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

his own life at risk to help me escape,” Ryder told him. Her worry resurfaced. She hoped that Terrier hadn’t been punished for her escape. The women and kids needed him to protect them from dickwads like Shane. She missed the kids’ smiling happy faces. They were a breath of fresh air, the thing that had kept her going for all these years.

She couldn’t wait to see the joy on their faces when she set them free.

Ryder realized that Carter had been quiet for a bit, which was totally out of character from him.

“What’s up?”

“Just thinking about my sister. She was taken when she was a kid, but she’d be an adult by now, twenty-one,” Carter explained.

Ryder felt sick to the pit of her stomach; she knew that it was the worst for the women around that age. “What’s her name?” she asked. There were a lot of women in the bunker, and Ryder knew most of them due to the time she and Terrier spent on Level Six with the kids.

“Natalie,” Carter told her.

Natalie? Ryder looked at Carter’s face and tried to see if she could recognize anything of the Natalie who looked after the kids in the children’s room. It was too damn hard to tell because of all his damn facial hair.

Carter read Ryder’s expression and his eyes widened. “You know her, don’t you?” he demanded.

Ryder could hear the hope in his voice. “Possibly? There are about one hundred women in the bunker and more than a few Natalies. If your face wasn’t so overgrown, I’d be able to work out if it was the woman I was thinking of.”

Carter pulled a knife from his belt. “I’ll cut it all off, right now.”

“Chill.” She pushed the hand holding the knife down gently. “What color eyes and hair does she have?”

“Brown, like mine. Natalie loved her hair as well. She would never let our mom cut it. She wanted it to grow it so long that she could sit on it. Mom used to braid it for her…” Carter trailed off, playing with the braids in his beard absently.

Ryder patted him on the back. “Now don’t get your hopes up, but there is a Natalie who I know very well. She was taken from the mountain settlement, and she works with the kids on Level Six. Also, her hair is long enough that she can sit on it.” She held back the part about her being pregnant. Ryder knew she’d have to mention it soon, but for right now she just wanted to let Carter enjoy this moment. She really hoped that her friend Natalie was Carter’s sister.

His face lit up. It actually looked like it was glowing. “That has to be her! My big sis is alive!” Carter clapped Ryder on the arm and set off at a skip. “Let’s catch up to those two. Natalie, I’m coming for you!”

Once Sergei and Yegor were sure that Ryder and the others were gone they headed toward Massimo’s house. The ground in front of the house was bloodstained where Ryder had killed the man with the red eyes. He’d heard Ryder call him Mad. He thought that was as good a name as any for the people with the disease.

Sergei shook it off and tried the door. When he found it was locked, he waved Yegor off to find a way in. They looked around the outside of the house for something to pry the door open with, but turned up empty-handed after a quick search.

Sergei growled and kicked the door. “We need to get inside and find our weapons.”

“Maybe some of that food we smelled, too,” Yegor added hopefully.

“Fuck this,” Sergei cursed. He picked up a brick and threw it at a window in frustration.

Both men were startled by the smash when the brick went through the glass.

“It’s not like that thick shit back in the bunker that doesn’t break,” Sergei told Yegor. He gave the other man a little shove. “Go on, climb in.”

“I thought I was lookout!”

“Do you want to go inside and find our shit, or not?”

“Fine.” Yegor pulled the glass shards out of the window frame and climbed in. There was a thud when he landed. “I’m fine,” he yelled.

“Who the fuck cares? Just hurry up and get the door open, asshole.” Sergei glanced around nervously. It’s like he wants to get caught.

Sergei peered through the window. Inside looked like a miniature version of Level One in the bunker. The house was filled with soft furnishings, with a dining table and the chairs around it, and a seating area along a shelved wall filled with books. Sergei couldn’t see Yegor for a moment. Then he spotted Yegor’s hand on the door of a cupboard at the back of the room.

Sergei rapped on the front door. “Let me in, you fucking useless muppet,” he hissed. “Yegor!”

Yegor ambled over and opened the door, chewing on a mouthful of the chicken drumstick he had in his hand. “All right! What’s your hurry?”

Sergei shoved past Yegor and snatched his food from him.

Yegor made a weak grab for the chicken leg. “Hey, that was mine!”

Sergei took a big bite, chewing the meat deliberately. “Get outside, dumbass. One of us has to be lookout!”

Yegor stormed out, muttering to himself as he went.

“That’s what you get for running off.” Sergei headed to the cupboard that Yegor had gotten the chicken from. When he opened the door, he discovered it was hiding a fridge filled with food. He took a plate from the sideboard and piled it high with the goodies in the fridge.

Yegor poked his head back around the door, “No one’s coming. I can get a plate, then sit on the porch and watch.”

Sergei rolled his eyes. “Okay, whatever. Just hurry up.”

Yegor was shoulders-deep in the fridge before Sergei could change his mind. He emerged a minute later with his plate piled high with as much as he could fit on it.

He winked at Sergei and grabbed a