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

to the barn and trying to remember if she’d locked the door when she came back in. Yes, she was a hundred percent sure she had. She’d even turned back around to check twice. It was locked. She still asked, “Was the main door locked?”

“Yeah, I had to unlock it to go out,” Tristan told her. “I would’ve noticed that immediately.”

“Where are you going?”

Tristan was at the door with Spencer, “Lock the house. I’ll be back. We need to track wherever the footprints would’ve gone.”

With that, they departed without another word.

“Are the rest of us all still here?” Avery asked, feeling her hysteria build.

“Yeah, it’s okay, Ave,” Abraham told her. “I checked. It was just the three girls.”

“Did one of those men find them? Maybe there were more than the ones at Jeff’s mansion,” Renee suggested.

“Impossible,” Abraham stated firmly.

“Right, Abraham,” Renee agreed and shook her head.

Avery chewed her lip and said, “I think I should go out and help.”

Her brother stayed her with his hand on her shoulder, “No, Ave. We need to stay inside, like Tristan said. They’ll be back. They just want to see if a trail was left.”

“I have to do something,” she said with a nod anyway and went back the long hall to the room the girls were sharing. The sisters hadn’t wanted to be separated, so they’d moved a twin mattress into the room and had placed it on the floor in between the other twin beds.

“What are you doing, Ave?” Renee asked.

“I have no idea. Looking for evidence. Clues. Something.”

Her frustration was high, but she wanted to help. Renee must’ve felt the same and entered the room and began inspecting the windows that were still boarded up. The sun had risen completely, so she turned on the overhead lights. The room was actually neat, tidy even. Nothing looked ransacked or as if there’d been a struggle.

“I don’t see anything,” Renee said. “They must’ve been taken through the house and out the back door as Abraham said.”

“Right,” she agreed and looked around, still puzzled.

Then it struck her.

“Hey, their clothing and things we’d found for them are gone. Whoever took them took all their things with them, too?”

“What? Oh, yeah. They did,” Renee agreed.

“Ave! They’re back!” Abraham bellowed down the hall toward them.

When she got there, Tristan and Spencer were standing in the foyer. Roman was also with them, though.

“Roman!” she stated with surprise. “What are you doing here?”

“He came to see us,” Tristan said. “Ran into him on the road. That’s where the tracks led us.”

“Sit down,” Roman implored. “I have something to tell everyone.”

His manner seemed grave, his intent full of purpose. They removed their wet boots, and everyone sat at the dining table to hear what he had to tell them. It didn’t seem like good news.

Chapter Twenty

Roman

“I can’t believe I have to tell you guys this, but Noah is gone. He left this note,” he stated. His blue eyes flashing, he added angrily, “Traitorous bastard. Sorry.”

Tristan cleared his throat and read it aloud to everyone,

“To the group,

I am leaving, and Clara, Remmie, and Bianca are going with me. Bianca wants to find her mother and believes she is in Columbus. We are in love, and I want to help her. This group sucks. You expect too much from everyone. You will fail. We have found a group in Columbus, a big community there called New Jamestown that is set up on better social laws and the principles of the first colony. There’s nothing here for us but toil and struggle. I am only taking what I feel is my fair share.

Noah.”

“What’d he take?” Spencer asked angrily.

“Jane’s father’s truck for starters. His own probably wouldn’t start. I kept telling him to maintain the one he took from his grandmother’s house up north. The gas line was probably froze up. He also banged up the front-end last week going too fast on the snow when he was sent on a run to town with Bianca and slid into a parked car, remember?”

They all nodded. Tristan told Roman after it happened that he was furious with Noah because Bianca said he was driving too fast and doing a lot of complaining about the group, so he wasn’t paying attention. Now Roman wished Tristan would’ve laid into him for it.

“What else?” Tristan asked, even angrier.

“Food, supplies, three of our guns, and four boxes of ammo,” Roman answered. He was livid. “That shorts us.”

“But the girls,” Avery worried. “They’re going to be in danger. Columbus will be no better than any other big city. We saw that firsthand everywhere. What’s he talking about?”

“The idiot thinks he’s going down there to join some socialism-style commune,” Roman explained. “I think that’s what he means by the first colony bullshit. They nearly starved to death. Many did. Apparently, he didn’t learn much in college.”

“Lazy bastard,” Tristan swore. “He never did shit around here.”

“And now he’s put the girls in danger,” Spencer remarked impatiently. “And you’re right. He didn’t contribute much here, so what makes him think it’s gonna be so much easier there?”

“How long have they been gone?” Tristan asked.

“We’re not sure. Maybe ten hours? Maybe more? When was the last time you guys saw the girls?”

Avery answered, “Last night right after dinner. They went to their room. Left a note on their door that said they weren’t feeling well and didn’t wish to be disturbed.”

“Noah?” Spencer asked Roman.

“About the same. It was right before we came over for dinner. When we got home, he’d left a similar note pinned to the blankets we’d hung in the loft so that he’d have a little more privacy. There’s no door or walls in the loft where he sleeps.”

“Was the truck missing when you got there?” Spencer asked.

Roman shrugged. “Not sure. We didn’t even check. It was parked on the other side of the house. I doubt if any of us would’ve even thought to look. The house was locked from the inside, so we used the key to get in.