Broken Souls (The Broken Series Book 2) by Claire Vale

Author:Claire Vale [Vale, Claire]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2022-01-09T16:00:00+00:00

9

Our excitement at Thomas’ return gradually thins to sober relief as we puzzle through the possibilities of what it means.

“A glitch?” Ash suggests.

“Hey, man, we’re just glad you’re still with us.” Ralley shrugs and slaps Thomas on the back. “Now, if no one minds, I’m going scrubbing for worms.”

Ava wrinkles her nose at him. “Worms? Seriously? I’m sure we still have a couple of baked roots left over from last night.”

“He thinks he’s going to catch a fish,” I inform her as Ralley goes through the hatch.

Thomas only got as far as the apple orchard before he saw one of our dots blink out, but he didn’t come across anyone. Maybe Oxford and Edinburgh are each holed up on opposite ends of the island and will stay there for the duration. Maybe the Guard hasn’t got a clue what really happens once they send their sacrificial lambs off in the helicopter. Maybe we are all just teenagers trying to survive until the end and no city ever actually wins this war. Maybe Celtic City just randomly swipes a finger over a console somewhere to wipe out dots and do a pot luck draw afterward to determine how much vaccine each city is allotted.

Maybe everyone dies.

Maybe no one dies.

But I only have to look at Bath’s huddled, solitary form, to know that all my maybes are just pie in the sky.

Ash notices where my attention deflects to and he stomps in that direction, drops to his knees before Bath. “What happened to your friends?” he demands. “Are they really dead?”

Bath peers up at him through his stringy hair. “I don’t have friends.”

“What are we doing?” I ask Thomas.

He shakes his head, his brow deeply furrowed. “Ash thinks, maybe, there are other glitches.” He nudges his chin at Bath. “He may not be all that’s left of Bath.”

“The other members of your team,” Ash barks. “You know what I mean.”

“No, not really.” Clearly bored with how this is going, Bath puts his head down. I think he’s fallen asleep.

Ash straightens and throws us a frustrated look.

“You’re wasting your energy,” I tell him. Bath isn’t deaf or dumb. He knows what we’ve gone through. He knows exactly what we’re asking. “He’d rather die than help us.”

“Yeah? Well, there are worse things than death.” Ash unsheathes his dagger and grabs a chunk of Bath’s hair to yank his head up. “How about this?” He drags the tip of the blade along the soft cavity under Bath’s eye. “You tell me what I want to know, and I don’t cut your eye out.”

Bath flashes an accusing look at me, the soft one, the one who will jump in and stop the madness. I smile thinly and meet that look with crusted scorn. I’m pretty sure my face doesn’t betray a trace of softness. There isn’t much left inside me.

In the space of a few short hours, I lived through the pain of losing first Ash, and then Thomas. That cold darkness still has its clutches in me and I can’t shake it off.

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