In Between Seasons
Cassandra Giovanni
Copyright © Cassandra Giovanni, 2012
All Rights Reserved
PUBLISHER’S CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA:
Giovanni, Cassandra
In Between Seasons
ISBN: 978-1477413685
1. Post-Apocalyptic—Fiction. 2. Love—Fiction. 3. Fighting—Fiction. 4. The Last Green Valley—Fiction. I. Title
PUBLISHER’S NOTE
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or deceased, events or locations are wholly coincidental.
Any unauthorized use of this document (i.e. scanning, uploading, reproduction) using the Internet or paper method is illegal and punishable by law. I appreciate your support and respect of my novel.
Cover Art: Gio Design Studios © 2012
Printed in the United States of America
Table of Contents
Foreword
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
About The Author
Can’t Wait For More?
Permafrost
To my husband for always knowing the look I get when I am “writing in my head” again, and for respecting my insane drive for the impossible.
To my mother and father for never giving up on my writing even when I did.
To my best friend, the biggest book worm I know, for being just that—my best friend.
Foreword
I didn't know what caused the government to collapse or why things were the way they were, and when I met Hunter he knew little more. When it started we were too young to see why, and when we were old enough we were too indoctrinated in fear to care. This is the toll of following a leader blindly—you openly accept that some things just are. Then the lies drown the truth, and you are left with little understanding of why. In the end it doesn't matter. Surviving the downfall is all that matters.
Chapter 1
The last Green Valley CT, 2031
In 2012 the changes that were taking hold of the world started to spiral towards their decent. A recession, which was far closer to a depression than anyone realized, had shaken the United States for years. 2012 would change everything. I wasn’t even born then, so why it changed everything, I didn’t know. If I asked I would never get a clear answer, so I left it be. I knew that people like my parents had seen the collapse of the government coming, so once 2012 hit and things seemed to be getting worse instead of better, they started prepping for the worst. It turned out they were right, and by 2016 the government had melted down into martial law. From what I understood the citizens had prepared for this enforcement of the government, and it was therefore, quickly toppled. As far as I knew my parents hadn’t participated in what had happened to disassemble the martial law. My parents told me they had simply packed up our bags and supplies and gone to a house that my father had built “just in case”. Several choice friends of the family were also allowed to come live with us. The stories didn’t add up for me, and as a child I had often asked why. I was met with derision, and therefore once I had become a teenager I had dropped the reasons why things were the way they were topic completely. I closed myself up to what I thought were lies, and kept to myself. Now at eighteen there was only one thing I was certain of—the world was still at constant war. The reason why—I didn’t know, I wasn’t allowed to know. All I wanted to know was the truth. The only problem was that the truth was so far gone not even the ones that created the ocean of lies I was drowning in knew its depths.
“What are you thinking about?” my sister Sara asked, twirling a piece of her hair between her fingers.
“Nothing,” I said as I pulled at the strands of grass beneath me.
“Really, because that’s the look you get when you’re about to fight with Dad during school. I’m so glad we’re finally done with that.”
“You didn’t enjoy school?”
“I liked the parts that you weren’t fighting with Dad about,” Sara said, her eyes meeting mine before looking up at the sky and shaking her head.
“I only fought with him on history and some English,” I said.
“Never math or science though,” she said, shaking her head, “Every other point though, you fought on.”
“You have to admit that most of the things they tell us don’t really connect up after a certain point,” I said lying back and taking a deep breath. I thought about how they had told us that the government collapsed without telling us why, and that living here protected us from everyone else because everyone else was bad. Why they were bad? Only my parents knew.
“Maybe they’re trying to protect us by being purposely vague about what happened to get us here?” Sara suggested, and I could hear it in her voice that she believed everything they had ever said. I knew that arguing my view was pointless. I had no stable ground to stand on. I only knew what they had told me, and it wasn’t much.
“Or maybe they’re protecting themselves,” I said under my breath.
“What was that?”
“I just wish I knew more.”
Sara sat up and looked down at me, “Do you think anything good could have happened to get us from a civilized place with telephones, cable and malls to this—the middle of nowhere?”
I looked at our house in the distance. It wasn’t huge, but it was comfortable. The glare from the solar panels burnt into my eyes, and I had to look away.
“You have to admit there are a lot of holes in their logic,” was the only response I allowed myself to make.
“I’m so glad I haven’t had to listen to this in almost six months,” Sara said as she rolled her eyes.
“You’re not bored at all? Gather wood for the furnace, cook dinner, and stare at a wall?”
“I have better things to do,” Sara said.
“Like what?” I asked.
“And you have Trevor—you hang out with him a lot.”
It was my turn to roll my eyes as I lay down, “Dad wants that relationship not me.”
“At least you have someone,” she said with her jaw clenched.
“You can have him,” I said, and a small smile twitched at the edge of her lips that I didn’t understand.
The deafening sound of a siren suddenly began to pulsate through the air. What should have struck me was fear, but all I could feel was the siren shaking into my bones.
“What the hell is that?” I asked, sitting up.
“It’s an intruder,” Sara said, grabbing at my arm, “We have to get to the house.”
“An intruder?” I questione
d as I shook my head against the noise that was jarring my vision.
“Yes, now move your ass Kate,” Sara said as she jumped up and began pulling me to the house.
“Who would want to find us?” I said, thinking that no one in their right mind would want to come here.
“Someone who wants to hurt us. I don’t understand how you’re the favorite when you never listen to a word Mom or Dad say.”
“Why would someone want to hurt us?”
Sara had dropped my arm and was sprinting ahead of me. I remained jogging keeping my teeth clenched against the sound of the siren. I knew someone would want to hurt us. The reason would have to do with whatever my parents did and were hiding from me.
“So what’s going on?” I asked as I shut the door and leaned back up against it.
Trevor began screaming and pointing behind me, but before I could react there was glass raining down around me like diamond daggers bouncing off my flesh onto the ground. I felt the warmth of fingers sliding across my arm and locking me in place, so I couldn’t run. The sound of the door unlocking was like a clash of thunder in the midst of a tornado. Then in one swift movement the door swung open, and the hand was wrapped around my wrist yanking me out the door as I struggled to get my feet to move in time with his.
“Kate, Kate!” Trevor screamed, and when I looked over my shoulder my father was holding him back. Trevor was weak and all show, so there was no way he would be able to take the guy who had me by the arm. My father’s eyes were wide, and his mouth hung open in fear as he faded from view, but I didn’t share that fear. I felt numb because I knew he would do nothing, and no one else would either.
My eyes landed on the back of my kidnapper. He was wearing a tight black t-shirt, jeans, and despite his backpack I could see the strength of his shoulders flexing as he ran. I was in awe; this was who would kill me? I didn’t say anything, but kept running slightly behind him. His grip never loosened even though the angle that he was holding his arm at was awkward.
After what felt like an hour his feet stopped moving, and I almost ran him over. The force of my body jarring against his broke his grip on me. I looked down at my wrist and saw the pink of my flesh was changing into a purplish green. I rubbed it to try to ease the tightness of my skin, and when I looked up he was standing in front of me with his arms crossed in front of his chest. When our eyes met his whole body shuddered in shock. I found myself trying to keep the same thing from happening to my body as I looked at him.
“What?” I demanded, putting my hands on my hips. I thought by concentrating on his eyes I might be able to control my reflexes, but I was wrong.
His intense dark green eyes stopped quivering and seemed to stare through me, “Why aren’t you trying to run?”
“It would be rather pointless wouldn’t it?” I said as my eyes fell from the scar that ran from the corner of his nose to his lips. I tried not to let my eyes wander down to his strong chest muscles, but still they did, “I mean look at what you did to my wrist.”
“Huh?” he mumbled, and I held my wrist out for him to see, “Oh, sorry.”
“Seriously?” I replied, “You kidnap me and then you say sorry for giving me a bruise?”
“Honestly darling, you don’t seem too upset,” he said, and I found myself just staring at him with nothing to say, “Why is that?”
I shrugged, and rubbed my wrist again, “I’m not entirely sure.”
“Aren’t you scared of me?” he asked, putting his hands in his back pockets, and leaning slightly back.
I looked back up at him an eyebrow raised, “Have you looked in the mirror lately?”
“So I am scary, but you don’t seem scared?” he laughed, and it broke his countenance of bad boy. I found my self in a trance again as I tried not to stare at his chiseled chin and perfect lips. The thing was, although he was intimating, the look in his face wasn’t one that struck fear in me. I had learned over the many years of lies who to trust and who not to trust. The man standing before me had no reason to lie to me. If he wanted to kill me he very easily could. I knew at that moment that he wasn’t planning on killing me…yet.
“When you live the way I did you learn to hide your emotions because no one is going to listen anyways…or tell the truth for that matter,” I scoffed, kicking the dirt below my feet.
The lightness in his face vanished and his forehead wrinkled, “It looked like la-la land to me.”
“Looks can be deceiving,” I said as I motioned with my hand towards him.
“And what’s so deceiving about my looks?”
“I should be dead by now,” I said in an almost inaudible tone as my heart started to race. I was being stupid to invite him to do me in, but in truth, I didn’t feel he would do it.
“You are scared,” he said.
“Should I be?”
“Yes.”
“That’s what I figured,” I said.
He held his hand out for me, “We need to start moving again before your boyfriend catches up.”
“They won’t chase me,” I said, putting my hand into his willingly.
“Why?” he asked as he looked down at me.
“I’m not worth it,” I said, picking up my feet to jog. His hand tightened around mine stopping me from moving. I turned to look at him, “Do you want to take a chance they will and have them catch up?”
“You’re strange you know that?” he teased, beginning to jog and then run.
“Thanks,” I said, trying to concentrate on not losing my footing on the rough forest terrain at his pace. It kept me from thinking about what was happening. I had been kidnapped by someone who was obviously meant to kill me, yet I was still alive. Why? Right now it didn’t matter.
Chapter 2
“Tomorrow I might just have to throw you over my shoulder to keep you from killing yourself on a log,” he said as he stacked wood and lit a match.
“That’s if I wake up in the morning,” I said.
“If I was going to kill you, you’d be dead already,” he said, staring into the flames as they burst up and confirming what I already felt.
“Why haven’t you? They won’t pay a ransom,” I needed to know.
He sighed, “If I was any other general you’d be dead already.”
“Point being?” I probed, unsure what a general was.
“To prove to your father that he needs to stay away from us,” he said.
I nodded my head, but said nothing as his eyes met mine. I was getting lost in them again as I tried to understand what was going on beneath his stony façade.
“Thank you,” I finally said as I took a deep breath.
“For what?”
“Not killing me.”
“I don’t know what the hell I’m doing, or if you’ll survive it,” he said, closing his eyes for a moment. I wondered what that moment meant to him. His face was expressionless, but the mood of confusion reverberated from him in waves.
“At what point are we off my parent’s land?” I asked. I had to take a deep breath as I tried to change the subject from something other than my impending death.
“We’re already in no man’s land,” he said, flicking a piece of wood into the fire, “We have been for about two miles. It doesn’t mean it’s any safer.”
“What do you mean no man’s land?”
“You really know absolutely nothing about the world you’ve been living in, huh?” he commented, his face still expressionless—except for those eyes.
“I guess not,” I said, more to myself than to him.
“No man’s land is the land in between the tribes; in your case you would just think it was families, but it’s a structured army type set up with rankings. At any rate it’s the land that’s not specified or protected by any tribes, so we could run into anyone,” he said, and when his eyes met mine the word anyone sent shivers down my spine.
“Great, so now we don’t just have to worry about my family,” I said, looking up at the sky.
“Yo
u said we didn’t have to worry about them.”
“I hope to God not,” I didn’t think that they would come after me, and I didn’t want to go back to their lies. Their lies were something that I was more afraid of than this man sitting before me all pulsing muscle, and confusion.
He shook his head, “You’re a strange duck.”
“Quack,” I said, rolling my eyes.
He put his head in his hand and laughed. I was in a trance by the warmth that was hidden beneath his darkness, and I found myself with a smile on my face. I felt safer with this man than I had ever felt with those who were supposed to love me.
Chapter 3
In the morning I opened my eyes to see the orange of the sun rising through twisted tree limbs. I had to blink twice to remind myself why I was sleeping in the middle of the woods, and that I wasn’t alone.
“Tired still?” he asked, looking down at me eyebrows raised.
I yawned and stretched my arms with every muscle in my body was screaming.
“Exhausted.”
He smirked, “You’re out of shape.”
“Hey, I kept pace didn’t I?” I replied as I sat up.
“If you think so.”
I shook my head. It seemed he thought he was some sort of god or something, and his arrogance streamed off him towards me. I couldn’t tell if it was an act or not though.
“Hungry?” he asked.
“Sure,” I said as he handed me a piece of whatever he had toasting over the fire, “What the hell is this thing?”
“It’s a pop tart. Sorry, it’s not your typical eggs and sausage.”
“You think I’m a spoiled brat don’t you?” I retorted, taking a bite of the frosted pastry and burning my tongue. I didn’t say anything; he didn’t need to know how bad that gooey middle had hurt me.
“I guess that was the preconceived notion…”
“But?”
“You don’t quite seem the part. You haven’t complained once,” he handed me a bottle of water, “That should help with that burn. I should have warned you.”
In Between Seasons (The Fall) Page 1
