Read Online Initiation (Gypsy Harts #1) by C. D. Breadner - Free Book Online

the water was farmed back downward after it was used. Somehow the septic system was rigged to trickle out downward. Nothing was wasted here. Waste was used for compost. The vegetables were cared for and farmed by a group made up of the designated green thumbs.
    Laundry was washed by hot water only. They didn’t risk washing laundry soap or any unnatural cleaners into the water source. But while things were stained they were undoubtedly clean and sanitary. The huge boiler ran on electricity too, so once a week all hot water was strictly used for laundry. Water use was monitored, but the fact that they could still have showers was amazing to Oakley.
    The huge bathrooms and shower rooms were the only such facilities. There was no real privacy here, but she was learning to adapt to that, too.
    There really were fifty women living here, fifty-three with addition of Oakley and the two women they’d found on the outside. They’d eventually gotten the names Susan and Gwendolyn. The younger woman went more commonly by Gwen. They were still incredibly quiet, not venturing out of the small room that the commune women had designated as strictly theirs. It must have been a janitor’s closet or something similar. There was a giant cast iron wash basin in one corner, dwarfed by floor to ceiling steel shelves. But the rest of the room had been appointed with two cots and a wooden crate between that served as table. Those two rarely ventured out, and they weren’t being pushed to get active like Oakley was.
    Not that Oakley would forsake that, of course. Their hollow eyes and skittish nature were plenty a reminder that they’d earned the right to be left to themselves as long as they needed. They didn’t eat or visit with the others, just stuck to their own space.
    There were already women here that Oakley thought of as friends, over and above Em. Billie had remained friendly, perhaps too friendly at times, but she was a bubbly and likeable person. She added a certain spark to any group when she came into a room. It almost felt like the world hadn’t been destroyed when she was around.
    Maxine Frederick was a curious one. She wore heavy, black-rimmed glasses and kept her hair pulled up in big fat curls using bobby pins. Her denim shorts were terribly short, a flannel shirt tied up underneath her breasts to show her belly at all times, and somehow she had an unending supply of fire engine-red lipstick. Em told Oakley the style was somewhat rockabilly with some added slut , but Oakley thought it suited her quite nicely. Well, maybe not the slut part. Maxine looked for all the world a bombshell but she was quiet, surprisingly shy despite how she presented herself physically. And she was really, really smart.
    The called her their tinker . She fixed their vehicles, kept them running, and she’d adapted them to run on water somehow. At first Oakley had wondered about wasting such a scarce and precious resource on engines, but Em had quickly filled her in on that. Water on the surface was contaminated, it couldn’t be consumed anyway. So their cars ran on this dangerous exposed water that was still lying around in a few places. The underground aquifer was what the commune really relied on.
    There was a collection of modified dirt bikes in an outbuilding they called the garage, all painted with the Gypsy Hart logo featuring a woman with wild, dark hair, scarf tied over her hair. She looked like a combination of Brit, Em, and May to her.
    On shorter raids, patrols, or just to chase trespassers out of the yard the bikes were used. Em promised to show her how to ride one. Oakley was excited about this, the memory of her father’s lost motorcycle egging her on.
    These women were all very comfortable here, and used to each other. There were fights, shouting matches and cold silences, but from what she’d seen they never lasted for long. It wasn’t the necessity of survival; it was the feeling of family. She’d seen catfights, complete with