Read Online Midnight City by J. Barton Mitchell - Free Book Online Page B

he had ever encountered, harmless and shy, with long blond hair that trailed down her small back, a cute button nose, and perfectly clear, deep blue eyes (still too young for the Tone to begin showing). She wasn’t wearing anything unusual, just cargo pants and a small shirt. Everything about her was ordinary, and there was nothing to indicate what she was doing in that ship. The lone passenger of a strange Assembly craft shot down by its own kind. It was wrong, very wrong, but regardless, as she’d said, there wasn’t much time. The Assembly would be here in force in minutes, dropships unloading walkers all throughout the forest. He had to leave now to get out before they cordoned off the whole area.
    That left him with a decision to make.
    Take the girl with him? Or leave her, now that she was free of the ship? His inclination was to leave her. She was a survivor, after all. If she didn’t know how to take care of herself, she was doomed either way. But … there was something about her, something that stirred feeling in him. It was the way she looked at him, Holt decided. How her eyes held and peered into his without hesitancy, as if she were gazing into him. Not just at his surface, not just at who he appeared to be … but who he really was.
    It was silly, of course, probably his imagination, but still, no one had looked at him like that in a very long time. No one since Emily.
    Taking her, of course, meant a whole host of problems, and problems weren’t something he was short of right now. He’d have to transport Mira and the little girl at the same time. Concentrating on keeping the girl alive meant concentration he wasn’t spending on watching Mira, who was definitely looking for an escape plan.
    “Look who found a friend!” Mira shouted down from her tree, as if on cue.
    He looked up at her, and she smiled back pleasantly. Holt didn’t like it. She seemed smug … and that was the last thing the girl should be right now. She should be defeated, frightened maybe, but not smiling. Had she come up with a plan?
    Holt quickly glanced around the ground near Mira, saw her pack, but it was well out of reach, so it couldn’t have been that. Still …
    A sound from the east. Far in the distance. Holt looked away from Mira toward it, but the trees were too thick to see anything. He could only hear it. A pulsing tone of sound that blared loud and rhythmic. Over and over. He had never heard anything like it, but he recognized it for what it must be. Some kind of alarm. There was one thing he was sure of, however. It was not man-made, not human. It was too … different. Alien.
    It must be the Assembly.
    But where could it be coming from? There was nothing in that direction, not until you got to—
    Then it hit him. Chicago was to the east. The Presidium. The Assembly, the blue and whites as he now called them, had just raised their alarm. It could only be that. But why?
    He looked back down to the girl at his feet, felt Zoey’s hand grip his even tighter. She looked up at him with pleading eyes.
    “We have to go,” she said again, a tremor of fear in her voice. “Please.”
    “Why?” Holt asked instinctively, though he was pretty sure he already knew the answer. “What’s coming?”
    “Them,” the girl replied. “ All of them.” The simple answer chilled him.
    The alarm continued to sound from the east, frenzied and angry. Plans had been thwarted tonight. And this girl, this Zoey, was somehow at the heart of them.
    “Whatever you’re going to do,” Mira said, listening to the echoing, distant alarm uneasily, “do it quick.”
    “Can you walk?” Holt asked Zoey. She nodded, holding his gaze. “If they’re coming in force, we’ll have to keep moving. Can you do that? Move and not stop?”
    “Yes,” the girl said. “Thanks, Holt.”
    Holt nodded, quickly started packing up the campsite. He folded up his cot and sleeping bag, put them in his pack, grabbed Mira’s, too, threw it over his