Read Online Behind Our Walls by Chad A. Clark - Free Book Online Page B

moving around."
    "We'll do what we can to help," Rowen said. Lot smiled and nodded, but looked up sharply at the sound of yelling from across the field. It was immediately clear that something had gone wrong, and the first image that flew to her mind was that of her father, walking off into the distance.
    "There was trouble!" She heard someone yell.
    The first thing she saw was her sister, prone and in someone's arms, being carried back to them.
    "Oh, my God," she said and she took several steps forward. Her brain started racing, trying to soothe her own panic, and she began talking through the problem. "No, she has to be alive, they wouldn't have carried her back if she wasn't alive, she has to be okay." She looked up at Rowen to get some kind of reassuring agreement but instead saw stricken grief on his face. There had to be something he had seen that she wasn't picking up on. She turned to look again, scanning the faces and trying to think.
    She didn't see her father.
    "No."
    It was all she could think to say. He was the rock of her existence. Nothing could have happened to him. He must have just fallen behind.
    But they had carried her sister back. They carried her back because she was still alive and could be helped. They had brought her, but not her father. He hadn't come back on his own, and no one was helping him. Why would he have stayed behind? Why would they have left him?
    Sophie began to scream.

-19-
     
     
    The first thing Sophie saw when she woke up was the Snoopy sticker on the roof of the RV, and her immediate thought was that she didn't want to wake up to go to school.
    The moments of disorientation proved to be bliss, as the memory of what had happened flooded back in. She tried to draw in a breath, but it was like a physical force held her chest down, only allowing the tiniest gasps to get through. Her hand jerked to her left, trying to grab onto anything that would give her the strength or leverage she needed.
    Rowen was immediately there, taking her up and trying to grab at her flailing arms.
    "You're okay, you're okay. Just calm down. You have to calm down. They have some sedatives, but not very much. You need to relax and get your breath."
    Her innate need to not be a burden took over. She lay back down, trying to focus and slow her breathing. She closed her eyes and gradually felt the muscles in her chest start to relax until she could breathe more comfortably. The black spots in her vision also began to dissipate and she was able to better take in her surroundings.
    She was lying on a small cot in the back of the RV. Rowen sat next to her, looking down with concern that she had not seen on anyone's face before. Not directed at her, anyway.
    Her father was dead.
    No one had said it. She hadn't heard the words, but she could see the truth in his eyes.
    Her father was dead, and she was now left with only one person in the world.
    Assuming that person hadn't died as well.
    "Corrine—" She sat up, but Rowen leaned forward to stop her.
    "Shhh. Corrine is all right. She was cut up pretty badly, but they were able to stitch her up. She'll need bed-rest, but she should be fine. She's been asking for you."
    That was hard for Sophie to believe. It didn't sound like the sister she had grown accustomed to over the past months.
    "What happened?" she asked.
    "The entire group was ambushed. They had just gotten to the outskirts of the town nearby when a few dozen rovers came out of nowhere and started shooting."
    She shook her head, feeling the tears threatening again. The thought of her father, and what might have been going through his head in those last moments was unimaginable. Her gut twisted at how she had left things with him as she watched him walk away. Now the tears did start, causing her breath to shorten as she struggled to maintain her composure.
    "There's nothing you could have done," Rowen said, in a rare moment when he mis-judged what she was thinking. "If you were there, you would have ended up