Duality (The Hitchhiker Strain) Read Online Free PDF Page B

finally choose flight. As soon as his eyes lock onto me, I turn and run back into the alley with everything I have—which isn't much. But maybe he'll let me go. Maybe he doesn't want to risk a fight either. Or not.
    Within seconds, I hear his footsteps close behind me. I want to keep going, but I know there's no point. The only thing it will change is that I won't see the bullet that kills me.
    I turn, and as soon as I do, my pursuer stops chasing me, though his gun stays level right with my head. He's young, my age maybe, with cropped blonde hair and sad eyes. He seems steady, strong. We both know he'll win this fight. He is about fifty feet away, staring. Watching me watch him. I snarl a warning, but it sounds weak even to my ears.
    There's nothing left to do.
    He takes a step toward me, and I'm sure I can hear the sound of my own heartbeat because it's hammering that loudly. The beast wants to lunge, to fight. But I’m looking forward to the end of this long struggle. It's nice to know that my end means I won’t ever be able to hurt anyone else.
    I don't want to die.
    I try to push myself to run again, to do anything, but I can't. Two parts of me are warring against each other and I'm caught in the crossfire, unable to do anything at all. I fall to my knees.
    He's almost on me now. Twenty feet away. Ten. A scream tries to rip out of my throat, but the result is little more than a tired wheeze.
    Five feet now. This has to be it—the end. My body is begging for me to curl into myself—or at least look away. I won't do it. I can't fight, but he'll have to look me in the eyes when he ends me forever—to look at what’s left of Chelsea Zimmerman.
    The boy raises his weapon, his expression grim and set in stone. He braces for the kickback, and I refuse to blink. He pulls the trigger. I feel the moment of impact, but barely. Getting shot feels nothing like what I imagined.
    I fall anyway. The last thing I feel as my eyes flutter closed is my killer scooping me up into his arms.
     

Chapter 6 – Savannah
     
    Tap. Tap. Tap tap tap.
    Tap tap. Tap.
    Cole reaches over, placing his hand on top of mine to settle the drumming of my fingers. Playfully, I struggle against him until he wraps my hand completely up in his, interlocking our fingers. I should be focusing on how I won’t be seeing him for a few days—the longest we’ve been apart since I temporarily joined up with the United Militia—but I’m too excited to sit still.
    Will the world be different now? I know as well as anyone how quickly everything can change. Whatever is out there, I want to see it for myself. I want to know that the ruins o f the world I grew up in are still there, waiting for me. Before it gets any worse. Because the other thing I know now is that, no matter what you imagine rock bottom to be, things can always get so much worse.
    Once upon a time, getting turned down by Samu el Rivers was the worst thing I could have imagined for myself. A nightmare. The end of the world as I knew it. But I never even got the chance to ask him out because all social events were canceled as the first strain of the Z-virus began terrorizing the planet, killing millions before reanimating them. Then, for a few months, the worst thing I could imagine was losing my friends and family. Seeing them suffer, torn apart, and devoured. That was the worst.
    I had no idea what I was in for.
    Then came the cure. The first so-called miracle, a vaccine that could stop the virus from killing anyone at all. We all thought our nightmares were over. I started to imagine my old life again with something more than nostalgia. There was hope.
    I was wasting my time. That life was meant to be little more than a series of wonderful memories to fuel me in my darkest moments.
    Like when the people who were vaccinated started killing indiscriminately. They weren ’t dying, but they weren’t living anymore either. They were monsters. Stronger and faster than the first generation of Zs,