Dauntless Read Online Free PDF Page A

off and I stood shaking in the darkness; my flashlight trembled in my hand as I flicked it on and trained it on the floor at my feet. Ever so slowly, I turned and aimed the light at the shelving unit. There was only one vial with the red label and the S on it. I took it down and tucked it into my bra, the vial cool against my flushed skin.
    The flashlight’s beam guiding me, I made my way through the room. I had to push the gurney aside to step around Juliana and Donavan—I didn’t want to get too close and have my leg mistaken for a drumstick. Again the laughter inside me tried to bubble up, but I shoved it back. I could see how Donavan would crack. I could feel the hysteria inside myself, my mind dealing with too many horrors, too close together. It wasn’t good for the psyche.
    My beam caught Juliana as she ripped a piece of flesh upwards, her face smeared with the blood and intestine of her husband. My gorge rose and I gagged on the stench of opened bowels that suddenly filled my nostrils. I stumbled past them, retching and dry heaving as I all but threw myself into the hallway.
    The trek up through the stairwell was a blur of darkness and scattered light. The Nevermores were still eating where I’d left them, feasting in the main parlour. Again, I gagged. I had to get back to Sebastian, I had to put some distance between me and all this death. I didn’t know when the other bombs would go off and I didn’t want to be around to find out.
    I ran to the door and slipped through, the Nevermores completely focused on filling themselves. The streets were eerily empty and I walked slowly back to the underground parking lot, my adrenaline gone, my heart sore from the culmination of events and my body exhausted.
    As the darkness of the parking lot covered me, I let out a sigh of relief. My shoes made only the slightest of sounds on the smooth concrete as I quickly made my way back to the Jeep.
    One swift look around showed me that Scout was missing. That wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. At some point we were going to have to say goodbye to him. I doubted that I would be able to take him on any plane, no matter how I cajoled them into seeing what a well behaved Nevermore he was.
    I opened the door of the Jeep and slid into the driver’s seat. “Okay Bastion. We’ve got the vial, let’s get out of here.” I turned in the seat and let out a low moan. It was all I had left to give.
    Sebastian was gone.

 
    6
     
    At first I just sat and stared at the empty space where he should have been. How had he gotten out? The Nevermores didn’t have the motor skills to open things. My heart caught in my throat. It had to be the trial cure that Donavan had given him. It really was working and he was getting some of his human abilities back.
    Then I got out of the Jeep and looked around. The parking lot was empty. I let out a low whistle hoping Scout would hear and come back to me. Not this time.
    Shit.
    There hadn’t been any sign of Nevermores out the south side where I’d come in from, so maybe they’d headed up the streets, back into town. But that wouldn’t make any sense. I wracked my brain. Where the hell would they go? And why?
    I snapped my fingers and threw the flashlight into the Jeep. The waterfront. Sebastian had been fascinated by the waterfront the entire time we’d been confined in Donavan’s compound.
    Slipping back into the streets, one ear listening for the sound of Nevermores, I ran as fast as I could across Front Street then looked down over the edge of the rise that overlooked the Georgia Strait. The ground sloped down in a steep angle and I found myself on my butt, surfing the brown grass all the way to the bottom where a walkway took over. The walkways spread all around the harbour, through a lagoon and out to the far North side of the waterfront. When Sebastian and I first came to the island to hunt for real estate we walked the whole loop during a break from viewing houses. Then it had taken nearly 45