Users Read Online Free PDF

mean?” I asked her.
    Wesley turned and knocked my hand away. “Don’t touch her.”
    “Wesley,” Iggy warned, stopping to turn and face him. “He’s my cousin. Take it easy.”
    He glared at me but addressed Iggy. “There’s not a drop of blood between you two. He’s a stranger.”
    Cody shoved Wesley and growled, “What the fuck is your problem?”
    Wesley threw a punch. It was so unexpected that Cody staggered backwards, looking stunned. Three seconds later, he’d recovered and was ready to fight, but enough time had passed for me to step between the two of them and for Iggy to grab two fistfuls of Wesley’s shirt. I pushed against Cody who spat curses and threats while lunging toward Wesley. Iggy yanked on her friend a couple of times before he turned his back on us and strode off toward his motorcycle. Iggy called after him, but he ignored her and soon disappeared down a trail into the woods.
    She turned to face Cody with an apologetic expression. “I’m sorry about that. Wesley overreacts sometimes.”
    “That’s an understatement,” I ground out. “A little overprotective too, isn’t he?” I put a hand on Cody’s shoulder, but he shrugged it off and stalked toward the house without a word. Iggy and I watched in silence until he disappeared.
    She took a deep breath and said with false cheer, “What an exciting morning we’re having.”
    On the veranda, I grabbed her upper arm and kept her from going inside. “I want to know what he meant. Why did he say you would die if you didn’t cooperate? Are you sick?”
    Iggy looked as if she were considering what to say, then she waved her hand dismissively. “It was just a meaningless threat.”
    I rolled my eyes. “Did you take a course on how to spout bullshit, or does it just come naturally to you?” Her lips pressed into a thin line, but she remained quiet. “Fine. Don’t tell me. I don’t deserve to know, right? I’m just a stranger here.”
    I left her to go check on Cody.

 
     
     
     
     
    Chapter 4
     
    Cael
    “Last time I saw you, you were knee high to a grasshopper!” Aunt Kim threw her arms around me, squeezed out the air, and stepped back. “Now look at you. You’re huge!”
    Uncle Chris gave me a brief hug that included a couple of hearty slaps on the back. Last time I’d seen him, he’d been an intimidating man in uniform wearing a badge. Now, I was several inches taller than him.
    I introduced my aunt and uncle to Cody. He shook their hands and then looked at me with his eyebrows raised and mouthed, Knee high to a grasshopper ? I shrugged and answered Kim’s questions about my parents. After explaining my worry at not having heard from them, Kim put a hand on my arm and said, “Don’t you worry none. Your mama was a Marine. She can take care of herself and your daddy.” Her accent was just like Iggy’s.
    Chris put an arm around Kim’s shoulders. “Still, I’m only gonna give them twenty-four hours before I go through official channels to find them.”
    Iggy entered the kitchen through the back porch. I hadn’t seen her in hours. Her mouth was pinched and her hair was tousled, and I figured she wasn’t done being angry about the CDC guy. She asked her parents about their trip and they gave her a brief recount of what they’d bought. Then her dad said, “The convenience store up the road was robbed. Jonas was finishing up taking statements from witnesses when we stopped in on the way home. Apparently, a group of people tried stealing gas. They held the clerks at gunpoint and forced them to turn on the pumps. Most everyone out there with any kind of container was filling up and taking off.”
    I said, “Looks like what happened in New York might happen in a lot of cities.”
    “We stopped at the Costco in Kennesaw on our way back to get some more canned goods,” Kim told us. “The store was wiped out.”
    Chris looked at me. “We used to be considered freaks for stockpiling food. Now, everyone’s doing