Armageddon by Kaitlyn O'Connor Read Free Book Online Page A

felt sharp needles of pain. The woman screamed, bucking Lena off and then slamming her shoulder into Lena as they struggled to their feet again.
    Lena staggered back a couple of steps, caught her balance, and charged again.
    The second charge took both women through the shattered window of the living area. Shock and horror sucked the air out of Lena’s lungs as the realization hit her that they’d gone through. The woman’s buttocks hit the hip high iron railing of the faux balcony and both women teetered, clawing at each other as each tried to regain their balance. The woman screamed as her own weight tore her grip loose and the flipped over the railing.
    Lena found herself staring round eyed at the face of the woman dangling by one arm from her balcony and the insect sized city streets far below. Abruptly, a large hand seized her, yanking her back into the apartment like a rag doll and releasing her so that she slammed into the floor and skidded.

    25
    “Help me! Please! For god’s sake pull me in!” the woman cried in Lena’s voice, sending a shiver down Lena’s spine.
    A dark, hulking mass stepped through the window, stared down at the woman hanging from the railing dispassionately for a split second and then, to Lena’s stunned disbelief, he planted the sole of his boot on her fingers and bore down.
    The sickening crunch of shattering bones sounded loud and horrible in Lena’s ears, but not nearly as terrible as the woman’s high pitched cry as she lost her grip. She screamed as she fell, the sound seemingly endless and filled with absolute terror as it faded into the distance.
    The man glanced at Lena where she lay on the floor as he touched a button on the shoulder of his uniform. “Done,” he growled. “We’re in, but this place is a fucking mess. You’ll need a repair crew in here asap.”
    “You killed her,” Lena muttered in disbelief. “You murdered her.”
    The man blinked in surprise. Striding toward her abruptly, he caught her throat, lifted her by her neck, and used his thick fingers to peel her eyelids back. “Fuck!”
    He shook her furiously and dropped her to the floor. “We’ve got a problem,” he growled into his radio. “The clone just went off the balcony.”
    Stepping across her, the home guardsman leaned down, caught the torn front of Lena’s tunic and slugged her in the face with his fist. Pain exploded in her face and head and blackness descended abruptly.

    26
     

Chapter Four
    Lena roused with the jolt that seemed to travel throughout her body. The sense of falling ceased and she struggled to open her eyes. A gray stone wall was all that greeted her gaze when she finally managed to focus her eyes. She stared at it without recognition, uncomprehendingly. Slowly, it was borne in upon her that it was real. The nightmare wasn’t a nightmare, but memories.

    The drug still flowed through her veins, however, and she found she could not rouse herself to full alertness. Her head swam as she rolled onto her back and stared up at the ceiling and for a moment, fear invaded her that she would keep moving until she hit the floor. Gripping the edges of the thin mattress she laid on, she closed her eyes until the room stopped spinning.

    She was in prison. As difficult as it was to sort reality from dreams, she knew abruptly that she’d lived the nightmare not just imagined it.

    Why the drugs, though? She was no threat to them now, if she ever had been.

    Per the new, harsher laws enacted during the food riots, there’d been no trial, no chance to tell her side of the story, to tell anyone that she hadn’t killed someone. She’d done nothing but defend herself. The guardsman had committed the murder.

    He’d thought it was her.

    A cold shiver went through her.

    He knew he’d made a mistake and killed her replacement. So why was she still alive?

    Her mind seemed to wander for an endless time wrestling with that question.
    Finally, an answer seemed to present itself.

    They