After the mess that was the st few hours of dealing with that absolute clusterfuck of a chemical fire, not to mention finding out the facility under it was owned by Xavier Sincir, Grace just wanted to colpse into bed and stay there for the next day at a minimum.

  Nicole was snoring gently beside her in her usual adorable way. Her girlfriend would often deny snoring, but it was on the cute side of the spectrum so Grace always made sure to keep it to teasing and little more. The other problem came when Grace’s phone started to ring. She nearly screamed as she silenced the damn thing and tossed it aside.

  Whoever was calling could wait until a more respectable hour. It wasn’t even noon yet and she hadn’t slept but an hour before her stomach had forced her out of bed and to the restroom. Now she was wide awake and doom scrolling through social media in a vain attempt to drift back off, or she would be if a second call hadn’t needed to be dismissed.

  A long series of dings rang out and Grace groaned as her phone would not fucking shut up. She tried burying her head under her pillow, but it wasn’t enough. Finally, she grabbed the device and unlocked it, looking for what the messages might have been.

  The phone in her hand was almost mocking as she stared at the first of dozens of messages gring back at her. It was barely past ten am, yet she knew who they were from almost immediately. It had been almost three years since Grace heard from them, and yet they managed to get a hold of her new number. That figured, given she wasn’t able to change her name without publishing it, which would negate the point of it all.

  Why wait until now to look for her? Why reach out when she made it abundantly clear that she wanted nothing to do with them ever again? The only thing Grace could think of was that she had appeared on the news during the school shooting incident. It had to be from before Nicole approached the police, when she slipped away to morph.

  Unknown: Repent, and return to God before your sinful ways lead you to hell.

  That had been the first of the text messages her former family had sent, each one coming from a different number as her phone was flooded by messages from strangers. As the messages continued to roll in, it became clear that they must have gotten their whole church in on the doxing attempt. The most telling of the messages however came from her little sister, whose number was one of the few she actually bothered to enter into her new phone.

  Sarah: I was asked by your former fiance to invite you to our wedding. It will be held this Saturday. My future husband sends his regards.

  Fire flooded her veins as she considered the idea that her little sister, who was barely fifteen, was being forced to marry that creep. Worse, it would be legal, because of course the bastards that ran the southern states would keep child marriage legal. Looking online, she found the wedding announcement, and it was scheduled for the coming weekend.

  There was no way in hell she was letting that limp-dicked fuckstick marry her baby sister.

  The problem came from the fact that she was responsible for the safety of Minneapolis, it was her home, and she was a Ranger. She couldn’t just take a week off to go back to Tennessee no matter how much she might wish to. It was bad enough that Nicole was struggling to keep up with them in fights, if Grace decided to travel for this… Being down two Rangers would be a death sentence if a powerful mutant were to be deployed.

  Maybe she could see if Carlos was willing to help cover for her trip… She had his number, which she pulled up as she stepped out into the living room and dialed before she could think otherwise. He picked up on the third ring.

  “Grace? This is unexpected,” Carlos said with a half-asleep tone.

  She sighed. “I wish this was a courtesy call, but I had some family thing come up and I was wondering if you could help reinforce Minneapolis while I’m out of town for a few days.”

  “I trust Nicole will be going with you?” Carlos asked.

  Shit, she knew that she had forgotten something. “I haven’t asked her yet.”

  “Might want to do that sooner than ter,” he said with a soft chuckle. “I’ll ask if anyone else wants to come with, but with the attacks resuming, it might not be easy.”

  “Thanks,” she said with a sigh of relief. “Anything you can spare would be appreciated.”

  “Not a problem,” Carlos answered. “I’ll message you once I hear back.”

  The call ended and Grace let out a shaking breath. Okay, that was step one down, which meant she needed to bring it up with Nicole next. She knew expecting her girlfriend to go with was a bit much, but the common courtesy would be to ask.

  Stepping back into the bedroom, Grace could only smile as she regarded her girlfriend’s sleeping form. Nicole always seemed so peaceful when sleeping, and there was no trace of the emotions that always seemed to bubble just beneath the surface. The pain that she kept buried had returned in full force when her morpher was returned. The hope that had blossomed only to shatter in an instant wasn’t lost on her.

  Nicole had found purpose as a Ranger, and now it was slipping away. The lull in attacks had held back the worst of it, but the recent battles only served to reinforce her own inadequacies. She didn’t give those compints much voice, but it was obvious to anyone that truly knew her.

  Hell, Rebecca only went to work with Sincir Industries to help Nicole, and they had shut her out over it. The girl was there when they got back, but left shortly after without actually saying anything. Probably for fear of the dorm room being bugged, which she couldn’t fault her for.

  Grace considered waking Nicole right then and there about her pns, but looking at how peaceful she was, and knowing they still had a few days before the wedding, she could let her sleep a bit longer.

  Nicole picked that moment to let out a whimper, rolling over as she reached for the empty side of the bed. Grace’s eyes widened as she hurried back into the covers, letting Nicole pull her back in close with an incoherent affection. Now trapped in the bed, Grace resigned herself to waiting just a bit longer to deal with the problems at hand and shut her eyes.

  Grace stirred, her nose twitching as she rolled over in the bed, only to find herself as the sole occupant. Her eyes opened blearily, confirming the ck of a cuddly girlfriend to snuggle with. A whine was cmped down upon as she grabbed her phone and began to check the messages. She ignored those from the church numbers, and decided to save the group chat for ter, and instead focused on the one from her girlfriend.

  Nicole: Hey, in the kitchen making breakfast for dinner.

  Chuckling, Grace extracted herself from the warm covers and stepped out of the small room and into the hall. She considered just heading on in, but nature called. It was a few minutes ter that she made it into the kitchenette, feeling a fair bit more awake than she had before.

  Grace wasn’t hungry, not after everything that had just been dumped in her p, but that didn’t mean she would be rude and refuse a home cooked breakfast. Stretching, Grace once again marveled at how her body had changed following that first morph. She was already in decent shape due to her smithing hobby, but now she was confident that she was one of the strongest people on the pnet.

  As much as that should have bolstered her confidence, she knew it paled in comparison to her girlfriend. Once she had been an Olympic contender, and now she was a goddess in the flesh. Just thinking about how her chiseled muscles felt under her fingers was enough to warm Grace’s cheeks with a furious blush.

  Those sort of thoughts were best saved for ter in the evening.

  Nicole was fussing over something in the oven when Grace came up behind her, wrapping her in a hug before she kissed her girlfriend on the cheek. “Morning, beautiful.”

  “Stealing my line,” Nicole muttered.

  Grace chuckled, releasing her to finish the meal as she took a seat at the table. The sausage was slightly charred, and she could tell at a gnce that the scrambled eggs hadn’t started out as such, but were instead salvaged from fried eggs. At least the biscuits being pulled from the oven looked golden brown and ready, and there was butter and grape jelly already on the table waiting.

  So Nicole wasn’t the best cook around, but it wasn’t as though she was completely helpless in a kitchen. Grace was decidedly the better cook between them, but at the same time, she was only as good as she was because her mother had trained her to be a good little house wife.

  Some things just weren’t worth making from scratch, not when technology existed. They weren’t even Amish, just ‘traditional’ or some shit. She ate a few bites, but mostly pushed the food around as she considered how best to bring it up to her girlfriend.

  “You okay?” Nicole asked, her own breakfast barely touched. “You look like you have a lot on your mind.”

  Grace sighed as her girlfriend gave her the perfect opening, and rather than dwell on it and lose her nerve, she slid her unlocked phone across the table so Nicole could see. “Got three dozen texts from unknown numbers. I’m pretty sure they were my family and their church.”

  “What the ever loving fuck,” Nicole said as she scrolled the messages. Grace could tell the exact moment she got to the text from her sister. “How old is she?”

  “Turned fifteen a few weeks ago,” Grace said, her voice edged with steel.

  “Fuck that,” Nicole said, “you’re going right? We can pack after breakfast and drive through the night.”

  Grace blinked. Was it really that simple? “You’re going with me?”

  “Of course I am,” Nicole said as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “That’s bullshit and I’m not gonna stand by and do nothing while you rush off to protect her on your own.”

  Grace was on her feet and pulling her girlfriend into a crushing embrace before she realized it. “Thank you.”

  “Don’t mention it,” Nicole grunted, returning the hug. “Shit, we’ll need to get someone to cover for us if the city is attacked…”

  “Already called Carlos,” Grace said. “He’s seeing if he can get a few Rangers to come for a few days.”

  Nicole nodded. “Okay, that’s better than asking Anita.”

  “Let’s not,” Grace agreed with a grimace. “It’s a twelve hour drive without stops, so we will need to trade off to nap on the way.”

  “Noted, though I wonder how fast we could make the trip on foot?” Nicole mused as she returned to her pte. “We can run pretty damn fast even without morphing.”

  “True,” Grace said, spearing a bit of sausage. “Though if we have to bring my sister back with us, I’d appreciate the car.”

  Nicole paused with a bite halfway to her lips as her eyes looked at nothing. “Point,” she said, then shoveled the food down. “Have you texted her back?”

  “Not yet,” Grace admitted with a frown. “Probably should before we go all in on a rescue attempt.”

  “Yeah, don’t need her screaming about being kidnapped,” Nicole said. “There’s a chance that they’re just trying to lure you back and that wasn’t even her.”

  Grace paused, not having considered that. Would her parents stoop to something like that? Who was she kidding, of course they would! They tried to marry her off at seventeen, and were apparently willing to do the same to their fifteen year old daughter as well. She really couldn’t discount any level of depravity from them.

  Pulling out her phone, Grace sent off a message, asking her a question that only Sarah would know the answer to. The response came almost immediately and Grace’s heart sank. It was her, which meant there was a good chance that they were actually pnning to marry her off. She didn’t want to consider the possibility that Sarah was working with them to lure her back to Somerville.

  She considered just calling Sarah and talking to her, but that risked things being overheard by her parents. Showing up in person was the safest option and if the worst happened, she could always morph and fight her way out. Hell, she’d love to see the looks on their faces when the lesbian sinner transformed into one of the heaven sent defenders.

  Of all the wild ideas about the source of the invaders, the religious had come up with some of the kookiest. Rangers were heaven ordained, the invaders were demons, and some god was going to eventually smite them all within seven years of their arrival. Grace remembered those sermons well enough, and now that she was a Ranger herself, knew enough of the background details of the war to simply ugh at the thought of it.

  “Something funny?” Nicole asked.

  Grace waved her off. “Just memories surfacing, tempered by new knowledge.”

  “Poetic,” Nicole said with a grin as she leaned forward adorably. “You should try poetry more often, you’re good at it.”

  “I made a smithing pun,” Grace said, turning away to hide her blush. “It wasn’t exactly the height of wordpy.”

  “Well, I appreciated it,” Nicole said with a wink.

  Grace smiled, and resumed her packing. She was gd that Nicole was no longer the depressed girl she had met all those months ago before the Syn fucked up everyone’s lives. Hell, she owed Maraline for helping set Nicole on the path to recovery. Not that it absolved the woman of her crimes, she was still an enemy commander hellbent on conquering Earth.

  Even if it wasn’t by choice.

  Something told Grace that the woman would be a key pyer in their own story, that when the time came to sweep their team aside that Maraline would be there to lead the charge. Grace was fine with that, so long as she managed to take the bitch down with her. She didn’t like how possessive the alien seemed of her girlfriend, and that worried her.

  She wouldn’t let Nicole become some invader’s pet.

  Packing for the trip had carried them well into the early evening, but Nicole seemed eager to get out of the city and away from things. Grace knew that Nicole’s ck of a working morpher was weighing on her in light of the renewed attacks. Sure, fighting the test monstrosity could almost be fun at times, but it still involved gambling with people’s lives. There was a weight to those battles that couldn’t be escaped, a responsibility.

  Checking her messages, a scowl crossed her face when Carlos confirmed that he could make it, but none of his contacts were willing to spare another Ranger to help cover. That left Anita as their only option to even out the team, much as it left a sour taste in her mouth after the whole accident in the b that set a quarter of the city on fire.

  All for nothing.

  Nicole’s morpher remained inert, and Sincir Industries would avoid scrutiny for it all. The entire mess ate at her sensibilities, and reminded her all too much of how her own parents never met justice for what they did to her.

  Well, she could certainly do something about her shit gene donors, if nothing else.

  Nicole messaged the fire department about being absent for a day, which they seemed okay with given everything that happened. Once they returned, Grace would work with Carlos to get some fingers pointed towards Sincir. Even if all he did was sweat a bit, it would be something.

  The st order of business was to alert her professors, not that she or Nicole put much stock into school anymore. There was no future for a Ranger beyond the battlefield, that was a truth that remained no matter how they looked at it. She had to face reality, that unless there was a breakthrough, the Syn would win through attrition alone.

  That, if the Syn truly wished to, the entirety of the world’s Rangers could be swept aside in an evening. That is the harsh truth of their situation. Knowing what was to come, Grace was determined to spare her sister at least some grief for as long as she could.

  “You sure we have everything?” Grace asked, shutting the trunk.

  “Calm down,” Nicole said with a chuckle. “It’s not like we’re going camping in the woods for a week. There’s plenty of snacks and water, not to mention we’re going to pass near Sikeston Missouri, always wanted to try that throwed rolls pce I saw on the food channel.”

  “As long as we do it on the way back,” Grace said. “My sister’s safety comes first.”

  “Damn right,” Nicole said, hopping in the passenger’s seat. “Now, how many pop songs can I sing along with before you decide to gag me…”

  “None,” Grace said, flicking on some heavy metal from her phone. “We burn with the witches in this Dragu.”

  “I can live with that,” Nicole said, leaning back, “just so long as we’re both in agreement that there will be no Country.”

  “Only Merle or Johnny,” Grace said.

  Nicole hummed in consideration. “Outw Country is fine, I suppose.”

  Chuckling, Grace set the car into motion and their little road trip was underway. The city streets soon gave way to country roads and that special little hell that was small town America. That was always one aspect of Americana most from the cities never understood, just how generic the United States were outside of the bigger cities and national parks.

  Within ten minutes of leaving the city limits Grace could barely tell the current town from the area she grew up in. It was a harsh reminder of where she had come from, and where she vowed to never return. Echoes of people yelling, of hate disguised as love, echoed in her mind. Grace grit her teeth, willing away her own trauma, knowing she would be confronting it all once again.

  Then Nicole’s hand was on her own.

  Tension bled out of her as she took a deep breath. She hadn’t been there in years, but she wasn’t going back alone. If her parents came looking for her, she had friends that would stand with her. She had a girlfriend, someone who was always there for her when her own mind started to screw with her. For that Grace would always be grateful.

  Let them come, she was a Ranger, and they wouldn’t intimidate her ever again.

  Pendragoon