Page 25 of The Red Rider
“No, that was enough.”
Aeron pulled me down to his chest.
“How do you feel, Speedy?”
HowdidI feel? I felt nothing. I wasn’t afraid of him. It hit me.I wasn’t scared of him.He’d been the boogeyman of my bad dreams for so long, and I knew he was the Antichrist now, but I wasn’t afraid. Sure, I just listened to him easily manipulate someone into kidnapping meagain, but I knew that person wasn’t going to succeed. I didn’t care how many of my father’s Bubbas he sent. I wasn’t going to end up with him again until I chose to be.
And when that happened, he was going to die.
Chapter 15
T
hese fucking angels had been laughing about me losing my shit about exploding since Dice got to Mexico, and they only just now decided to tell me Dice had already decommissioned all the bombs, so there was zero chance of wiping the entire East Coast off the map. Honestly, they could have told me that back in Mexico the first time I flipped my shit, and instead, they just had their fun at my expense.
And they were still doing it as I sulked over dinner. I hated being made fun of. Everyone had come together for dinner, and there was this mass cookout. Apparently, outside the theme park, they had set up farms and had fresh vegetables and meat. They didn’t get to eat meat unless someone found something on a hunt or an animal had to be slaughtered.
They had to put a pig down, so this guy with substantial mutton chops was supervising a pig roast. It smelled amazing, but I was so mad at these angels for letting the joke go on so long.
Dice plopped down on the picnic table we were sitting on and started handing out amber bottles.
“Save those bottles when you are done. We try to recycle what we can here, and Stephanie makes the best brew on the entire base. She used wild strawberries in this batch. A peace offering, Speedy?”
“You can’t just bribe me with strawberry beer! You all were making fun of me.”
Aeron popped the top off his beer with his bare hands. I was trying not to find that so brutishly manly it was sexy, and remember I was mad at him.
“No, we weren’t. You were just so adorable when you got worked up about it.”
“It’s true,” Dice said. “I normally wouldn’t let it slide when someone questions my work, but your mouth would do this cute little thing when you would start talking about my bombs.”
Leif just held up his hands.
“I would like to point out that it was mostly Aeron and Dice. I’ve been in my lab doing my job.”
Aeron ripped the top off one of the amber bottles and set it in front of me.
“We’re sorry, Ariel. We weren’t trying to make fun of you. We should have told you from the start. You were just so cute. Personally, it meant I could spend more time around you hugging you when you got upset about it.”
“I just thought you were cute when your mouth did that thing. I wouldn’t have minded getting in on the hug action.”
I knew it was probably limited edition, and there wouldn’t be seconds, but I chugged half that strawberry beer. I was going to need a slight buzz to explain to these angels why that totally wasn’t okay. I slammed the bottle on the table.
“Is this an angel thing? You can’t joke about bombs in the middle of the apocalypse because you think my reaction is cute! I don’t care what my mouth does when I’m petrified I’m going to get blown to kingdom come.”
“You never would have gotten blown up—”
“Which you should have told me back in Mexico!” I yelled.
Leif pulled me into his lap and started playing with my hair.
“You were really scared about that, weren’t you?”
I was ready to strangle all three of them, and Leif was really trying to make me feel better. Why was it so shocking that being in close proximity to every single bomb left in the United States and letting an angel who could never bother with a shirt experiment on the explosive part was a little scary? What sane person wouldn’t be nervous? In fact, I was a bit worried about being surrounded by a bunch of people who didn’t get the fuck out of Florida while Dice was decommissioning the bombs, even if they made delicious strawberry beer and that pig smelled terrific.
“I’m not fucking crazy, unlike the three of you.”
“Do you trust me, Ariel?” Aeron said.
