Fate's Surrender (Eternal Sorrows Book 3) Sarra Cannon (best english books to read txt) 📖

If he could see it coming, he could protect her and keep her from getting hurt.

“I think I just became your shield.”

Twenty

Parrish

Parrish Sorrows kept her eyes glued to the road for the rest of the trip.

She was lucky her bike hadn’t been too damaged to ride, but from the looks of it, Noah’s leg had suffered most of the injury intended for her.

And just how the hell had he done that? Listening to him talk about it, it sounded like he’d had some kind of premonition before it happened. Like he’d known it was coming.

That was new.

She wanted to hear him tell the story again, because she wanted to understand just what he’d done and how it worked, but they needed to keep moving. When they stopped for the night, she’d get him to tell her more.

Between the illness he’d drawn out of Stephen’s body and the injury today, Noah was looking a lot more vulnerable than any of them had originally thought. He’d seemed invincible, and for some reason, it really upset her to know that he wasn’t.

Of course, Noah seemed thrilled about it. He said he’d be able to shield her and save her life, but what did that mean for him? She didn’t want him getting hurt, either.

She needed to be more careful.

No more wrecks. All they had to do today was get to the coast, and they would be one step closer to finishing this.

Crash had been using Karmen’s old, shattered iPhone to navigate through the area. It still amazed her how easily he could connect his brain and energy up to a phone that had zero battery left and a network that was likely not in service anymore, but there he was.

He read the screen like the world was normal again, and Parrish suddenly wished for the weirdness of social media. She’d never been on it much, but she’d had a few friends on Discord and over on Instagram who she’d come to know pretty well, even though she’d never met them in real life.

Were any of those people even still alive?

And if they were, would she ever have a way to contact them again?

She couldn’t imagine a world where things were back to normal. Even if they got rid of the zombies, she had a feeling this world was changed forever.

As if to punctuate her thought, a massive, hundred-car pileup came into view just over the top of a hill. The groups like this were the worst, because there were always people trapped inside their cars. Most of them had either turned or been partially eaten by those who had.

The stench of places like this was almost more than she could bear, and she’d gotten used to carrying a scarf with her so she could wrap it around her nose and mouth whenever they got close to one.

It helped, even if it didn’t totally eliminate the smell, altogether.

They also needed to be careful when they were going through and around these large pile ups. Rotters were stuck in their cars, but there were always roamers, too.

Luckily, there weren’t any super zombies in their path. As long as they could steer clear of those guys for a while, they would be okay.

Parrish was still rattled by the ones she’d fought back at Tank’s.

She’d never expected the Dark One to attack the compound the way she had, but at least no one had been hurt. By the time they left, Stephen was doing better, too. It looked like he would make a full recovery.

So, all in all, they’d been extremely lucky.

Or was it more than just luck?

The Dark One could have killed them all if she’d wanted to. Parrish had no doubt about that. Before the others had arrived, she’d been completely incapacitated there for a while.

And yet, the Dark One let her live.

Supposedly to torture her even worse in the coming days, but something about that didn’t quite sit right with Parrish.

She wanted to talk it through with the others, but it was way too difficult to talk on these bikes. They were too spread out, and the wind and road noise were just too loud. When they got settled somewhere for the night, though, she wanted to bring it up.

For now, she kept her attention on the road.

What had seemed like a smooth and easy start had quickly turned into a nightmare trip.

Hundred-car pile ups that required an hour or more of detour just to get around, even on motorcycles, small hordes of rotters they couldn’t avoid no matter how hard they tried, and at one point, even a small band of survivors that needed their help.

When they finally made it to the beach-side town where Crash had decided to stop, the sun was already beginning to set. So much for her hopes of getting there in just a few hours and heading into the city today. There was no way they were going to New York City after dark.

Crash had said this town would likely be deserted, and he was right. The town was pretty small, so the low population before the virus seemed to also mean low zombie population post-virus.

The group pulled their bikes over to the side of the road to figure out what they would do for the night.

“What do you think?” Parrish asked, looking mostly to Crash.

He’d been the one to navigate so far, and she trusted his opinion on what was best.

“If we’d gotten here earlier, I was going to suggest scoping out the boats and finding one big enough to hang out in for the night.” He looked around and then shook his head. “It’s already getting dark, though. I don’t think we have enough time to search for the perfect one and make sure we have enough supplies for the night. Much less find working bathrooms and such.”

Karmen cleared her throat, and Parrish looked at her, wondering what annoying opinion or complaint she was going to share