The Butchers by Katie French

Author:Katie French [French, Katie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Katie French Books
Published: 2017-12-16T06:00:00+00:00

Riley

The hospital gives me the same feeling it did the first time I laid eyes on it—a sick twisting of my guts, like a knife is slowly turning in there.

It isn’t the tallest building, or the stateliest. But it’s the one that’s withstood the test of time, standing nearly untouched as the rest of the city falls to ruin.

Or so it was. Until now.

Now as we look at it, we see the signs of decay—the blown-out windows, the ripped-open fencing that shows us someone has recently breached her perimeter. There is a white Breeders truck in the front parking lot with bullet holes running up its side and four flat tires. There is garbage blowing around in piles. Some of the famous spotlights that illuminated the hospital for miles around are shot out and no longer functioning.

When I was a prisoner here, all of this would have been pristine. No one went up against the Breeders. They had superior firepower, superior manpower. They had technology that didn’t exist outside those four walls.

Something has brought the behemoth to her knees.

This has to be good for us. But I wonder what awaits us inside. Is Nessa even still here? And if she is, what’s her army like now? Without the surrounding city and its constant supply of workers, how is the hospital able to staff the positions it needs to survive?

Then I think of the girls I met inside. Hundreds of girls. Where are they? And if this is what the outside looks like, what are conditions like inside?

I turn to Clay, who’s loading up more guns and ammo than any one man should. “Do you think the girls are still alive?”

He looks up at the abused building. “Girls are the world’s last valuable commodity, Ri. If someone came for anything, they came to take the women.”

I shudder. “You think the Butchers took them.”

He shrugs. “I think that any organization knows that to continue, they need reinforcements. The best way to do that is grow ’em yourself. Plus, men love women.”

“Geez. You make having a family sound so romantic.” I lean back against the solar car and try to contain my rage, my worry.

“The Butchers don’t care about family. They care about pussy, numbers, and guns. That’s all that’s ever mattered in war. At least we got two out of the three.” He holds up some metal beast that’ll spit bullets like that’s its job.

And he’s right. It’s a brutal world.

Desdemona walks up, swinging her bow. “We ready?”

Clay looks at it skeptically. “How about I give you something better than a stick of wood?” He holds a handgun out to her.

She scrunches up her face. “No thanks. I don’t need to compensate for something with a massive weapon.”

I shake my head at her jab at Clay. “I can teach you another time,” I say, strapping on my own weapons.

“So what’s the plan?” Desdemona asks. “Go in, shoot everyone, take what we need, and leave?”

“Pretty much,” Clay says.

“It’s not going to be that easy,” I say.

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