Total pages in book: 137
Estimated words: 132491 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 662(@200wpm)___ 530(@250wpm)___ 442(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 132491 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 662(@200wpm)___ 530(@250wpm)___ 442(@300wpm)
I keep my expression neutral as guards grunt from the weight of the bodies they’re dragging across the deck. One guard has his hand wrapped around a woman’s ponytail. He pulls her to the edge of the deck and shoves her body into the water, rubbing his palm on the thigh of his pants to wipe off the grease from her hair.
What used to be cruel is now commonplace, and staying impassive to it is how I survive.
We’re approaching a large island, the shoreline ringed with pristine sand the shade of bone dust. A mountain looms on the island’s far side, an ominous sentinel overlooking a thick jungle.
“Can you swim?” Amira asks me in a hushed tone.
I flick a glance at the gently lapping teal waves. “Yeah. You?”
“Well enough.”
Nineteen prisoners remain on the deck—eleven men and eight women. If we work together, we have a better chance of finding safe water to drink and setting up a camp to protect ourselves from whatever’s in that jungle.
One of the guards holds binoculars to his eyes to gaze at the shoreline. “I see ’em. The locals are waiting to welcome you.”
His tone is amused. I close my eyes, take a deep breath in and let it out. Even though I’m weak and dehydrated, I’m only twenty-four years old and in good physical shape. I can make the swim.
I’ve beaten the odds in the six years since the virus hit. Life in New America is brutal for women, and that brutality has sharpened my will into a deadly point.
And as long as Lochlan Murphy lives, so do I.
The head guard gestures to the driver at the helm, and we immediately speed up. I steady my feet as a nearby prisoner falls and knocks another one to the ground.
“On our own or with the others?” Amira murmurs.
“Let’s try the others.”
She nods. We both study the shoreline, looking for the “locals” the guard mentioned.
“Shit,” a man close by mutters.
It takes me a few more seconds to see what he does. My heart falls into my stomach when I make out a person nocking an arrow on a bow. A figure next to him is holding what looks like a spear.
“Who are they?” a prisoner asks from the other side of the deck, cupping a hand over his brows to shield against the sunlight.
“Welcome to Blue Arrow Island,” the head guard says. “Our great leader tried to take care of you fucks and you spit in his face. So now you get to play a little game.”
I cut my gaze back to the island, seeing more people with bows and arrows. Many more. Panic catches in my throat and I have to force myself to breathe.
“We’re dead,” Amira whispers.
But it doesn’t make sense. Why would they bring us here to die when they could have just shot us back in Carson City, where we were imprisoned?
Scanning the entire shoreline, I search for options. Rock formations I can swim to for cover. A quick entrance into the jungle.
“Wait …”
Two people are fighting on the beach. One has a spear and the other is using her fists. A swift right hook drops the spear holder to the ground, and he doesn’t get back up. The woman retrieves his spear and drives it into him, more than a foot of the weapon sinking into his stomach. Then she yanks the spear out of him and walks toward a group of people, unfazed by the murder she just committed.
That’s one hell of a strong woman. I couldn’t drive a spear into someone that deep and then pull it back out like it’s a toothpick in a glazed meatball.
At the other end of the beach, people are yelling and gesturing angrily. I think it’s because of the man who was just killed.
“There are two different groups,” I say in a low tone meant only for Amira.
“Are they prisoners, like us?”
“I don’t know.”
If everyone on that beach is united in trying to kill us, we don’t stand a chance. There are a lot more of them than there are of us, and we don’t have any weapons. But if they’re also fighting each other … that wouldn’t be a bad thing.
The roar of the boat’s engine cuts off, the vessel rocking in the water. From its sleek design, I can tell this was someone’s prized yacht before the virus. Now it’s a charter, transporting people to their deaths. A guard pushes a button, the links of a massive chain clanking as he lowers the anchor.
I look between the two groups on the beach again. A tall, broad man with dark hair stands at the front of the first group, his hand wrapped around a spear.
There’s a woman at the front of the other group, her blond hair blowing behind her in the breeze. She doesn’t have a weapon, but many of the people behind her are holding primitive wooden spears.