novelraw Chapter 90: How Far She Could Throw A Clipboard
Chapter 90: How Far She Could Throw A Clipboard
Noah’s laugh cut sharp across the gym. He pushed off the wall and sauntered closer, thumbs hooked in his pockets like a teenager about to start a fight and call it a joke. "Nah," he said, cheerful. "KAS does nothing without Zaddy’s permission. Plus, I have to go with them... gotta keep an eye on them, you know? Never know when they’re gonna go off script."
He winked at the second-in-command. "You know how it is—stars and their entourages."
Zubair didn’t bother dignifying it. He snapped a glance at Sera. That was all. She turned back to the doors. The cold outside would be clean and quiet. She preferred quiet that didn’t watch her breathe.
The snow in the lot had risen a lot in just the short time they were in there. It was now a few inches deep, and she was worried that if it didn’t stop soon, getting the supplies was going to turn dicey. She climbed into the middle of the backseat, waiting for the bullshit of the military to be over and done with.
She understood wanting supplies that were... crucial. Hell, she had a whole other bedroom decked out in soft blankets and even softer pillows. But at least she had risked her own life to get them and didn’t send someone else to face the ’mental patients’.
Luckily, the men didn’t keep her waiting long. The doors banged once, twice. Lachlan came out first, mouth quirked with that warning-smile he wore when he was about to let someone else talk themselves into a mistake. Elias followed with his hands already in his pockets, a posture that usually meant he was thinking how best to skin a question down to bone. Alexei walked in high spirits, jotting something across the back of the clipboard list with a pilfered pen; he’d added a drawing in the corner—looked like a cartoon penguin with a knife. Zubair brought up the rear, a small stack of folded maps under one arm, his face unreadable.
"Good news," Alexei said, sliding into the back seat beside her like they were leaving a dinner party. "They really really want whipped cream."
"Of course they do," Sera said, as the rest of the men got into the vehicle. Soon enough, Lachlan was pulling out of the parking lot. The tires spun once... twice before they caught traction. The Hummer shouldered its way through the slush like it was born to it. "Which brand? Vintage? Hand-churned by monks?"
"Name brands only," Elias said blandly. "Apparently canned desserts taste like shit without the proper logo."
"Vegetables, too," Lachlan added. "You can’t forget the vegetables. Fresh would be ideal, but they’ll accept frozen. Also Coke and Pepsi. Both. For... balance."
"Democracy at its finest," Alexei said solemnly. "Equal access to bubbles."
"You could have said ’no,’" Sera told Zubair without looking at him. It wasn’t a question.
He didn’t answer right away. He watched the narrow road unspool toward the highway, the way the treeline leaned like a crowd. "We said ’later,’" he said finally. "They’ll be gone soon enough."
"You believe that?" Her voice was even. She didn’t need to be loud in order to cut through the bullshit or the tension.
"I believe they’ll leave when they’re told to leave." Zubair’s tone didn’t change. "I also believe wasting our time fighting with them now helps no one."
Sera let that sit. He was not wrong. He was also not right in the way that mattered to her. The rec center was in Lake E—her lake. Her territory. Their presence put a boot firmly in the middle of her territory, even if they didn’t know it. And while she could live with anything as long as it was temporary, she could not live with footprints of others in her territory.
"Where first?" Elias asked, eyes on the passing trees. He watched the landscape like he was taking its pulse.
"Not downtown," Sera replied with a shake of her head. "There’s no point. Stores are stripped and the rest isn’t worth the smell." She watched as Lachlan turned onto the main road, the tires hissing over salt. "I say we go east, then cut north. The small strip on Bayview will still have freezers humming if the power grid holds. After that, the wholesale place out by the ferry road."
"They want candy," Alexei mused. "We could also raid a movie theater. Popcorn oil is calorie-dense, and I always wanted to wear one of those silly vests."
"You’d look adorable," Lachlan said. "We’ll add a bowtie to match your knife."
The banter rolled past Sera like radio static, a layer she could turn up or down with a thought. It wasn’t that she didn’t like the sound of them—it anchored the space, kept the corners from growing teeth—but the creature beneath her skin had its own priorities.
It pressed at her in waves, not insisting so much as reminding: prepare, clear, control. The casino came to mind on instinct; she shoved the thought down before it could touch her face. Secrets live longest when they weren’t named.
They hit Bayview in under five minutes. The strip mall there had never tried very hard—the grocery anchored one end, a pharmacy that smelled like dust and menthol held the middle, and a discount home store sagged at the other.
The plows hadn’t bothered to plow or salt the roads here. Sera watched as Lachlan nosed the Hummer up over a hummock of snow and parked at an angle that let her see the full sweep of storefronts without turning her head.
"Same as always," Zubair said, already unbuckling. "Two and two. In and out. Talk later."
"Papa Smurf and I will handle the freezers," Alexei said cheerfully, clapping Lachlan’s shoulder once. "I want to see if they have pistachio. The commander looks like a pistachio man."
"Noah with me," Zubair said, and didn’t check if the other man agreed. But Noah didn’t need to say anything. He was already out of the Hummer, his gun at the ready.
They moved like they always did: in clean lines, in pairs that were less about who liked who and more about angles and habit. Sera didn’t need to be told where to go. She took the pharmacy with Elias and left Zubair and Noah with the grocery store. The less time she spent around that fucking soldiers’ list, the less likely she was to test how far she could throw a clipboard.