“Breathers,” Shayenne sneered,
surveying the bodies scattered around the floor.
“Don’t kid yourself. You were one,
once,” I retorted, stepping over a mother clutching her child’s hand. I kept my
eyes glued to the scanner, looking for our target.
“Don’t be insulting,” she said,
dropping her human guise with a shimmer. Her bones gleamed white in the dim
haze of the carbon monoxide we were already flooding into the building. She
stepped on the leg of a man sprawled in her way. The bone cracked, and I
snapped, “Careful! Don’t damage them!”
Her skull swiveled toward me. “Why
do we even bother?” Shayenne was a supremacist, disdaining the humans and
separating herself from them as much as possible.
I preferred to remain among them
as much as possible. I didn’t want to be an empty waryn, a walking skeleton. I
remained in my human guise most of the time, though I enjoyed the freedom to
move unseen among them. A beep brought me back to the mission. I looked at the
scanner, turned, then looked down at the woman on the floor before me. “Here,”
I said. “She’s the one.”
Shayenne’s boned clicked on the
floor as she walked over to look down at the woman. “Are you sure? She doesn’t
look any different than the others.”
I glanced up at her in surprise.
The woman was astonishingly gorgeous. Her skin was that dark black with a blue
tinge. High cheekbones, delicate lips and long, slender nose. Her hair was
braided against her skull in thin lines, arching down to her neck, where the
braids were twisted into one long braid. My fingers twitched to touch her skin,
her hair.
“Yes, she’s the one we came for.” I
leaned down and slid my arms under her back and legs, lifting her easily.
“Let’s go.”
#
Jeanne watched her granddaughter
doodling on Cara’s tablet. Nikki was only two, but she could operate that thing
better than Jeanne. “What are you doing, honey? Show me.”
Cara lifted the tablet so Jeanne
could see the wild lines and colors she was creating. Then she set it back on
the table and continued her work.
“That’s nice, sweetie. What will
you call it?” Cara named all of her art masterpieces.
“Mama,” Cara replied in her
singsong voice. She tapped the screen to clear it and started something new.
“That’s nice, honey,” Jeanne said,
returning to her magazine.
“Mama,” Cara said again, holding
up the tablet. Jeanne glanced up and stared.
HELP ME
Strong, block letters across the
screen. Jeanne jumped up, her magazine fluttering to the floor. She dropped on
her knees next to Cara. “Honey, what’s that?” Her heart felt tight in her
chest.
Cara lay the tablet back on the
table. She traced the letters with her fingers. “Mama,” she said again, looking
up at Jeanne with worried eyes.
Dogs in house
|
Houdini
|
Time writing:
|
25 minutes
|
October word
count:
|
19,776
|
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