Landfall (The Reach, Book 2) Read Online Free PDF

again?
    Talia quickened her pace, turning down a narrow alleyway that would take her in the direction of Grove.
    She stopped dead.  Crumb was standing there not far away, somehow having gotten in front of her again.  He was very still and intent, his expression far more sinister than it had been when she’d last seen him.
    “What the fuck?” she said, trying to hide the trepidation in her voice behind a veil of outrage.  “Are you following me, Crumb?”
    “No.”
    There was no trace of that air of pleasantness from before.  His attempts at charm had been discarded.  Talia didn’t like it.
    “Get out of my way, creep,” she said, starting forward and waving at him imperiously.
    Crumb held out a hand to bar her way.  “We’re gonna have to do this the hard way, darlin’,” he said quietly.
    She didn’t realise that someone was behind her until it was too late.
     

 
    5
    Knile awoke to the sound of a distant clamour, like the moan of a thousand tormented voices crying out in dread and fear, a piteous wail that was unfathomably deep and sorrowful.  Still mired in dreams and with thoughts muddled, he imagined countless saggy grey faces turned up at him, watching from the depths of some dark and inescapable pit with blank eyes and slack jaws.  From between their mottled and colourless li ps came that noise – that drawn-out, wordless howl that somehow resonated in his bones and made him feel cold and empty inside.
    It’s the klaxon , he thought remotely.   It’s just the klaxon.
    He pushed himself off the floor, still panicked, and kept going until his back hit the wall.  He looked around.
    Where was he?  He didn’t know this place.
    Weak daylight was filtering in from a round window high up on one wall, like the porthole in the hull of a ship.  For a moment he wondered if these unfamiliar confines were the innards of the railcar itself.  Was he rocketing skyward along the Wire toward the sanctuary of Habitat One right now?
    He pushed himself to his feet and his knees popped as he straightened.  He groaned.  Every muscle in his body felt like it had been tenderised with a crowbar.  Even his fingers felt stiff as he clenched them, as if he’d been struck down by some sudden and thoroughly debilitating case of arthritis.  He worked his neck back and forth as he tried to clear his addled senses.
    The Atrium.  Ursie.  She left, and I came back down into the Reach.
    Yes, he remembered now.  It was all coming back.
    High above, Ursie had undoubtedly made it to Habitat One, having taken his place on the railcar that had lifted her upward into the night.  He’d been duped, that was for sure.  Thinking back to his journey up the Reach, he couldn’t be exactly sure of how many thoughts she’d planted in his head.  How many times had she deceived him with her illusions?  Her manipulation of him had been so subtle, so complete, that he had been left completely dumbfounded by the end of it.
    You got me, kid.  I’ll give you that.
    After he’d left the Atrium, he’d made his way back down into the Plant Rooms and found a compact, out-of-the-way office in which to hide while he caught up on some much- needed rest.  He’d only meant to sleep for an hour or two before getting moving again, but if the klaxon had already gone off, it was clear that he’d overdone it by a good margin.  He must have been out for close to ten hours.
    Is it any wonder, after the events of the past few days?
    Knile scrubbed at his face as he tried to get some feeling back in his cheeks and his lips.  He’d been through some tough times in the past, but nothing quite like the last forty-eight hours.  The pace that he’d set had been relentless, the demands on his body and his mind unprecedented, and in many ways he was amazed that he was still breathing.  He’d narrowly escaped death more than once.  Things could have played out very differently had luck not been on his side.
    There wasn’t much point berating