The back of Kennedy’s neck broke into a cold sweat as the alarms went off while she waited in the Ready Station. Fear turned to exasperation when Pete’s voice announced it was just a big blonde idiot making trouble.

  And she’s late, Kennedy thought. The thought was quickly followed by an enormous THUD. Rose already had her hackles raised from the alarms, and the Cruma growled towards the sound. The door opened, with Cait staggering through. The big girl righted herself and gave Kennedy that ‘dazzle ‘em’ grin.

  Kennedy couldn’t help returning it, her annoyance melting away as she raised her face to Cait’s to accept a soft kiss of greeting. Rose yowled, swiping at Cait’s leg, but it was a futile effort.

  “Hey baby!” Cait turned to the angry Cruma, who spat at her. “Awwwww, you missed step-mom, I can tell!”

  Anyone else would have been shredded to ribbons if they tried to pick up the Cruma. For Cait though, she just locked her arms around the big kitten and let herself get scratched, putting her cheek against the cats. Eventually, Rose gave up, eyes wide, ears flat, just letting out a low continuous mrrrrrrrr of displeasure and continually licking at her lips.

  “That can’t have been how you got Salad to like you,” Kennedy said, running her fingertips along the back of Cait’s thigh.

  “Are you kidding? That man-slut begs for this,” Cait responded, letting Rose drop to the floor, where the cat immediately slunk under the bench Kennedy sat on, glaring at the Amazon.

  Kennedy rolled her eyes.

  “Right, I forgot your cat got Altered to have the soul of a dog,” she replied.

  “No vet has ever confirmed it, but it would explain a lot!” Cait grinned down at her, extending a hand to help her up. “C’mon, human Dark Knight machine, city ain’t gonna save itself!”

  They got their route from Bubb-bill, geared up, and Kennedy made for the motor pool.

  “Psh, fuck that!” Cait said, stopping her. “I’ve been meaning to go on a run.”

  Kennedy and Rose took to the skies, and she watched in awe as Cait shot like lightning through the streets and wilderness below. There were a few close calls, plenty of honking horns, but they reached downtown with property damage kept to a minimum. A fringe benefit to Cait’s new found speed was a absolute abounding joy that bled from the blonde as she shot through the city. Combined with the freedom of flying, echoed from Rose, Kennedy felt almost high.

  They reached downtown, and Kennedy landed, instructing Rose to circle above. The Cruma didn’t understand the words, at least Kennedy didn’t think so, but through empathic nudging, motions, and tone, she’d gotten pretty good at getting her to follow simple instructions.

  Now if I could only get that to work on this one, she thought, running her eyes over Cait, who stood grinning with her hands on her hips, not even breathing heavy.

  “Pretty good right!?” she asked, excitement beaming from her eyes. “I’d kiss Gwyn if I didn’t think B-money would brush my teeth from the wrong end.”

  “Yikes,” Kennedy said, chuckling. Cait had a way with words. “Although I’m not sure Gwyn would agree that’s a punishment.”

  “I swear to god, if what the little dude wants to ask us is if a woman can survive being fully kebabed, I’ll scream.”

  “Oh my god,” Kennedy laughed. “I doubt it. B-man seems more level headed than that.”

  “Never made it past middle school though, he might just think its one straight tube in there!” Cait countered, teasing.

  Kennedy glared at her.

  “Be nice,” she ordered, beckoning behind herself as she walked past Cait. With the link, she could almost feel the Amazon’s eyes on her ass as she turned to follow. She bit her lip in satisfaction.

  Well, wore these shorts for a reason, she thought with a smirk.

  Cait followed behind for a while, no doubt appreciating the scenery. Kennedy began to do her duty, questing out with her mind, not linking up all the way, just brushing against the many minds of the city around her.

  She hated this. It was one of the few things she’d found to bond with Breastman over, as they were being asked to invade people’s privacy in ways they weren’t comfortable with. But, she was one of four people in the city that could reliably separate Characters from regular citizens, and one of only two that could do it on the move. She kept her touch as surface level as possible, searching for the empty husk the Characters had where emotions should be.

  She didn’t notice Cait come up beside her until the big girl entwined her fingers in her own, her hand covering Kennedy’s almost entirely. Kennedy smiled up at her, seeing it mirrored on Cait’s face. She bumped her head against her shoulder, allowing her arm to swing a little bit as a shot of glee flashed through her.

  23, and this is my first time walking down the street hand in hand with a pretty girl, she thought. She shook her head in elated disbelief. A month ago, she would have guessed that number would be around 40, if ever. She let herself live there, for a second. It’d been a long time since the soft warmth of someone’s skin against her own had been a real source of comfort.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  Scanning through the myriad minds surrounding her was quickly becoming strenuous, and she leaned more and mote on Cait to lead her along. The Amazon always drew stares, but now, brushing against the minds of the people they passed, Kennedy could feel the curiosity, arousal, and a few bursts of disgust pulsing in their direction. She didn’t, however feel any of the blank slates that heralded a Character.

  They’d found extremely few since the initial attacks, and there were already rumblings that all of this was useless, and the threat was over. The cities ability to get over tragedy and fear, honed over the years of the waves, was both a blessing and a curse. People were primed to forget the bad days, because the next one probably wasn’t far away, and it wasn’t worth wasting the good ones on worrying.

  Still, most visibly Altered citizens that remained outside of the AEGIS compound stayed indoors. There were plenty of people who had loved ones injured in the initial attacks that had a bone to pick, and were less and less selective on who they took that issue up with.

  The major exception to that, were exemplified by the pack of assholes mean mugging the pair as they approached. The leader was a skeletally thin man, only really visibly Altered by the way his feet cracked the concrete as he walked. Kennedy brushed against his mind, almost disappointed to find emotions there, and thus robbed of her justification to sic her girlfriend on the dude’s smug face.

  “Time runs short for you collared dogs,” he said, to the forced laughter of his lackeys, all proudly displaying the up-arrow pins of the Elevated Race. “The cracks begin to sh—”

  “Show me a crack, and I’m putting something in it,” Cait interuppted, getting a bark of actual laughter out of Kennedy. “And yeah, that’s a threat. Keep fucking walking, I’m the one bitch in this city you couldn’t mess with if you tried.”

  The man’s sunken eyes flared with rage, but he seemed to realize his impotence even as his lackeys bristled. He scoffed, gesturing for his group to continue on.

  Kennedy let out a sigh of disappointment. Part of her knew she shouldn’t want to start a brawl in the street, but those cucks pissed her right the fuck off. Their leader’s stupid bald head had gotten way too much airtime recently, preying on the fears and distrust rampant in the city. Seemed to Kennedy that having a single Guardian put down a gang of their enforcers would put a pretty stark light on Andrew Fait’s insistence his organization would do a better job than AEGIS.

  She stumbled over a raised piece of sidewalk, but barely fell an inch before Cait’s hand caught her waist.

  “Okay hero,” Cait chuckled, swinging her around and pulling her close. Kennedy felt her finger catch in one of the holes of the fishnets she wore, where they poked up above her shorts. “You need a break. Been feelin’ it coming on in your head for awhile, c’mon, this place has dope cheese curds.”

  The big girl led her to a patio table set up on the side walk outside of a mid-scale sports bar, pulling out a chair for Kennedy before plopping down beside her. Cait laid a familiar hand high on her thigh as she picked up the menu.

  “Whew!” Cait said performatively. “Long walk for me too. Think your mom would be mad if I got a Long Island on duty?”

  Kennedy barked out a laugh.

  Damn, now that I’m sitting down I was more tired than I thought.

  “She’d definitely be mad,” Kennedy responded as a waitress approached their table. “But only if she found out.”

  She winked at Cait, then turned to smile at the waitress as she greeted them. The girl was clearly nervous, and probably wasn’t even as old as Kennedy. She’d noticed women tended to get nervous around Cait even when she wasn’t dressed as a stripper superhero, so she could hardly blame the girl.

  “Hi! Could we grab two Long Islands and some curds please?”

  The waitress stammered the order back to her and scurried off. Cait squeezed her thigh in approval.

  “I like it when you’re bad,” the Amazon purred. She’d gotten right up to Kennedy’s ear without her noticing, and her breath sent a tingle down her spine. Cait grinned at Kennedy’s wide eyes when she swung her head around, and leaned back in her chair. “Also, I really thought I’d be breaking more chairs. I’m 800 pounds of pure muscle and non-Euclidean mass, these things must be damn well built.”

  She’s so fucking good at keeping me off balance, Kennedy thought scowling at the girl. The feedback told her Cait thought it was cute, so the reprimand was a failure.

  Their drinks came, and damn that was refreshing. The alcohol took the edge off the ache from cycling through so many links. She kept glaring at Cait as the big girl happily sipped on her drink, raising it in greeting to a couple of kids that stared as they scootered down the sidewalk.

  “Does that even do anything for you?” Kennedy asked, watching a bead of condensation fall to Cait’s collarbone, and trace a wet line down between her breasts.

  “To get me drunk?” Cait responded, pretending not to notice that Kennedy’s eyes shot up from her chest. “Not a thing! To be absolutely fucking refreshing? Hell yeah, brother!”

  Kennedy laughed, putting her hand on top of Cait’s and squeezing. She left it there, and they sat in silence, or as close as it came in a city, watching the town go by.

  She actually jumped when a basket of steamy hot cheese curds appeared in front of her, and Cait’s face lit up in delight. The blonde looked comically between the hand that held her drink and the hand on Kennedy’s thigh, tan dark against her pale skin.

  “Heh, real Sophie’s Choice there, huh babe?” she asked. She grabbed one of the crispy breaded pieces and held it in front of Cait’s mouth.

  “Say Ahhh….” she commanded, slow and sexy as she could muster.

  Cait immediately countered by opening her throat, lolling out her tongue, crossing her eyes and letting out a soft moan that might have been an ‘Ah’.

  “Ohmygodwhatthefuck,” Kennedy laughed, all but stuffing the treat down Cait’s throat. “You are way too good at that.”

  “Oddly enough, second time I’ve had to use it today,” Cait grinned, chewing on the cheese curd. She washed it down with a sip of cocktail, letting her lips part in an un-ironic ‘Ah!’. “Was fucking with Kevin’s mom earlier. No one ever knows how to respond when some one goes ahegao in the middle of a conversation.”

  “Yeah, cause its fucking weird you creep!” Kennedy punched Cait in the shoulder, but she was laughing while she did it.

  A flash of familiar golden eyes.

  Instantly, the warm, welcome feeling of Cait’s hand on her thigh felt like acid against her skin.

  Kennedy shot to her feet, spilling her drink as she tried to find them again, hoping she wouldn’t, but scanning every window, every passerby.

  Cait was on her feet too, clearly ready for a fight, but not finding anything ready to provide it.

  “What do we got, Kennedy, talk to me.” Her eyes flicked between all the same targets Kennedy was seeing, finding nothing. Rose slammed to the patio next to her human, snarling at nothing.

  Kennedy could feel Cait trying to fight back the rising panic in her brain. The girl was learning well, she did a better job than any anxiolytic that Kennedy had ever taken. The fierce protective instincts of Rose helped too, but it wasn’t enough.

  She felt her heart race, painfully fast. It felt like each beat was pounding on her lungs, stealing her breath. A thousand needles pricked her skin, each a drop of sweat, paradoxical to the ice that had seized her spine.

  “I’m getting you out of here.”

  Kennedy barely heard Cait speak, before she was over her shoulder, speeding out of the city. Rose bounded along behind Cait, and Kennedy imagined she could see concern in the big cats eyes. She shut her own. She loved that cat, but she couldn’t look into those yellow eyes right now.