Army of the Unsettled: A Dystopian Novel (Academy of the Apocalypse Book 3) by K. A. Riley

Author:K. A. Riley [Riley, K. A.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Travel Duck Press
Published: 2021-07-24T16:00:00+00:00

25

Leisure

Before I have a chance to consider this in more detail or plot out our next move, I’m washed through with an interior wave of warmth.

The mental fizzle I’ve been feeling for the past hour or two evens out to a dull thrum and then morphs into the familiar, protective voice I’ve been hearing in my head since I was a little girl.

Haida!

~ I’ve been scouting.

Where?

~ Not a place. I’ve been scouting a time.

Her voice is much clearer now, but it’s also hollow and strained, and it’s as if her mind is out of breath.

I don’t understand.

~ I don’t totally understand, either. But I’m afraid.

Afraid? Of what?

~ Our bond. It may be changing you.

I sensed that.

~ It’s changing me, too.

For the better, I hope.

~ Not if “for the better” means the ability…no…the curse to see things at their possible worst.

You sense danger, don’t you?

~ Not yet. Now now. But somewhere…no, some when up ahead.

Some…when? Something’s wrong. My head…it hurts. Why does it hurt?

At that second, my knees hit the ground, and someone grabs the sleeve of my jacket, hauls me back to my feet, and drags me to the side. I snap myself back into focus to find Matholook peering into my “Galaxy Eyes” while guiding me forward and asking if I’m okay.

As if I’ve been jarred from a deep sleep, it takes me half a second to shake off the fog. The inside of my head is swirling with flashing, overlapping images and pulses of strange, unfamiliar sensations and a spate of unnamable emotions. “What?” I stammer. “Oh. I was just talking with Haida.”

Matholook points ahead to where a band of four girls on dirt bikes are zipping off into the distance, leaving four funnel-shaped clouds of spinning desert dust and debris in their wake. “They almost ran you over,” he says through a wheezing cough.

“Is Branwynne okay?” Angel Fire calls back to us from up ahead where he’s still walking along with the rest of my Asylum.

Matholook coughs again and gives him a thumbs up through the fading haze before turning back to me. “You are okay, aren’t you?” He bends at the waist in front of me and leans in. “You know, it’s impossible to read your eyes.”

“Part of the mystery of me,” I laugh.

“And you’re really okay?”

“Just a little dizzy,” I promise. I blink hard, massage my temples for a second, and then brush the film of powdery sand from the sleeves of my red leather jacket. “It’s like Haida had to use all her strength just to connect us.”

I let myself lose focus on Matholook while I search around in my head for Haida. It takes a second, but I find her.

Nearly getting run over…is that the danger you were talking about? I ask her.

~ No. In fact, that might be about the least dangerous thing that’s going to happen to you today.

I can’t tell if she’s joking or if I misheard her, so I settle on conveying a single, simple truth: It’s good to have you with me.

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