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

his neck. He didn’t want to get in an argument with Carter, and he couldn’t let him know it pissed him off when he called him Fluffy or he’d do it even more.

Carter smirked. “You got fleas, Fluffy?”

“Fleas only live on dirty animals,” Leandro huffed. “They’d be right at home in your matted beard.” He leaned forward and pointed at Carter’s beard. “I can see fleas moving. Ryder, come see this. Carter’s got a family of fleas living in his beard!” Leandro grinned.

Ryder chuckled. One point to Leandro. “I can!” She joined the Were’s teasing, poking Carter’s cheek. “Look, Leandro! It looks like they’re setting up home in his ear.”

Carter’s smug grin faded instantly. His hand went to his ear and involuntarily brushed at the invisible fleas. “Quit fucking around! Come on, are we going to get on with this or not? If not, then I’m going back to sleep.” Carter sulked.

Leandro nodded at the floor. They could hear singing from Massimo’s room downstairs. “We’ve got to wait for my dad. He’ll just be a minute.”

Ryder took the few free moments to distract herself by looking at the filled bookshelves. Mama Lou would love it here. She pulled one of the books down. It was thinner than most of the others, and the paper was glossy.’

Leandro noticed her interest. “That’s a magazine. They’re like books, just not filled with stories. More image-based,” Leandro told her. Carter came over to examine the magazine, still scratching his face. He looked like he really did have fleas now.

Ryder flicked through the pages, scared that she’d rip one if she weren’t careful. They were filled with brightly-colored pictures of smiling people. On one page was the cutest thing she’d ever seen—a picture of a woman carrying a bag with a puppy in it. The woman was grinning, and Ryder would swear that the puppy was as well. It was a doggy bag.

I wonder if they come in Fluffy-sized?

“Do you have one of those bags?” Ryder asked as she snickered internally at the thought of Fluffy’s legs sticking out of the bottom of the bag. “I’ve never seen anything so damn adorable. A puppy bag!” Ryder beamed as she looked at it.

Leandro shook his head. “We don’t have that kind of stuff here.”

Carter looked at her as though she’d lost it. “I don’t get it.”

“What’s not to get?” Ryder waved the picture in Carter’s face. “She has a puppy. In a bag! It’s so cute! I want one. Leandro, would they have one at the abandoned mall?” she asked, excited.

Leandro grinned. “I’m going to say that one hundred percent they will have one of those at the abandoned mall. It’s not really the first or last thing people grab when the world’s ending.”

Ryder grinned. “Their loss. I can’t wait to go to the mall!”

An abrupt pounding at the front door made them all jump, startling them from their revelry.

“Who’s that?” Leandro demanded. “Are they trying to break my door down?”

The pounding continued relentlessly as the three of them headed to the door to see who was causing the disturbance.

“What if it’s Afana’s men?” Ryder fretted. The insistent fists slamming against the door were not those of any ordinary visitor. Whoever it was, their knuckles would be bloody by now.

Carter shook his head. “More likely Maxwell. He probably got out of the chair I tied him to and followed us.”’

Leandro didn’t have a clue who it was, but he’d know soon enough. He flung the door open with such force that he almost jerked it off its frame.

Ryder recoiled at the sight of the man’s monstrous red eyes. He barged past Leandro into the house. The Madness had taken him, and he was in Leandro’s home.

Angry, weeping sores covered his face and arms, and his filthy clothing hung in tatters. His ripe stench preceded him into the house. He sprinted toward Carter, his outstretched hands grasping in his desperation to bite the terrified young man.

The Mad moaned. His mouth contorted into a gaping maw, blood and saliva dripping from it as he shambled forward, driven by the need to consume Carter’s flesh.

Unlike Ryder, the Mad didn’t carry any weapons. The Mad was too close for her arrows, but Ryder was ready.

Her hands wrapped around her knives and she shouldered Carter out of the way. Her knife flashed upward in a deadly arc, opening a bright red line across the throat of the monster before anyone else had a chance to react.

The Mad flailed as blood erupted from the gash in his neck, spraying the living room as his heart pumped its final beats.

The blood was wrecking Massimo’s house.

“Shit! Get it outside!” Leandro yelled

Ryder kicked the Mad in the chest, forcing him to pitch backward. The Mad tumbled out of the house and onto the porch, then fell down the steps and landed flat on his back on the ground.

The Mad’s neck was ruined, his grunts lost to the spluttered gasps he made as he choked on his own blood.

The two men watched in amazement as the Mad died. Ryder had singlehandedly taken out the Mad without batting an eyelid.

Carter grinned weakly as the adrenaline left him. “You’re one hell of a fighter, Ryder. Thanks for saving my life!”

Ryder returned his grin and bowed. “You’re welcome.”

“What the…” Massimo exclaimed from inside the house. He came outside and looked at the corpse at the foot of his steps with distaste. “Oh.”

Carter smirked, oblivious to the vampire’s discomfort. “Ryder took him out by herself. She’s nearly as good as me.”

Massimo wrinkled his nose. “Nice work, Ryder. Why don’t you come in and wash up? Leandro and Carter can clean up the mess before we leave.” Massimo took one last glance and walked back into the house.

He didn’t want to see the blood or smell it.

Chapter Four

Terrier and Peter had spent the night watching over the kids and women. Mama Lou joined them after she’d slept. So far, only Vera was infected with the disease. The three of them