Shadow Reaper (Shadowlands Series) by Amos Cassidy Read Free Book Online Page A

conspiratorially. “Is there a solid reason?”
    Yep, the guy I’m in love with is in there playing hide the tongue with his girlfriend. I pressed my lips together. “Nope. We’re good.”
    “Great, see you at the meeting, eight p.m., auditorium. Don’t be late.” Ben winked, his brown eyes crinkling at the corners. Vince nudged him and they moved away from the board.
    I don’t know why I bothered, but I double checked my rotation on the slim chance that they’d recalled wrong. Nope. There it was in black and white.
    “It’ll be okay,” Bernadette said.
    I shook it off. “I’m so over him.”
    “That’s the spirit.” Bernadette blew me a kiss, spun on her heel, and went off to maintenance.
    Steeling myself, I took off in the opposite direction toward the infirmary.
    I was relieved to find Ryder’s bed vacant. He’d obviously been released, but the quarantine room next to his bed was occupied by the fragile forms of two kids I didn’t recognise: a boy who looked around five years old and a girl who looked to be a preteen. Their eyes were closed and the rise and fall of their chests told me they were both fast asleep. The pallor of their skin made me worry as to whether they’d be waking up again.
    “Ash, hey.” Nina entered the room from the clinic and waved me through. With one last look at the kids, I followed.
    “Thanks for coming in to help today.”
    Not like I had a choice, I wanted to say, but bit my tongue and smiled sweetly at her. “What can I do to help?”
    “Well, I have these samples to check and catalogue, so I really need someone to watch over the patients.”
    “The kids? Who are they?”
    “New arrivals. The father knows something about agriculture, or so he says. They let him in based on that assertion. That was two days ago. The kids were fine and then they fell ill. High fevers, vomiting, diarrhoea.” She shrugged. “Could be a host of things, probably a bacterial infection due to the unsanitary conditions outside. There’s nothing I can do but keep them quarantined and hope their bodies are strong enough to fight it off, whatever it is.”
    “And if they’re not?”
    She sighed. “Then they die.”
    “That’s harsh.”
    Her lips turned down slightly, and she gave me the “you poor naive thing” look. “People die, Ash. It’s the circle of life. Our world is filled with death and suffering.”
    I tucked my hands into my pockets to prevent myself from slapping her. What the fuck did she know of death? She’d never known hunger, or cold, or pain. She’d been born here, in the safety of Shelter, raised on decent food, hot showers, and warm beds. What the fuck did she know about suffering? Some of what I was thinking must have shown on my face because her expression shuttered.
    “They’re children, Nina. Just children. They should have their whole lives ahead of them. There has to be something we can do,” I said.
    She shook her head. “I’ve done all I can. All we can do now is pray.”
    I did the only thing I could. I watched and I implored whatever forces may still be watching over us to heal these kids. Two hours in, the girl began to convulse and foam at the mouth.
    “Nina! Nina! Help!”
    But Nina wasn’t around. I had to do something. I grabbed a mask, strapped it over my nose and mouth, pulled on some latex gloves, unlocked the door, and entered the quarantined room. I reached the girl just as she went still. I knew, even before I checked, that she’d have no pulse.
    She was dead.
    I turned to the boy to find him watching me through bleary, bloodshot eyes.
    “Hurts . . . please . . . make it stop,” he whimpered, and then his eyes rolled back in his head. He began to convulse. I rushed over to his bed, knowing not to try and hold him down, just to wait and watch.
    “It’s okay, it’s going to be okay . . .” I hated this, hated lying, because I knew that whatever had happened to his sister was happening to him. It didn’t take long before he