Read Online Backs Against the Wall (Survival Series) by Tracey Ward - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Tracey Ward
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“We have to ask Crenshaw.”
“Ask him what? To help us?” he asks dubiously. “Unless he’s a real wizard and knows how to summon us a dragon, I don’t think he can do much for us.”
“But he knows things. He knows people. Maybe he knows someone who can help.”
“Someone other than The Hive,” Ryan agrees, looking into the woods again. “It’s worth a shot.”
“Let’s get a kill first, make sure we have meat to bring him. I worry about his diet.”
“People didn’t eat meat before the sickness came and they were just fine,” Ryan reminds me, falling in step beside me as we venture deeper into the woods.
“I know. I just… I worry about him. I don’t want him to get frail, I guess.”
Ryan nods in understanding. “He’s alone, like you. You want to make sure he’s strong enough to fend for himself.”
“ Yeah, maybe,” I mutter.
I’m not sure if he’s right but I’m not sure if he’s wrong either. The basic fact is that I worry about Crenshaw. I always have. Even before Ryan, people were still with me. I hadn’t really noticed before because Crenshaw made it so simple. So black and white, easy to understand. I’ve always known what he wants from me and what I want from him. With Ryan, it’s so much gray. So much I don’t get and can’t categorize.
When we hunt for rabbit and squirrel, what we get are Risen. Lots of them. There are so many more in the woods than I remember seeing and it sends my stomach straight through to the ground. Ryan is less effected, telling me this is how it’s been since the Colony collapse. That it got worse after I left as more filtered down here into the heart of the city. As we close in on three of them, I worry about Ryan’s cuts, his aching leg, his stiff shoulders and my busted arm.
“Do you have your ASP?” he asks, flanking the Risen on the left and gesturing for me to do the same on the right.
“Yeah, of course. Thanks for that, by the way.”
He grins. “No problem. I’ll handle two, you take the third.”
“Got it.”
My Risen is a beauty. All gray tissue sagging slowly off the face like pizza dough in a hot room. The left eye socket is dropping down over the bone, exposing black muscle tissue that’s long past useful and the sagging skin over the top of the eye is probably the only thing holding the bulging eyeball in the socket. I have the morbid desire to lift that flesh and see if I’m right. To see if the eye slips out and dangles down, swinging like a pendulum.
When I hear a grunt from Ryan followed by the moist squish of his spike going into decomposed skin, I snap out of it. I get to work. I swing my right arm across my body, then snap it back out, basically backhanding the Risen in the face with the steel tip of my ASP. It makes a loud crunch, sending a spray of skin and black blood arching into the bushes . The head is snapped back hard and before it can try to right itself, I reverse my momentum and bring the ASP back the way it came. This time I make contact with the side of the skull, right in the sweet spot of the temple. The meatbag drops to the dirt - done.
I’ve hardly exerted myself, but when I look at Ryan, I’m breathing quickly and grinning.
“How messed up is it that I missed that?” I ask him, not even caring what his answer is.
My injured arm aches but there’s so much strength coursing through my veins, it doesn’t matter to me. This is so much better than sewing or baking. I’d give up all the pumpkin pie in the world for this feeling. To know I’m strong. Effective. Meaningful. I was nothing in there. Inside the Colony, I was just a body doing a duty. Washing dishes or making a bed. That’s not me.
I spin my ASP in my hand, loving the tensile power inside of it, power given to it by my hand. Without me, it’s just a piece of steel . Without it, I’m just a broken girl running for her life. Together, we’re deadly.
Ryan smiles. “I don ’t think it’s messed up at all.”
I nod to
“Ask him what? To help us?” he asks dubiously. “Unless he’s a real wizard and knows how to summon us a dragon, I don’t think he can do much for us.”
“But he knows things. He knows people. Maybe he knows someone who can help.”
“Someone other than The Hive,” Ryan agrees, looking into the woods again. “It’s worth a shot.”
“Let’s get a kill first, make sure we have meat to bring him. I worry about his diet.”
“People didn’t eat meat before the sickness came and they were just fine,” Ryan reminds me, falling in step beside me as we venture deeper into the woods.
“I know. I just… I worry about him. I don’t want him to get frail, I guess.”
Ryan nods in understanding. “He’s alone, like you. You want to make sure he’s strong enough to fend for himself.”
“ Yeah, maybe,” I mutter.
I’m not sure if he’s right but I’m not sure if he’s wrong either. The basic fact is that I worry about Crenshaw. I always have. Even before Ryan, people were still with me. I hadn’t really noticed before because Crenshaw made it so simple. So black and white, easy to understand. I’ve always known what he wants from me and what I want from him. With Ryan, it’s so much gray. So much I don’t get and can’t categorize.
When we hunt for rabbit and squirrel, what we get are Risen. Lots of them. There are so many more in the woods than I remember seeing and it sends my stomach straight through to the ground. Ryan is less effected, telling me this is how it’s been since the Colony collapse. That it got worse after I left as more filtered down here into the heart of the city. As we close in on three of them, I worry about Ryan’s cuts, his aching leg, his stiff shoulders and my busted arm.
“Do you have your ASP?” he asks, flanking the Risen on the left and gesturing for me to do the same on the right.
“Yeah, of course. Thanks for that, by the way.”
He grins. “No problem. I’ll handle two, you take the third.”
“Got it.”
My Risen is a beauty. All gray tissue sagging slowly off the face like pizza dough in a hot room. The left eye socket is dropping down over the bone, exposing black muscle tissue that’s long past useful and the sagging skin over the top of the eye is probably the only thing holding the bulging eyeball in the socket. I have the morbid desire to lift that flesh and see if I’m right. To see if the eye slips out and dangles down, swinging like a pendulum.
When I hear a grunt from Ryan followed by the moist squish of his spike going into decomposed skin, I snap out of it. I get to work. I swing my right arm across my body, then snap it back out, basically backhanding the Risen in the face with the steel tip of my ASP. It makes a loud crunch, sending a spray of skin and black blood arching into the bushes . The head is snapped back hard and before it can try to right itself, I reverse my momentum and bring the ASP back the way it came. This time I make contact with the side of the skull, right in the sweet spot of the temple. The meatbag drops to the dirt - done.
I’ve hardly exerted myself, but when I look at Ryan, I’m breathing quickly and grinning.
“How messed up is it that I missed that?” I ask him, not even caring what his answer is.
My injured arm aches but there’s so much strength coursing through my veins, it doesn’t matter to me. This is so much better than sewing or baking. I’d give up all the pumpkin pie in the world for this feeling. To know I’m strong. Effective. Meaningful. I was nothing in there. Inside the Colony, I was just a body doing a duty. Washing dishes or making a bed. That’s not me.
I spin my ASP in my hand, loving the tensile power inside of it, power given to it by my hand. Without me, it’s just a piece of steel . Without it, I’m just a broken girl running for her life. Together, we’re deadly.
Ryan smiles. “I don ’t think it’s messed up at all.”
I nod to
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