A Betrayal so Cruel by Candace Wondrak

Author:Candace Wondrak [Wondrak, Candace]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2018-06-01T05:00:00+00:00

Dagon, though quite pouty, keeps Hades out of my dreams. I’m not even sure he can still enter them, considering a year has miraculously passed. I wake the next morning refreshed and ready to take on the day. My hand throbs slightly, but the wound has already scabbed over. I kept the part about having Ari stab me to prove a point to Greg to myself, figuring they wouldn’t let me go with him if they knew about how unhesitant he was to do it.

I walk with my mom and Josie, dropping them off at the school before meeting the other runners in front of Greg’s garage. There’s a whopping four of us, along with four guards, each wearing their soldier uniforms and looking tough. The other runners are tall, athletic men and women, those competent enough not to trip on imaginary shoelaces. The only reason I’m one of them is because of my Mark, which is now covered by my new leather jacket.

Greg reads off a list, the scar in his lip hardly visible in the sepia sun. Seeds, flour, salt, other necessities we aren’t able to make or grow on our own. The other runners nod and make their leave with their guards, but Greg calls me up to him. His eyes flick to my hand. “How you feeling? Ari tells me yesterday went pretty well.”

“We didn’t run into anything.”

“Most often we don’t. The critters like the night. We got a full moon coming up next week. Be careful out there. We can’t afford to lose Ari—” I hear the man salute and chuckle behind me. “—or you. If I have it my way, we won’t be losing anyone else, now that your group took care of that bugger near the convenience store.” With a step back, he puts all his weight on his left leg, hooking what few fingers he still had through his belt. “Who knows? Maybe the moon won’t bring anything to us.”

“Keep dreaming,” Ari says.

Greg holds back any comebacks, only saying, “Get out of here.”

And so we do.

Though I don’t have a clock with me, I guess it’s around seven in the morning. Early, but the sun is up, and within a few minutes, we’re exiting the town through the same gate we left through yesterday.

“How did those Playboys treat you?” I break the silence after a while. These lonely, barren roads are starting to look familiar. Never thought I’d think this, but I miss the traffic jams that came with rush hour.

The man grins. “Better than any woman, that’s for sure.” Ari speaks, as thoughtful as he can be, beneath all that muscle, “Being the end of the world and all, you’d think there’d be more sex.” He stares at me, his eyebrows raising suggestively.

I let out a chuckle. “Don’t look at me like that.”

“Right. Because of your Mark. Or…are you with one of those losers in your group?” His dark eyes twinkle in playfulness, yet a part of him is serious.

“Neither,” I say.

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