AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Susan would be a good bond for you. She has influence. She wants to have more babies. A bond isn’t forever. You get to end it whenever you’re ready.”
“I’m not interested in bonding with Susan. I’m not interested in bonding with anyone.” He could hold out a while, but then he’d have to find a way to either avoid it altogether or fake a bond. Rory, though, Rory needed a better strategy to avoid Orrin’s predatory attentions. He’d been attracted to her meekness on arrival; she’d have been banking on putting him off with her switch to sharp. He seemed to grok that defiance in her even more.
“You’ll want to. Men can’t go without sex.”
“Sure they can.”
Cadence looked up. “That’s an idea from the outside that never worked. We don’t pretend in here. Men want sex. Women do too. I can’t wait till I’m too old to breed and then I won’t have to worry about it. That’s one advantage of being a woman. You’ll be expected to father kids till you drop dead.”
That wasn’t in the Continuer fine print.
“The only men who deny their sex drive are priests and all that led to was the worst kind of abuse,” she said.
“I won’t die if I don’t have sex.” So long as they weren’t talking about forever here. “Abstaining from sex isn’t denying my sex drive. It’s being careful about who I get involved with and I have no intention of being a father anytime soon.”
“You say things like that and I wonder why you came here.”
“Same reason you did. Outside is fucked up. I want to survive.”
Cadence freed her hand. “Thanks for the dance. I’m going home now.”
She left him standing there while the band played “Dancing in the Dark.” But she’d given him a cover story. Enough people had seen them. He could claim he followed her if challenged.
He didn’t stop to look for Rory. He could guess where she’d be. He cut through the dancers, weaving this way and that until he got to the edge of the fairy lights and then walked out of the glow. Once out of sight, he headed for HQ.
He found Rory on the far side of the building, contemplating an open window she’d have to scale the building to get to.
“Need a hand up?”
She jumped. “Shit, you move quietly.”
“Break and enter for beginners.” He polished his knuckles on this shirt. “I’ve still got it.”
“It’ll be a break and enter fail if we can’t get in there. It’s all locked up tight and you have to wonder why. What do they have in there they want to hide? Master keys don’t work either. Whoever locks this place up really wants it locked tight.”
He came in behind her, bent and made a stirrup with his hands. She put her hand to his shoulder and her foot in his hands. “Ready?”
“Did you manage to get Cadence up to dance?”
“I had help from Susan.”
“She’s a piece of work. Wants your ass.”
He grunted. “Wants my spunk.”
Rory laughed. “Did you notice all the pregnant women tonight?”
“Are you going in or do you want a foot massage?” One more question and this could wait, he’d haul her off to talk about the showdown with Orrin.
She clipped the top of his head with her palm. “I’ll take that massage later. On three.”
On three he boosted her so she could catch the edge of the windowsill, held her feet while she checked it for alarm sensors, then boosted her again so she could drag herself the rest of the way up and wriggle inside. He heard her land. She’d check for tripwires and internally set alarms, then establish a secondary exit for emergency purposes. He wouldn’t fit through that window so unless the door didn’t have sensors and she could pick the lock and let him in, there was nothing he could do but wait.
Only a few minutes later, he heard a series of clicks and she opened the rear door.
He skirted the side of the building and covered himself in shadow before he slipped inside. Once his eyes adjusted they moved off in separate directions, looking for the signal jammer or any useful phone or tech they could lift. Fifteen minutes inside using tiny bullet torches and staying clear of the windows was likely safe, twenty at the outside. As long as the band was playing, people would be focused on the party.
There wasn’t much to HQ. A reception area, a number of meeting rooms with the usual handmade furniture, an arrangement of sturdy desks and drawer sets. Not a lot of flashing green pinpricks to indicate equipment-drawing power. There were PCs and printers, but they were old and there was no server or routers so they were standalone terminals, not networked and not connected to the internet.
