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

of a closet. It even had a custom carrying case complete with the arrows to go with it, so he slung it on his shoulder.

“Hey,” Wren said from the doorway. “Are you coming? We’re done, and Roman wants to lock the bedroom door upstairs.”

“Yeah, I’m done.”

He joined the rest of the group in their shared bedroom, and he immediately scoped out windows and points of escape if they needed to leave in a hurry. This life he was living now was foreign, and he sometimes felt like he was watching a movie he was just starring in. It couldn’t be real. He’d come to this kid’s house for a party, and now he was nothing more than a squatter in it, looting it, and more concerned about how to escape it if the crap hit the fan.

They blew out the stinky candle, for which he was thankful because it was giving him a headache. Scented candles should’ve been outlawed decades ago.

Each of them used the master bathroom and then settled in for the night. He laid on the mattress on the floor next to Wren while Roman shared the bigger bed with Jane. Dixie chose to lie on the floor next to Wren like she did back home, which always made him feel better about their security. He was surprised that neither of the girls complained about the sleeping arrangements and having to share their bed with them, but it also left him with a more solid conclusion that Roman and Jane were together together and not just buddies. He was definitely in the buddy zone with Wren. Sort of. Sometimes he didn’t even think she liked him that much, either. Buddy was even a stretch.

They exchanged stories of their pasts, which Wren abstained from, and laughed and shared of themselves. She joined a little towards the end but mostly laid beside him quietly.

“Wren, did you used to live by the ocean or something?” Jane asked her.

“Huh?”

“I saw a tattoo on your lower back when you and I were changing in the bathroom,” she said.

He was still wearing the same clothes, and so was Roman, but the girls had changed into clean items. Elijah hadn’t even removed his leather boots. If he did, they’d probably want to light that candle again. However, they’d discussed the fact that it probably wasn’t a good idea to shower because then their hair would be wet, and using a blow dryer for the girls was just too loud. Those crawlers had supersonic hearing.

“Er…” she stalled. “My uncle and I moved around a lot. Lived in some beach towns. That’s all.”

“Why’d you move so much?” Roman questioned as if he didn’t buy her story.

“For his job.”

“Construction? Elijah said your uncle was in construction like his brother?”

“Yeah, right,” Wren said quietly. “He would’ve liked this house. He was really into architecture.”

Elijah recognized her deflection. She’d done it to him all the time when he first met her, sometimes still did.

“And the tattoo on your wrist?” Roman asked.

“Just a compass,” she dodged again like a pro.

“Ah,” Roman answered as if he didn’t buy it.

Elijah decided to let her off the hook and said, “Hey, we all missed prom.”

“Prom’s not till late spring, dude,” Roman corrected him.

“Oh, right. Well, we missed our homecoming. What about you guys?”

“We went, but that night was pretty bad,” Jane told them and then explained how they’d gone to the quarry, a place Elijah had also been to before. By the time she was done, Elijah was glad he hadn’t been there that night.

“Wow, that’s terrible,” he said. Then he told them about the situation at the pharmacy where he’d had to tackle a soccer mom turned night crawler. They exchanged similar stories, which made him realize how much everyone was in the same boat now. Finally, he relayed the story of their principal in more detail than what he’d said before.

“That’s insane,” Roman said. “Or should I say, he was insane?”

“Yeah, he definitely was,” Elijah answered since Wren was quiet.

“Where do you think he is?” Jane asked.

“Hopefully dead in a ditch somewhere,” Wren answered, her Australian accent on full display. She sometimes slipped like that when she was tired or upset.

“No doubt. I hope so, too,” Roman added. “Sounds like he was fixated on you for some reason. Do you know why he would’ve been? Did he say anything that would’ve told you why?”

“No, he was just a pig,” Wren told them.

Roman chuckled. “Yeah, some people are just broke and can’t be fixed.”

“Like my mom,” Jane said softly in the dark.

“She’s that bad?” Wren asked and rolled onto her side.

It was quiet for a moment before Jane told them about her mother. Elijah could tell it was painful for her to talk about the woman. It was a shocking story, to say the least. Witnessing her mother killing someone had to have been a traumatic thing to go through as a young girl. Elijah couldn’t even imagine. It explained a lot about Jane, though, and her quiet, sometimes meek demeanor. Then she told them more about her grandmother, who sounded really cool. Elijah wished she’d made it out of the city with Jane and lived down by them. She seemed to have been a plethora of information for this sort of rustic survival. Plus, Jane’s feelings of deep affection toward her were evident.

Eventually, everyone fell asleep, but Elijah lay awake for a long time after. He had a lot on his mind, namely how to convince Wren not to run away. She always had one foot out the door, and that scared Elijah more than the night crawlers. He didn’t want to lose her.

She moaned softly in her sleep and rolled over towards him, probably seeking warmth. The heat was at a low temperature, and despite messing with the thermostat, none of them had figured out how to turn it up. It was helping him stay awake, though, as it was set at a balmy fifty-eight degrees. The girls were covered in