Refugee Road (Freedom Fighters Series Book 1) by Nikki Landis Read Free Book Online Page A

fluttering. He watched me drift off, a small smile playing on the edge of his lips.
    That night I dreamed of K.D. We all referred to it by the same name. The acronym that everybody used because it was too painful to say the name aloud. It changed briefly with each individual experience but the end result was always the same. Death. Destruction. Horror. Loss. No one escaped its cruelty or its finality. It was the day that everything changed. The day I almost died. And should have.
    It was our Kill Day…
     
    The sirens were already too late, blaring their ungodly wail in addition to the deafening roar of the planes. The bombers had snuck in under radar, dropping their torpedoes all over town. You could hear them coming, swooping to the ground in quick succession, giant birds of prey bringing death and destruction on the back of their wings, riding on the current of the wind, as they struck their mark one by one. Each hit precise, each jarring impact causing a crater wide area of destruction that snatched the lives of everyone around us.
    Screaming. The thing I remember most is the screaming. I could hear it in every direction, the desperate cries of agony and loss permeating the air like some dying beast. Friends. Neighbors. Innocents. The screaming voices of loved ones and strangers alike, flooded the ebony night, and branded into the deep recesses of my mind…
    I ran for the underground bunker just like we practiced so many times before. I still replay it constantly in my mind, as if I could change the past by some minor detour in my thoughts or actions. A delay. A turn in another direction. A pause. Anything. But I couldn’t alter the course nor the choices I made that night. I never saw the bomb that hit our house. It knocked me to the ground, propelling me forward and into a nearby tree where I instantly lost consciousness.
    When I awakened, it was hours later. The bombing was over. A creepy stillness had overtaken the screaming, leaving a haunting desperate quiet in its wake. Nothing made a sound. No birds. No animals. Sparks from a nearby electrical pole shot into the air above me, waving in defiance, lurking and sulking, awaiting the next victim to cross their path.
    My nostrils burned. The still night air reeked of destruction. The stench of oil, gasoline, burning wood and debris, metallic blood and rotting flesh, and death filled the air. It permeated everything.
    Death. It assaulted my senses. I started coughing in the cloudy, dark night air. My chest constricted with the effort it took to breathe. That’s when I noticed I had pain, and an abundance of it. So much pain, unlike any I had ever felt before. I fought for control over my body.
    Pain seemed to reach with clawed hands toward my consciousness, ripping and pulling. Dominant. Desperate. I could not let it reach the destination. Somehow I knew, I would die if I let the pain win. Death was sneaky. Death was cunning. It masked itself as pain.
    I was covered in blood. My shirt was soaked, clinging to my clammy skin with a heavy copper scent, and I knew from the pain in my abdomen that it couldn’t be good. There was a large gash across my left thigh that still sported the scar today. My left arm was broken. I also had a concussion. My head was throbbing and my vision was blurry, fading in and out as the pain increased. Fight , I thought. Fight! Death would not win.
    Moaning from nearby caught my attention. It sounded an awful lot like Lydia. I called out for her, trying to discern exactly which direction I was going to have to crawl. My head throbbed with every breath I took, making it difficult to hear and distinguish the noises around me. Vertigo hit. Between the sparks, her moaning, and my own spinning head, I was confused. I called to her again. No answer greeted me. Silence. I tried a third time.
    “Lydia? Lydia!”
    “Lizzie?” A faint voice answered back.
    She was calling to my right. With my left arm wrapped around my middle for support, I crawled