“Ready to go?” Kri asked.

Wonder removed her apron and tucked it under the counter. “When are we going to be back?”

“I don’t want to be stuck in traffic so we will probably leave there at around two and arrive back here around three.”

Since immortals required much less sleep than humans and didn’t tire as quickly, their standard workday was longer than that of humans. Wonder’s shift at the café was usually eleven hours, from seven in the morning to six in the evening, which meant that she could put in only a total of four hours today.

No complaints, though. She was happy to have something to keep her busy, and Carol was a lot of fun to work with. Besides, the café was a perfect place to meet everyone. Her acclimatization to the village would’ve never been so fast and so easy otherwise.

“I feel weird about taking more than half a day off. I just started working here.”

Carol waved a hand. “Don’t worry about it. You need to get out of here once in a while.” She gave Wonder a shove. “Go.”

“Thanks. I’ll be back at four.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. Take the rest of the day off.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, go have fun.” Carol waved both hands in a shooing motion.

“So, how is life here treating you?” Kri threaded her arm through Wonder’s. “I see you in class, but you usually rush out before we have a chance to chat.”

That was probably about to change.

After last night’s fiasco, she doubted Anandur would be waiting outside Kri’s classroom to walk her home. But that was not something she wanted to share with her self-defense instructor.

Already, too many people knew about Anandur and her.

“It has been only a week since I came to the village, but it feels like I’ve been here for much longer.”

Kri pressed the button for the elevator. “It’s easy to get used to good things.”

That was true. Wonder was never going back to her old life. There was nothing for her there. With or without Anandur, the village was her new home.

The first ten minutes or so of the drive to Ojai passed in awkward silence. Kri wasn’t much of a talker, and neither was Wonder. Everyone assumed that the two of them would become friends because supposedly they were both warrior women, but Wonder didn’t think of herself as one, and the reality was that she and Kri had little in common.

Out of all the clan females she’d gotten to know, Wonder liked Carol the best. Amanda was still too intimidating, and Syssi was the leader’s wife, so in a way, she was intimidating too. There were a few others that had stopped to chat and seemed nice enough, but Wonder didn’t really click with any of them.

Maybe she needed to get to know them better.

“I’m totally bummed about being excluded from the raid,” Kri said. “Even though I understand why.”

“I heard that Kian doesn’t allow you to participate in confrontations with Doomers.”

“That too. But this time it wasn’t about that. Kian said that I lacked the necessary equipment, meaning fangs. They put all of the Doomers in stasis.”

Wonder turned to look at her. “You have news from the raid?”

Kri nodded. “Naturally. Even though I don’t have a dick or fangs, I am still a Guardian. I have access to all of the communications.”

“Is everyone all right?”

Kri smirked. “Of course they are. Onegus, that’s our chief, assigned one Guardian for every Doomer. There is no way anyone could’ve gotten hurt, and that includes the Doomers.”

Wonder relaxed in her seat. “But they are practically dead, aren't they?”

“That’s not how I see it. I think of stasis as a chance of someday starting a new life. One day, when their leadership finally gets overthrown, we can revive a few and see if we can rewrite their programming.”

“Why do you have to wait for their leadership to fall? Can’t you rewrite their programming now?”

Kri smiled indulgently. “No, Wonder, we can’t. We don’t know how, yet. As long as the Brotherhood’s main stated goals are the clan’s destruction and gaining complete control over humanity, we can’t risk it.”

Wonder spent the rest of the drive to Ojai pondering the why of it.

Following Vanessa’s instructions, she’d done some reading, or rather listening, and what she was learning about the world was not all sunny.

Why would one group of people want to control another? Why couldn’t everyone just mind their own business and take care of their own families? What was the driving force behind wanting to subjugate others and make their lives miserable? What made people murder innocents for no other reason than them believing in something else?

It didn’t make any sense to her. There was no logical explanation. The bottom line was that good people didn’t want to make others suffer. They didn’t want to take away people’s rights and dictate to them how to live their lives, brainwashing them to believe that the only way to live was their way.

Maybe she was just a simple girl who didn’t know much about the world and its politics, but she thought herself capable of distinguishing between good and evil, between freedom and oppression, between the sanctity of human life and human rights and the disregard of both.

One didn’t need to be a genius to figure that out.

The big question that bothered her, though, was what part she could take in fixing wrongs or contributing to the spread of rights.

As an individual, there wasn’t much she could do, but according to Anandur, the clan was dedicated to doing just that. Their goals were to correct the wrongs and to spread the kind of freedoms and opportunities the citizens of the western countries enjoyed to everyone on the globe.

In the simplest of terms, helping out the clan meant helping out the world.

Did working in the café count, though?

As a Guardian, she could probably contribute more. But she didn’t want to be a soldier. Maybe there were other ways she could contribute?

“What are you thinking about so hard?” Kri chuckled. “The furrow between your eyebrows is as deep as Wonder Woman’s.”

Touching her finger to the crease, she massaged it away. The actress who played that role had an impressive frown.

“Do you think I should become a Guardian? Is that the best way I can contribute to the clan?”

“No.” Kri surprised her. “You have excellent fighting instincts, and you are incredibly strong, but you don’t have the heart for it. You’re too soft.” She cast Wonder a sidelong glance. “I don’t mean it as an insult. It’s just the way it is. We can’t change who we are on the inside.” She touched her heart. “I enjoy a good fight. I’m looking forward to it. You, on the other hand, would do anything to avoid one, and not because you’re afraid of getting hurt. You’re afraid of hurting others.”

Wonder let out a puff of breath. “Thank you. You’re the first one who gets it.”

“You’re welcome.”

“So what do you think I should do? Is working in the café the best I can do?”

Kri smiled. “Most people would’ve told you if that is what you enjoy, then why not. But I’m not most people. I think you could and should do more than that.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know. You need to expose yourself to more things to find out. You can become a self-defense trainer without becoming a Guardian. I didn’t expect it, but teaching those rescued girls how to defend themselves gives me a lot of satisfaction. And you have no idea how good it feels to know that I’m a role model for them.”

“That’s a possibility.”

“Or you can study something. Take Amanda, for instance. She was a spoiled party girl who did nothing with her life. Then one day she decided it was time to grow up and do something beneficial for the clan. She chose to tackle the most important problem we face, which is finding suitable partners we can build a life with. In order to find a way to identify Dormants, she went to college and became a freaking neuroscience professor.”

“That’s very impressive. But I don’t think I’m as smart as Amanda.”

“Pfft.” Kri waved a hand. “No one believed she was that smart either, including Amanda herself. Shows that you can never know until you try, right?”