SWAB (A Young Adult Dystopian Novel) Read Online Free PDF Page A

scarb we hadn’t noticed before jumped down from the trees, barring my way. These two were massive, the size of pro-football size. They spat at me and cracked their pointy knuckles, but made no advance towards me. That’s strange. It was as if they were intentionally keeping me from getting to Ray and the female. Like bodyguards.
    “Ray!” I screamed and tried to see around the Elways. But their bodies and the surrounding bushes were too thick; I could only make out the flash of his black jacket.
    “Go, Cat!” he called back, his voice sharp with desperation. “She’s too strong. We can’t kill her.”
    I tried to tear through the bushes at my left, but again, one of the Elways blocked me. He didn’t make a move to touch me, but I didn’t want to test one of his knife-like knuckles. “No!”I shrieked. “I can’t leave you!”
    I could hear bushes and trees snapping. “Go, Cat. Now!” he yelled. Then, the forest was still.
    “Ray, no!”My heart shredded. I could barely think as rage and shock filled me. Everything had happened so fast. And now the monster had killed him. I knew she must be coming for me next. Well, let her come. I clenched my hands into fists to prepare for the moment. I’ll make her wish she’d never seen us.
    But to my surprise, the two guards pulled back instead of coming for me. “She’s got me,” Ray screamed, his voice real and sharp and very much alive. “She’s taking me.” Through the trees and past the Elways, I caught a glimpse of the female scarb. She had Ray tied and wrapped up in cords, like a fly in a spider’s web. She was dragging him up the mountain.
    “What on earth is she doing?”Scarb don’t take prisoners, they kill humans as quickly as possible.
    Following impulse alone, I ran after them up the steep slope, though they were already far ahead of me. No one was going to take Ray from me. He was alive, and he was mine. I clawed at the trees and rocks, but the scarb were too moving fast. They had just gotten above the treeline and into the open hillside fifty yards ahead of me, when all three scarb spread thin, wiry wings out from their backs.
    “Fliers!” I shrieked, unable to believe what I was seeing. But those were wings. Flying scarb were more legend than reality. No one in Rimerock had ever seen one—except for old Rodgers, and most of his stories were better taken with a grain of salt. And now, here was not just one but three fliers.
    Their wings stretched and began to beat in a steady rhythm. I fought my way through the dust and loose grass they kicked up. I was almost to him. But then a sharp downward wind picked up, and the scarb were in the air, carrying Ray up over the mountain.
    “No!” I yelled, and flung rocks up at the scarb, but my weapons fell down to the earth, hopelessly far from bringing him back to me.
    The scarb flew several hundred feet above the mountain side and then headed toward the eastern hills, taking the man I loved away into the rising morning sun.
     

Chapter Four
    Gone
     
     
    Ray’s gone. They took him. I stared at the last spot I’d seen him—not more than a tiny black speck in the sky—until he was gone completely. I couldn’t move. Couldn’t blink or breathe. It was as though all the blood in my body froze in my veins, unwilling to budge.
    But scarb don’t kidnap people, they kill them. They’re going to kill Ray, they’re just doing it differently this time. Maybe that’s what flying scarb do. I tried to figure it out. Take their victims up into the air and then—
    I was no longer still. I sprinted up the mountain, and it took a moment for my brain to catch up to my body. My quads and calves burned, but still I climbed. I ran until I reached the top of the saddle, where the mountain ranges beyond stretched far in a deep blue and purple sea. I scanned the blush-pink skies, but they were empty, save for a few wispy cirrus clouds and a circling hawk. I looked at the bird, and my heart burned with envy. You