Ryan grinned. “I guess that’s a yes—but has she got the capability?”
“Provided the other women in the wag don’t turn against her, then yeah—she’s hard.”
“They aren’t going to stop her,” Mildred added. “Turn away from a chance to get free and not be a slave? That’s got to be worth risking a chilling.”
Ryan sucked on his hollow tooth thoughtfully. “Okay. Problem is that we can’t make any plans of our own until we know what Correll has mapped out—and by then, we probably won’t get a chance to get together and work out an alternative.”
“We should try and keep together as much as possible,” J.B. said. “Keep close contact.”
“May not be that easy,” Krysty mused. “Correll’s not a stupe—he wants our abilities, but he won’t trust us enough so soon as to let us keep together.”
“Then we’re just gonna have to try and mess with those plans in the heat of the moment,” Ryan mused. “Play it as it comes.”
Jak, who had been silent up to that point while he kept watch and listened at the same time, turned his face to the others in the room. His scarred face was set and serious, but there was a light in his eyes that may have been amusement, or may just have been the anticipation of a hunt.
“Always play as comes,” he said flatly. “That why not yet bought farm.”
Chapter Thirteen
“Ryan—Ryan Cawdor,” the voice whispered, harsh in the almost total silence of the room, broken only by the breathing of the others.
The one-eyed man awakened in an instant, his arms coming up and grabbing at the source of the voice, still half in a dream of his brother Harvey and Front Royal. His strong fingers grasped at soft flesh, feeling the arteries and windpipe of someone’s throat.
Small hands shot up to grip his wrists, the countergrip incredibly strong for the size of the short, stubby fingers. There were no nails as the grip tightened, as if whoever owned the hands was a compulsive nail biter.
“Fucking stupe—let the fuck go,” hissed the whisperer, the voice now strangled by his grip.
Ryan, still not fully awake, could feel the blood cutting off in his wrists as the grip of the other tightened, desperation lending strength. His vision adjusted to the gloom of the room, only a faint patina of light penetrating from the redoubt corridor as the door to their quarters wasn’t fully clothed. In the faint light, he could see a blond head before him, with green eyes dark in the shadows but still piercing enough to be defined.
Suddenly realizing where he was and recognizing his alleged assailant, he released his grip.
Catherine staggered back a step or two, coughing as quietly as possible and trying to force air back into her closed throat.
“Nuke shit, what were you trying to do?” she husked hoarsely when she was able to speak once more.
“I was in the middle of a nightmare,” he replied quietly. “Triple-stupe thing to do, sneak up on a man like that—”
“Yeah, well, it’s not something I’d do from choice,” she returned bitterly. “I usually like ’em to know when I’m coming.”
“Then what are you doing here?” Ryan asked, rising from his bunk.
“Papa Joe sent me to fetch you. He figures there’s something you should see, but he said not to disturb the others. Which is why I was trying to be delicate and gentle about it. And all you do is try and fuckin’ chill me.”
Ryan grinned, made crooked by the scar down his face—the scar of which he had been dreaming so vividly. “You don’t get much in the way of delicate and subtle on the outside,” he said.
“If that’s the best I’m going to get from you by way of an apology, then I s’pose it’ll have to do,” she answered, still rubbing her throat. “But it’s a bit—well, crap, really. Anyway, stop pissing around. There’s things to do.”
She turned and left the room, slipping out through the door by opening it to the barest minimum and letting in the least possible light. Ryan figured this was to enable the others to stay sleeping, and did likewise as he exited the room, blinking as he came into the stronger light of the corridor.