Swept Aside by Sala Sharon

Author:Sala, Sharon [Sala, Sharon]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Suspense
Publisher: Mira
Published: 2010-08-01T05:00:00+00:00

Nick slapped a mosquito that lit on his arm, then swatted at another one buzzing around his ear. Now he knew why Amalie had gone into the house earlier.

“Let’s give it a rest,” he said. “The mosquitoes are chewing me up alive.”

“I’m hungry, anyway,” Lou said.

“Me, too,” Wayman said. “And I need to go check on Tug.”

“Whatever we eat tonight, there will be no second helpings,” Nick said, as he started toward the house.

“Why the hell not?” Lou asked, as he hurried to catch up.

“For the same reason we’ve been saying for days—we’re running out of food.”

Lou frowned but didn’t comment. There was always tonight, after everyone else went to bed.

As they entered the kitchen, they saw thawing weiners and buns, sitting in a puddle on the counter, but Amalie was nowhere in sight.

“Where’s the bitch?” Lou asked.

Nick glared. “Maybe she’s in the bathroom. Wash up,” he said. “I’ll look for her.”

“I’m gonna check on Tug,” Wayman said, and left the kitchen.

Nick followed, thinking he was going to have to check upstairs, when he and Wayman both heard voices down the hall and realized Tug was awake—and talking to someone.

“What’s going on?” Wayman said.

Then they heard the sound of breaking glass.

“What the hell?” Wayman said, and took off down the hall with Nick right behind him.

Tug had been drifting in and out of a feverish sleep in a state of pain and confusion. Part of the time he remembered what had happened to put him in the bed, but sometimes everything morphed into memories from his childhood, and the summer he’d been bitten by a poisonous spider and nearly died. In the dream, his mother had been talking to him, telling him how much she loved him, and how they would all go to the lake when he got well. He could feel the cool, wet compress she kept putting on his forehead in an effort to take down the fever, and the slight stirring of air from their small table fan blowing across his face.

Then the scent of something savory slipped into his consciousness, and he stirred and opened his eyes. For a moment he thought his mother was standing at the foot of his bed, but then she spoke and said something about soup, and he knew the voice was all wrong. He blinked a few times before it dawned on him that this wasn’t his mother, it was the woman from the house.

She was a looker—no doubt about that—but a little skinny for his taste. The jeans she was wearing looked like she’d slept in them, as did her white T-shirt. Sweaty wisps of her short dark curls were stuck to her forehead, and there were shadows underneath her eyes. All he remembered was that this was her house they were hiding in. Then she moved toward the side of his bed.

“I found a can of soup. Do you think you could eat?”

Suddenly he felt anxious. She was too close, and he was too helpless.

“Where’s my brother?” he mumbled.

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