Total pages in book: 137
Estimated words: 132491 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 662(@200wpm)___ 530(@250wpm)___ 442(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 132491 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 662(@200wpm)___ 530(@250wpm)___ 442(@300wpm)
“Leave me the fuck alone and I will! I got sent here for murder and you’re about to be next.”
He swings at the staff wielder and hits him square in the jaw. A flying arrow lodges in his upper thigh and he howls with pain, dropping to his knees.
“Briar!”
I turn toward the voice and see Amira taking off toward the jungle. I follow, but I only make it a few steps before a powerful arm wraps around my chest and picks me up.
“I’m here to help you,” a deep voice growls. “Don’t fight me.”
Yeah, right. The guy whose head is bleeding all over the sand a few feet away might have believed that, but I don’t.
I squirm, kicking him as hard as I can with my feet in the air. He starts to walk, my panic rising. I won’t be dragged into the jungle and violated. These people are savages, but that’s nothing new to me. The only novelty is the tropical island location.
Wait, though. I remember another one of my father’s lessons and I reach for my attacker’s balls, my hand landing on his thigh. I feel my way there, then twist and squeeze until there’s a painful burn in my fingers from the force.
“Fuck!”
He drops me and I scramble upright, running. If I can get to the jungle, I can hide. Evading capture kept me alive for more than three years after the virus until my luck ran out when Lochlan saw me at a market. I was there to trade for food; he was there to stomp on people who couldn’t fight back.
“Listen to me! We won’t hurt you!”
The blond woman from the second group is standing on top of a huge boulder, yelling. She’s lean and muscular, her expression earnest. I don’t know if she’s crazy or arrogant for standing up there without any weapons. Maybe both.
“Get behind this rock and we’ll protect you! You have my word!”
Words are worth as much as hundred-dollar bills in New America. An arrow slices toward her, and she dodges to the side to avoid it, somehow not falling off the rock. Another follows it and she dodges again, glaring in the direction it was shot from.
The giant man I saw earlier extends a hand to me, blood and sweat swirling together on the deep-brown skin of his face. “Come. Please. We’re here to help.”
I back away. A bearded man barrels toward him, knocking him to the ground. I take the opportunity to run, moving around a woman wailing on the ground, her arm bent at an unnatural angle.
The jungle’s dense foliage should allow me to blend in quickly. As I race toward it, I frantically look around for Amira. Maybe she already made it into the jungle. Together, our chances of surviving are better.
I see her and my heart plummets into my stomach. The dark-haired man who had been standing in front of his group is now carrying her over his shoulder like a sack of grain. She’s punching him in the back, but it’s not fazing him. He breaks into a run, calling out orders to the rest of the group.
They’re leaving. And Amira’s not the only person they’re trying to take prisoner. Others are resisting as people work together to tie them up with what looks like wire.
Sweat rolls down my brow as I consider my options, the blazing sun a torch I can already feel burning my skin.
I don’t owe Amira anything. I hardly know her. If I go into the jungle, I can save myself. If I go after her with no weapons, we’ll both get captured—or worse.
“No!” she screams, slapping and punching at her captor’s lower back as she hangs upside down. “Briar!”
For a single second, I close my eyes. Shit. Why did I tell her my name? There’s something so unbelievably difficult about hearing someone crying out for help from me specifically.
We’re all linked together, Briar. From the tiniest little microorganism to the impossibly vast cosmos, life is connected. It’s beautiful when you think about it.
My mother was a scientist, and her words to me when I was young flood back. I’ve thought of them many times in the five years since losing my entire family. She felt connected to nature. So I try to sense her there when I’m at my lowest, in the canopy of shade created by massive oak trees or the peaceful birdsong at sunrise.
I clench my fists, both inked with permanent warnings to the world that I refuse to be used. I’m proud of what the tattoos represent. My parents and sister would be too.
Amira is still alive right now, and we’re connected. If I don’t try to help another woman who also stood up against evil, risking her life to do so, there’s no humanity left in me.