Chapter 47

Freyja half-wished Officer Gatas would succumb to madness just so she could let him stew over the same thought on repeat. Instead she had to deal with pouring everything she had into locking him up while the man screamed in terror in her head and mentally thrashed against her efforts in an attempt to break free.

YOU'RE ALL UNDER ARREST!

She managed to roll her eyes without losing her grip.

YOU'RE UNDER ARREST FOR CHILD ENDANGERMENT! HUMAN TRAFFICKING! ANIMAL ABUSE! AND HOARDING!

That last one's not even illegal, Freyja shot back.

Odin was still collapsed on the ground with Kait. Their weeping had quieted to hitching sobs as they leaned on one another. Saffron and Snow had collected their cats and moved toward Hal who spoke to them in a whisper about the Link. Based on what she could feel beyond Officer Gatas' terror and rage, Damien and Gee had left the Barn entirely to secure the handgun they'd removed and check on the rest of the teens along with their daughter. None of them would be useful in dealing with Gatas, which left only one option.

YOU'RE ALL UNDER ARREST!

Gods! Shut up, please, Freyja ordered.

FUCK YOU, MONSTER!

No thanks, she replied.

Lawrence reached down to allow Frank to hop up onto his shoulder. The cat curled around him like a fuzzy brown scarf melting into his beard and scruffy hair. The biker rose to his feet, barely making eye contact with Freyja as he confidently stepped around Kait, Odin, and Sticky Bun in the middle of the blood splattered floor. He didn't say or think a word as he reached Officer Gatas and knelt behind him, slipping his arms around the man's neck.

GET AWAY FROM ME! GET OFF OF ME, YOU BASTARD!

Lawrence squeezed on the cop's throat with practiced ease, putting just enough pressure on the carotid artery to cut the flow of blood to his brain. Gatas' panicked mental screaming became more intense and less coherent, flashing images of firing his gun and using a police baton, as he realized what was happening until he eventually grew quiet. When Freyja released him from her own mental hold his body grew limp in Lawrence's grasp.

"He out?" the biker asked without looking up.

"Yeah. Thanks," she replied.

Lawrence laid the cop down in the dirt, then glanced over to Odin and Kait who continued to cry into one another more silently than before. Now that Gatas was unconscious Freyja could feel their grief more profoundly, as well as everyone else in the Link. Twenty one minds, each in a different emotional state, moving independently of each other. Hal and the girls broke away from their little huddle to join Freyja and Lawrence near Officer Gatas' body. Mentally, she counted heads. Herself, Odin, Sprinkles, Damien, Bumble Bee, Gee, Gravy Train, Hal, Hemi V-8, Gatas, his worm named Lash, Kait, Sticky Bun, Saffron, whose worm Clamp also didn't know the name of her Host, Snow, Lucky who remarkably knew the name of his Host thanks to many trips to the vet, Lawrence, and Frank.

That's only nineteen, Freyja thought.

"Nineteen what?" Lawrence asked.

"There's only supposed to be nineteen minds in the Link but I feel twenty one," Freyja clarified out loud.

One mind felt incredibly close to her, like they were right behind her shoulder holding their breath to keep from whispering in her ear. The other was far, far above them.

She looked up and hissed through her teeth, "Fuck."

Lawrence followed her gaze, as did everyone else in the barn.

"I don't feel anyone up there," Hal said.

The mind was distant, similar to how Odin had felt when he couldn't perceive Freyja but she could feel him. They held steady contempt as they circled the area. Freyja pursed her lips and took a deep breath, dust, blood, cat shit, and smoke filled her nostrils.

Fear and panic regarding a swiftly approaching brush fire poured off Gee while he raced back to the Barn from the Armory. She needed to work with Gee regarding the Link if the universe ever gave them a moment to rest. The mind in the sky continued to circle just at the edge of where Freyja could sense. If they were the Tiger, they'd only showed up to watch the continuing chaos as Gee burst back through the front door.

"We have a huge problem!"

"I know," Freyja replied.

Freyja sent out hastily prepared mental packets of orders to different people and worms in the Link at the same time. Kait and Odin's heads snapped up in unison. He gave her one more firm hug before pushing to his feet. Hal and the other teens with cats scrambled to the door, pushing past Sam who continued to film the scene with his phone.

"We're on it. Van will be ready in five minutes, tops," Hal said with Snow and Saffron behind him. Kaylee fell in too before they reached the door of the barn.

"I don't have enough crates for them all," Kait said, still clutching the limp blood soaked body of Jesús to her chest.

"We won't need them," Odin replied. He turned his attention to the cats that had begun to leave their hiding places after the carnage. Speaking in Hive Standard he said, "Everyone. We are evacuating immediately. A fire is threatening this location. Follow us to the vehicles, now!"

A chubby black and white cow cat emerged from behind a wooden box. "What about my children?"

"I will carry them," Odin replied without hesitation. "Anyone else with young, come to me!"

Everyone went about their assigned tasks, which left Freyja free to leave the Barn. She paused in the doorway, placing a hand on Sam's shoulder, locking eyes with him. He still had his phone in his hands recording what was playing out before him just as much on auto-pilot as Kait had been the previous day.

"Put your phone away and help."

"But I can't," he managed to say stiffly.

She gently squeezed his shoulder. "Help the Brothers of Fervor with the evacuation. They need to get Kait's house cats."

"Lawrence is their leader," Sam replied.

"And I'm busy with this asshole," the older biker replied. He double checked the cuffs holding Gatas' hands behind his back. Frank had already hopped off Lawrence's shoulder to circle the unconscious man's body, which allowed the biker to pick the bigger man up as if he weighed next to nothing.

"Come on, Sam," Freyja said. "We need your help."

He bit his lip, slipped his phone into his pocket without pausing the recording, then swallowed hard. Freyja guided him out of the barn to the backyard where most of the other people hurried about with the evacuation effort. Two of the Brothers of Fervor had Kait's water hose turned on full. They'd dragged it as far as they could to spray down the grass and brush near the barbwire fence on the other side of the Armory. The other members of the biker gang carried food and water from the Armory to the back of Carrie's truck at her instruction. Damien and Gee hurried Zoe to their car. The Linked cats escorted Barn cats across the yard in orderly lines toward the vehicles. Freyja was careful not to look up as the Tiger continued to lazily circle the area far beyond anyone else's perception. The last thing they needed was for it to attack while they rushed to get the Hive cats to safety.

Lawrence gently passed Freyja with Officer Gatas draped over his shoulder then barked at his men. "Help Sam get Kait's cats from the house. He'll go in and put them in carriers then hand them off to you since Mittens and Sir Reginald Chickenfingers are skittish." He kept walking but stopped talking as Kait chimed in over the Link.

My carriers are in the laundry room. Soup and Lady Grace are probably hiding too. They're all skittish. I'll be there in a minute to help, Kait said. Freyja could feel her hurriedly putting Jesús's body in a box within the Barn. Her thoughts and emotions weren't bleeding over as much as Gee's tended to now that she'd calmed down.

"Carriers are in the laundry room near the back door," Lawrence added. He continued toward the police officer's car which was parked with the bumper kissing the side of the van, blocking in several other vehicles.

Gonna take out that prying eye you mentioned, Boss? Lawrence asked.

Evacuating takes priority. If the Eye comes at us I'll take it out, Freyja replied on her way to the Armory where she could hear some of the teens arguing.

"No, no. She wants us to leave those," Hal said from inside.

"Listen to him," Kaylee added. "He can hear her thoughts."

"I don't care if he's married to her, we need to take these guns," Megan replied. "We didn't get powers. How else are we supposed to protect ourselves? Right, Snow?"

Freyja reached the door, grabbed it and tore if off the hinges with one hand. The frame bent when it was partially pulled away from the metal building, while the portions of the corrugated metal wall warped outward from the force. All of the teens froze. Snow and Saffron paused in the middle of rolling up sleeping bags. Dylan grew pale where he stood next to Megan, who held two of the still locked hand guns in her arms like the last loaves of bread at the supermarket. Kaylee and Hal were a few feet away where they'd been attempting to talk Megan into moving the supplies Freyja had designated.

"Your priorities are food, water, and camping supplies. Leave the guns," Freyja said. "Hal's supposed to be getting the Barn Cats in your van. Give him the keys, Dylan. If you don't want to do that, I know he can hot-wire it."

She hadn't wanted to play that card. She hadn't intentionally pried that much into everyone's minds but despite trying to avoid it she knew way more about everyone she was connected with than she should. Hal hadn't intended to broadcast thinking about how to get the van running if he couldn't get the keys, but the memory of his father, Andy, teaching him how to do it when he was ten was impossible for Freyja to ignore.

Dylan reached into his pants pocket silently, then took a step forward to hand Hal the keys before quickly stepping back. Freyja eyed Megan who continued to clutch the guns as if her life depended on them. Under any other circumstances it might but Freyja knew from Odin's memories that the handguns would be little more than an annoyance to the circling Tiger above them.

"Put the guns back, grab your gear, and get out. We have a fire a couple yards shy of overtaking this place and no time for this shit," Freyja ordered, stepping further into the Armory to allow Hal to slip behind her and out of the building.

Kaylee joined Snow and Saffron rolling up sleeping bags. Most of the food and camping gear had been removed from the Armory already. Carrie wasn't part of the Link, but she seemed to be on the same page with the evacuation, which was a huge help. Megan finally marched to the rear of the building where the guns were stored, setting each of them back on the racks where they'd previously been. A warm orange glow from the fire outside began to light the high ventilation window of the back wall of the Armory more brightly. The smoke outside blew in through the shattered entry way. The smell alone was enough to shift the mood in the room. Megan didn't say anything as she and Dylan hurried to help the others to pick up the last of the sleeping bags and file out into the night.

Let me know if they're a problem again, Freyja said to Hal.

Will do, he replied. What about the mech?

Don't worry about that. Focus on your task, she said while staring at the still covered robot next to the wall and workbench.

The mechanized infantry suit and the guns were a problem. The teens were right that they couldn't just leave the weapons and ammunition. However, there wasn't enough room for everything. Leaving any of it would be a hazard due to the fire. They didn't need things exploding from the heat while they were evacuating. Yet, that wasn't even the worst case scenario. There was a chance the Tiger could swoop down to take it all after Freyja's Hive evacuated. It was part of the Special Strike Force and as such knew how to operate every firearm in the building. It wouldn't have to use a gun to kill, but based on Odin's encounter with the Tiger, it might do so for fun.

We need a new name, she thought only to herself.

Only one option remained to deal with the mech and guns in the time that was left. Odin was able to temporarily absorb his clothing when he shifted, then spit it back out just as it had been previously. His math was a little fuzzy on why that worked, but Freyja had picked up on how he did it. She didn't even check to see if anyone was watching through the broken door when she shifted in on herself, careful not to destroy her clothing. Then, she continued forward, engulfing the mech before rolling and swooping in the guns, gun racks, and ammo crates along the back wall. Finally, she shifted herself right-side-out and into her clothing the same way Odin had done. The only thing left in the building were random tools she didn't give a shit about, the rolling office chair, microwave, fridge, and her backpack.

Kittens secured. Sent Sam to retrieve your keys, Odin said.

Barn Cats in the van and every other car we could fit them in. Humans are ready to roll out too, Hal added.

In position, Commander, Hemi said.

Standing by and ready for a fight, Bumble Bee confirmed.

We're gonna fight? Sprinkles asked excitedly. I wanna fight!

Our orders are to flee and protect the others, Gravy Train said.

Protect who? Sprinkles asked.

The Humans and Barn Cats, Sticky Bun clarified.

Barn Cats? Sprinkles asked.

Who's this guy? Lucky sneered.

Stay on task, the Commander doesn't need to deal with your shit right now, Frank said.

"We've got the cats loaded up but can't find the keys to your car," Sam said when he reached the door. He looked around inside. "Where'd everything go?"

She grabbed her backpack and bag of laundry from under the folding table below the microwave. Her keys were still in the top of the bag. She tossed them to Sam, who fumbled a bit but managed to keep them from hitting the makeshift metal floor.

"You're driving my car. Pop the trunk so I can get something from it before you leave," she said.

"But it's your car and it's full of kittens and mamma cats," he protested weakly.

"I trust you, Thunderskull."

His eyes lit up, though not literally. Then, he grit his teeth, puffing out his chest. "Right. On it."

Sam's driving my car, Odin. You're with me, she ordered to him directly.

Yes, Commander, he replied.

She didn't look up as they left the Armory, but kept track of the sensation of being watched from high above. If the Tiger attacked it would be soon, just when they thought they could get away.

It was a cat, after all.