Apokalypsis | Book 6 | Apokalypsis 6 Morris, Kate (cheapest way to read ebooks TXT) 📖

glad for it, she also knew that if he left, she’d not be able to do so. He was a runner, probably was his whole life. One of the women in their group told her that he was an escaped convict, but she didn’t know if that was true or just idle gossip.

She was leery of him either way. Trust wasn’t something that came easy anymore, not that it had before. There were eight children in this group and twelve adults, not counting her and the running man. If she left them, she figured the weaker men and women in the group would abandon the orphaned children, too. That wasn’t an option for her. She’d spent her life trying to protect children as a police officer who dealt with abused children in the foster care system and, even worse, the ones who’d been trafficked.

If she had access to her old computer system at work, she’d be able to trace the running man and know for sure if he was an ex-con. However, as he approached with a mug of steaming coffee, she was forced to trust him, which didn’t come so easily for someone like her.

“We need to leave here soon,” he told her quietly so the others wouldn’t hear. “I saw four of them last night in this neighborhood.”

She nodded and sipped the black coffee and considered whether or not the hardness around his eyes had come from a life of toil or from being in the clink. Then she looked around at the ragged, exhausted group of helpless adults and figured he was their best bet to survive this and offered a nod of agreement.

Chapter Four

Roman

For twenty minutes now, they all stood and watched the television monitors, three of which they’d found so far that were spread out around the compound. Tristan had remembered to shut the window that perv had been using to shoot at them. There was a sliding, plywood trapdoor that closed underneath it to block out the light from within from getting out. It was probably why they hadn’t seen it when they’d first arrived. He slid that shut, too.

“Why don’t they just leave?” Jane whispered a bit hysterically.

“All the shooting,” he told her. “It drew them in.”

The captive girl was dressed now, and Elijah was giving her his snacks he’d packed and fresh water from the tap, which had a weird rubber manual pump thing attached to it. She was still shivering, though.

“Hey,” Tristan said as he entered the room again. “This creep has a really good generator. A lot of other stuff we could use, too. We should come back in the morning for it all before someone else finds it.”

“We may be here till morning,” Roman said, peering at the screen.

“I found a back way out,” he told them next. “You were right, Elijah. I think we could go that way, but we could still run into them on the way to the truck.”

“Hm,” Roman thought quietly.

“The rear entrance looks like more of a tunnel, a dirt one, so let’s hope we don’t have to use it,” he told them.

Roman agreed. “Elijah would get stuck.”

Elijah laughed.

“Hey, don’t give her too much,” Tristan said. “And keep your mask up, Elijah.” He pulled it back up. “Her stomach might not be used to a lot of food. We don’t want to make her sick or anything.”

The girl was quiet, didn’t look at them directly, and was a frail thing. Her hair was short and a dark brown shade. Whatever style she used to have had grown out and was just shaggy and hit about the bottom of her jawline.

“What’s your name?” Roman asked her.

She answered in a hoarse voice, “Bianca. Bianca Jepson.”

“Where’s your family?” Jane asked next as Tristan rushed around checking things out.

“I don’t know. Where am I?”

“Where?” Roman asked and got a nod. “Carroll County.”

“Where’s that? Am I still in Ohio?”

Jane answered, “Yeah, still Ohio. We’re about an hour south of Canton. Where are you from?”

“Cleveland. Suburbs. Small town outside the city.”

“How’d you end up down here?”

She guzzled more water, “My mom and I were trying to get to Columbus. She had an aunt down there. We were going to stay with her. She lives in a gated community. We figured it was safer.”

Roman had news for her. That meant nothing.

“What happened?”

“We took the freeway. Somewhere near the Canton area, which I know because I’d gone to a football game down close to there…a small town, big football team, Massillon or something like that…”

They all looked at Elijah, who gave a frown. Roman was sure he got tired of constantly being known as a football player. His whole identity was that or used to be.

“And you broke down or got off the freeway?” Jane asked.

“No, we ran into too much congestion on the freeway, so my mom got off to get us gas and food. It was crazy. The military was there directing people. We couldn’t find a gas station with any gas. These guys came over and offered to help. Told us to follow them, that they knew a place that still had gas.”

“Oh, geez,” Jane said sadly.

“Yeah, that was that,” she revealed. “We followed them right into a trap. My mom pulled through this fenced-in lot, and some men shut a gate behind us. We couldn’t get out. We tried to fight them off, but the next thing I knew, someone hit me over the head. I woke up at some Chinese food place in a town. In the basement. Then… here.”

“I’m so sorry, Bianca,” Jane said and placed her gloved hand over the girl’s. Roman wanted to stop her, but at least she’d put her gloves back on after the fight.

“How will I ever find my mom?”

“We’ll help you,” Jane promised, although Roman wasn’t sure she should do that.

For a while, they were quiet while Tristan went from the front of the bunker to the back again, carrying supplies he wanted to come back for and stacking them