Z 2136 (Z 2134 Series Book 3) Read Online Free PDF Page B

steps—just see what waited. If it was too dangerous, he could still turn around. But he couldn’t allow his fear to scare him off, not before he saw what he was dealing with. He moved up the stairs to the top, turned the corner, and stepped into the first definite signs of life he’d seen since fleeing the arena.
    Adam saw no survivors but did see signs of their recent presence: discarded ration packs, broken bottles, and a portable, solar-powered space heater with coils rigged in what looked like hands in a prayer. There was a soiled bedroll that looked awful to sleep on, though still better than the littered floor. Adam stepped deeper into the room, wondering who had been there before and how long ago they had left it.
    Lost in his observations, it took him a moment to remember, with a sudden chill, the sound from just moments before.
    Adam crossed the first room, then went into another. The second room looked more lived in than the first. Almost immediately he found a pile of old clothes shoved into a corner. As he did each day—despite his daily desire to stop it—Adam thought of his many hours in City Watch cadet training, watching videos that taught him the basics of reading a crime scene. He remembered every lesson: interrogation, autopsy, trace, ballistics, forensics, and DNA.
    Unfortunately, none of those lessons would help Adam now.
    It didn’t help that he couldn’t focus. Adam wasn’t sure if it was something in the building or his rattled nerves, but his instincts were screaming, ordering him to run.
    But he couldn’t.
    Not without gathering any useful supplies that could be in the room, abandoned by whatever might be hiding in the shadows. He ignored the humming buzz in his mind and sifted through the room, searching for food, a weapon, anything .
    After a lot of nothing, Adam found an empty backpack and an old rusty hammer.
    He slung the empty pack over his shoulder, tightened the hammer in his grip, and made his way toward the door. There was one more flight in the nine-story building.
    Just one more flight. I can do this.
    Adam climbed.
    Beads of sweat on his brow continued to thicken. The hammer felt loose in his hand, the wooden stock slick from his sweaty palm. He just had to see what was ahead. He just hoped that he wasn’t trading fear for stupidity.
    Adam stopped cold, his foot an inch above the stair. He fell back a step and tightened his grip, both on the railing and on his hammer. There was laughter above, but it wasn’t friendly. It held the edges of menace, the sort of laughter that Adam had heard throughout his lifetime, mostly from guys like Tommy, Morgan, Daniel, and all the other bullies he’d known in his life.
    The part of Adam that had spent months in City Watch under Keller’s care, training hard to follow in his father’s footsteps and become a City Watcher, wanted to charge the stairs with only his hammer and confront the waiting danger. The rest of him, the part that cried when City Watchers took his books as a child, wanted to flee—down the stairs, out of the building, and into the street as fast as he could.
    Adam finally listened to the coward inside him. He slowly turned, then took a step. He followed with a second, slower step; then his heel landed on the back of a bottle and sent him tumbling down the stairs.
    Adam could feel himself flying through his life’s longest second, then his back crashed onto the concrete and his head smacked the wall hard enough to burst a melon. He bit his lip to keep from crying out, but even the sudden metallic taste of blood in his mouth couldn’t stop his yelp.
    The upstairs fell silent.
    A few seconds later, shadows fell on his body from above as he lay trembling and hurt on the landing. Adam forced himself to stand and face the strangers.
    A group of men stood on the flight above. A half dozen it seemed, but with so many shadows he couldn’t be sure. The one in front, the shortest, must be the leader. He cocked an eyebrow,