Page 74 of Princess For All

I nodded, having heard a lot of people say the same when they didn’t think I could hear them last week when the new year happened. “I think people are of two camps. That or like me where they can’t imagine this not being our lives. Like the idea of not living in the apocalypse is so fucking foreign that they can’t see anything else anymore.”

“I would think that’s more your circumstances, Inez,” he said gently.

“I thought so too, but Vanessa said a lot are like me,” I countered. I nodded when he seemed skeptical. “You can…” I realized I was going to say too much. If he thought it was just me then obviously Trisha hadn’t told him that she felt as I did and Vanessa helped her see that.

But she’d told me exactly that.

“I knew a few cats close to us who feel the same,” I promised him.

“Huh, interesting.” He nodded as he cleaned up our containers and plates. “I believe you. It’s just—we get so into our heads that it’s hard to see someone so deep into a different side.” He snorted. “That’s about everything, not just the apocalypse. I mean some of it was people are idiots or won’t admit they’re wrong—double down until it’s like a fucking cult.

“But a lot of times it’s just life and not feeling like anyone will listen if you talk about it. Trisha would say that all of the time when I pushed her to speak up or say her piece. She’d look at me like why waste her breath and no one would listen. It made me sad. It really made me sad that it would be name-calling and insults because she wanted to have a conversation.”

“Hopefully, we do better this time around if we make it.”

“When we make it, Inez. When we do. We’re going to make it,” he promised.

“I’m not there to believe it. I’ll keep fighting, but… I’m not there.”

“Well, clearly, I’m not doing my job then.” He gave me a wink when I asked what that meant but wouldn’t say anything.

But I found out. He took me up in a chopper as his co-pilot, my guards coming with since they switched out. James showed me Seattle from the sky and I was inaweof how different it was—how much hadchanged. Huge sections were gone and cleared out.

“This is fucking genius,” I whispered as I saw the shipping containers full of energy beads as a huge perimeter.

“It is,” James praised. “It was Ricky Novak’s idea since he’s not moving onto Portland anytime soon and gets along well with Matias Perez. They decided it after they heard corrupted were in the sewers and drainage in Albuquerque. Fences are too easy to slit a hole through, even several like we have but this—he made a crack about the beads being like water—”

“And everyone would know if one of the containers was fucked with and sprung a leak,” I finished, totally getting the idea. “Plus, we’reswimmingin energy beads with how much we’re taking down. We can’t remotely use them all right now and what to do with them—this is genius.”

“I think they talked about it with Cerdic and Lara, but they were waiting to see how the logistics of it were panning out,” James explained. “They needed vamps to level the ground in certain areas—it’s been work. They’re planning to not just have one tall layer to easily tip over.”

I turned and glanced at it. “They’re doing sideways too. They’re cross-stacking. Smart. Really smart. They light this up and we get the drones going like we were talking—shit, we have a better plan, and—we have to tell the other covens. This is the new play and what Lawan was saying about the next motivation.”

He didn’t get that part, but I promised to explain later.

There was more, and the organization Seattle now had to get dead ships out of the ocean and beached so they could be broken down was impressive. We were saving the good ones to fix up and put online one day, but a lot of the ships were trash after being left at sea for years or even docked and unattended.

Like alotof them.

It was understandable, but I was glad to see the progress. I reached over and took James’s hand for a moment, thanking him for showing me this. I let go because he needed it to fly but yeah, I hoped he understood where my head was.

It was full of gratitude. That was for damn sure.

We saw more and everything gave me hope. There were ideas and plans while still doing what we needed to and being safe. The greenhouses and farming operations alone were amazing and took away my stress.

“We got dirty,” I said to James, before glancing at Sisay since he was on my detail now. “How much time do we have before they’re expecting us?”

“About thirty minutes,” he answered.

“My hot spring should be safe?”

“Let me check,” he hedged.

Yes, the answer was yes, and just to be extra safe, he borrowed one of the snakes that now lived in Seattle. I was excited to hear that and was shocked when I saw someone walking along the shipping containers with a huge ass python on his shoulders.

I went over to the vampire who dipped his head to me. I asked the snake if I could pet him since I’d never seen a python, but suddenly James was there clearing his throat.

“I prefer not that one,” he muttered. He gave me a look to believe him and Petre chuckled, cluing me in that something was going on, but I still didn’t get it. “It’s a male shifter who is very happy to be naked on your body, spicy snack. I’m not a fan of that.”

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