This is the End (Book 2): Not Dead Yet by Lisa Biesiada Read Free Book Online Page B

shoulder but I just shrugged it off.  “You’ve got it all wrong,” He started, eyes still pleading.
    I spun and stalked closer, the betrayal of being left on my own stinging so deep I could hardly breathe.  “Oh really?  ‘Cuz it sounds an awful lot like you guys want to go your own way and who could blame you?  Even I don’t know what I am anymore!”
    “Damnit, Angie, shut up for five seconds and hear us out!”  Chloe’s outburst got my attention and I started to focus my anger on her, but she started babbling before I had a chance.  “If what Ian was doing was government sanctioned, then where else but the capital would they have answers for what’s happening to you?  Fuck, for all we know that serum caused you to survive being bit, which means there could be a cure !”
    Well, fuck .  I stopped mid-huff and let her words sink in.  Could I really be harboring the cure?  If I was, I was pretty sure I was the only one who was experimented on who made it out alive which meant I might be the only shot the human race had at real survival.  Ugh .  I didn’t ask for this.  I just wanted to go off by myself and learn to make rum out of coconuts and spend my days lounging on a beach. Preferably with a shirtless Jack Jones strumming a guitar next to me. I didn’t want to be our only hope; that was just too much to lay on a person.
    I stared at the faces staring back at me.  Ty and Chloe looked so hopeful I wanted to cry.  I was a complete asshole for only thinking of myself while standing right in front of 2 amazing and brilliant kids who didn’t deserve this anymore than I did.  Looking over at Jack pounded the final nail in my coffin.  He was supposed to be the rich, self-serving jerk who only cared about fast cars and beautiful women which was so far off the truth it was laughable.  My head ping-ponged between those faces a few more times before resting on Roscoe.  The sight of his tongue hanging out of his mouth as he stared at me did it.  Groaning, I let myself fall to the ground and to my back in an unceremonious heap; I did my best thinking laying down because then I didn’t have gravity to distract me.  I focused on my breathing, the heart beats in the room and the feel of the cold concrete through my thin shirt.
    “Wow.  That was Oscar-worthy,” Jack started with a slow clap.
    “Shut up and decide what we’re doing.  I’ll get up when you guys have a solution least likely to get us all killed.”
    Still chuckling, my eyes followed Jack as he came and lay down behind me, pausing to lift my head and rest it on his stomach before lying back down.  Before I could ask what he was doing, Chloe came over and laid down next to me, putting her head on my stomach, with Ty bringing up the end and his head on Chloe’s stomach.  We just lay there quietly, like the game we used to play as kids where you all lay down with heads on bellies, laughing as our heads bounced with the other person’s laughter until someone threatened to pee and stood up.
    Roscoe walked over, snuffed Ty’s shirt, then lay down with his head on Ty’s stomach and watched us all with his giant dog eyes.  That did it; we all started to laugh so hard my healing ribs screamed in protest, which made Chloe’s head bounce harder, hence more laughing. 
    It felt so good to just laugh.  We laughed so long I wasn’t even sure why we were laughing anymore, just that there was no turning back.  I laughed so hard my voice wasn’t even coming out anymore, just a high-pitched wheeze as my head continued to bounce and tears rolled down my cheeks.
    My laughter was cut off abruptly as I thought about how many miles it was between us and D.C.  “How far is it?” I asked as the giggles quieted down in the others.
    “About 16 hundred miles, give or take.  We’d have to go through roughly 7 states, mostly back country, but there’s several heavily populated areas on the way.” Ty’s voice echoed quietly through the shop and