In His Command by Rie Warren

Author:Rie Warren [Warren, Rie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Romance
ISBN: 9781455574148
Publisher: Forever Yours
Published: 2013-08-06T04:00:00+00:00

Late afternoon found us running at full stretch. The sun was a cool orb barred by the thick canopy overhead, but exertion made us sweaty. We went down to T-shirts and then bare chests, jumping over fallen logs and twisting through foliage, heading south and east to cut off the Corps team.

The ricocheting calls of birds sang a shrill Time’s up! Time’s up! Every snap of twig or brush of red, orange, gold leaf told our story. We had no time to cover our tracks. I didn’t like that.

With our packs’ weight diminished, we racked up the clicks. Most of our gear was left at the commune. We carried the basics: weapons, spare boots, a change of clothes, rations, water. The way I was used to, the way it was supposed to be.

Gnawing on some bread supplied by Eden, we jogged for a length, running through our plan, if by plan I meant knotting the noose around our necks with our own hands.

“Listen, big man, you keep us safe out here, and I’ll keep us safe once we reach the Outpost. Do your job.” Blondie was back in biz mode.

“And I’ve been getting the gold standard so far.” I nodded to the last small bandage on my shoulder.

“That was an accident.”

“Yeah, I accidentally got between you and a friendly hatchet.”

He winked. “Said I was sorry.”

“Fuck off.” I grinned. “You don’t get it, man. I rarely get wounded.”

“Jesus, your ego’s even bigger than your cock, isn’t it?”

He had a point.

My laughter joined his, and I sputtered, “Yeah and so’s the chip on my shoulder, baby.”

My laughter got derailed when we reached higher ground. It took a few seconds to survey the scene below us, a sight I wished we’d never come across. A half-day old, blood had pooled on the ground and congealed. The iron tang of it filled my nose. Anything but this. Not this.

He didn’t speak. He couldn’t. Neither could I.

In the lee below our feet, spread over the burnt-colored autumn grass was a slaughter. Bodies twisted in gruesome shapes, defiled by bullet holes, bludgeoned skulls, and all that blood.

Blondie retched.

While we’d been fighting and fucking in the forest, they’d been massacred at daybreak.

My stomach had ideas of doing the same as Blondie’s. I clamped my throat shut, but couldn’t cut off my emotions. Not this time.

This wasn’t the work of Freelanders.

This was the Freelanders.

The scene was grisly and could only be Corps work, a kind even I hadn’t witnessed before. Giant ugly birds black as sin cackled, cawed. Creatures fought over fingers and eyes, gore dripping from beaks and maws.

I ran at them. “Get off! Get off them!” Both SIGs raised, ready to blast, I stood over a body and ran my sights in a circle, checking the encroaching woods.

Kneeling down, Blondie gently turned a face. “They’re ours.” His throat bobbed and my weapons wavered.

Then I was with him, among the bodies, checking each one, waiting for a pulse, a cough, a lungful of air. Hoping I didn’t

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