Page 8 of The Girl Who Kicked Ass (Death Fields 3)

Our team fights a collective reaction. I really hope they’re just enthusiastic Fighters and not Hybrids.

We’re losing daylight and Davis will get antsy if we go past our meet-up time. “You ready?” I ask everyone. Things seem a lot more complicated than they did an hour ago.

“Yeah, I’d feel better if there wasn’t a bullet aimed at the back of my head right now,” Jude says.

Parker rolls her eyes. “There’s always a bullet. This time you just know about it.”

Truth.

Trucker told us to look out for a large oak in t

he median as a marker for the two mile limit. Sure enough, within minutes we hit a barricade of lined up trucks stretching across both sides of the road.

I’m caught with a sense of déjà vu when the solider walks toward us. We were in a similar situation less than a month ago when we escaped the vaccine clinic with Paul. That time didn’t end so well.

“I’ll talk,” Jude says. We’ve agreed he’s the least conspicuous.

“Afternoon,” the soldier says, her voice firm. My eyes are glued to the purple stripes on her shoulder. Two other soldiers are back near the barricade.

“Hi,” Jude says, breaking into a wary smile.

She looks us up and down, face hard, revealing no emotion. Cole and I are leaning into one another. I play up a hurt ankle. Parker wraps her arms around her stomach. We look pathetic.

“You traveling somewhere?” the Hybrid asks.

“Looking for somewhere to rest. Heard there may be an evacuation center still open this way.”

She nods and looks at me. “You feeling okay?”

“Just a sprain,” I reply. “We’re healthy. Just need some food and sleep, you know?”

“You’ll have to go through security and quarantine, but if everything goes fine you’ll have a bed in a few hours and a belly full of food.”

Parker and I smile wide. My teammate adds, “Thank you, it’s been a long couple of weeks.”

We cross through the gates, where they remove our weapons. We left our better things with Trucker—not because we wanted to, but he demanded a collateral of sorts, to ensure we’d come back.

“These will be returned once you’re processed.”

I keep my eyes away from their faces, which are unnaturally calm. No sign of the rage boiling underneath, but they have no reason to be on alert. We’re just four pathetic survivors looking for help.

We’re ushered into a Jeep and, fake-injury or not, I’m glad to get off my feet for the rest of the trip. Night falls, and as we approach it’s clear we aren’t headed toward a rest area. Instead we veer off the highway and into a small town. Store fronts and offices line the streets of the old commercial area. This isn’t where we were told to go and I start to get nervous and from the twitchy looks of the others, they do, too. If we say something, they’ll know we knew about the Center. If we don’t?

I have no idea what we’re about to walk into.

The boarded up, dusty windows give the impression it had been abandoned long before the crisis. If the rest of the area was like this, no wonder Trucker and Josie had a hard time finding food and supplies.

I wait for the Jeep to stop but the Hybrid keeps driving, passing the deserted small town until we’re on a side street with large, historic homes. She comes to a stop in front of a large white home with big columns.

“What’s this?”

“This is where we do the intake.”

Something’s off. It’s nothing like what we’ve been told to expect by neither Erwin’s scouts nor from Trucker and Josie.

“Here?” I reach for the weapon no longer attached to my hip. Crap.

Cole tenses next to me—his hand wraps around mine. Our eyes meet and I know. He knows. I’m one millisecond from shouting for my team to run like hell when a hand clamps over my mouth from behind and heavy, black fabric covers head.

---