Read Online Winter's Legacy: Future Days (Winter's Saga Book 6) by Karen Luellen - Free Book Online Page B

whereabouts.  He heard Alik’s slurred words spat through chemically burned lips, screaming for Creed to tell them nothing.  Cole was scarily quiet in the far corner .  Two soldiers hovered over him like vultures. 
    Evan wiggled the numbing fingers of his left hand as they were crushed at a painful angle.  Just then, he heard the crunching of debris under boots but couldn’t see from his position who had entered the living room. 
    The soldier at his back gripped Evan’s light -brown hair again and smashed his head into the wall for the third time.  His laughter sounded distorted, as though Evan were underwater.
    “Dude, check this out,” he called to someone else in the room.  “Gives a new meaning to the term ‘face painting’,” he chortled at the bloody smears the Winter kid left on the formerly white wall. 
    “Shit, can’t any of you fight?  Look at this mess.  The Director is going to be pissed.”  A shuffling sound followed by a thump had Evan visualizing a new soldier kicking one of the bodies, but he couldn’t see for himself.  His face was mashed into the wall.
    He blinked a few times and tried to concentrate.   
    “I hate to break up your fun, but has anyone gotten Dr. Winter’s location out of them?” the new voice snarled.
    “ Hollier, sir.  We gave this one a dose of phenobarbital, only he’s not talking—at least not about Margo Winter.  He keeps mumbling the name ‘Meg’.”
    Again, Evan heard boots crunching and thumping across the room as the ranking officer made his way to where Creed was lying on his back, eyes threatening to roll back, and stay back.
    “Which of them did all this?” the voice asked the room.
    “Sir, it was mostly that one, but this one downed seven or eight before we got him on his back.”  Evan didn’t have to see to know which of his brothers was pointed out. 
    “And ‘the fire starter’?  Didn’t he do anything to save his family?” Hollier scoffed as footsteps approached until the officer stood within Evan’s line of sight.   The hard lines of the soldiers face seemed standard issue to the hard life Williams’ metasoldiers endured.  Though Evan didn’t recognize him specifically, he knew the type.
    The soldier’s thin lips pulled back in what was supposed to have been a smirk.  Never taking his eyes off Evan’s shattered face, the officer pulled something out of his back pocket and held it out for Evan to see. 
    “I believe you know Kylie Monroe.  Cute little piece of ass, that one.”  The soldier turned the picture back toward himself to ogle the smiling girl. 
    Evan was trying not to panic, but dread had a vise grip on his heart.
    “Yeah, see, my girl here, she’s the one who verified your location.  Told us all about you being a fire starter and shit.  Hell, she even shared play-by-plays of your private conversations.” 
    The other soldiers in the room tore into gales of laughter and crude remarks. 
    Evan’s chest clenched, hurting far more than his face. 
    “As for you,” the soldier called Hollier turned and started back toward Creed.  “You’d better start talking, Young!” The distinct click of a handgun being cocked hit what was left of the walls with ominous clarity. 
    Creed felt the cold steel dig into his forehead—which just pissed him off.
    He pulled himself up in a stomach crunch pushing his forehead into the barrel the officer held with calculating calm.
    “I will not betray my family!” Creed yelled through the haze of the drug.
    No time. There’s no time, Evan chanted to himself, trying to hurry.  His mind kept wanting to figure out how he’d missed Kylie’s deception.  He had, after all, held her hand.  Did I just refuse to allow myself to know?   He shook his head in frustration trying to double his focus.
    Clever Guy was turned around looking at what his officer and teammates were doing to Creed.  His knee was still ground into Evan’s back and his hands kept yanking