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

“Thank you for that,” she said, touching his arm.

His eyes widened slightly at her touch, and she’d have been lying if she said his expression hadn’t just sent butterflies fluttering in her stomach.

She kind of wanted to see where things might go between them, but when Noah and Parrish appeared in the doorway to the bedroom, she quickly took her hand off Crash’s arm.

She wasn’t exactly sure why, except that she didn’t think she was ready for the whole world to know how she was feeling for the guy.

And right now, her whole world was standing in this room.

“What happened?”

“Everything okay?” Noah asked.

“We’re fine,” Crash said. “Just a rotter trapped in the closet. It jumped out at us.”

“Well, the sound of that gunshot should bring any others out if they’re in here,” Parrish said. “From the looks of it, though, this whole neighborhood is pretty quiet.”

Karmen shifted uncomfortably.

“That’s not exactly a good thing,” she said. “The trip to the hospital. The trip back to the compound yesterday. Everything was quiet and look what happened. There might be a huge horde gathering just down the street, waiting to attack as soon as we let our guard down.”

Noah nodded. “Good point. So, how do we protect ourselves?””

“Well, seeing how we picked a house with nothing but windows everywhere, it’s going to be hard to set up much of a defense, but at least we’ll be able to see them coming,” Parrish said.

That was actually the reason Karmen had picked this house in the first place, besides the fact that it was absolutely gorgeous and modern.

No amount of furniture pushed in front of a door was going to barricade them or keep them safe if a horde was waiting to attack, but if they could clearly see what was all around them, they’d at least avoid being surprised when it happened.

Or at least that was her theory.

Someone was going to have to stay up and keep watch, though, and she hoped it wasn’t her. She was so tired, she was afraid she might fall asleep standing up.

“Did you clear the upstairs?” she asked. “Is there anything else we need to do tonight? Or can we get some rest?”

“After we eat,” Crash said.

“And after we try again to contact the fifth and my sister,” Parrish said.

Karmen sighed.

She was pretty hungry, but nothing compared to how exhausted she felt. Part of that probably had to do with just how scared she was about the idea of actually going into New York City.

They’d been talking about it ever since before they left their neighborhood back in Virginia, but being out here on the coast like this, a simple boat-ride away, made it all too real.

“We should talk about our plan, too,” Parrish said. “And about where our current abilities are.”

“What do you mean?” Crash asked as they all headed back into the main room of the house.

“I mean, what’s changed since we first made contact with the fifth,” Parrish said. “All our powers have grown some or shifted, haven’t they? Karmen, how did you figure out you could turn those rotters to our side? That was awesome, by the way.”

Karmen blushed, and then tried to hide it by looking out toward the sea.

Man, it was beautiful here.

It was a shame the sun was setting, because she would have killed for an hour out on that beach. To her delight, there was a beautiful pool out back, though. She wondered if she could talk Crash into a swim.

“Karmen?” Parrish asked.

She cleared her throat, bringing her attention back to the conversation and doing everything she could to stop thinking about a late-night swim with the guy standing next to her.

“Oh, well, you know I’ve been able to put my own will or my own thoughts into someone else’s head in the past, right? Like if I wanted someone to stop coming toward me or to move over, I could put that thought or suggestion into their mind,” she said. “But when I was standing up on the roof with that guard and I first saw the horde coming, I realized I was also able to hear his thoughts.”

“Uhh,” Crash said, running a hand through his hair. “Please tell me you haven’t been trying to listen to my thoughts, because that shit is private.”

“I haven’t,” she said, then narrowed her eyes at him. “Not yet, anyway.”

“Threat acknowledged,” he muttered.

“Could you hear the thoughts of the super zombies?” Noah asked.

“They had no thoughts,” she said, motioning for them to all take a seat in the living room. She was way too tired to be standing up if they didn’t have to. “Not of their own, anyway. It seemed like their only thoughts were the orders the Dark One had put into their heads. Basically, she’d told them to seek us out and kill us.”

“No surprise there,” Parrish said.

“Or maybe it was to seek us out and infect us, but what’s the difference,” Karmen muttered.

But Noah’s head snapped up.

“Wait, infect us?” he asked. “Which was it? Can you remember the exact thought in their heads?”

Karmen shrugged, not sure why it mattered. Noah appeared to think it did, though.

She thought back to the attack on the compound yesterday, trying to remember the exact orders she’d heard repeated in the rotters’ minds.

“Find and infect the guardians,” she said. “That was it. Why? Do you think there’s a difference?”

Noah sat down on the couch. “I don’t know, but it seems like nothing the Dark One does is random. Everything has a purpose. Besides…”

His voice trailed off and he looked at Parrish, then shook his head.

“It’s okay,” Parrish said. “You can say it out loud, because I’ve been thinking about it ever since the Dark One first trapped me there by the bus.”

“What?” Karmen asked, feeling frustrated. “I don’t have any clue what you guys are talking about.”

Noah sighed. “The Dark One could have killed Parrish yesterday. Easy.” He looked to Parrish and placed a hand on her