Wisteria (Wisteria Series) by Bisi Leyton Read Free Book Online Page B

a bit concerned, since there are not a lot of doctors out here. Why do you not get some food in you, and then we will talk.”
    Her mind flashed back to what happened earlier. She recalled the events leading up to her fall, outside Cunningham’s, and winced. “Thank you,” she muttered. “For taking care of me and for the food. I feel a lot better. I should be going.” But her ankle was swollen. The pain was agonizing and she felt the beginning of a migraine. How was she going to get out of here? How was she going to get home?
    “You are safe here. True, you have no reason to trust me, but you are safe here.”
    “It’s not that.” Unaware of what this guy really wanted, she wasn’t going to cross him. During the dark days, after the outbreak, when she travelled with her family, they ran into people who pretended to be nice, but later tried to rob them or feed them to the biters. She forced a smile. “I’d just like to get home. My family will be out of their minds looking for me. Please?”
    “Of course, you are a guest here. You can go whenever you like, but it might make sense to eat first. I hear it can be rough out there and getting a meal can be hard.”
    A good meal outside was an abnormality and a miracle in the dark days. The supermarkets and food shops were quickly ransacked as people got sicker. The only places that had anything usable had been crawling with biters. As a result, Wisteria and her family had eaten rats more times than she cared to remember.
    “If she wants to go, let her.” A stern voice came from the door. “But you should know an even larger swarm than the one you encountered in the shop is on their way through this city.” Another boy appeared at the doorway. He too, spoke with the peculiar accent. He looked to be about Wisteria’s age or maybe a little older, and he was tall, taller than Felip. Hidden behind his messy black hair, his piercing green eyes were fixed on her.
    As he stared intently at her with his arms folded tightly over his chest, she saw a series of black tattoos running down the sides of his defined biceps to his elbow. He was dressed similarly to Felip execpt he wore all black and had on red shoes. “But I will not take you back through the swarm of the infected that is on their way.”
    “Bach, how bad is it?” Felip turned to the other boy.
    “About two thousand are coming from the east and are heading north,” he answered, and then conversed with the other boy in a strange language that sounded oddly familiar. He glanced at Wisteria, as if he was angry about something. Then, he left her alone with Felip.
    “Did he bring me here?” She was relieved that the cold, strange boy was gone.
    “Bach? Yes he did.”
    “And he knows there’s swarm of biters heading this way?”
    Felip nodded.
    “No one can predict how the biters move,” Wisteria retorted. “It’s impossible.” She knew the scientists and trackers on the Isle of Smythe had been trying to predict that for years.
    Felip looked at her as if she was insane, but then he smiled.
    “If we could do that, I would never be caught in an overrun,” she said.
    “An overrun?” he asked.
    “Well, I call it an overrun. It’s when a swarm of hundreds, or sometimes thousands of biters, flood through while devouring everything.” During the outbreak, Bristol was flooded with hundreds of biters that turned into tens of thousands overnight. Luckily, Wisteria and her family had hid in an old Cold War fallout shelter with an elderly couple, the Lawsons. This was when Wisteria’s mother got the idea about the bunkers when they settled on the Isle of Smythe.
    “Then you know there is almost no way you could survive it,” Felip said.
    “So, you just wait for the biters to get here?” she asked.
    Again, he looked slightly confused. “We are safe here. Please eat something, and then get some rest. I promise I will answer your questions later.” He left the room, but didn’t close the door.
    She