Escape the Fall (Nuclear Survival: Southern Grit Book 2) by Harley Tate

Author:Harley Tate [Tate, Harley]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harley Tate
Published: 2018-05-09T18:30:00+00:00

Chapter Fifteen

GRANT

Boundless Sports

Smyrna, Georgia

Friday, 10:00 a.m.

The lock to the sporting goods store was one of those flimsy come-with-the-door types that took nothing more than a couple of jiggles and a credit card to open. Grant popped the lock and turned the knob.

“Where’d you learn to do that?”

Grant shrugged. “When you work with hackers all day, you pick up a thing or two.”

The door opened with a squeak of rust against metal and Grant squinted into the dim space. The floor-to-ceiling windows out front cast enough light to make out blobs of clothing racks and shelves full of gear, but nothing determinate. Grant hesitated.

Oliver’s comments stuck with him. I’m a thief. He glanced back at his neighbors. He couldn’t walk in that sporting goods store and walk out with a backpack full of supplies without giving something in return. But he couldn’t leave empty-handed, either.

If the coming weeks were as brutal as Grant feared, he and Leah would need every last resource they could scrounge up. If he didn’t take some items now, he might be reduced to worse crimes later.

“Having second thoughts?” Dan eased up beside him.

“A few.”

“You can break and enter, but you can’t steal?” Oliver pushed his sleeves up his arms. “Seems kind of arbitrary if you ask me.”

“I haven’t entered. Just broken at this point. I can lock the door and we can walk away.”

“And risk getting shot like that guy lying out in the gas station parking lot? No thank you.”

Grant turned to Oliver. “You’re the one who called us thieves.”

“And if we steal, that’s exactly what we are. But I’ve seen the news. I know what’s coming. The world will be watching us tear ourselves apart and they won’t be swooping in to help.”

“It’s early. If we give them some time—”

Dan cut Grant off. “Then they’ll come in with tanks and guns and parade us through the streets to refugee camps where we’ll be branded and tagged and never be free again. No thank you. I’d rather be a thief than a refugee.”

Grant pressed his knuckles to his forehead. He still needed to find his wife. If that meant searching all of downtown Atlanta for her body, he would need more than a handgun and his wits.

He shoved the doubt and shame of his choice down into the depths of his belly and motioned toward the store. “Let’s spread out and clear the place first. Then we decide what comes home.”

Oliver fanned out to the right, Dan took the left, and Grant took straight down the middle. After closing the door behind him, he waited, counting to one hundred as his eyes adjusted to the dark.

He pulled his handgun from the holster and held it out, ready to fire. It had been a long time since he’d gone on patrol, but his muscle memory brought it all back. Sand. Wind. Grit always in his teeth and eyes.

At least this time he had overpriced water bottles and coolers to contend with instead of hidden insurgents and IEDs.

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