FORSAKEN: THE SYSTEMIC SERIES by K.W. CALLAHAN Read Free Book Online Page A

mattered.  Plus, Jake liked having Ava by his side.  That sweet little piece of ass helped remind his men of who he was, what he had, and why he had it.
    Ava had noticed something lately though when she was addressing the organization.  When they’d first started having these sorts of gatherings, Jake’s men tended to leer lecherously at her.  They seemed to see her as little more than a sex object, her sole purpose to serve their master and be devoured with their eyes.  Lately however, things seemed to have changed.  Ava could sense a difference in how the men looked at her and how they responded to her presence.  While she could still see the lustful looks in their eyes – that sexual appetite that men had difficulty hiding – she could also see something else, something new, something different, something growing.  She could feel it in the room.  Before, when she talked, the men would often talk over her, make lewd comments, drink or smoke; but now they listened, and listened closely.  While Jake might have been too blind or too ignorant to notice it, Ava wasn’t.  She could feel the men’s respect, her position and her power within the organization slowly and silently growing – and she liked it.
     
    Chapter 5
     
    While there weren’t many homes in Olsten, it took us a good hour to make a sweep of all of them.  We wanted to err on the side of caution to ensure our stay in the town would remain a safe one.
    Afterwards, we rejoined the rest of our group and gave them a brief and very general rundown of what we’d seen and found.  After this, we took a vote to decide upon our living location, selecting the general store as the best place for us to settle down.
    Our first order of business after this was to unload our supplies and then move the pickup and trailer so they weren’t sitting conspicuously out in the open where potential passers-by might notice them and get suspicious.  While Olsten appeared to be a true ghost town, and was far enough from any major roads or highways not to draw much if any notice from other travelers, after our previous experiences, we weren’t taking any chances.
    After getting everything unloaded and inside the store, and the truck and trailer safely stashed behind the building, it was nearly dark out.  Therefore, we ate a bare-bones dinner and crashed out, making ourselves comfortable upon the available beds and sofas scattered throughout the two finished upstairs apartments.  Due to her still-healing burns, we kept Emily resting downstairs in the store area to minimize the pain and discomfort both to her as well as ourselves by trying to maneuver her up the stairs on her stretcher.  She was fine with this though, and we used a bundle of pillows and blankets to make her as comfortable as possible. Dad said he’d stay downstairs with her to keep her company and ensure she had whatever she needed.
    The rest of us decided that since we were in a new environment, to be on the safe side, we’d set up a night watch.  We split the night into two-hour shifts, splitting them between Ray, Will, Joanna, Claire, and me.  We found a rocking chair up in the second-floor apartment and hauled it down to the front porch.  I felt like Pa Kettle sitting outside on the porch, rocking away, my gun laid across my lap.  But it was actually kind of nice.  I had the 2 a.m. to 4 a.m. shift, and the peace, solitude, and complete stillness of the early morning was actually kind of soothing.  I listened to the crickets chirp and the wind rustle leaves or pieces of paper and trash down the town’s deserted central thoroughfare.  It was all very relaxing.  I would have been happy to comfortably nod off in my rocker like the old timers before me who had probably done so in the exact same spot.  I’m sure plenty of old fellers had whiled away many a summer afternoon sitting here rocking on the general store’s wood-plank front porch in days gone by.
    At around ten minutes to four,