AVERY’S POV
Immediately, I shook the others awake, my voice hushed.
“Wake up. We have to go now!”
Hannah roused from sleep, looking around.
“Huh? What happened?”
I was already grabbing my bag off the floor and stuffing the radio back in it, urgency in my movements.
“Someone’s following us. They’ll be here by dawn. We have to leave.”
Joel was already helping Nadia up, the little girl swaying on her feet.
“People?” His voice was low, gaze darting to the window in fear.
I slung my backpack over my shoulder and nodded.
“Yeah. People. Heard them on the radio.”
Hannah rushed to the window, peeking out into the empty street.
“There’s no one here,” She whispered, eyes wide as she turned to me.
“Why are we rushing away if its people? It means they’re alive and we should meet thㅡ”
Before she could finish that sentence, I was crossing the room in three strides, fingers gripping her shirt right enough to drive my message home.
“They’re scavengers!” I hissed.
“Not people we can travel with. They’re gonna ambush us and judging by the sound of them? They’re coordinated, we can’t afford running into them.”
Her breathing was ragged and she just stared at me with wide eyes.
Slowly, I let go of her and stepped back, gaze darting to the others.
“Grabbed everything?”
Joel moved, grabbing his own bag and helping Nadia with hers.
“Yeah. Let’s move.”
I turned to Hannah.
“Ready?”
She nodded slowly, still dazed.
“Yeah.”
We moved through the streets, carefully navigating our way through the rubble and abandoned cars.
The sun was just beginning to rise above the horizon when we made it to the collapsed bridge at the center of the city.
There was a smaller pathway right beside it that we could use to get across and we all stopped for a quick rest.
The city was dead quiet and Hannah took watch first, making sure nothing was sneaking up on us as we spied the city below from a higher ground.
“There.” Joel pointed to a few figures lingering by the bridge.
From where we were, crouched low, they couldn’t see us but we had a decent view of them.
“Not a fractured. Humans.” I muttered under my breath, assessing the men.
They were adults.
A group of six burly men with rifles hanging off their shoulders as they shared something amongst themselves.
My gaze caught a few backpacks emptied beside their group and I turned to the others, my heart racing.
“They’re the scavengers.” I informed them, my voice low.
Nadia looked between all of us, a frown pulling at her lips.
“There’s aㅡ another road. There.” She pointed east.
I followed her line of sight and sighed.
“Thank you, Nadia, but we can’t.”
Hannah gripped her crowbar tighter, turning back to us for a brief second.
“Why?”
“Would take us four hours longer because it pushes us away from our goal and we’d have to navigate through a main city point. Too many threats, most people lived there, could be a swarm of fractured.” I turned back to the bridge, scanning meticulously.
Finally, I spotted a maintenance walkway under the bridge.
No one was guarding there.
I bit down on my lip, weighing my options.
“Guys. Wait here. I’ll go over and talk to the men.”
Joel grabbed my hand, his expression changing.
“Are you nuts?”
I pointed down to the walkway.
“I’ll talk my way across and keep them distracted. You guys follow there. They want supplies. I’ll give them supplies.”
The group fell silent for a rough minute and Hannah looked unsure.
“Okay.”
I grabbed my backpack, emptying most of what we looted along the road into Hannah’s but leaving enough to be believable.
Then I slung it over my shoulder, tucking my gun under my shirt, nodded at the doors and slid down to the road.
As soon as my feet hit the main road and I was walking forward, one of the men raised his head.
Stay calm, Avery.
My heart was racing and I gripped my bag tighter, stepping onto the pavement.
“Hands where I can see ’em.” One of the men pulled out a rusty rifle, his dirty blonde hair slicked up in a bun.
“Now.”
The others were grabbing their weapons and looking me over.
I stopped walking, feigning fear ㅡ not exactly hard since I was actually nervous about the whole thing ㅡ and I raised my hands in surrender.
“Please, I’m just trying to get to the military base on the outskirts of the city.”
One of them, a man with dark hair and a goatee huffed a laugh.
“No way you believe in that crap.”
A third person had reached me, forcefully taking the bag from me.
“Noㅡ” I reached for it but he raised his gun in warning and I stayed rooted to the spot.
“I need that.”
The man with the goatee peeked into the open bag his friend had brought over and his smile widened.
“There’s nothing outside the city. It’s been three days. They’re not even gonna blow this place up.” He gestured around.
“Those godforsaken mechs are nothing like they were the first day. There’s nothing to blow up. Just the little freaks. And us.”
My lips tightened.
“That’s not what’s gonna happen.”
The man smirked.
“You learn to adapt very fast. Especially when you’re very hungry. Stay quiet, steal what you canㅡ it’s the end of the world. We’re all gonna die. And somehow, you think there’s a military outpost waiting over there?” He pointed ahead.
“Several people have crossed this bridge, I don’t care what your goal is. We all need resources and this is your toll fee to do whatever the fuck you want on the other side.”
From my peripheral vision, I could spy my group quietly hiding in the shadows and crossing the bridge.
But the men were too occupied with me.
Thank fuck. This chapter was taken from g.com without permission.
I remained silent.
The man emptied the bag into theirs and turned to me.
” A suicide mission.
Most of the freaks stumbled into the north side yesterday.
There was a bit of a commotion there and they took their dead asses there.
If you insist on going there, we’ll be glad to let you walk.” He threw the bag back and I caught it.
“I’m sure you’ll find new food on the way. If you don’t get killed first. Who knows when the minions will activate again and start their freakish scanning of the city? Fucking bastards.” He grabbed a can of beans from my supplies that he stole and threw it back at me.
“There. Your last supper. We’re actually very generous.”
I caught it before I could hit the ground and leveled him with a glare.
But I kept moving.
Because staying would only waste my time.
Their snickers filled the air behind me and I increased my pace, thankful that it hadn’t escalated and I had only sacrificed a bit of food in exchange for everyone passing.
When I was finally out of sight, I caught up with the others at an abandoned block, sighting Joel standing over a twitching decaying body with Hannah turning Nadia away from the sight.
My steps slowed and I took all of them in.
“Is everyone okay?”
Joel nodded, breathing heavily, his crowbar dripping dark red liquid.
“Yeah. Popped out of that building so fast.” He wiped his weapon on the clothes of the fractured ㅡ a woman with wild red hair, eyes unfocused, body having a dead and mouldy look to it.
I nodded, signalling forward.
“Stay close, Nadia.”
The girl didn’t need any further convincing before she huddled closer to us as we walked down the blocks.
Less than two blocks away, I held up a fist, gaze darting around the empty street.
What was that?
There it was again ㅡ the silent crunch of boots.
I pulled Nadia behind me just in time to see a man stroll out from an alley, bald headed and holding a rifle similar to the men on the bridge.
One of them?
My heart jumped and the group shuffled backwards, gripping our weapons.
His clothes were stained with blood and his eyes were dark.
Fresh blood.
“Children?” His lips pulled into a grin when he saw the bags.
“How’d y’all get past my friends?”
Something about the way he said it made my skin crawl.
I thought about using my gun.
He would shoot before that.
No.
Also too loud.
It would bring almost every fractured in the block on us.
I stayed rooted to the spot.
“What do you want?” I called out, my voice shaky.
He stretched out a dirty hand.
“Why don’t you give me the rest of those supplies and I’ll be on my way?”