Thicker than Blood by Madeline Sheehan Read Free Book Online Page A

as fast
and as hard as my body would allow.
    At the far end of our community was a path
that split both left and right, and when we reached it, we looped
to the left and around the back of the houses. Weaving between
gardens, hopping over skillfully trimmed bushes, we passed blooming
rosebushes, bright hanging baskets, and lawns with neatly cut
grass.
    As if we were trapped in some crazy
over-pruned oriental garden maze, we ran to the left one second and
then to the right the next. Finally, we left the housing district
behind us and headed directly into the farming and cooking quarter.
Above us, tree branches hung heavy with ripe fruit, and at our feet
were row after row of fresh vegetables.
    It was all so picture perfect and proper, as
if we were part of one big happy Brady Bunch family. But it was
nothing more than a facade. Sure, the fruit was juicy and the
vegetables ripe, but there was no soul. So pretty on the outside,
yet inside everything had died long ago and since rotted to
nothing.
    A noise sounded off in the distance,
something I belatedly realized was men yelling. I glanced to Jami
with fear in my eyes, but he was already tugging harder on my hand,
urging me to run faster.
    The food warehouses were on the opposite side
of the road we were on, and as we approached them, Jami pulled me
to a stop. Panting heavily, I glanced back the way we’d come,
watching as the dark silhouettes of Leisel and Alex closed in fast.
Her hair was flying out behind her, her pale face a beacon to me,
something to cling to in the midst of this insanity. Pulling her to
a stop alongside Jami and me, Alex released her. She came crashing
into me, and I crushed her body to mine.
    Leisel’s shoulders shuddered as she cried
softly against my neck, her anguish painful to me as well. I held
her against me for a moment, whispering reassuring things into her
ear, promising her safety, promising her out of this nightmare,
until eventually she calmed.
    As she looked into my eyes, her own
glistening with tears, I pressed a hard kiss to her lips. “We’ll be
fine,” I said firmly, keeping our gazes locked. She tried to turn
her head, to look away, to hide inside herself like she often did,
but I refused to allow it, holding tight to both her body and her
gaze. “Do you believe me?”
    She said nothing, only nodded once, her chin
trembling.
    “Lei, I promise you.” Pushing her dark hair
away from her face, I pressed another kiss to her forehead. “I
promise you,” I whispered, pulling her in for another fierce
hug.
    Several more seconds passed while we caught
our breath, trying to calm our nerves. I could no longer hear the
shouts of the guards, and I had to believe that they’d moved away
from us, instead of closer.
    Finally relenting, I allowed Leisel to leave
my arms. Pulling away, she lifted her hand, showing me her gun.
Smiling, I showed her mine. It was almost exactly like hers, though
I carried mine with more confidence. Before the infection, I’d
loved going shooting at the local gun range. Even though it had
been a while since I’d practiced, I hadn’t forgotten the
basics.
    “ Eve.” Jami beckoned me toward him,
gesturing at Alex to move toward Leisel, which he did immediately.
Taking a moment, I watched as Alex sidled up beside her, his body
language fiercely protective, and I marveled at how neither Leisel
nor I had ever noticed the way he looked at her, the sheer
intensity of it.
    He was incredibly quiet, sometimes to the
point of infuriating, yet the way he’d always stared at her, those
deep brown eyes of his seeing all of her. She was blind to it—to
him, hell, to anyone. She’d had enough of men to last her a
lifetime, and she simply didn’t care anymore.
    But then there was Alex, and the number of
times he’d had to escort her to the clinic for treatment, some
humiliating and some just damn painful. Other than the staff at the
clinic and me, only Alex had seen most of the horrors Lawrence had
put her through; only