And Duncan flashed across from her.
“You can’t come into my bedroom uninvited.”
“Didn’t know it was your bedroom.” He glanced around. “Big space, big bed, and not much else. Anyway.”
“I’m busy. Go away.”
“We need to talk. You, me, and Tonia need to talk, but we’ll start here. That vision you had back at my place. Damn fruit and flowers again.”
Because it worried her, she pushed her temper back a notch. “I don’t know what it means. If I did, I’d tell you because it’s important.”
“I get that.” Hands in pockets, he wandered her space, into the L that formed the sitting area, and back again. “I’ve chosen, haven’t I? I’ve chosen to fight. What else is there?”
“I don’t know that, either.”
“Visions are a pain in the ass. Half the time they only tell you half the story, so that’s only a damn quarter of things. You got a headache from yours.”
“It happens sometimes, when they’re really strong. It doesn’t last long.”
“I used to get dizzy from mine. I had some of you.”
He glanced back at her, then stopped pacing and turned with her maps between them. “It wasn’t just dreaming. My mother says when I was a baby—Tonia, too, sometimes—I’d get really happy and excited if your mother came around. Because you came around, you know, in there. I knew you, before you were born. And the bitch of it is, I half remember it. Not just her telling me.
“The three of us, you said. Tonia and me, the MacLeod blood.”
She didn’t have to notch her temper down now. It simply drained. “It wasn’t his fault, your grandfather.”
“I know that. MacLeod blood, back to the Tuatha de Danann. I accept that, okay? I’ll fight with you. We’ll figure out how to find nukes and things that go boom, get rid of them. We’ll figure out how to take D.C. I’ll help find more recruits, I’ll help train them. I’ll help scout, scavenge, plot, plan, and whatever the hell else.”
“But?”
“But we spread out on rescues. If people are underground, in cages, in labs, we get them the hell out. You didn’t say anything about that.”
“Because I thought it was understood. Rescue operations need specific training. I have notes on that.” Shoving her fingers through her hair, she looked around, trying to remember where she’d put them.
“Never mind the notes. They can wait. I just wanted to make sure we were on the same page.”
“If we’re not fighting for people, what are we fighting for?”
“Some people fight for power.”
“That’s not why I’m doing this.”
“Well, you’ve got more than most already.” He held up a hand when he saw the fire light in her eyes. “Just needling you. Didn’t I just say I knew you?”
“Then you should know I don’t like being needled.”
“Who says I don’t?” He looked down at the maps. “What are you working on?”
“I wanted to plot out some routes, for supplies, for recruits. I’ve seen some settlements. I have a crystal.”
He glanced over where she’d set it on a little table. “Handy.”
“And rescues,” she added. “I know places where people are held. Some have to wait until we have more soldiers and arms, but some we could take.”
“I’ll help you.” He sat on the floor. After a moment, she sat with him.
“You could show me where you and your people have been, where you’ve scouted, where we can eliminate. I’m most interested in south and west. We came from the north. From here.” She touched the map where she’d marked the farm. “Traveled along here, looped there, and then here. But I’ve never been south or west of those points. Except here.”
She tapped Cape Hatteras on the map.
“What’s there?”
“A prison, for those like us—empty now. When we need it, we’ll use it. But for now, I need to know places you know that I don’t.”
“Yeah, I can show you. I knew you were here.”
She looked up to find his eyes on her.
“Before I saw you, I knew. I felt you. It’s like a rush in the blood. What do you make of that?”
“Shared ancestry.”
“I share even closer with my mother. I don’t always know when she’s around. Not every single time with Tonia, either, and we lived damn close for nine months. But with you? There’s that rush.”
His eyes were a deep, deep green, like the shadows in faerie-land. She wanted to look away from them, but didn’t want to show weakness.
“I don’t know how you feel or why.”
“How about this then? How do I know you’ve got a weak spot for Rainbow Cake when I’m not even sure what the hell that is? Or that you like to read, in front of a fire or under a tree? That you like to build things with your hands? How do I know that?”
She knew he liked to listen to music. He had a friend, a shifter named Denzel, he thought of as a brother. She knew his favorite gift was a box filled with pencils and paints a man named Austin had given him.
Austin—not his father, but someone who had, for a short time, stood as one for him.
She didn’t want to know these small, intimate things about him. Or for him to know hers.
“Those aren’t important things.”
“I think they are. I think there’s a reason I know those things. I’m not sure I’m going to like the reason, or you are, either.”
Just as her heart started to hammer, he looked down at the map. “Okay, so here, picked clean.”
Over the next few days, she built things with her hands. With scavenged and salvaged supplies, she and her father worked with various teams to repair and expand two houses that would serve as barracks. Other teams worked on readying more to house families, children. Some would camp, so trailers, tents, RVs formed groups outside what would become the training area.
With Simon she cut and soldered angle iron to form frames for solar panels. They’d done the same years before for the farm and several neighbors, but New Hope had hit a treasure trove of solar cells, hauled them out, used them, stored them.
She’d learned New Hope had volunteers for everything, something they’d implemented from the start. Rotating teams scouted outlying houses, and those abandoned, fallen into disrepair, or damaged beyond any practical repair were stripped of everything useful.
Wood, nails, pipes, hinges, tiles, shingles, windows, window glass, doors, wiring. Another team sorted, inventoried, and stored everything in a barn next to their feed and grain operation.
She checked the caulking on another frame, glanced around at the hive of activity. Some built the ropes course or hauled in old tires for the obstacle course, built the climbing wall while others framed in what would be the expanded kitchen and mess hall.
An army had to eat.
She knew her mother was off with Fred and some others working on the first stages of the complicated spell to create a tropical area. Her brothers remained in town at the summer program with Colin, who, no matter how he tried to deadpan it, was relishing his role as instructor.