The Last Revenant (Book 1): The Crash Read Online Free PDF Page A

do, don’t fight them. Please, just trust me.”
    I let the blanket fall off of me. With everything that I had been through over the last few days, I was too tired to lift it back up. Being half naked in front of a stranger just didn’t seem to matter anymore. She quickly pulled it back onto me and forced my hand on top to keep it from falling.
    “Martha!” A middle aged man with a short beard and worn suit stormed in and stopped halfway through, about to yell again when he noticed me.
    I blinked right back at him.
    “She’s awake?”
    Martha turned her back to him, pretending the clear bag of liquid above us was more important. “I would say so.”
    The man took a step closer to me, sizing me up and down, but it was different, almost like he was looking at a car.  I pulled the blanket closer to my neck. It was uncomfortable.
    “How is she?”
    He kept staring and Martha turned back with pursed lips. “It was a small caliber and I didn’t have to dig it out. I patched it up as best as I could. She should be fine.”
    I waited as the man took a moment and walked on over.  “What’s your name?”
    I didn’t say anything. As far as I knew, I didn’t have a reason to.
    He eyed me curiously and clapped his hands, looking around for something.  “Okay…”  I could see Martha steal a glance at me as the man walked over to a chair, but I couldn’t tell if she approved or not. He started rummaging through a pile of torn, dirty clothes until he pulled out a wallet.
    “Jessica Carter,” he said, staring at my driver’s license. He paused, looking back at me to say, “It’s a pleasure, by the way.” He referred back to the card. “Twenty-one years old, green eyes, organ donor, and…” He put my wallet back. “Beautiful. You’re a long way from home, Miss Carter. I can only imagine what you’ve had to go through to make it this far on your own.”
    Actually, he couldn’t, because I was never on my own.
    “But,” he said, “Where are my manners? You must be starving. If you’d be so kind as to get dressed and meet me outside, we can go get you something to eat. How’s that sound?” He looked at me, smiling.
    I couldn’t tell why I didn't trust him, but I still didn’t say anything.
    He clapped his hands again. “Lovely. Martha, would you care to join me?”
    I looked at her. I didn’t want her to leave, at least not until I could have asked her about him, but she stood up, only pausing at the entrance as the man held the tent open for her.
    “There’s fresh clothes for you on the chair, honey.”
    They left me alone and not sure of what to do.
    I looked at the entrance and thought about running the opposite way. I could have slipped underneath the side of the tent and been gone before they could realize what had happened, but just the thought of bending over like that made my shoulder hurt. I put a hand over the spot and tried to massage it a bit. I needed to eat. I needed water and they were offering it to me. I was still alive, after all...
    How bad could they be?
    I stood up, light-headed, and tried not to fall over as I hobbled on my scarred feet. I wouldn’t be putting miles on them anytime soon. I put on my new clothes and noticed that I could think clearly enough to tell what was wrong with me. At least that was progress.
    I reached over to my wallet and pulled out an old monochrome photo strip of me and an ex-boyfriend taken on a date when we had been at the pier. It was stupid. We had split up a long time ago, but I had neglected to get rid of it and I was always too embarrassed to carry around a picture of my family. For some reason that was supposed to make up for it.
    I crammed the picture back and grabbed my dead cell phone. If I could find a charger, then I could at least use it as a light. I reached into a pocket and it dawned on me that at that point my life had boiled down to a phone that I couldn’t even turn on and clothes that I had just gotten from a complete stranger. I