The Relict (Book 1): Drawing Blood by Richard Finney, Franklin Guerrero Read Free Book Online

do.”
    He started to respond, but instead shook his head and started walking again.
    “Maybe if you were a real soldier you'd understand what you did.”
    He stopped immediately and wheeled around to respond –
    “I did two tours as an Army Ranger. One in Iraq and the other in Afghanistan.”
    “My father and my brother were both Marines.”
    “Really? Marines? Impressive. Where's your father now? Your brother?”
    Her face froze and the color drained away.
    Matt was instantly ashamed of what he said. But instead of admitting his mistake, he started walking again.
    This time she did not follow.
    With every step he took, his words continued to play back in his head like an endless audio loop. He stopped walking and turned back around.
    “That was… wrong… disrespectful… what I said.”
    Before Tyra could respond he started walking again.
    Tyra needed to almost run to catch up with him.
    “Where did the bloodsuckers track you down?”
    He wasn’t excited that she had decided to continue the conversation, but he was relieved that she had let go of his remarks about her father and brother.
    “Not far from here. I was checking out my ex-wife's house when one of the blood patrols cornered me.”
    “Why in the world would you be checking up on your ex-wife?”
    He shook his head and refused to respond, but his response to her question came at the exact time they were walking past a CCC guard, and the goon interpreted Matt’s impatience with Tyra.
    “Were you just now eyeballin' me, juice box?”
    Matt knew enough to stop walking, cast his eyes to the ground, and look contrite before responding.
    “I was not looking at you disrespectfully, sir. I apologize. It won’t happen again.”
    Satisfied with his reaction, the CCC guard resumed his patrol.
    The two resumed their walk across the compound.
    “So who made those guys boss?”
    “The vampires. Those sellouts manage our entire day, making sure the blood donation twice a week goes well. Then at night the goons turn things over to the vampires.”
    They had arrived at the prisoners’ barracks building.
    Matt tried to enter, but before he could even grab the handle, she stepped between him and the door.
    “It appears the greedy-dick chip embedded in your hard drive is still fully functioning. But I’ll be honest with you; I believe our only realistic hope is to rely on guys… like you. Almost everyone has been in this place for at least three months; most have been here twice as long. That’s why I've decided to go ‘all in’ and bet that you're still capable of being a ‘team player’ and will be someone who could help us with a plan to escape."
    Tyra concluded her pitch by extending her hand toward the newbie.
    “That was a hell of a recruitment speech. For the record, you had me at ‘greedy’ and ‘dick,’ but you lost me at ‘team player’.”
    The thought of using her hand to strike the asshole across the face crossed Tyra’s mind before she simply lowered it.
    “To be honest with you, I only have two items on my ‘to do’ list – grab a bunk, and keep to myself.”
    She stood there staring at him, shaking her head.
    “And by the way, you got a lot of blood dripping from you neck. I’d take care of that before the sun sets.”
    Tyra slapped her hand up to her half-tattoo.
    He motioned to the door.
    She stepped aside and let the newbie enter the building.
     

Chapter Nine
     
    The moment Matt stepped through the barracks door, a football was spiraling toward his head. It would have hit him square in the forehead if Juarez had not snatched the football out of the air just a few inches from Matt’s face.
    “Nice throw, jackass,” Juarez shouted out to whoever had thrown the pass before turning around to address Matt.
    “Sorry about that. Not exactly how we want to greet any of the new prisoners.”
    “No problem,” Matt answered, without looking at Juarez. He was more interested in the rest of the building.
    The man who had tossed