Read Online Apocalypsis 03 - Exodus by Elle Casey - Free Book Online Page A

jumping in even with their shoes on.
    “Who’s that?” asked Fohi, surfacing next to me. “Bryn? Is that you?”
    “Yeah, it’s me.”
    “And Paci too?” Fohi looked from Paci to me, back and forth a couple times. I cringed when his next words came out. “Well, well, well. Paci and Bryn taking a little private skinny-dip together.”
    “Shut up, dick. She’s not skinny dipping and it’s not like that,” said Paci, splashing him in the face.
    Fohi dove for Paci and they wrestled in the water. I took the opportunity to swim away, climbing back up onto the walkway near my clothes. I was planning on getting dressed but Winky’s voice stopped me.
    “Where are you going? We just got here.” She came up by my feet in the water.
    “I’m cooled off. Thought I’d go to bed.”
    “Don’t let Fohi scare you away. Nobody listens to him anyway.”
    “I don’t need to give Coli any more reason to be calling me … names.”
    “Excuse my French, but fuck Coli. Nobody listens to her either. She and Fohi should hook up.”
    “Hey!” yelled Fohi, still working on drowning Paci. “I heard that!”
    “Good!” yelled Winky before turning back to me. “Come on. Get in the water. We’ll go to the other side and gossip with the girls.”
    I hadn’t gossiped with any girls in I couldn’t remember how long, and for once it sounded like fun, so I jumped back in the water and swam with Winky over to her group of friends. Most of them I recognized from the training sessions, but LaShay was here too, along with another girl from the canner house.
    “Hey,” I said, pinching the water out of my nose.
    “Hey, Bryn,” said LaShay, her voice drowning out the others who were welcoming me. “This your first time here, too?”
    “Yeah.”
    “You as nervous as I am about them gators comin’ in here for a midnight snack?”
    I laughed. “Hell, yes.”
    “Okay, good. I decided I’m gonna throw one a these girls in front, if one-a-them monsters gets in here, since they seem so confident it ain’t gonna happen.”
    “I’ll help,” I said.
    “Good.” She flopped around in the water for a second and then said, “Shit. I was jus’ gonna give you some skin but I ain’t figured out how to swim right yet.”
    Everyone stopped talking and waited to hear what she was going to say next. It was painfully awkward, all of us knowing she couldn’t swim well because canners had taken her arm.
    “Ya’ll ain’t gonna start acting all weird an’ shit cause I got half an arm, are ya? I’ll be liable to slap some-a-you if that’s the case. Serious.”
    “No,” I said, “no weirdness here. Go ahead and flop around like a one-armed seal. I won’t say a word.”
    Everyone froze in place, probably shocked that I’d said it. But I couldn’t think of any other way to diffuse the uncomfortable feeling, and it didn’t serve any purpose to keep pretending everything was normal.
    “I can’t believe you jus’ said that,” said LaShay.
    I didn’t say anything. I was waiting for her to flop around some more and slap me. I wouldn’t have fought her if she’d decided to do it, either, since I probably deserved it.
    “That was funny as hell,” she said, smiling. “Damn, girl. Remind me never to ask you if I look fat.”
    Everyone laughed, and the tense situation was diffused. Fohi further erased the bad feelings by swimming over and saying, “We need you ladies to settle a bet we have going on over here. Who’s better-looking … me or Rob?”
    “Paci!” yelled Winky, sending us into giggles all over again.
    “Paci’s not in the contest, Winky. Shut up . It’s me or Rob, no one else.”
    Another girl yelled out, “Trip!”
    “Come on, seriously? He’s friggin’ gay. Me or Rob. Tell us.”
    “Peter!” yelled LaShay. “He’s got you all beat.”
    Fohi splashed water at all of us. “Never mind. You chicks are lame.”
    “I pick Rob!” yelled a little voice from the middle of our group. It was a smallish girl I