Psychosis (Wildfire Chronicles Vol. 3) Read Online Free PDF Page A

fire, rooting in her backpack for a few morsels of food to serve as their breakfast.
    She looked tired, dark circles smudged under her eyes, making the face that had been fresh and youthful just days earlier look a decade older. And not just tired, Michael realised, but haunted. He remembered the glimpse of trauma he’d seen in her eyes back in the bunker. He hadn’t asked what Victor had done while alone with Rachel; hadn’t needed to. Rachel did an excellent job of covering up her wounds, but when her guard was down, Michael saw the scars.
    Jason slept to her left, his back to the fire. They must have taken shifts keeping watch, Michael realised, and flushed guiltily. He had been left to sleep all night.
    “You know I don’t know anything about you,” said Rachel, never taking her gaze from the backpack.
    Michael blinked, and wondered how long she’d been aware of him staring. He reached for the bottle of water he’d placed next to his makeshift bed, took a long, delicious drink.
    “I guess there’s not been much room for conversation, with all this going on.” He said finally.
    “There’s room now.” She replied pointedly.
    Michael caught the hint. Was surprised he hadn’t seen it coming sooner, really. Circumstance had thrown the three of them together in St. Davids, and sticking together had seemed the best way through the nightmare. Back then they had looked at him as someone to follow, authority bestowed on him by a uniform that was most likely now nothing more than a symbol of a lost time. The reality now was that Michael was something else they had to carry. Something heavy.
    Jason stirred, sat up next to his sister with a yawn, his eyes unfocused. The way they were positioned, the two of them with their backs to the forest, Michael with his back to the sea, gave Michael the impression of being grilled by some sort of panel of investigators. Long-buried memories scrabbled at their shallow graves, clamouring for his attention.
    He shook the m away.
    “What would you like to know? ”
    He drained the remaining water in one long, soothing gulp.
    “I spent some time on the Force in Cardiff, transferred to St. Davids a couple of years ago. Was married, now separated. Probably a widower I suppose.” The word caught in his throat. “I have a little girl, Claire. There’s not much else to tell really.”
    “Why move from Cardiff?” Rachel asked. Michael was impressed despite his discomfort. She had instantly picked out the relevant piece of information, the one thing he didn’t want to discuss, filtering through the bullshit. She’d have done well in the police.
    “I...wasn’t cut out for city policing I suppose. And I wanted to be closer to my daughter. St. Davids was the opportunity that came up.”
    “You think she’s alive?”
    The bluntness of her tone startled him. It was a question he had tried to avoid thinking about since he’d first received the message that originated from a friend that worked in Aberystwyth’s modest police station. He had no reason to distrust the message. Your wife has been taken to hospital. She had something wrong with her eyes. Your daughter is missing.
    Missing.
    He had scrutinized the words in his mind over and over, trying to read the truth between them . Missing, not dead . When the infection had taken his wife, Claire had survived. For the moment, it was all Michael was willing to consider.
    “Doesn’t matter what I think,” he said. My job is gone. My family - my whole life - gone. Finding Claire is the only thing for me to do now.”
    Rachel paused for a moment, and nodded. Took a bite out of a biscuit.
    As she chewed, Michael stared over her shoulder. He’d seen the movement in the bushes moments earlier, slow and stealthy. His mind raced, and on some level he recognised how swiftly the world had been distilled to a single variable: safe or unsafe.
    “T here is someone standing in the trees behind you.”
    Michael kept his voice neutral as he