Hush (The Infected: Ripped to Shreds Book 1) (8 page)

The other man was Hobbs. He was
probably the best fighter in the world. That news surprised her, a little bit,
but the man was going over related skills still, his mind an illustrated manual
of fighting techniques, as far as she could tell. His face held a placid and
relaxed smile, but he was
all
about combat.

Brian half stood, his face happy
enough to see her. Too much so for some woman that he'd just met. Then, she'd set
the rules on the phone, and he knew this was the interview portion, as far as
dating, which was important to him.

She went first.

"Hi! I'm Cindy. Cindy
Mableton. Call me Cin?" She waited, looking at each of them closely.
Looking for any hint that they knew her secrets.

They didn't. Doug thought she was
cute and felt a bit sad that Brian had gotten to her first. Not that he was
going to make a play for her, not now. He was a good friend that way.
Hobbs
worked out fifteen ways to kill her, using the objects on the table. A few of
them were clearly too fanciful to work, which was noted in the text. Sugar
packets just weren't that great as a weapon. Still, they could be used to
distract a person, if thrown into the face, either closed or opened. Salt was
the same, but more of an irritant if used right.

The flow went on that way,
without stopping.

What Doug
said
was more
entertaining however, than what he was thinking, which was just that she looked
cute.

"Your nickname is
Sin
?
Wicked. Here, let me shift around here." He moved enough that she ended up
between Impulse and the outside of the table, so she wouldn't be trapped with
them.

Funnily enough, everyone got the
reasoning. Not that she was going to be able to outrun them, if it came to it.
It was, she realized, the most dangerous situation that Cindy had ever been in.
Any of these people could not just kill
her
, but everyone in the place.
Doug could do it all at one time, and the only thing that might save them from
that would be
Impulse
.

They were all also good people.
There
was
a killer there, but that was
her
. The rest of them
weren't nearly as into it as all that. They'd all taken lives, but the others
were normal people that had regrets about it. Even Proxy.

Bridget kicked her lightly under
the table. She was nearly sitting across from her, even though the idea was to
place Cindy facing Brian. His friends were all helping him out, but using
something close to subtlety about it. All except Hobbs, who watched her closely,
smiling in a fixed gaze. That left her feeling uneasy, but he was just covering
how best to kill her, so she let it go. He didn't have a reason why he should
do it, so nothing would be happening.

When the waitress came, she had
help. Two people holding several plates each. The woman tried to set it all on
the table, but that wasn't going to work. The booth could fit six, and had
five, but little Bridget had ordered ten plates of stuff. Everyone just looked
on awkwardly for a bit, with Bridget knowing what to do, which was to dump some
of the plates onto the others. She just didn't want to seem like a pig in
public. The thing was, she really did need to eat, and soon.

Cindy shrugged.

"Consolidate the plates? The
fries can all go on one, I think. That kind of thing?" It made sense, and
the girl was clearly relieved that someone else was the one saying the obvious.
That way she could blame her for it later, if anyone complained. It was a great
idea actually, so Cin took one of them and used the girl's fork to get it done.
That meant Bridget was doing the same a few seconds later, which turned ten
plates into four, the others already having ordered. It wasn't all for the kid,
it seemed. Just most of it.

The heaped food looked good, but
she didn't need
that
much food, herself. More than most girls, true, but
she tended to only get hungry every few days for some reason. She was now, so
smiled and waved a bit at the waitress. Sherry. She had a name tag on.

"Could I get, um, a burger,
fries and some onion rings?" She didn't have a menu, which meant they
negotiated what exactly she meant on all of it.

After the woman left, Impulse
looked up from stuffing her face. It was very near to a literal thing. She did
chew and swallow, but it was all done with a will that was surprising to see.

Between bites the kid looked
across the table.

"Thanks. I was a bit stuck
for a second there. Do you eat a lot too? That wasn't a salad you
ordered." It was clear that everyone else there thought the question was
rude, but Cin just wrinkled her nose, trying for cute. It wasn't that hard,
being small, trim and blonde. Her nose was just button-ish enough for it to
really work that way.

"Sort of? I don't have to
eat most of the time, but I make up for it when I do. Plus, I hear
you're
paying for all of us? I can't let that pass me by, can I?" There was a
grin then, and a hand wave from the girl, and Brian looked away, a bit
embarrassed by the interplay.

The others started to eat, but he
held off, until she waved at him. "Eat. You can all wait for me on the
other side. Unless Bridget gets seconds?"

There did seem to be a very good
recall of the dessert menu from the girl. Complete with pictures. It was clear
that she was kind of on at the moment, since all of them, including the people
around them, had things like that going on suddenly. That
wasn't
normal.
She got pictures from almost everyone around. Along with text.

Still, it was easy to see, and
when she looked around she noticed that there were several young men and two
women, in a booth closer to the door. Since one of them had a really nice
visual of him rather violently choking Impulse with his dick, and another had
called in friend to help take down the "Dirty Infected" already, it
looked like a set up to her.

Looking at Brian she shrugged.

"Change seats with me? I
need to see the people by the door. Something's going on."

Brian didn't wait, or even look
at her funny, just standing, and moving smoothly. Not fast or anything. Just
like it was about him wanting to be next to Bridget. To sell that she stole
some fries from her, and smiled, reading carefully without getting caught
staring, which made it look like she was looking longingly into Brian's eyes,
she hoped. He didn't think so, getting the idea, however.

Hobbs was suddenly right on top
of things, his words changing from a general treatise on death, to becoming
very aware of his surroundings. He didn't look at the door, using a reflection
to see who was there.

"Five in all?" The
words from the man.

She didn't even have to look at
him to get what he meant. The words swung in, so that she could read them. The
page behind them looked a pale yellow, like an ancient text, and the words were
hand written, but very clear. He was assessing the potential fight to come
already.

The effect was fascinating.
Before she'd always had to look at people to read them. Looking at Brian, she
tried to bring up the ring leaders page, which swung in too. It took a bit to
find the right part, because she had to go back, which was never much fun, but
after a minute she shook her head.

"Something like fifty?
There's a militia coming? We can probably leave now. I'd hate to miss the free burger
though." That part was true. She was starving and so was Bridget, who
smiled at her broadly.

"I know what you mean. These
aren't bad for a Denny's.
Mark
would cry, but what he doesn't know won't
get my tummy in trouble. Fifty? I can do that. Really, what are they thinking?
Do they have tanks or rocket launchers?
I
wouldn't take on any of us
without at least that."

That
took more research, but that was
her thing, so it wasn't too hard. The big issue was that Levi the asshole bigot
didn't know all of that. The group he was with was the biggest one, over in Portland.
That they weren't all made up of hipsters was interesting, but it seemed like
they actually had some ex-military involved. Ones smart enough to bring more
than a pipe to fight three of the most powerful beings on the planet.

They didn't know about Hobbs at
all, which was their loss. They also weren't accounting for her, thankfully.
Not that she wasn't going to be killed too, since the
only
way to do
anything here would involve explosives and innocent patrons. On the good side
it was going to take at least an hour to get them all together. They had to
travel, and didn't have a plan for that location.

She explained all of that, which
got Hobbs to smile at her directly. That wasn't real, just being his default
expression. A thing that he'd trained for, on purpose.

"Oh? That sounds like it
might be in our favor then! First we should remove these five as a threat. Do
any possess weapons or powers of note?"

Oddly enough one of the women had
a handgun, which the others didn't know about. The other girl had pepper spray,
but wasn't really in on the plan. The guys weren't ready for anything all that
physical, and didn't even have pocket knives on them. She related this to the
others, as Bridget kept eating.

Then she got to do the same as
Sherry the waitress came back, with her burger. It was still warm, and it was
clear that she'd hurried with it, coming right over. She felt harried however,
which meant that she felt late, even though she'd done it about as fast as
humanly possible.

"I'm so sorry this took so
long. Do you need ketchup or anything?"

"Um, do you have any vinegar,
for the fries?" That got a concerned look and a head shake, since very few
places did that out west. They did back home. Not every place, but it was worth
asking about.

No one noticed that, but fries
were fine plain. She did her own eating for a bit, while Brian used the phone.
Calling in reinforcements, so, hopefully, they wouldn't have a Denny's ruining
fight. That would be rude and make it hard to get breakfast the next morning.
The hotel they were staying in was just down the street, making it really
convenient that way.

She tried her new trick, holding
the page as she looked away, her mouth full of burger. It really wasn't bad.
Even with a head start Bridget finished at the same time Cin did, which given
everything meant that several desserts were being ordered. Hobbs and Doug
skipped that, but Brian had a piece of pie, and Bridget had one of everything
on the menu.

Cindy just shook her head after
that.

"I don't want to be too
full, if I have to fight. Just, if it comes up, I get the scrawny looking guy
on the outside. He has a bad back, and his right knee is shot. I guess I'll see
if all that practice pays off?"

That got a nod from Hobbs, as if
the most natural thing for a tiny woman to say was that she was able to fight,
and a pleasant smile from Brian.

"Oh? What do you do?"
It was just conversational, but he meant it, actually being interested.

"Mixed martial arts. So
there's a bit of everything. I don't compete, for the obvious reasons. I do all
right though, when I can find
very
small muggers." She didn't have
to explain, since they all got her meaning. Except Bridget.

She
just wanted dessert. Even
thinking that death and destruction might be upon then, her main concern was
the food. It was kind of adorable. Proxy was very aware of her suddenly. Part
of it was fear. The soft panic of understanding that him being there was a
danger to her.

She shook her head.

"This isn't about you. It's
all Bridget here. The price of fame. Also the price of
delusion
. They
saw you on the news, but it didn't really seem to sink in. What you did, I
mean." Cindy looked at the girl, who was next to her now.

Impulse, looking like a child in
her pink dress, screwed her face up a bit.

"Damn. Here I was incognito,
too. I didn't even wear makeup or anything. I guess I should have slipped on
some glasses?" She did not seem concerned, for her part. "Well, it
isn't a big deal. If the Agents can't get them to leave, I can handle it. I
better not ruin my new clothes. That will
not
make me happy." Her
voice was piping and slightly higher pitched than what was comfortable to
listen to.

It didn't carry however, and when
the dessert came she ate like it was just a normal part of life.

There was good news however, as
they went outside. The police had been brought in on it, and managed to stop
about half of the incoming people. Not all of them, and while there were four
agents coming to help out, they'd been delayed. By a flat tire, of all things.

So, as they walked out the front
door they were met by a decently large crowd of people. Mostly men, and mostly
armed. Handguns and rifles for most of them, which made the whole thing pretty
darned illegal. Snapping her fingers, Cindy ran back inside, and rather
shamelessly stole a pad of paper and a pen from the front desk. They'd left it
unguarded, making it fair game.

Then, once outside again, she
looked around in the snow, and started writing down license plate numbers. No
one got what she was doing, except Proxy, who smiled at her. As soon as he
turned to the others there, the attackers, he went cold however.