The Decaying Empire (The Vanishing Girl Series Book 2) by Laura Thalassa Read Free Book Online Page B

outside the house. I flinched in his arms.
    I stepped out of his embrace. “They were coming anyway,” I stated. My eyes begged him to deny it, but he didn’t. “You wouldn’t have warned me.”
    Caden opened his mouth to reply, but whatever he was about to say was lost as military personnel stormed in.
    “There she is,” one of them said.
    They rushed me. I cried out as someone shoved me to my knees and yanked my arms behind me.
    Caden began to reach for me, but two men clad in fatigues restrained him. “What are you doing?” he shouted at the men holding me down. He strained against the soldiers who held him back, and I could see by his captors’ clenched jaws and the way their lips curled in that they were having a difficult time restraining Caden.
    I struggled against the hands that held my wrists. As a reward for bad behavior, someone pushed me down to the ground. “Stop fighting,” the man behind me barked.
    “This is not what I agreed to!” Caden’s face was red and beginning to shine as sweat beaded along his brow.
    No one answered him.
    The room began to blur as tears gathered. I could feel Caden’s eyes on me, but I couldn’t meet his gaze. So instead I stared at nothing and let the military personnel manhandle me.
    “Ember, I’m so sorry. Please don’t look like that,” Caden begged. “Come back to me.”
    I haven’t gone anywhere. That was the problem.
    “Angel, please.”
    My eyes finally flicked to Caden. “This is what you wanted,” I said, and he flinched at my words.
    “Not like this,” he said, his voice broken.
    Then something behind me caught Caden’s attention. “Don’t fucking hur—”
    Poof. Caden was gone. And now I was the one alone.
    A soldier yanked my hand up, and I felt the cool touch of a cotton swab against the crook of my arm.
    They wanted to sedate me. I’d only recently woken up, and now they wanted to put me under again.
    Permanently?
    I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. And then I bucked against my captors, kicking out with my unrestrained legs. I hadn’t woken up just to be put down again. My foot caught someone in the knee, and they let out a small yelp.
    The man holding me down grunted and slammed my torso into the ground, my teeth clacking painfully together.
    I brought my leg up and kneed him in the crotch with enough force to make him sing soprano for a while.
    His hold on me loosened, and he just kind of rolled off me. I scrambled to my feet and began to run.
    Military personnel shouted at me to stop. Naturally, I didn’t listen. I made it as far as the backyard before I was tackled to the ground. Now a group of men in fatigues held me down.
    “Hurry, get me the syringe!” one of them called. I struggled against them. A hand shoved me harder into the grass.
    Turning my head to the side, I caught sight of what looked like a medic pulling a syringe from his breast pocket.
    I screamed and began to thrash. Still no one said a damn thing to me. The medic grasped my forearm, his hold on me tightening with my struggles. I saw him remove the needle’s cap with his teeth and felt the prick of pain when he slipped it into my skin.
    I squirmed as the liquid released into my bloodstream. Within seconds I felt the drug begin to take effect.
    Definitely a sedative, I thought as my eyelids drooped and my limbs grew heavy. I fought it for as long as I could, but it was futile.
    The last thing I saw was the beagle licking one of the men’s fatigues. The image blurred until it was nothing more than circles of color floating in a sea of blue sky. And then it too faded away.

    Darkness surrounded me.
    For one terrifying second I thought, This is it. I’m finally meeting my maker. But then I blinked and turned my head, noticing that the darkness wasn’t complete. Streetlight filtered in through a nearby window. In the dim light I could make out a man sleeping in a bed. Next to him was an alarm clock that read 1:21 a.m.
    I fell to my knees, a choked sob coming