Born to Fight Read Online Free PDF Page B

he puts my arm over his shoulder and pushes me to the cart. I grab the metal with my hands and let him help me in. I don’t understand what he's doing, but I'm tired of walking. I see a red thing flying in the air over me and then I see nothing. There is a red glow all around me.
    "Jesus saved me," I say. I don’t know why.
    "Relax kid. Just stay down. We're almost home."
    Home.
    This word means so many different things to me.
    The cart rumbles along the ground and I try to imagine what home looks like to him.
     
     
     
     
     
     
     

Chapter Four
     
    Home is a little room surrounded by cement. It's a quiet little corner where I don’t hear the infected or the looters or the others. He doesn’t smile.
    "You made an awful mess kid. The doctor was a pretty important man. They're looking for you." His voice is quiet. He freaks me out.
    I blink and stare. I'm lost until I hear it.
    "Emma."
    My head snaps around. I would get up and run to her too, but I can't move. I'm still hurting in so many ways, but the major ways start to heal the second I see her face.
    She rushes me and wraps her skinny arms around me. She buries her face in my hair.
    I grip her shaking body, "You're real," I whisper.
    She pulls back, her tear-stained face and sparkling blue eyes heal some of the cracks inside of me, "Of course, I never would have left you there. I've been looking for you for weeks."
    I flinch, "Sarah, Meg…?"
    She cuts me off and smiles weakly, "Only you went missing. You and Leo. Sarah and Meg are at the place we left them, safe." She doesn’t say the retreat. She's being careful around him. She sighs and continues, "I panicked when we couldn’t find you. We assumed you'd been taken. We didn’t know by who, but we saw the trucks leaving."
    I nod and try to ignore the shock that’s still paralyzing me. "Marshall." I say softly, eyeballing the man in the corner.
    She nods, "Will figured he betrayed you and Leo. Sold you out to the military. We got back to the camp, but Marshall wasn’t there. His friends said that Marshall did it to free the women; you were the one they wanted. You were a danger to the camp and he traded you for healthy normal women." She rolls her eyes, "He's insane."
    I nod slowly, it burns and hurts. He traded me for all those other women and their babies.
    She smiles, "You okay?"
    I want to nod and tell her I am, but I'm not. I can feel it. I let myself be true to my feelings. She is my us. I shake my head and look down.
    She wraps her arms around me, "You will be."
    My common sense is slowing creeping around in my mind, checking on the facts I have, "Who is he?" I mutter.
    She shrugs, "He found me, needed me to help him find a girl. We figured out pretty fast we were looking for the same girl. I had gotten separated from everyone else and had hid. Then he found me, and showed me where to find you. He needed me to pretend to be a nurse, but then the doctor made me leave before we could rescue you." She chuckles softly, "Then of course, you got away on your own. So we assumed you were hiding and waiting for the military to leave. When they did, we were coming to get you. I went one way and he went the other. He found you."
    It's not something I would have done. I don’t accept help from strangers. It's the difference between her and I.
    He looks around and speaks softly, "We have to stay here a few more days. You're just lucky I got to you first. I looked everywhere for you."
    I shake my head in the dim light of the small space. "Who are you?"
    "A friend." He picks up a tin and takes a bite.
    I glance at Anna but she shakes her head, "You gotta get out of the city."
    "Where are we?" I can't tell anything from the small concrete room. It's like a shanty in the towns with board and concrete walls.
    "Spokane."
    I rub my eyes and try to focus them, "Where?"
    Anna laughs, "I said the same thing. We're in Washington, by the West Coast."
    I sniffle and wrap my arms around myself, "How did I get here? Why are you