Oculus (Oculus #1) Read Online Free PDF Page A

would have ended up dead. The Corp might have just shot them on the off chance they had something to do with it. News doesn’t travel as quickly as it used to, but we got most of the details from a steady communication through HAM radio.
    It’s been two days since my return to our camp. I drag in to our quarters from my morning run, to find Anna out front waiting for me. The nervous way she’s pacing tells me that something is wrong. Wheeling, she stares at me with a haunted look in her eyes. I have rarely seen Anna so unsettled, she’s usually stoic in the face of anything we face.
    “Jesus, Sic. I thought you’d never get back. You aren’t going to believe what I heard on the radio. Just when you think The Corps can’t sink any lower, the bastards dig a fucking hole.” Her agitation sets me on edge; normally I can count on Anna to be focused and lucid.
    She is visibly shaking, so I took her by the arm, and led her to a rough bench on the front porch. It’s a crude construct, a few planks nailed to rough wooden boxes, but it’s one of her favorite places to sit and watch the sunset. Seating her, I use a gentle voice to try and soothe her. “Calm down, Anna. Just take a breath and tell me what is going on.”
    For a moment, she looks so lost, and frightened. Then she marshals herself and waves me off. “Right…okay. I just got off the radio with two different Resistance cells. One to the north, another further east. I waited to get confirmation…I just couldn’t believe it was true.” She shook her head, sending strands of silver and blonde fluttering loosely at her neck. “After you left, Fenra Corp came in and locked the place down. One of the first things they did was took the boy and his mother into custody.”
    I feel my heart twist in my chest as realization washes over me. Anna does have a weak point which would explain why she’s acting this way. The only time I have seen her behave like this was when a job went bad and a kid got hurt in the crossfire. “Felix.”
    Anna looks up at me in confusion. “What?”
    I wipe sweat out of my eyes and drop down to sit on one of the empty boxes we use for stools, suddenly feeling very tired.
    “The boy in the shed. His name is Felix.” Anna shoots me a pained look, sour as if she’s just tasted something foul.
    “His name was Felix.” I lower my eyes and look at the ground. Tears push against the back of my eyes. Another innocent life, snuffed out by The Corp. I might as well have killed the boy myself. Leaving him to the mercy of Fenra has proven to be a death sentence. Angrily pushing the pain away, and with it the tears, I look back at Anna.
    “What happened?” Anna opens her mouth to speak, and nothing comes out. She takes a moment to collect herself, and when she finally does speak her voice is rough, thickened by her emotion.
    “Fenra Security, their Chief Ingram ordered agents to take them in as part of their investigation. Not as suspects mind you, they called them material witnesses. Word is, the boy refused to cooperate with them when they started asking him about you, and they…tortured him. Fenra reported both he and the mother died of the sickness she had. Tragically, they were unable to save them. That kind of bullshit. One of The Resistance, a plant on the inside, saw them carrying the corpses to the furnaces. There was blood all over the sheets they were wrapped in. And suddenly, they now have a description of the mysterious killer of Hector Benson.” Burying her face in her hands she begins to sob.
    “Why didn’t he cooperate?” I run my hands through my hair, tugging at it in frustration. “I didn’t tell him not to tell them about me. Hell, there wasn’t anything he could say that would hurt me. He barely saw me.”
    Anna doesn’t respond. Her despondence is maddening, as I’m already second-guessing myself about the choices I’ve made. Kneeling down, I put my arms around her and she buries her face in my shoulder. Her