Free Shattered by Dean Murray Page A

just
wouldn't come. All she managed to do was open her mouth a fraction of
an inch, which was interesting only because it meant that some of her
breath was tickling her lips.
    The sensation
made her want to smile, but her face wasn't responding to her will.
About the third time she tried unsuccessfully to smile, the elevator
made it to the bottom floor and ground to a halt. A second later the
door opened and Addison no longer felt like smiling.
    This close
there was no mistaking what was waiting for them just outside the
elevator, and that was the one smell guaranteed to sober her up in a
hurry. Addison still couldn't move on her own, so there wasn't any
visible change, but inside she was screaming.
    The scents were
opposite sides of the same coin. It was impossible, but there was no
arguing with her nose now. She was in trouble and it was very
unlikely that she was ever going to see her son again.
     
     

Chapter 5
    Adriana Paige
Marauder's Gas Station
Central Wyoming
    I woke more
exhausted than I had in a really long time, but that was nothing
compared to the black hole sitting in the spot that was supposed to
house my stomach.
    There were
still a lot of differences between my gift and Taggart's, but there
was one thing that we'd long since figured out. My gift used my own
body as a power source. Specifically, whatever fat cells I had
managed to accumulate by the time that I went to sleep.
    I was on a
high-calorie, high-fat diet now, which had been enough to fill me
back out a little, but I still didn't have enough physical reserves
to pull the kind of stunt that I'd pulled with Tristan and Cindi on a
regular basis.
    I grabbed a
handful of penny candies out of the stash that I'd commandeered from
the store and started wolfing them down while I pulled up my white
tank top so I could assess the damage. It wasn't good. I'd looked
worse in the past, but not by much. It meant that I didn't have any
kind of safety margin if Taggart needed me to help with something.
    I could always
try to get an extra few hundred calories down me over the course of
the day, but I didn't like doing that. There was a practical limit to
how much I could physically fit inside of my stomach, and I didn't
like going around all day feeling like I was going to burst.
    Chastising
myself wasn't going to make any kind of difference, not in the long
run, but I resolved once again to be more careful about using my
powers. Taggart was still doing most of the heavy lifting when it
came to doing reconnaissance on the Coun'hij, but things were getting
more dangerous for him lately. More and more of his contacts were
being found out by Kaleb and the others, and neither of us had
forgotten about the red-furred hybrid who had shown up the first time
that I'd followed Taggart to one of his meets.
    That meant that
it wasn't unusual for Taggart to ask me to come along as backup,
which meant that I needed to make sure that I always had enough
energy in reserve to help out for an hour or two if he thought he
might be heading into an especially dangerous situation. Strolling
down memory lane wasn't a good enough reason to drain myself like I
had. I was still behaving irresponsibly. For some reason I couldn't
seem to just buckle down and focus only on the war.
    I grabbed
another handful of pink penny candies and shoved them in my mouth to
help tide me over while I jumped through the shower. That was the
real reason that I hadn't complained very much when Taggart had
assigned me the master suite. The number of private showers inside
the bunker could have been counted on one hand with fingers left
over, and the thought of showering in some kind of military-style
facility with the few other girls in Isaac's group was roughly as
exciting as a root canal.
    Fifteen minutes
later I was dressed and headed to the large communal kitchen on the
far end of the bunker. Back in the day, I would have taken more time
getting ready, but lately I just couldn't bring myself to waste time
on