Mutation (Wildfire Chronicles Vol. 4) Read Online Free PDF

wouldn’t both be dead already anyway because that was how the world worked now. Death lurking around every corner, waiting to pounce. Every step rich with dark opportunity. A m ultitude of ways for everything to end without warning.
    No, it wasn’t Michael that Rachel blamed. Wasn’t John either, despite his limited involvement with Project Wildfire . She blamed the men who had created the disaster, the same men that caused wars and economic collapses and guided the world recklessly with only their profit in mind. People with power. Allowed to have power and to wield it across continents.
    In the past, Rachel’s only option to strike back at them had been voting. A pointless charade that boiled down to choosing between whether you wore a red hat or a blue hat.
    Rachel had never bothered with it.
    But they hadn’t killed her entire family before, and now only one thing mattered: tracking them down, however impossible a task that seemed.
    And killing them.
    She blinked at the castle that loomed over the town. John and Michael wanted a place to defend; a place to stay and be safe. As the rage boiled away inside her, Rachel no longer thought that would be enough for her.
     
    *
     
    “Please, don’t...I know you are there, don’t. Please .”
    John’s mind retreated and he froze, stunned.
    It’s talking.
    He raised the knife.
    In the small market square, tied to a lamp post, stood a girl of about thirteen. She was shivering with the cold or terror or both. She looked weak; on the verge of collapsing to the cobbles.
    Infected.
    Her eyes were gone, ripped from their sockets.
    The knife shook a little in John's grip.
    “I’m not like them, please, I’m-“
    Her plea dissolved in a whimper of fear, hysteria ripping a meaningless jumble of noise from her throat. It was an animal sound.
    What the fuck…
    “Afraid I have to stop you doing that, mate.”
    A man’s voice, deep and clear.
    Behind him.
    John span around, dropping low, smoothly pulling out the smaller second knife and slipping his grip down to the blade in a single motion, readying the throw that would land at upper chest or neck height.
    Someone had crossed the bridge, someone who knew a thing or two about staying quiet.
    John hated surprises.
    A few feet away, stepping out from behind a wall with his arms raised in surrender, John saw a guy of around sixty. He was mostly bald, and had a white beard that still looked vaguely well-trimmed. He was big and looked physically fit. He reminded John a lot of some of the guys that had made their way to the top of the army, just before they reached the age where politics and meetings and sitting at desks took over and bellies began to expand.
    John had seen plenty of those guys , the once-active men embittered by age; more dangerous with a pen and a smile than they ever had been with a gun.
    “Didn’t mean to startle you,” the man said, raising his arms higher. “Exact opposite actually, that’s why I came alone. But I can’t let you do that."
    He motioned to John's knife and the shackled girl. "I t’s important. Vital.”
    John’s eyes narrowed, and he shot a glance around the square, quickly calculating the possibility of more shapes lurking in the shadows. He dismissed the idea. One man might be able to creep up on him, but John couldn't imagine that he would fail to notice himself being surrounded.
    “There are more of you? How many?”
    “Enough," the white-haired man said. "But I don’t want it to come to that. We don’t need to have trouble here.”
    John jabbed a knife at the Infected girl tied to the post.
    “The fuck is that? You people keep the things as pets? Why does she fucking talk ?”
    The bearded man smiled affably, but John didn't see a hint of it reflected in his eyes.
    “It’s a long story. I imagine you’ve got one of your own, right? So get your friends and come in, and we’ll trade tales of the apocalypse. What do you say?”
    The smile widened, and the man dropped an arm,