Escape from Eden (Original Series book 2) by Rachel McClellan Read Free Book Online Page A

let this wound heal. Maybe after that I can hunt down Max to resume our conversation.
    I walk through the door into the mudroom, but stop when I hear my name. I turn around. Tank is standing next to a window where he must’ve seen me walking toward the compound.
    “It’s so good to see you,” he says. He isn’t smiling suggestively or winking. He’s just being himself, something he only seems to do when he’s alone with me. This is probably because I called him out on his dual personality after I saw him with his secret girlfriend Ash, a Prime healer who’s as far from the spotlight as one could get. They seemed completely opposite of each other, yet when I saw how gentle he was with her, I knew he was in love. I never got to tell him how proud I was of him for opening his heart when so many others choose not to.
    My shoulders relax. “And it is so good to see you. Can you tell me what happened? You know, after I left for Eden?”
    I move over to him and slouch into a chair, trying not to bend at the waist.
    “Honestly it was Colt who turned the tide. I thought we were all goners, but then he showed up like some vengeful demon angel, dropping bombs from the sky. Truth be told, he scared even me, but it made all the difference. In no time at all, the Institute was retreating. We hurt them good but not without a price.” He pulls up a chair and sits across from me. “Two of the Dresdens died, Rowdy and Suma. Anthony was hurt badly, too, and Colt nearly died. After the fight, he had a major seizure and fell into a coma. We took him straight to your father for treatment. It took him a couple of weeks before he finally woke up.”
    I swallow the rising lump in my throat. “But he’s okay?”
    “He’s doing really well. I promise.”
    Air flows more freely into my lungs. “Why are you here? The truth. I know you didn’t just let the Institute capture you. It’s so beneath you.”
    He chuckles. “You’re right. The only way those douchebags could ever catch me is if I let them, which is exactly what I did. We needed someone to get on the Island and it couldn’t have been Colt, although he offered many times. We just couldn’t afford to lose him.”
    "What does that mean?”
    "I'll admit, the kid surprised me. He's a hard worker; relentless actually. After he woke up from his coma, he started changing things. The poor guy barely slept." Tank kicks his legs up and rests them on a chair next to mine. “I didn’t like Colt at first, but I consider him my brother now, my slightly younger, sometimes annoying brother. There's not a thing I wouldn't do for him.”
    This surprises me. I never thought those two could ever be close. "So what happened to Colt? What did he change?"
    Tank grins. “He grew a set, a big ol’ brass pair.”
    “What does that mean?”
    He laughs. “You kill me, Sage!”
    Despite the pain, I lift my foot and kick at his legs, almost knocking his feet to the floor. “Tell me already! I’m injured and don’t need your weird cryptic-ness.”
    His laughter slowly subsides. “Your boy, Colt? He’s the leader of HOPE now and has taken the Institute on headfirst. He's recruited thousands of Primes and organized them all over the Northeast."
    "Wow. How?"
    "He started by convincing the right kind of Primes, many of them he knew from his… well, more questionable past. He found a hacker to break into one of the Institute's smaller offices where they found all kinds of dirt. He used this information to convince more and more Primes to join our cause. People stopped helping the Institute, stopped feeding them information about Originals or people who might be hiding them. That's when Colt started stealing their money and destroying their oDNA labs. That hurt the Institute more than anything. In fact, he’s listed as their number one enemy now.”
    I’m too stunned to speak. Colt, who once gave up my father to the Institute for money, is now leading the resistance? Recruiting Primes? It's almost