Page 14 of After the Fall

The whole time, Brown Dog followed closely behind. As much as I disliked Tank, he’d done a good job training the rambunctious lab.

The kitchen was also empty. Where was everyone? Was this what it was like to be Wyatt every day? It felt surprisingly lonely,and I found myself missing the warmth of my old apartment, as small as it was.

And missing my best friend.

Wyatt may have issued orders for me not to leave the mansion, but he hadn’t said anything about visitors. I pulled out my phone and typed a text to Savannah.

Want to come over? I have big news.

She replied immediately.

Busy day at the office, but I’m free later tonight. How about seven? I’m excited to see this mansion of yours.

Three small dots appeared as she continued typing.

And should I bring Connor?

Connor was a werewolf and I knew how much the sasquatches despised the wolves. A slow grin curled at the corners of my mouth as I typed my reply.

ABSOLUTELY. See you both later!

Tank would be pissed. Two could play his game. Wyatt had insisted I think of this house as my own, so that meant I could invite over whoever I wanted. And that included my best friend and her supernatural boyfriend.

Two humans and a werewolf, under one roof. Yep, Tank was going to lose his shit.

There was a note on the counter from Gloria, saying she’d prepared a fresh salad for me in case I didn’t want the elk chilli she’d made for the sasquatches. Sure enough, I found a Tupperware container on the top shelf of the fridge with my name on it. I peeled off the sticky note with the happy face under my name, grateful for her small act of kindness, and dumped it into a larger glass bowl. Brown Dog panted in excitement.

“Sorry. For humans only,” I said to the drooling lab. He sighed and curled next to my feet as I sat on one of the stools, eating my salad.

The shine shone through the large bay windows in the kitchen. In the backyard, I could just make out the outline of the greenhouse jutting through the trees.

“Stay here, buddy. I’ll be back soon.” He didn’t lift his head.

SEVEN

WYATT

By the timewe set the last trap we were deep into Stirling County. The areas where we placed the traps had to be strategic. We couldn’t do it on public land. Catching a soccer mom in an ankle snare wouldn’t go over well.

Grandview owned large swaths of land next to the national forest. Members of the public were not allowed to trespass on it, and although there were plenty of signs outlining the boundaries of our land, and any of the land we subleased, that didn’t stop some of them. We’d been dealing with trespassers and protestors since as long as I could remember.

A helicopter’s blades whipped in the air above us. Atticus looked up. “What cowboy is flying that whirly-bird so low?”

The tops of the trees swayed as the green and gold helicopter continued its low trip overhead. It took me a minute to remember where I’d seen the logo. “I think that’s one of Carder’s. They’re probably going to Genocorp.”

“Should we head up there and check out the zombies?” Atticus’s gaze followed the helicopter as it disappeared due north of where we were standing.

Fiona’s reports of people acting weird outside of the remote headquarters of Genocorp were alarming, but in the ruckus with Harper’s father, those concerns had been pushed aside. I looked at my watch. “Genocorp is probably full of employees on break, staring at their phones.”

Because we aged so differently from humans, I had seen firsthand the changes in humanity that came with the changes in technology. In my opinion, it wasn’t good. It had also made our way of life more challenging. Drones with heat-seeking technology, and cameras that could zoom into craters on the moon, put our community at risk. We lived deep in Stirling County, in a valley where no human would dare to venture, but a drone with an unscrupulous pilot at its controls? That was a different story.

Atticus had been looking into technology to tackle the problem, because it wasn’tifthe drones would come, it waswhen.

I hated the idea of shooting them down. It seemed risky. We’d seen some eagles take them down, but we didn’t have the resources or knowledge of how to train the birds to attack the buzzing technology.

“Probably,” Atticus said. “You know, I’ve started letting those idiots walk into me on the street when they don’t look up from their screens.”

It seemed like more of a Tank thing to do, but it still made me laugh. What was so interesting on a phone screen that could keep a person from seeing a seven-foot-tall man walking directly toward them?

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