Born to Fight by Tara Brown Read Free Book Online Page A

things I can't see. Anna walks beside me, silently. She is still the best hunting partner a girl could ask for. His feet behind us are loud. He reminds me of Jake—maybe not the best at survival.
    I push away my thoughts of them and listen. If the infected, the others, or the military catches me, I'm dead. My best chance is staying quiet.
    We walk along a wall in the dark where cars are parked, looking like rotted out skeletons. Some of them are crushed by debris. I can see from the bits of light filtering in through the vines on the far side of the parkade.
    I give Anna a look. She nods and slowly walks across the broken-up concrete to the edge, where the vines are the thickest. She pulls them aside and peeks through as I watch Vincent. They almost eat her up; they're so dense, like a real forest.
    She looks back at me and points. I walk ahead, looking through the creepy vines and bushes, and see we are almost at ground level. We are only one story up. The alley below us is crawling with the infected. She pulls back and looks at me.
    I look around us. We can't drive out. The cars are rotted, and besides, the roads are almost virtually impassable. I take a second look, noticing the far-left side of the alley is empty. The infected move slowly, in comparison to us. They will smell us, unless we can get some kind of bait.
    My brain flashes back to the men. They are already close to the left side of the parkade.
    I swallow and look at Anna, "I'll be right back. Don't move unless you have to. I'm going to make bait."
    She grimaces and nods, "Okay. I'll stay with him." Thank god, I don’t want to have a fight with her. I don’t want to tell her I value my life less than hers and refuse to chance her getting the fever.
    Vincent looks confused. I turn and run, as silently as I can, back across the parkade and up the ramp to where I hear them. I slide against a gutted car and wait.
    "A U2 concert. I went with my girlfriend. I was eighteen and she was seventeen. We smoked a ton of pot and went. Everything started about two weeks later. Best memory." A man to the right with a rifle is talking.
    The other man nods, "Nice, man. Yeah, mine is a barbecue. We figured it was the last one of the season. My whole unit came over and we got trashed and talked about sports and shit. My wife, her name was Trish. She made the best burger patties on earth. I ate like four. I thought I was going to die."
    I bite my lip and wait. I can feel my stomach tighten when I think about it. Regular people sharing regular memories and I'm about to kill them both. Unless they kill me first. I should have died yesterday and didn’t. I'm on borrowed time and the bad feeling hasn’t left me yet.
    Their feet make scuff sounds, they aren’t even careful. They must not be on high alert. They must not be looking for me.
    I slide along the car and sit at the back of it, waiting for them to pass. The third guy must be off doing something again. He's the one I'm going for.
    They walk further away, strolling and sharing. I watch them, waiting for the moment. Both are in good shape, but they slump and hold their guns wrong. They aren’t taking it seriously.
    They turn their backs and lean casually. I crawl to the next car. It's the last car before the corner. I look back at them. They're still talking and laughing. I frown. The infected are one level away from them, and they're talking about shit they miss. I break into a silent sprint. It's nowhere as fast as it needs to be, but it's got to do.
    I get around the corner and feel it. The cold mean is settling in. The cold calculations start figuring in my brain. The third man has to die. I need bait.
    I look back around the corner, but the men are still talking.
    I swallow and walk to the edge where the man was. He's still there. He too, looks like he's not taking the job very seriously. He's leaning on his gun and picking his nails. Who trains these people? Maybe my real dad is over confident. He doesn’t feel