Read Online The System #2 by Shelbi Wescott - Free Book Online Page A

could hear the whining in her voice, the admission of defeat, and the worry that all of this would be nothing more than a dead end. Which was worse? Facing her father and her fears? Or realizing their entire trip had been for nothing? She threw her hands up when she saw Grant’s glower; he had such an intolerance for her moodiness.  
    “We’re here, Lucy. We’re in Brixton! And we’ve been here for less than an hour…so, maybe hold off on the defeatist attitude until after we’re sure there’s nothing to find. Okay?” Then he smiled and raised his eyebrows—a ta-da—an invitation to make it a challenge; he would match her step by step. He never just let her stew and sulk, and it simultaneously irritated and impressed her.
    Lucy paused and glared at him; she crossed her arms over her body and dug her heels into the dirt.  
    “Come on,” he said and rolled his eyes.
    “I’m not going to fight with you,” she stated and raised her chin.
    “Perfect. I’m not going to fight with you either. You know I’m right. Don’t do that thing.”
    “What thing?”
    “That thing…where you make up your mind that something is going to be one way and then throw a fit when it turns out to be another way…and then five minutes later realize that it’s not the—” he stopped and frowned.
    “You were going to say the end of the world, weren’t you?”
    Grant made a face.
    Lucy smiled despite herself. “Anyway,” she continued. “It’s not being defeatist if we are, indeed, defeated, you know?” She wanted to explain her desire for a quick exit. But even as the words left her mouth she realized that even she didn’t sound convinced.
    Grant walked over to her and put two hands on her shoulders: she tilted her head to look up at him as he towered over her. “Same conversation as before. It’s always the same.”
    “It’s just…you’re right…I guess, it’s not what I expected,” she admitted. “That’s all.”
    “Yes, because all of this would have been so easy to expect . Please, Lucy. This is an easy fix. Abandon expectations.”
    Lucy waited a second and then nodded.
    He dug her hand out from her crossed arms and gave it a squeeze, then spun Lucy around and began pulling her back toward Main Street.
    “Library. Then houses. No stone unturned.”
    “We have maybe an hour or so before sunset.” She nodded toward the sky.
    “Then we camp.”
    She shivered. “I don’t want to stay here, no way. It just doesn’t feel right.”
    “We’ve stayed with dead bodies before,” Grant offered. “The dead can’t hurt us.”
    Shrugging, she let him pull her up the small steps to the library. “Feels different, I guess.” Then Lucy paused. She tightened her arm as Grant continued forward, and then she yanked him back. He complained, rubbed his shoulder with his free hand, and then looked at her.
    “What?” He dropped her hand and met her on the second-to-last step.
    “Did you hear that?” Lucy’s voice dropped to a near-whisper. She left the stairs and took two big strides back into the middle of Main Street, her head spinning from left to right.
    “Hear what?” Grant asked, confused and worried.
    She heard it again.
    A bark.
    Distinct and crisp as anything.
    She spun to Grant and raised her eyebrows expectantly and Grant nodded.
    “Shared auditory hallucination?” he said to her, his voice cracking.
    “What direction was it coming from?” Lucy did a half-jog away from the library and listened again, cupping her hand around her ears—hoping that her grandmother’s old trick of amplifying sound would help her detect from what direction this animal was coming from.
    Closer now. A bark. A real bark. It was getting closer and closer. Grant migrated back toward the church and then she heard him call out.
    “Lula! Look! God Almighty…”
    Running full-speed toward Grant and Lucy was a black lab.  
    They watched as it rushed forward, the dust flying up on his heels. It grew nearer and nearer