Night Betrayed by Joss Ware Read Free Book Online Page A

shoulder, then continuing with her work.
    He was more than amused; he felt so much at home, it hurt. Right in the center of his gut. “How many people do you have to cook for?” he asked, glancing longingly at the bowl of uncracked eggs.
    She must have seen his look, for Vonnie snatched up a trio and cracked them into a different bowl, then whirled to get a pitcher of milk. “It depends. There’s me and Selena, of course, and Frank—who you just met; he eats like a horse—and Selena’s son, Sam, and his friends Tim and Tyler, and Andrew, when they’re around. Sometimes there’re family members of the people Selena’s seeing to. They don’t usually eat much, but sometimes. It’s Tim’s dog Pigment that found you, you know.”
    So Selena had a son. Did she also have a Mr. Selena? And how did he feel about being married to the Death Lady? If so, why the hell wasn’t he lecturing her about tangling with the gangas?
    “Do you grow all your own food, or is there a place to trade nearby? . . . I’m from Envy,” he added, “and we have most everything there.” Except chocolate.
    Though Theo had traveled around quite a bit in his work for the Resistance, he’d never been near Yellow Mountain. He wasn’t even certain where it was.
    “Frank keeps chickens, cows, and a goat; and he’s got a big garden out there. Sam, Tyler, and Tim help him with it. And Selena said you were from Envy. Mmm, that’s a long way away,” Vonnie said. “How did you get all the way up here?”
    “Hell, if I know,” Theo said. “The last I remember, I was about a day and a half from Envy, near the ocean, and the next thing, I wake up here. Where is here?”
    “Here,” she said, slapping two scoopfuls of eggs down on his plate, “is about ten miles from the ocean. And there’s a settlement up yonder between Lake Isabella and the shoreline called Yellow Mountain. They’ve got lots of things to trade there. That’s where Jennifer and Tyler and the other kids live. Only five miles away.”
    Theo wasn’t certain where Lake Isabella was, or whether it had existed before the Change. It did sound vaguely familiar, though; so when he got back to Envy, he’d try and find it on the cobbled-together version of the Internet he and Lou had put together. They’d used caches from as many computers, mainframes, and servers as they could find over the decades to create a semi-working version of the Web on their own private little network. There were countless holes and 404 page errors, but it was better than nothing.
    The satellites that he and Lou—mostly Theo, a point which he never resisted reminding his twin—had managed to hack into after the Change had failed decades ago. What data they’d managed to collect about the state of the earth after all of the cataclysmic events (not pretty) was more than twenty years old and had certainly altered since then. But there were clearly significant changes: most of California had disappeared, and the ocean’s shore now cut into what had once been Vegas. The entire West Coast line was violently different than the map they’d grown up with.
    And the East Coast? Even worse. Europe, Africa, Asia . . . all a mess.
    And then there was that new continent that seemed to have erupted or somehow formed in the Pacific Ocean. It was about the size of Texas.
    Just then, Selena walked in. Her eyes scanned the room, caught on him and continued to Vonnie as she made her way over to snatch up an orange. “You look like you’re doing all right,” she said, and eyed him as she jammed her thumb into the thick skin and peeled the fruit.
    The smell of orange filled the air, citrusy and fresh, as Theo gave her the once-over. Her shiny dark-brown hair was pulled up into a messy sort of bundle at the back of her head, a couple of thick strands straggling down the nape of her neck. Her eyes seemed a bit soft, as if she were tired or worried, but the rest of her face wasn’t drawn or tight with tension. She