Lacey's Warriors (Bondmates #6) - Ann Mayburn Page 0,85
expansive kitchen area. Kimber stood holding the phone and chatting with Roxy, Casey’s sister who was home on a rare leave from the Army for the next two weeks.
Casey would start packing up the last of her stuff tomorrow, and she couldn’t wait to go spend time with Roxy. Her older sister was her hero in many ways, a woman who’d managed to fight her way up in the military ranks and not let anyone stop her. Where Casey was short and pudgy, Roxy was long and lean, taking after their father more than their petite mother. Unfortunately, her sister was going through a rough patch after her divorce. The cheating fuck her sister had married in a moment of weakness got another girl pregnant while Roxy was deployed overseas. Casey had always hated his douchebag ass anyway and was glad to see him go, but his betrayal really hurt Roxy.
A sharp, almost terrified gasp pulled Casey from her dark thoughts and she looked up, surprised to see Kimber nervously pacing, holding the phone to her ear so hard her knuckles were turning white. The tall, slender half-Dominican half-Polish woman, who was on a track scholarship at the University of Michigan, always moved with a grace that reminded Casey of a cheetah. Bubbles from washing plates in the sink stood out on her honey brown skin, and one popped in the bright morning light coming in through the kitchen windows.
Without relinquishing the phone Kimber turned to Casey. Her friend’s hazel eyes were wide in her pale face. “Okay, I’ll pack as quickly as possible. Here’s Casey.”
Casey held the phone to her ear as she watched Kimber dashing for the stairs, her ponytailed corkscrew black curls bouncing with her movements, before she screamed for Paige and Dawn as she raced up the steps, her long legs taking them two, sometimes three at a time.
Shaken up by Kimber’s weird behavior, Casey said, “Hey, Roxy, it’s me. What’s going on? Are Mom and Dad okay?”
“Listen up, kiddo,” her sister said in a tense voice. “You need to get home as soon as possible.”
“Why? What…”
“We don’t have time!” Roxy roared loud enough that Casey had to take the phone away from her ear. “Mom and Dad will explain, but you need to get yourself and your friends’ asses into your car ASAP. Don’t bother packing; just get in the fucking car and go! Once you’re back in Chelsea, stop and get some gasoline at the gas station closest to the house. Buy and fill up as many of those emergency gas cans as you can fit in your trunk. Dad has enough bottled water in the garage to last a month, he’s out at the gun shop right now getting bullets, and hopefully everything will be back to normal in a couple weeks. World’s about to go to hell, little sister.”
Fear made sweat break out in a harsh sting over Casey’s skin as she fiddled with the long, curled cord of the old phone. “Roxy, what is going on?”
Her parents’ voices rose in the background, but Roxy’s clear, controlled words blotted them out. “Shit’s hit the fan. I don’t know who, what, or why, but I’ve been called up. Something about martial law being instituted.”
“Should you be telling us this?” Casey whispered. “I don’t want you to get in trouble.”
Roxy’s laugh made the hair stand up on Casey’s arms. “Fuck that, you’re my family and I have a feeling warning my family won’t even make anyone bat an eye in twenty-four hours. Look, I have more calls to make. Just get your ass home before martial law goes public and you’re stuck in Ann Arbor with a bunch of fucking hippies who suddenly can’t get their non-fat, half-caf, mocha java chino, made from beans dried in the sun on the thighs of beautiful young island women. They’re gonna be scared, and they’re gonna get stupid. Think Lord of the Flies with Deadheads and geeks. I don’t want you there when it happens. I want you home with Mom and Dad, now. I love you.”
A loud click came from the line as Roxy hung up on her, and Casey stared at the wall, not really seeing the large dry-erase board filled with messages from her housemates, or the battered old fridge covered in cheesy magnets holding up pictures of friends and family. Her mind was going so fast that her body had stalled, only her autonomic nervous system keeping her breathing.