The Future Without Hope by Nazarea Andrews Read Free Book Online

leave.

 

 
    Chapter
3. The Cloud Over 1

 
    I’M
TIRED. It’s been almost twelve hours since the last body was found, and I’m
exhausted at the prospect of going back out to kill again. This might be
necessary, but I hate it. Every fucking second of it.
    I’m
sitting on the bed. The house on the edge of the wall is too small to afford
anywhere else to sit. My weapons are spread in front of me, the familiar scent
of gun oil filling the tiny space. I go still when I hear footsteps outside—too
many to just be Walkers. I summon a smile, and reach for a throwing star,
tucking it out of sight before returning my attention to the gun in front of
me.
    She
would hate it being dirty. There was blood splatter on the barrel, from the
night before, and I know how much that would annoy her. Nurrin was a fanatic
about keeping her weapons clean. I can’t remember how many times I arrived in
their apartment for Collin to find Nurrin in a tiny pair of shorts and
oversized t-shirt, cleaning her gun or sharpening her knives.
    A
solid banging on the door pulls me from my thoughts, and I blink to clear my
head as the door swings open. Three of Kenny’s guards are with him, glaring at
me as the current president steps into my tiny house. His gaze travels it
quickly, and I see the subtle tightening of his lips. He doesn’t want to be
here. Of course he doesn’t. Kenny has never been one to acknowledge the fact
that I shared things with Kelsey that he didn’t—and that was never more
apparent than in this place.
    I
check the slide on Nurrin’s gun, and give him a bored look. “What do you want,
Kenny?”
    “Give
me a moment, gentlemen,” he says, and I smirk as the guards stiffen. They don’t
know how far I’ll go—they don’t know anything about me except that I fought
with Kelsey in the East. But they know enough to know that their boss doesn’t
have a fan in me. They don’t want to leave him alone, unprotected.
    Kenny
gives them a sharp look. “He won’t touch me with you outside. Now go.”
    The
door closes softly behind the guards, and I return to polishing the barrel of
the gun. “Don’t you have a country to run?”
    “What
the fuck are you doing?”
    I
glance at him. “What do you mean?”
    “Six
dead, O’Malley, in four days. That’s fast work, even for you.”
    My
expression shifts, all false concern. “The murders? It’s awful. I hope you
catch the lunatic behind it.”
    “Fuck
you, O’Malley. Why are you doing this?”
    “I
want Ren back, Kenny. That is the only thing I’m doing—trying to get her back.
I don’t suppose you have anything helpful to add to that endeavor?”
    Anger
twists his face. “I don’t have her.”
    “And
I don’t have your killer,” I say coolly. “So I guess we’re both unhappy.”
    Kenny
barks a laugh, all pissed off indignation. “You can’t fucking tell me that
someone else is doing the killings. No one else could. Two of them were in the
Order’s clubs—and no one saw anything.”
    I
grin at him, a deliberate, lazy smirk that has his fists clenching. “I can’t
imagine what kind of resources it took to pull that shit off, Kenny. But I’ve
been out of 1 for so long—people here don’t owe me the kind of favors to pull
that weight.” I pause, letting him think about that, and then add, “But whoever
did it must be seriously determined. And mad as fuck.”
    Kenny
shifts. “Is that what you are, O’Malley? Mad? Because I’ve lived with the taste
of rage for years—since you killed her. Don’t talk to me about fury.”
    I
shift. I know what he’s doing—it’s what he’s always done—push Kelsey up and use
it to distract me. “Kelsey was a solider. Not just a solider; she was a
commander. Do you know how many people we lost in the East?”
    He
pales. No one has exact numbers. Best estimates say that three hundred and
twenty million people were in the United States when the zombies rose. A
quarter of those died in the initial change—and then