Prophet of the Badlands (The Awakened Book 1) Read Online Free PDF

with dust and exposing the sky. The metallic ringing of the manhole cover tossed to the side faded below a roar as one of the men jumped in.
    Althea leapt through the opening of a white stone pipe and sprinted. The sound of her feet upon the dry surface echoed through the growls of the raider behind her. He could not stand at full height in the tube, allowing her to outpace him. After a dozen steps, her flashing legs faded from flesh to light grey. She came to a stop where the tunnel ended at a T-shaped crossing. To the left, it went straight as far as she could see, but to the right, it bent down after a short distance. Althea ducked right and reached the end in six strides, where a vertical shaft led down to a lower level. There, she crouched, listening to the raiders stumble along in the dark. They were not giving up, even though they could not see at all.
    She scrambled onto a metal ladder caked with soft muck, and descended through a square-walled passage lined with a staggering amount of debris. Pipes, old furniture, boxes, and other machinery she had never seen before scattered about amidst liberal amounts of spray-painted words.
    At the bottom, she dropped thigh deep into water frigid enough to paralyze her. Althea clamped her hands over her mouth and swallowed a shriek, fearful of attracting attention. Seconds later, she sucked in a breath through chattering teeth and forced herself to move. Ripples spread from her legs as she walked, jostling the floating junk. Her natural reaction to such cold water kept her motion slow enough not to make noise. A layer of clammy slime squished through her toes as it gave way to the coarse texture of old concrete below. Althea advanced without hesitation, pushing the flotsam aside; she had stepped in worse things than this before.
    After several minutes, she jumped at a scream. The man, unable to see the ladder or the sudden end to the corridor, tripped over the first rung and came falling face-first into the water at the bottom. The wave of his impact sent frigidity up to the base of her ribs; she gulped back the urge to cry out. He broke the surface, slinging his head around with a series of wild cries at how cold it was.
    Only one of them came this way; Althea figured they must have split at the junction. Debris clunked against the wall as his splashing increased.
    “Where you goin?” he yelled.
    She made the mistake of looking at him.
    “Thar you is.” He looked right at her. “Ah chosed right.”
    Althea jerked her head away, and shoved a floating wooden box out of her path. Splashing, crashing, and banging resonated through the tunnel as the man, blind in the pitch dark, walked into everything. She fought the desperate want to look back, knowing he would see the glow. Arms held up over the water, she advanced through the junk clogging the sewer. Her small size and ability to see in the dark allowed her to navigate the black and white world faster and quieter. The raider yelled curses each time a part of his body found a solid object. When he made a genuine yelp of pain, she stopped.
    Her teeth chattered. “Are you hurt?”
    “Naw, it’s just a… Yeah… dammit mah leg’s off.”
    Sensing a ploy, she kept going. At the sound of her sloshing, he grumbled. “Damn, t’was too much, wadn’t it.”
    “Yes.” She stopped again. “You should go back. You can’t see down here, you’ll get hurt for real.”
    He did not reply, continuing to follow her.
    Althea glanced up as she walked under a low hanging pipe, an inch or two over her head. She closed her eyes and faced to the rear. “There’s a pipe. Be careful, or it’ll hit you in the face.”
    The splashing behind her lessened. She imagined him holding his hand out, but didn’t dare open her eyes and reveal the glow. A faint twinge of guilt at putting this man at risk faded as she heard Den’s voice in the air. The sound emanated from a round opening near the ceiling a short distance ahead. Her elation caused