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

“What…” she started to ask the meaning of that foreign word but stopped. “Wait, do I want to know?”

She grinned and chuckled before walking away down the hall toward Avery’s sickroom again. Jane’s stomach gurgled, but not from hunger. She was nervous, scared to be more precise.

They piled into Tristan’s truck, which Roman told her he went out and poured more gasoline into from a can. Then Roman said he was worried about where they were going to continue finding gas in the coming weeks and possibly months.

Tristan overheard them as he drove and said, “I’ve been thinking about that, too. I think we’re going to need to hit a gas station in town and syphon it out of the pump directly. We took a lot from the bus garage in town, but I know there’s more gas at my base and probably some at the stations in town.”

“Do you know how to do that? Isn’t it buried in tanks underground?” Elijah asked.

“Yeah, but it shouldn’t be that hard,” Tristan said. “Why don’t you guys start thinking about how to do it and figure out what we need. I know there used to be a small hardware store in town. Surely, they’ve still got stuff if we need supplies.”

“Maybe,” Jane said quietly. “Where is this place we’re going?”

“It’s actually on the way to where Renee used to live, or I guess where her family’s farm was. She lived in the small town in an apartment above a tax account. Her folks lived outside of it. It’s between our town and that one.”

“What road are we looking for?” Elijah asked.

“Bramblewood,” he told them. “Should be after we turn. I forgot that wreck’s in the intersection, so we’re going to have to circumvent it.”

“We did that earlier,” Elijah told them. “I think I remember the way.”

“Good, you navigate,” Tristan said after turning on the windshield wipers. It was snowing, but the accumulation was more of an icy mix that pinged off the windshield and the truck’s hood and roof. Jane hated this kind of weather and was thankful she didn’t have to drive.

She jumped when she felt Roman’s hand cover hers as the others talked in the front seats. He pulled off her glove and pressed a kiss to the back of her hand. She offered a smile but felt the weight of her nerves tugging it back down.

“Kaia gave me some granola to share with you,” she offered and dug it out of her backpack. She noticed that Tristan and Elijah were also eating and drinking. “And some kind of weird energy drink. I think it’s from another country. I couldn’t read the label.”

“Thanks,” he said and took a palmful of granola. “This is good.”

It tasted like dry twigs and sawdust, but it wasn’t. Her mouth was just too full of sour acidity to taste anything right now. Instead of dwelling on it, she swigged the drink, which was surprisingly good and tasted like cherries or raspberries.

“We’ll be okay,” he said softly as Elijah talked about going to Ohio State on a football scholarship with Tristan, who’d asked about his sports career. “Don’t worry. Just stay close. Anything that isn’t one of us, just shoot.”

She nodded. She was used to a handgun, but tonight, she was carrying a small black rifle like she’d used last night when they’d rescued that other girl. She’d even shot a night crawler that had been creeping up on her and Roman. The rifle was somewhat short, nothing like her father’s hunting rifle with the heavy, wooden stock. It wasn’t heavy, but it felt odd on her lap. She knew how to use it because Roman had shown her and the others at the house the other day. Tristan had given them a few weapons like this one, for which she was eternally thankful.

“Here it is,” Tristan announced before turning onto the township road. “Boy, nobody’s come down here in a while.”

The truck jerked to the side as it struggled to find its grip in the deep snow, now crusted with a thick layer of ice.

“Up ahead about a mile or so should be Jasmine Road,” he announced as the wipers beat a fast cadence that was still slower than her heartbeat.

“There!” Elijah said.

Tristan turned left again, and the steep hill ahead of them seemed insurmountable, even in this truck.

“Hang on,” he said, undaunted as he gave it gas and let it climb.

Once they crested the hill, the land flattened out, but out every window was just woods, acres and acres of heavily wooded land. It somehow made the area seem even darker, especially since it was so rural with no street lamps, no lights from homes or barns. There technically weren’t homes or barns or people, either. It was very secluded, and that seemed like the perfect location for what they were about to encounter. Having no neighbors was probably imperative to what this evil man had done by buying another human from someone equally evil. Bad people needed solitude and isolation to do bad things.

“Past a big red barn and then a white silo,” he told them.

“There’s a barn,” Elijah said.

They drove another mile, and the white silo came into view, which was very faded and chipped and mostly dark metal with just a little white still there.

“That’s the lane,” Tristan said and pulled up to a stop and cut the lights. “I’m going to back up and leave the truck here. I don’t want to pull down the lane. Jeff said this guy’s a real whackjob. If we run into trouble, I don’t want to have to back out if there’s nowhere to turn around.”

“Good idea,” Roman said and removed his leather gloves and set them on the seat. He faintly whispered to her, “Get ready.”

Jane took off her gloves, too, figuring it would probably be easier to shoot if she had to, which she assumed was the reason he did so.

“What if someone steals the truck?”