No Ordinary Day by Tate, Harley (best large ereader .txt) 📕

No Ordinary Getaway

A Post-Apocalyptic Survival Thriller

Harley Tate

Copyright © 2021 by Harley Tate. Cover and internal design © by Harley Tate. Cover image copyright © Deposit Photos and NeoStock, 2021.

All rights reserved.

The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.

The use of stock photo images in this e-book in no way imply that the models depicted personally endorse, condone, or engage in the fictional conduct depicted herein, expressly or by implication. The person(s) depicted are models and are used for illustrative purposes only.

Contents

No Ordinary Getaway

1. Emma

2. Raymond

3. Emma

4. John

5. Emma

6. Gloria

7. Emma

8. John

9. Emma

10. John

11. Emma

12. Emma

13. John

14. John

15. Emma

16. Holly

17. Emma

18. Emma

19. John

20. Emma

21. Willy

22. Raymond

23. Holly

24. Emma

25. Emma

26. Raymond

27. John

28. Dane

Also by Harley Tate

Acknowledgments

About Harley Tate

No Ordinary Getaway

A Post-Apocalyptic Survival Thriller

Can you ever trust a man hired to kill you?

Emma survived the collapse of the power grid, chaos in a sporting goods store, and a run in with the wrong end of a shotgun. But nothing prepares her for discovering that she’s trusted the wrong man.

Does the past determine our future?

John turned his back on everything he knew to keep Emma alive. If he fails to complete the job, it’s only a matter of time before more hitmen come their way. But this time, they’ll be gunning for him, too.

The apocalypse makes strange bedfellows.

With chaos unfolding all around them, Emma, John, and their friends are forced to flee. It’s a race against technology, tenacity, and time. Not everyone will make it out unscathed.

The EMP is only the beginning.

No Ordinary Getaway is book two in the No Ordinary Day series, a post-apocalyptic thriller series following ordinary people struggling to survive when an EMP plunges the United States into chaos.

Subscribe to Harley’s newsletter to receive updates about new releases, free content, and more.

www.harleytate.com/subscribe

Chapter One

Emma

“Arms out straight. Fingers curled over each other like this.” John demonstrated the proper grip on the handgun again and Emma mimicked it, fingers wrapping around the grip as she straightened her arms. “No, don’t lock your elbows. You need to absorb the recoil, not brace against it.”

Emma blew a puff of frustrated breath from her lips and took a step away from John. “Who knew shooting was so complicated? In the movies, holding a gun any which way works just fine.” She waved her free hand in his general direction. “You sound like my chemistry professor in college. He hated my pathetic attempt at equation work.”

John cracked a smile. “Shooting takes work just like anything else. It’s a skill to learn. You didn’t hop on a bike and learn the first day. This is no different.”

Emma frowned, more at herself than at John. She wished none of this were necessary. After fleeing the confines of Atlanta for a secluded cabin in the North Georgia mountains, she hoped anyone searching for her would be thrown off the trail for a good, long while. “Do you really think someone will still come after us?”

John favored his ribs as he shifted position, gunshot wound giving him grief despite the sutures. “I do.”

“The grid collapse meant nothing, then? When half the country is either looting or being looted and everyone is in full-fledged panic mode, guys like you are still coming after me?” Emma shook her head. It didn’t seem possible. Despite every news station playing it off as nothing to worry about, a massive geomagnetic storm and resulting EMP fried the electrical grid of the United States, part of Canada, and possibly into Mexico.

Four days later, every American now grappled with the same issues of food, water, and shelter. Basic survival. But Emma and her coworker Gloria faced a potentially larger threat: a hired gun determined to silence them before testifying in front of Congress. She glanced at John. “It doesn’t make sense. We’re teetering on the edge of catastrophe. Even hired guns have to know that.”

“Dane isn’t one to give up even if the world goes to hell.”

Emma blinked. “Who’s Dane?”

John hesitated.

A rush of guilt twisted Emma’s gut and she raised a hand. “If you don’t want to talk about it—”

He shook his head. “I just never have, that’s all. The code, you know? Don’t go talking about being an assassin, that sort of thing.” He shot her a rueful smile as his hand drifted to the back of his neck. “Dane is technically my boss, but I owe him my life. If it weren’t for him, I don’t know where I’d be today.”

Emma scoffed. “Probably not killing people for a living.”

“True.” He snorted in agreement. “But after Afghanistan, I wasn’t right. What we did, what we saw—it messed me up. Most of my unit, too. Dane brought us all back together, dragged me out of the hole I’d been living in, a couple of the other guys, too.”

“Like a family?” Emma offered.

John nodded a fraction. “I suppose. Never thought about it that way, but the closest thing to a family I’d had for a long time.” He kicked a rock wedged into a clump of mud. “I entered the military after my mom died. Cancer when she was forty-seven. Never knew my dad. The Marines gave me purpose, somewhere to belong.”

Tension poured off John in waves, thick and heavy. He ground his heel into the soft earth and stared at some point beyond her head. Emma gave him time, and after a minute, he continued. “I didn’t have to question anything, think about anything. Just did what my superiors told me. At the end of the day, I hung out with other guys just like me. It was easy.”

Emma smiled in encouragement, even though he wasn’t looking. “And when you left?”

A weighted sigh slipped out with his breath. “After Dominic and Sam died in that accident, ambush, whatever we were supposed to call it, I was