All The Pretty Ghosts (The Never Series Book 1) Jamie Campbell (best life changing books .TXT) 📖

so quietly it was hard to believe it came from such a strong man.

If someone had told me years ago that I would have these kinds of feelings for Oliver, I would have found it hilarious. Now, to know I did and that he didn’t share them, was heartbreaking. The world really had gone to hell.

All those feelings needed to be pushed aside and forgotten. I would lock them away again and regain my numbness. I had done it before and I would be able to do it once more. Just once more, that’s all I needed.

I stood, shaking out my limbs to get some blood flowing in them again. “I don’t know about you, but I am starving. Want to go to the shelter and see if there’s anything left?”

“I think that’s a good idea.”

We stepped out into the morning. It was marginally warmer than the day before but snow had fallen overnight. I prepared myself for the worst. There would be corpses along the road. I had to be ready to see them. They wouldn’t disappear just because I didn’t want to acknowledge their existence. It would be a good opportunity to practice ridding myself of emotions again.

Oliver spoke as we walked. “They might have some blankets at the shelter. You should get one if you can. You shivered all night.”

“I doubt they have any.”

“We should still look.”

I nodded. We would look.

We wouldn’t find anything.

“The shelter shouldn’t be responsible for everything,” I started, trying to keep the anger out of my voice. It shouldn’t be up to kids to feed and clothe other kids. The adults should still be here. The adults underground should want to help.

“The volunteers are doing a good job,” Oliver replied.

“I know they are. But they shouldn’t be the only ones.” We made it to the shelter. Oliver had done a good job of distracting me in conversation so my eyes didn’t roam to the sidewalks surrounding us.

We joined the long line and shuffled forward foot by foot. The child in front of us couldn’t be more than seven years old. The one behind, no older than ten.

Every time I visited the shelter, it was more crowded. More and more people bustled for space and resources. Their bodies were thinner, their spirits a little more crushed. They were that much more paranoid, more scared, and that much closer to their final breath.

It couldn’t go on much longer.

“Where does the shelter get their supplies?” I asked. Oliver seemed to know most things that went on in the city, chances were he knew the volunteers’ secrets, too.

“Old factories and warehouses, I think,” he replied quietly, so we couldn’t be overheard. “They started off with supermarkets and places like hospitals. Once those ran out, they had to cast their net wider. Nobody is making food or farming anymore. If it didn’t exist in the Event, then it doesn’t exist now.”

“There’s probably places they haven’t found yet.”

“Probably. It’s a big city.”

“I want to explore and find blankets, coats, food, anything I can,” I said determinedly. The adults wouldn’t do anything, but I could. I had two legs, I had a brain, I was fully capable of walking around the city. It wasn’t like I had anything tying me to one place.

I needed to have something to do. Otherwise the frustrations of getting nowhere with the adults, with Jet, with Oliver… They were going to overwhelm me. Achieving something, having a purpose, it would be the distraction I severely needed.

“We don’t know what’s out there,” Oliver warned.

He was right, but that didn’t mean we should skulk away in fear. The gangs couldn’t be worse than those we’d already encountered. I had a gash on the back of my head and a still-healing dislocated shoulder to prove it. They could keep beating me down and I was going to continue to get up and keep going.

“I still want to go,” I decided.

“Then I’m coming with you.”

Oliver.

My rock.

My constant.

The source of my heartbreak.

Chapter Fifteen

The city’s public transport system had long wasted away. The rust spread like cancer once they stopped being operated. Nobody knew how to drive the trains or buses so they remained wherever they were at the time of the Event. They were now only reminders of what we used to have.

There were a lot of reminders like that around.

Oliver and I walked the train tracks, occasionally needing to step off so we could walk around a carriage. I never looked through the windows, I knew there would be long-dead bodies inside. Perhaps they might even be only skeletons now. Whatever remained, they would still be in there.

We would always return to the tracks, however, knowing we were at no risk of getting run over. Not even ghosts could drive trains.

We had debated whether it was safer to walk out in the open like we were or whether it would be better to stick to the shadows of the buildings.

Considering anything could hide in the shadows, we decided to take our chances in the open. So far, nobody had hassled us. Anyone we passed just watched with suspicion, their gaze never leaving us until we passed.

But it only took one glance to get the attention of the spirits. My eyes had lingered on one for only a second longer than it should have.

One second too many.

“She can see us!” the spirit shrieked, racing toward me without needing to move her feet. She would have been in her twenties had she not died. She was pretty too, with honey-streaked brown hair framing her delicate face.

It was the younger adults that always pained me the most. Only a few years separated them from those that had survived the Event. They didn’t get a proper chance to live before