Page 10 of Demon Defeat: Part One

The mutinous stare that Steve gave Sid was everything. I laughed, and Molev tugged me to his side, holding me close.

“I like this,” he murmured in my ear.

Of course he did. I was feeling just like he wanted me to. While I didn’t resent him for it, I wasn’t exactly happy either. Regardless of our planning, we weren’t all safe yet, and I knew where feeling attachment could lead. Katie was an example of it.

Shaking my head, I pulled away and went to the door to put on my jacket.

“Save some lunch for us,” I called over my shoulder.

“Will do,” Sid called back.

As soon as we were out the door, Molev had me in his arms.

“You’ve gotten better at this,” I said. “You used to knock my feet out from under me.”

He looked down at me as he started walking. “Is caring that difficult?”

“No. Caring is the easy part, Molev. It’s losing the people you care about that’s hard. I don’t know how many more times I can go through that.”

He brushed his lips against my temple.

“You won’t lose me,” he said softly.

I sighed and leaned into him. With this new plan, I was less afraid of that possibility.

Waurlyn was waiting for us at the hospital doors when we arrived. She smiled at us and waited for Molev to put me down.

“You have impeccable timing,” she said. “I was going to contact you later today.”

“About what?” I asked.

“The doctor would like to start another trial this afternoon. A male volunteer this time. Someone older.” She watched Molev closely for his reaction to the news.

“Thank you for telling me. I would like to be there and speak to him before he receives the vaccine.”

“Of course. He’s already here for preliminary tests if you’d like to talk to him now.”

“Before I do that, I wanted to discuss your progress on collecting the names of any females willing to live with my people,” he said.

“Certainly. Let’s go to the conference room so I can show you what I have so far.”

Waurlyn wasn’t Thomas. That much was clear when she reached the room and dimmed the lights to project spreadsheet data onto a screen. She had thousands of names, along with some valuable statistics.

“I understand that you want to interview the potential volunteers,” she said. “Due to the number of people interested, we gathered some additional biographic data to help narrow your search. I did speak to Patrick and understand that race, marital status, and age don’t matter to you. However, we’d already started gathering that data, so I decided to continue that course. And gender, of course. Since you didn’t mention it at the gathering, I didn’t exclude men from volunteering.”

“That makes sense,” I said. “Why upset them without reason? And who knows? Molev thinks Steve, Roland, Brandon, and Sid will be a good fit. Maybe we’ll find others in the group, too.”

“My thoughts exactly,” Waurlyn said. “We continued collecting names daily as more survivors traveled to the evac site. I was going to ask if you’d allow us to take your picture. It would make explaining you to the newcomers a little easier.”

“I think several pictures would be a good idea,” I said. “Full body and face, and maybe one of him training all of us so they understand his current role as well as what he looks like.”

“Establishing how he’s already been accepted by others is smart,” Waurlyn said with a nod. “How soon do you want to start interviewing?”

I glanced at Molev, deferring this part of the conversation to him.

“Considering the number of volunteers and the state of unrest we witnessed when we were last there, it would be wise to move forward cautiously,” he said.

“What do you have in mind?” she asked.

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