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

to be careful. He probably moved on after he realized there was nothing to be had here without a fight.”

Jane nodded but was concerned. “We should tell the others.”

Roman agreed. “After riding lessons. Want to learn?”

Maureen scoffed. “Hardly. Unless it’s a V8, I’m not interested. Never did like animals.”

“Oh,” Roman said as if surprised.

As they were walking away again, her mother called out, “I think he was injured.”

“Injured? Yeah, it sounds like you beat him up pretty good,” Roman said, turning back.

“No, not from me. When he had me on the ground, I kneed him in the side. He flinched pretty hard, and that’s how I got him off me. He rolled off, holding his side.” Her mother shrugged. “I dunno’. Just seemed like he was already injured, maybe stabbed recently or something.”

“Interesting,” Roman concurred with a nod. “Thanks for the good description. It should help us a lot.”

They left her mother at the house and joined the others, who were doing very well with their lesson. Renee was in a really good mood lately for some reason and had even invited the girls over the other day where she held a dance party in her apartment. Spencer had been kicked out. It was fun while it had lasted, but as soon as the sun set, the party was officially over, and they were back to living in nocturnal silence and darkness.

Jane joined in, and they eventually took the horses out of the enclosure and went on a short trail ride with Renee leading the way. The snow was deep, but the animals had left clear paths that went through the middle of the pastures, around the perimeter of the same pastures, and up through the woods, as well. It was bright out, safe without those things coming out of the shadows towards them, but they were also armed, too. They rode for about an hour before Renee signaled for their turnaround. Back at the barn, they were greeted by a herd of playful goats and their cute babies, and Renee instructed them to place the horses in their new stalls that Abraham and their equally new friend, Benjamin Miller, had recently built. When she had hers brushed down, and she’d used the sweat scrape on the mare, as well, Jane left her tied in her stall as Renee had told them to do. Then she went to find Roman. Instead, she heard some frustration coming from the stall next to hers and stopped there.

“Noah, need some help?” she asked her friend.

He sighed and chuckled, “I’m not my grandmother. Never had an interest in the horses much.”

She entered the stall, secured temporarily with just a piece of plywood on hinges with simple sliding locks. Tristan said they’d fortify the stalls and any other new animal construction better when the weather improved.

“Oh, that’s no problem,” she stated. “I’ll help you.”

Noah was wearing his college hoodie and had hung his coat on the hook outside the stall door. The green and yellow colors of his university’s hoodie brought out the ginger red of his blonde hair. It had always been so blonde when he’d visited in the summers. It certainly darkened down with winter and with its new shaggy length below his ears.

“Thanks,” he replied with a smile of gratitude as she loosened the cinch, threading it back through the front rigging dee for neater storage. The tack room was in the bottom of this barn, a small area the boys had also built with racks for saddles made out of two-by-fours and bridle holders that were just long construction spikes nailed halfway into the wall. It wasn’t anything fancy, not like Mrs. Goddard’s tack room where everything was polished and cleaned weekly, but it was functional.

Once they had the gelding’s tack removed, she helped Noah brush and blade the horse, too. Somewhere in the barn, she could hear their group laughing. Roman had a loud laugh, and Abraham’s followed. It was good, a good day when people laughed again. That was so rare now.

“Jane,” Noah said, gaining her attention.

“Hm?”

He stepped closer and stopped brushing down the horse’s legs.

“I’ve been thinking,” he said.

“About what?”

She stopped using the sweat blade and faced him since his tone suddenly seemed so serious.

“Um, I’m not so sure I want to stay here.”

“What do you mean?” Jane asked with a wrinkled brow. “You seem a little…happier lately.”

She didn’t want to be rude and point out his obvious bouts of depression or his lack of helping out or joining in.

He shook his head subtly. “These people all know each other. They’re family and all. They’re not my family. I don’t particularly like it around here. I’d like to leave and go south towards Columbus. I’ve heard of communities banding together down there for survival, neighborhoods full of people.”

“When did you hear that?”

“On the radio a few weeks ago. I think that sounds more ideal than this. There’s nothing out here in the middle of nowhere.”

“But we’re safe here, Noah.”

Lately, his mood had improved, and she thought he was doing so much better since coming to live with them. The death of his father and grandmother had been hard on him, and he’d been stuck in a funk of depression for months. But recently, he seemed more uplifted in spirit than he used to be. Apparently, her assessment had been wrong.

“Yeah, but this is ridiculous,” he complained.

“What is?”

“Never being able to do what we want. Being told constantly what to do, where we can and can’t go, everything. I’m an adult. I don’t need to live like this.”

“But it’s for our safety.”

He shrugged. “We can be safe somewhere else. I want to live in a community with other people like me. I don’t fit in with these people. Bianca and another girl who was a prisoner, one that escaped, had also heard of this place in Columbus. It’s safe there. Run by a group of people who are all working together. She thinks it would be safer there, too,