by Kyla Stone
She shook her head. “He feels pity for me. Because of my illness.”
“No. I may not be all that experienced in the boyfriend department, but I sure as hell know love when I see it.”
Amelia’s hand strayed to the charm bracelet beneath her shirt. She tugged it out, but instead of rubbing the charms, she ran her fingers along the leather thong, remembering how Micah had given it to her, his expression so boyishly eager.
It was Micah who sat beside her hour after hour as the Hydra virus burned through her. Micah—who refused to leave her side, holding her hand through the awful seizure, never judging or shaming her for her weakness. Micah—who never pushed for more than she wanted to give. Who looked at her like a person; not a prize to be won, an asset to be manipulated, or a challenge to be conquered.
Was it true? Didn’t some part of her already know it? “Love is a big word.”
Willow shrugged. “Call it what you want. I just thought you should know. He’s a good guy. He deserves to be happy. I don’t know if he’ll ever tell you himself.”
“Because of Gabriel.”
Willow rolled her eyes. “Gah, you people make everything so difficult. I do not want to know about this weird love-triangle thing you’ve got going on.”
“There’s no love tri—” Amelia sputtered.
“Hey, I’m not judging. All’s fair in love and the apocalypse.”
“No, seriously. I just feel—”
“Please don’t talk to me about your feelings. Finn says I’m not emotionally mature enough to handle it.”
She needed a clever comeback to divert attention from her flushing cheeks. “What about you and Finn, then?”
Willow made a choking noise deep in her throat.
“Are you alright?”
She waved her hand dismissively. “Yeah, of course. I just—we’re not anything. I mean, we’re friends.”
“If you’re sure,” she teased gently.
Willow jerked her chin, her hair falling like a curtain over her face. Hiding her own face. “Of course, I’m sure. I just said that, didn’t I?”
They reached the fence line and walked alongside it toward the back gate, which was closest to the rec yard. On their right, the forest hugged the jagged hillside. Icicles dripped from the branches in frozen, glittering streaks. She blinked thick snowflakes out of her eyes.
As they got closer to the rec yard, the happy sounds of laughter and children playing filled the air, along with a delicious aroma that made her stomach cramp with hunger. The cook staff was busy roasting venison for Christmas dinner tonight.
Willow fingered the turquoise scarf wrapped around her neck. She turned to Amelia and cleared her throat. “Benjie really likes you, you know. You took care of him and kept him from feeling scared and alone during that whole quarantine thing…” She hesitated, as if struggling to find the right words. “I can’t mess up. I have to do right by him.”
“You will. And you are.”
“Lo Lo!” Benjie called to Willow from across the fence. “Wanna play soccer? Mister Finn says we’re gonna beat you so badly you won’t know which way is down!”
Willow’s lips twitched. The shadows cleared from her face. “I’d do anything for him.”
Amelia thought of Silas. The damaged boy with the gaping wound beneath his hard, bristling shell. The brother she hadn’t loved well enough. But she could change that now. She had another chance. As long as they were alive and breathing, they could change. “I know.”
Willow watched her brother frolicking in the snow, laughing and shouting as he and Finn kicked around a half-deflated soccer ball. “We can’t just fight against the bad. We have to fight for the good.”
“That’s profound, Willow.”
Willow blew her bangs out of her eyes. “Yeah, well, don’t expect more where that came from.”
“Lo Lo!” Benjie shrieked, giggling as Finn stuffed a handful of snow down the back of his coat with his good arm.
“He’s not supposed to be moving!” Willow muttered. “I’m gonna kill him.” She glanced at Amelia, her jaw working. She licked her lips, pausing like she was trying to figure out the best—and fastest—way to get out what she needed to say. “You know we’re here, all of us. Whatever we need to do. We’re together in this.”
Amelia nodded, a lump in her throat. That meant a lot coming from Willow. Before she could respond, Willow turned and dashed back through the gate to join her family.
Amelia blew an icy breath into her cupped hands. Her gaze shifted to the edge of the yard, where Gabriel and Micah sat side by side on one of the picnic tables. They had reconciled.
She was happy for them, but it also made her feel more alone. They could figure it out. Why couldn’t she?
Micah hunched over an old paperback book, that wayward lock of hair falling across his forehead, his handsome, boyish features knit in concentration. Gabriel was polishing one of his guns, his every movement sure and steady and strong. Memories flashed through her mind—the passion and fire in his kiss, the fierce intensity in his gaze, undoing her piece by piece.
Her stomach gave a small flip, the hairs on her arms rising. Her skin tingled where his fingers had brushed her arm last night after dinner. A spark like an electrical current passed between them. His eyes had bored into hers, deep and searching. She’d strode away, unsure of her own treacherous feelings.
Now she found herself focusing on his face: his smooth bronze skin, the scruff of his goatee darkening his jaw, his full, sensuous lips. A memory of his mouth, hard and searching, and her own wanting in return, flushed through her. Her cheeks reddened in embarrassment, even standing out here behind the fence, alone.
It was disconcerting and infuriating how her body could still respond to him even after everything, the lies and the heartbreak and the anger. Like her heart was betraying her all over again. It was unfair.
Would she feel this way forever? She used to be able to control her emotions, to tamp down every dangerous, unruly feeling and bury it deep. But things were different now. She had changed.
Before the Grand Voyager, she lived in a gilded cage, numb and half-alive. Now she was fully alive. Now she felt everything. And it hurt like hell.
Micah glanced up suddenly, adjusting his glasses and smiling at her, so much warmth in his brown eyes. He was everything safe and good and kind.
Gabriel felt like falling—intense, exhilarating, terrifying.
Micah felt like home.
But she couldn’t think about all that now. Not yet. They weren’t safe. Far from it. The Sanctuary waited. What would they find? Allies or enemies? Salvation or betrayal?
Tomorrow, they embarked on a dangerous mission to get her mother back. She still couldn’t remember her mother’s face. But it would all come back once they saved her. Amelia had to believe that. She clung to that hope, that she could still salvage some of what was lost.
It was all right there, just beyond her grasp. A new beginning. A new world. They just had to find it.
The End
I hope you enjoyed
Burning Skies: The Last Sanctuary Book Three!
The only hope for a cure lies within the Sanctuary. But when Amelia finally makes it inside the walls, what she finds is the last thing she expected.
Separated from her friends, unsure whom to trust, and surrounded by danger, Amelia must face her greatest threat alone.
And as rebels bent on vengeance gather outside the Sanctuary, Gabriel and the others find themselves caught in the crosshairs of a looming war.
With the fate of humanity at stake, how far are they willing to go?
Ready to find out what happens next? Grab your copy of Breaking World HERE.
Want to know more of Raven’s story? No Safe Haven is a stand-alone companion novel to The Last Sanctuary series. Though it takes place chronologically between Rising Storm and Falling Stars, it can be read in any order. Stay tuned for a sneak peek after About the Author!
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Breaking World
1
Amelia
Eighteen-year-old Amelia Black lay belly-down against the hard, snow-packed dirt, dressed in camouflage tactical gear, a semi-automatic rifle in both gloved hands. She peered through the scope of a weapon she had no intention of firing.
Most of the time, you didn’t know death was coming until it was already looming over you—a shadowy demon of howling fear. She felt that fear now, cold and sharp as a knife. Not for herself—for her mother.
Yesterday, a team had chosen the best location for the ambush—just after a steep bend, where the road carved deeply into the hills. Amelia, Gabriel, Micah, Willow, Silas, and two dozen New Patriots took the high ground. They were hidden among the trees and boulders along the steep hills bordering either side of the two-lane road leading off the highway.
They were surrounded by old forest, towering oaks interspersed with bristling pines and barren maple, birch, and hemlock trees. The underbrush was thick and tangled, sheathed with thorns.
Amelia sheltered beneath two pine trees. She couldn’t see any of their people on the opposite hill, but she knew they were hiding there—waiting, ready. They had rubbed Georgia clay and dirt on their clothes and faces and covered themselves with dead leaves, twigs, and pine boughs.
Melting snow clung to the uneven ground in dirty patches. The air was bitterly cold. The sky was a brooding iron-gray, forecasting another snowstorm.
A dark sense of foreboding crept over her. Though it was Christmas morning, this was not a day that promised hope.
Two days ago, New Patriots scouts had sighted the Headhunters skirting the northern Atlanta suburbs on their way to the Sanctuary. Celeste, Finn, and Benjie remained at the compound, but everyone else insisted on joining the rescue mission.
She wasn’t a skilled enough shooter to take part in the ambush. But she’d refused to remain at the New Patriots’ compound, useless.
This was her mother. This was the rescue she’d traded her own freedom for.
She’d agreed to infiltrate the Sanctuary and offer herself to their scientists so they could formulate a cure from her blood. She was the only known survivor of the deadly pandemic known as the Hydra virus, which had wiped out most of the world’s population.
Once the scientists formulated a cure, she was supposed to somehow steal it, escape the Sanctuary, and give it to the New Patriots.
The Sanctuary might offer salvation—or be crawling with the surviving members of the Unity Coalition. The powerful, corrupt government officials had secretly released the Hydra virus as a bioweapon against their own country. Declan Black, her father, had designed and implemented the entire thing…
She couldn’t let herself fall down that rabbit hole. She had to focus on the now. First, they had to rescue her mother.
“Targets sighted,” said a voice in her earpiece. “Two miles out.”
Beside her, Gabriel Ramos Rivera said, “Copy that.”
Amelia pushed a strand of her short white-blonde hair behind her ear. She breathed in the cold air through her mask, trying not to shiver. The adrenaline had faded after two hours spent stiff and unmoving, but the warning sent ice spiking through her veins. “The Headhunters are coming.”
A vicious biker gang of thugs and criminals, the Headhunters had attacked them at Sweet Creek Farm after Harmony, the leader of Sweet Creek Farm, had betrayed them. The Headhunters had attempted to kidnap Amelia, Celeste, and Nadira to sell as “resources.” They had succeeded in stealing Amelia’s mother. Their friend Nadira had been killed in the battle.
Her stomach knotted at the haunting memory. But now the tables were turned. They were the ones setting the trap.
Still, there were too many questions, too many unknowns. Was her mother alive? Would they get her back safely? Would anyone she cared about get hurt in the process?
Gabriel shifted next to her. His breath came in shallow puffs of white steam. She could feel the tension in his body, a coiled spring ready to snap. His broad shoulder bumped into hers. Her stomach fluttered—from nerves, but also something else.
“How are you feeling?” His black hair curled over the collar of his uniform, one stray lock falling across his forehead, which furrowed in concentration. He adjusted his gaze from the scope of his rifle to glance at her. Those dark, smoldering eyes pierced her with both pain and longing.
Gabriel. The handsome, enigmatic Puerto Rican boy who’d both betrayed and saved her. More than once on both counts.
“I want it to be over.” She meant more than just this moment, more than the ambush. She was tired of running, scavenging, of fighting for their lives, never knowing what dangers the next minutes, hours, and days would bring. She was exhausted to the marrow of her bones.
Gabriel nodded as though he understood all the things she hadn’t said. “It will be. We’ll finish this, I promise.”
Before she could reply, she heard them. The low, spitting growl of motorcycle engines approached rapidly. Heart hammering in her throat, she kept her gaze on the road, waiting for the men who’d stolen her mother and killed Nadira.
The Headhunters rounded the bend with the roar of dozens of motorcycles. She recognized the furred animal pelts rippling from their shoulders like capes: dogs, wolves, leopards, tigers. The men wore menacing weapons strapped to their backs, waists, and thighs. They rode in formation: two dozen bikes up front, a dozen more riding on either side of a transport truck, even more taking up the rear.
Her breath caught. She scanned the bikers; no female riders or passengers. Her mother must be locked inside the transport truck.
Her mind barely had a chance to register the Headhunters’ presence when the voice in her earpiece—Captain Cleo Reaver—spoke again. “Detonate now!”
The road in front of the lead Headhunters exploded. Chunks of asphalt sprayed the air in a cloud of fire and smoke. Six motorcycles were caught in the blast, the bikes and their riders instantly shattered. Two more bikes burst into flames, their owners lighting up like matchsticks.
Another slammed on his brakes, but it was too late. He careened into the steep cliff-face and smashed against a car-sized boulder.
Another explosion rocked the rear of the convoy. Five more Headhunters gone in a fiery blink. The explosives Gabriel and Micah had carefully planted in potholes yesterday had paid off.
The Headhunters were still dozens strong, immense and hulking in their animal pelts—like beasts themselves, animalistic killers, hardly even human. Even knowing it was intentional, the pelts still had the desired effect. As instinctive as breathing, an equally primal fear shot through her, the terror of prey in the face of a predator.
The surviving bikers slammed their brakes, leapt from their bikes, and knelt behind them, using the motorcycles as shields. They swung their weapons from their backs and aimed into the hills on either side of the road.
“Duck!” Gabriel hissed.
A volley of automatic fire peppered the air. Bark spit from the pine trees next to her, raining pine needles down on her head. They both rolled and ducked behind a boulder a few feet to their right. Rocks and twigs dug into Amelia’s belly and thighs. She barely felt them.
“Come fight us like men!” shouted a Headhunter.
A chill ran through her. She knew that voice. Cerberus, the fierce leader of the
Headhunters. The man who had killed Nadira.
She and Gabriel exchanged wary, uneasy glances. They’d both hoped he was dead from the gunshot wound Gabriel had inflicted back at Sweet Creek Farm.
Amelia dared to peer over the boulder. Cerberus stood tall behind his bike, shoulders back, legs splayed, not even crouching. Two of his men stood on either side of him, their machine guns leveled, sighting the trees, searching for prey.
Cerberus cut a formidable figure. He was tall and barrel-chested, with brown hair shorn close to his skull and a beard stubbling his solid jaw. Most of his body was covered in protective gear, but she recalled the blue digital tattoos squirming like snakes across his thick, bulging arms and neck. She remembered his eyes, cunning blue-gray, as cold and soulless as that of the wolf whose striking white pelt draped across his broad shoulders, all the way down to the tops of his shiny black boots.
“Why do you cower like curs?” Cerberus shouted into the silence.
“Let me take this scumbag out!” Amelia’s brother, Silas, snarled into her earpiece. He was somewhere a few dozen yards to the right of her and Gabriel, half-buried in a rut between the roots of a giant red oak. “I have a clean shot.”
“Wait for the signal,” snapped Cleo Reaver, a New Patriot and the daughter of the New Patriot commander, General Reaver, who’d put her in charge of the mission. “Activate smoke bombs now.”
Amelia grabbed the spherical object on the ground next to her and pressed her thumb to the biometric scanner. The scanner identified her thumbprint as a pre-approved user and activated, blinking once. The New Patriots had programmed it to detonate in five seconds.
She half-raised herself and lobbed the bomb at the transport truck. Next to her, Gabriel did the same. The rest of their team hurled two dozen smoke bombs at the Headhunters.
