Live Free or Die Complete Series Boxed Set: Age Of Madness - A Kurtherian Gambit Series Hayley Lawson (ebook reader play store .TXT) 📖

face, suddenly feeling very tired. Maybe he should let all these idiots get infected and eat each other.

The image of all that suffering and carnage brought a smile to his face and calmed him down. It was like going to his happy place. Someday, he’d watch this whole place burn, but that day wasn’t today.

“Are the general’s blood results back?” Afana asked, refocusing on the task at hand. He’d requested their blood be tested for any irregularities.

“They’re clean, Afana,” one of the advisors said.

Afana nodded. “Good. General Murray, go with Advisor George and fix the cameras. I need Advisor George to come back alive.”

“Yes, sir,” Murray and George said in unison. The general wasted no time walking toward the doors, and George followed him with his equipment.

“Open the doors,” George said smugly to the guards he’d been arguing with earlier.

The guards looked at Afana questioningly.

“For fuck’s sake, open the goddamn doors!” Afana snapped. He was surrounded by idiots.

As the two men left, Afana stared impatiently down through the glass floor, wanting to know what was happening on Level Six.

Sergei, Pavel, and Yegor were walking down a hill toward Pinewood when Massimo came into view, very drunk and pulling a red cart with empty bottles in it. He was singing “Danny Boy” as he walked.

Massimo could smell them before he could see them, but he kept walking anyway. They didn’t smell like death, so they weren’t zombies.

He looked at the three men, but he didn’t recognize them. Outsiders were welcome in the town as long as they abided by the rules. These had guns hanging by their sides. They weren’t going to abide by the rules, Massimo thought as he walked past them.

“Evening.” He acknowledged them but didn’t stop. They paused and looked down at Massimo’s cart. Sergei grabbed a half-empty bottle from it and took a drink.

“It’s beer,” the man said, grinning. The others grabbed partially filled bottles for themselves. “Where can we get more of this?”

“Sorry, boys, it’s all gone for the night.”

Sergei threw his bottle to the ground, smashing it. Massimo chose to ignore it and continued walking.

The men whispered to one another, which Massimo could hear with his heightened abilities. “We’ll follow until he stops. That’s where he’ll be keeping the rest of it.”

“Good idea, Sergei.”

“What about Ryder?”

“We’ll get him after we’ve had a drink.”

Chapter Twenty-Nine

After trying for more than an hour, Leandro finally changed back into his human form, and he let out a sigh of relief. He’d really thought he was going to be a wolf forever. He had no idea why he hadn’t been able to change, but now that he had, he had other things to worry about.

He was now buck naked, and he needed to get into Leeming’s. He peeked around the store’s wall. There was no one on the street. He picked up a stone from the ground and paused. He really didn’t want to smash in the front door. It had taken him months to find it. Massimo said it wouldn’t be right not to have a glass door, that it would spoil the look of Pinewood.

Fuck it.

He threw the rock through the glass panel, then slid his hand through the hole and opened the door. He quickly closed it after him, making sure he didn’t stand on the glass fragments because that would hurt like a sonofabitch.

He looked at the clothes in the store, which were nothing like what he usually wore.

Leandro usually got his clothes from the abandoned mall, but it wasn’t close by, and he had to cover his bare ass now. These clothes would have to do, so he picked up a pair of pants and a shirt. There were no damn shoes in his size, so he’d have to go barefoot. He’d come back tomorrow and fix the door. Once he was dressed, he left for the bar.

Music was booming out of the Old Dog, and it was full of people who were leaning on one another, wasted, or crying on each other’s shoulders, or all three. Some were dancing, and some were singing along to the music. It was definitely a wake. Leandro couldn’t see his dad anywhere, so he headed to the bar.

“Where’s Pops?” Leandro asked Kelvin.

“He headed home.”

“What happened?”

“There was some type of disease outbreak,” Kelvin said. “We lost a few folks.”

“What, really?” Leandro couldn’t believe what he was hearing. First, Ivan from the bunker, then the parents in the Bora mountain settlement, and now, it was here.

Kelvin nodded. “It got Scott, Annie, Andrew, and Vicar Jason. Massimo took care of it. You should be proud of him. He stopped it from spreading.”

Leandro and Kelvin looked at the people in the bar. Massimo did have a way of helping people get over the hard parts in life.

“How does the disease spread?” Leandro asked. He wanted to find out if it was the same as the other cases.

“Massimo said they were trying to bite him,” Kelvin explained.

Damn, it was the same. Whatever it was that had infected Carter’s village was spreading. This is bad, he thought. Really fucking bad.

“Thanks, Kelvin,” Leandro said, composing himself. He wanted to catch up with his dad. He needed to find out what the hell was going on.

“One for the road?” Kelvin asked as he passed Leandro a beer. It was funny how Kelvin used phrases from movies he hadn’t seen. Massimo had been determined to make Kelvin the best barkeeper on the planet. Which wasn’t hard, since he might be the last barkeeper in the world today.

Leandro had gotten thirsty from sprinting down here. “Sure.” He took a long sip of the beer, which was really good. “I’ll come back to help clean up tomorrow.”

Leandro walked away from the bar. He placed the bottle in the doorway and took off running. He wanted to get home. He wondered how he was going to explain to Massimo that he’d spent the time with Ryder but hadn’t spoken to her yet. He knew Massimo would