Page 18 of Hunted on Halloween

Her mother had lived the past twenty-nine, almost thirty years, surrounded by necrotechs and yet they had no idea of who or what she was. That shit was funny, and she respected the hell out of Calista De La Rosa. Now she understood what the godlike being meant.

Her mother had mated and taken on a new name. She passed down that name and legacy to Tia. She was Tia De La Rosa and heads were about to roll. Tia picked a random direction and started walking down the street.

She passed her house and then the houses of a couple of the neighbors she knew well before she stopped. It was a residential neighborhood with a large area ahead that held a park.

“What’s wrong?” Tieran asked her. Tia turned to look around, doing a three-sixty before turning back to him. “What do you feel?”

Tieran was casing the area in front of them, keeping a lookout not only for his own people who were crazed and may try to attack, but for necrotechs also. He tilted his head to Bryce to scent the area. The wolf’s sense of smell was better than his vampire sense of smell.

“Protect your queen,” he told Bryce.

“With my life, my king.” Then Tieran moved too fast for anyone to see.

He was gone before Tia could take a breath. When he was standing next to Tia again, she jumped a little.

She knew he was there; she could feel the connection between them, but for a second, she hadn’t seen him.

“There are no monsters or necrotechs. I found nothing of concern in the direction we are going.”

“Exactly. We’re moving away from this stronghold and not towards it.”

“Agreed,” Tieran said as they turned around and started walking back past her house and then past her mother’s house, who was, as she said, sitting on the porch in Rylin’s lap, eating cake and blowing on party favors.

Tia laughed, ran up on the porch, stole a piece of cake on a plate, grabbed three forks and was back on the sidewalk before her mother could even open her mouth to protest.

“Thanks, mom,” she called. “The cake is good.” They walked down the street, making short work of the cake before they found an empty trash can and threw the plate and the forks in it.

“Oh necrotechs,” Tia sang, “we’ve come to kick ass and not take names.” She pumped her fists in the air and did a little jig. The sugar from the cake must be going to her head.

She peeked at Tieran only to see him giving her that adoring look and she knew she had to stick around for this. She needed to see where their story was going to go, and it couldn’t be written one and done in a night. Bryce stopped abruptly, scenting in the air.

“My king.” Tieran turned to him with a nod of his head and took off.

“I’m gonna have to put a bell on that male,” Tia complained.

“We are surrounded,” Tieran said when he stopped by her side.

“Oh good, we’re going in the right direction,” Tia said with false cheerfulness. “All right bitches, listen up.”

She didn’t know why she thought the Necrotechs were females except for the fact that she really had a hard time seeing a male swapping roles with a different group of people and getting away with it.

In her opinion, like it or not, men were the more destructive people in the population. Women, on the other hand, could scheme and before you knew it, you’d be sitting there penniless, and she’d be rich.

“You set the mirror world of this one to self-destruct. Only one problem with that, ladies, is that when that world self-destructs, this one will too. Do I have a hope in hell that you believe me? Of course not. Well, at least not until you’re like burning, but then it will be too late. So, I am going to figure out how you did it, break the curse, and oh my gosh, we’re all going to live together as one happy family.” She knew that wasn’t going to happen.

They were having a hard time, just the humans living as one happy family, but she didn’t care anymore. Something had to change. Someone had to be the one to stand out and say, hey, I’m going to stand here and make a change, so it might as well be her, Tia thought to herself.

She deliberately didn’t think of all the women who came before her who had died for their causes.

“Tia.” A necrotech came out of her house. She knew this one. They’d been friends for years.

She was only ten, maybe fifteen years older than her. “Eva Mae, how are you on this beautiful night?” The moon was full, and that was rare on Halloween.

Tia thought it was fitting that the moon would embrace her endeavor or give the Earth its final benediction when it was destroyed along with the mirror plane.

“Tia, shouldn’t you be inside cowering with everyone else and not walking in the streets with monsters who’ve come to kill us?” Eva Mae said.

“They haven’t killed me, and I’ve been with them for some time. Maybe you can walk with us and see that they are peaceful. That’s not going to happen, is it?”

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