Free The Infected 3: Cast Iron by P. S. Power Page B

opinion… you know.” His look was a little sad, which was an emotion she’d never noticed in him before. Annoyed, angry, even playful. Greedy all the time, but he wasn’t over the top about how it showed as a rule.
    Sad though, that was something new. It was a bit frightening to tell the truth. They were on vacation and if he was feeling sad about something, that meant a whole situation had happened that she wasn’t aware of. It wasn’t about his father dying. That had made him and Kerry both ridiculously happy. No, it was something else. What that was, she didn’t know. It was distracting at a time she couldn’t afford to be. Her instant response was to snap at the guy, telling him to stop it, but she stopped herself. They hadn’t always been friends, sniping and snipping at each other for years on an almost daily basis even. Bad enough she’d felt like breaking his arms and legs on more than one occasion and at one point killing him outright. That wasn’t the case now though. They were on the same side. More, he might be useful on her current mission, if he was willing to help her out with it at all.
    He didn’t have too, it wasn’t anything official, so she couldn’t order it or try to force him into anything, so being mean to him about his feelings probably wasn’t a good plan. Instead she patted him on the arm gently.
    “You OK?”
    He looked around and finally leaned in a little.
    “Later? It’s… Screwed up, but yeah, maybe you can help. Probably not. I don’t know.” Without saying more he started to walk into the building, catching up to Peggy and helping with her bag, as if the woman wasn’t fifteen times stronger than he was. It was nice of him though, and she let him do it. Cute. Or it should have been.
    Marcia didn’t have time to notice things like that and a sense of urgency suddenly flooded her mind. Something was wrong with the situation in the hotel. It wasn’t anything clear either. No one had a hand too near a pocket in the lobby except one older man that was clearly reaching for his wallet at the front desk. That could be a trick, of course, and there were enough people to make the whole thing scary on a certain level, if only in abstract, but no one honestly seemed out of place. There were a few bags sitting off to one side, under the large picture widows to the left of the front door. Those could hold bombs, but other than just being out of place, that shouldn’t be enough to get her this worked up. Not instantly like it had.
    No, it was probably something else and whatever it was ate at her. Like acid in her stomach eating through to her spine. Not that she’d ever felt anything like that, but if she did, it would cause her to respond like she was in the moment, Marcia felt certain. She scanned the room again, blocking the doorway, reluctant to let everyone else enter if there was a real threat. She had people to protect with her, that things like bombs and bullets could actually hurt. Nothing showed itself, not at first.
    After about fifteen seconds the trap sprang on them. She wasn’t the target, but the camera crew descended from an alcove on the right, complete with the thirty something blond woman from the conservative network that she always associated with the anti-Infected movement. She had to watch it for her job, in a “know the enemy” kind of way, but that didn’t mean she liked it overly. That station was pretty vile. The only saving grace on the whole matter was that this particular woman had the hots for Brian. Though why a serious news crew would be covering something like a Food Network conference she didn’t get at all. After making sure they didn’t have weapons out and ready, she decided to get the heck out of the way. After all, her job for the week was to be as low key as possible, so that if she had to vanish she could.
    It was kind of funny, watching what happened next. The cameras, and there were three full crews, each with different logo’s on