A Hero Rising Read Online Free PDF

around, feeling as though she were stuck in some nightmare and would soon wake up beside Grease’s ruddy face, safe and protected.
    Skye scrambled over to the empty food cabinet. She braced herself against the frame and started to push. The cabinet creaked as it moved, revealing a pile of dust and rat excrement underneath.
    Carly yelled behind her, “What about the soycaroni? What are you doing?”
    “Keeping us safe.” She shoved the cabinet directly against the front door. If Grease came back, he wouldn’t be able to get in, but after seeing that man on TV fly through the sewers, she couldn’t take a chance.
    “Carly, help me find more things to pile against the door.” The couch was too big for her to lift, but the mattresses on the floor would add more weight behind the barricade. She ran into the family room. Pillows fell as she picked up the mattress they all slept on.
    Carly threw everything she could lift against the door, including Jennifer. The doll hit the plastic and slumped down on the floor. “Is that good?”
    “Yes, Carls. Great job. Jennifer can be the lookout.” The heat rose in their tiny apartment. Skye swiped sweat off her forehead, realizing she’d left the water boiling. Returning to the stove, she tore open the box and poured in the soycaroni. The routine of watching the geometric shapes turn in the water made the situation feel normal again, and she breathed a sigh of relief.
    Maybe she’d overreacted. The newscasters always seemed to make more out of a single incident. Their apartment was on the third floor, levels up from the tunnels.
    “I’m sorry I scared you.” She gestured for the girl to come closer. “You know I get jumpy with your daddy not around.”
    “It’s okay.” Just as Carly came over and wrapped her arms around Skye’s waist, a scream rose up from the lower levels outside their balcony.
    Skye picked up Carly and hurried out the back door, then peered over the balcony railing. A blur of movement scurried down the alley, throwing up trash. A can scuttled against the building, sending a pigeon flapping into the air. Two people dashed from the window underneath them to the adjacent building.
    “Are those the people they were talking about on TV?” Carly’s fingers tightened around Skye’s neck.
    “Probably just scavengers or gang members.” Skye leaned over to get a better look, but the alley rats had disappeared.
    Light, cruel laughter wafted up, the sound reminding Skye of an upper-level heiress teasing her servant. An arm darted out of a lower window and squirmed as if feeling around for a way out. The arm twitched and bent backward, making Skye’s stomach tighten. Dirty fingers grabbed a piece of trash, and then disappeared back inside. A woman shouted from another level, and Skye heard the pulsing sound of lasers echo against the buildings.
    “Come on. Let’s go back inside.” She’d seen enough to know they should lay low. Pulling the balcony door closed, she locked it with the dead bolt.
    The reek of burned soycaroni filled the apartment, and Skye plopped Carly down on the couch and rushed to the stove. The water had evaporated and the soycaroni solidified against the bottom, turning to blackened sludge.
    “Dammit.” Skye had wasted their only box of food.
    That was the least of their problems, though. She stiffened as she realized black smoke was leaking out the crack in the top of the front door.
    “No, no, no.” Skye fanned the smoke and reopened the balcony door. She grabbed the pot handle and burned her fingers, whipping back her hand.
    “Be careful!” Carly stood on the couch watching what Skye was doing.
    “I am being careful.” She slipped her hand into a ripped oven glove and carried the pot to the balcony, throwing it over the ledge to the garbage below.
    “That was our dinner!” Carly wailed.
    She didn’t have time to answer. Something thumped against the front door, rattling the cabinet and knocking the mattress down. Dust