Katie And The Reaper (A Post-Apocalyptic Romance)

Chapter 4 - Katie almost 17

It was so cold outside. There were icy patches in the old road, with the occasional unhelpful snow bank. Driving the mangled, clogged old world pavement was dangerous enough without the helpful assistance of bad weather.

Katie looked at her mom, small but determined in the big cab seat. Eyes focused forward, anxiety and fear surrounding her so much the last three days that Katie was starting to taste the sour taint of it in her mouth. There was a handmade map next to Marie, sitting on top of the backpack in the front seat. Directions to a friendly vampire nest seeking a healer for their blood-servants.

It was a risk. The vampires that traded with the wolves at Reservation had been slick and gentlemanly. They'd approached Marie with an offer to be their healer once, and then, weeks later, to remind her the offer was still open and how appreciated she'd be in their house. They hadn't pressed, tried to stalk them. Katie would have known. Instead, they threw out words like little bits of mouse bait, walking away and not watching while the bait sat there. Waiting for it's mouse.

Not all vamps were bad. There were nests that believed human preservation was important to their own survival, therefore treating humans like precious pets and less like slaves and sacks of disposable blood, benefited them. Shifters, believing that humanity was also important to their species, didn't trade or tolerate blood-eaters who kept slaves. Katie knew the wolves could smell the difference between a somewhat good vampire and a very bad vampire in just the same way she could feel the difference. Evil always colored life-glow. Always.

But an evil soul and actions considered evil by humans were two different things. There was no knowing what they were headed into until they got there.

Katie wasn't planning on finding out.

After cheating on Allen with a human ex-army-medic, two weeks after the man's arrival, tension at Reservation was just hot enough that in less than a year and a half, Marie was ready to leave. She took the bait. And they were on their way.

Katie was more than ready to go. She had made no friends in Reservation. Half of the other teenagers were supernatural creatures themselves, but they called her weird. It was the end of days, everyone was weird. They branded her the weirdest. They collar her mom and Declan made her wear did not help. Children and teens alike taunted her until she blurted out that the Missy Sanchez's upcoming death-date in anger. Missy, a pretty girl slotted to become a wolf-mate five days after her eighteenth birthday, was the instigator in half of the nasty things said about Katie. Her mother said she died of a brain aneurism; Missy went so fast and so quick there was nothing anyone could do.

Katie's weird factor upped one hundred percent, coupled with a rumor that Katie had not predicted Missy's death but caused it, did not make life in Reservation any easier.

Katie could have caused the girl's damn death if she had wanted to, and it would not have been as peaceful and easy as a brain bleed.

There was also the looming risk of Katie becoming a wolf-mate herself. Although she didn't mind the idea of the life-long bond of being with a shifter. She saw that every mated girl who resisted the first few months, was lovey-dovey by their six-month anniversary. But that didn't mean she wanted one five days after she turned eighteen.

She was ready to leave Reservation long before Marie cracked under Allen's loving, territorial care and cheated on him.

That collar hadn't come off until the day their vehicle sat idling, packed and loaded to go. As an alpha, Declan wasn't going to let a device used against wolves leave his compound. Marie had not wanted to part with the control the collar gave her. It had done it's job perfectly, making Katie follow her number one rule. She didn't realize that It had also destroyed any trust Katie had for her. The collar had done more than keep her home and humiliate Katie, it ate away at their mother daughter relationship until there was nothing left.