Spirits of the Earth: The Complete Series: (A Post-Apocalyptic Series Box Set: Books 1-3) by Milo Fowler (paper ebook reader .TXT) 📕

"Are you Arienna?" Erik grins at her. Not nearly as suave as he tried to be with me.

"Am I under arrest?" She looks at me, glancing briefly at my weapon.

"No." I shake my head. "Should you be?" Stupid question. I feel awkward, and I hate it.

Erik chuckles. "Meet your sister, Sera!"

Arienna's frown takes root. "Who are you?"

"I'm one of the Twenty. I work as an enforcer in Dome 1. My name is Sera Chen." I feel like I said those three out of order.

"Something we have in common," Erik clarifies. "We're all members of the Twenty. I'd shake your hand, but you're just a bit out of reach."

Why don't you jump? I ask him, mind to mind.

He ignores me.

"Of course. Sorry." Arienna glides toward the ground and deactivates the hoverbike as it settles onto the turf. She dismounts from the saddle and reaches out her hand, shaking first with Erik, then me. "Dome 1? I hear things are a little crazy over there right now."

"They've been better," I allow.

"So what are you doing here? Looking for me?" She laughs it off.

"Actually—"

"With the banquet coming up, we thought it might be nice to have a little pre-reunion reunion," Erik says. "You know, to make things less awkward than they're bound to be at that fancy shindig."

He's smooth, I'll give him that.

"The banquet is still on? I thought—with the terrorist threat…" she trails off as Erik and I glance at each other.

We really haven't thought this through. I assumed he knew what he was doing, but maybe he's just winging it. Nothing about his early interactions with me seemed very well-planned, either.

"Not to be rude, but I don't remember either of you. Or anything from that time when we were kids." She shakes her head, the frown still in place. "Those memories have always been really fuzzy…"

She's staring at the palm of Erik's outstretched hand and what's sitting in it: a small device the size and shape of a grenade, pulsing with an electric-blue light.

He smiles at her. "Would you like to remember who you are?"

12 Daiyna5 Years After All-Clear

The Wastelanders have made me their queen.

So much for never having a woman lead them, or for women being good for only two things: sustenance and sex. I made it clear that they won't be eating anybody from here on out. They'll have to go on a meatless diet until one of them wants to challenge me for leadership of the tribe. They glanced at each other in those weird skull-masks, but nobody took me up on it. And that would have been the best time to take a swing at me, since I was still recovering from being nearly crushed to death by Cain.

They didn't understand my aversion to cannibalism, or why Shechara and Samson backed me up. They couldn't believe the three of us have survived this long without any meat. Samson decided it was appropriate to wax religious, and he ended up sounding like Luther. Telling them we were made in the image of God, and that it's wrong to consume the flesh of a fellow image-bearer. That elicited a few more glances among the marauders as they tried to make sense out of what he was saying.

I kept it simple: "You eat anybody ever again, I shoot you in the head." I waved my 9mm at them as a visual.

They nodded. That they understood.

So now we're headed to Eden, since I promised them a taste of the good life. Here's hoping I can leave them there, fat and happy with air conditioning and running water. Maybe I'll appoint one of them as my successor. Let them duke it out with the Edenites to see who gets to stay, and who gets banished. Or they can figure out some way to coexist. Hell, maybe even join forces to fight off the UW raiders, keep them from taking everything of value.

Not that there's much left. I have a feeling the raiders will soon be moving on to greener pastures, scavenging from other city ruins farther east. The Edenites will starve to death, and the Wastelanders will eat them, most likely. And that's fine by me. Shechara, Samson, and I will be long gone, free to do our own scavenging far away from the whole lot of them.

"I don't believe you," Shechara says, leaning against me in the back of the jeep as Samson drives us across the rough terrain. The Wastelanders on their dirt bikes flank us and follow us, jumping into the air, doing their stunts and tricks along the way. Cain sits up front next to Samson. We've got the extra-crispy ex-warlord bound and gagged, but he keeps grunting as if we care about anything he has to say. "I think you want to kill him."

"Him?" I point at the back of Cain's hideous head. No hair, no skin. Just nasty burned flesh.

"Not him. Perch—in Eden. You still want him dead."

Of course I do. But I tried taking him out before, and I ended up getting too many good people killed in the process. Not a chance I would ever risk that again, especially not with Shechara here. I pull her close and give her a squeeze.

"My killing days are over. Don't believe me? Ask this guy." I kick the back of Cain's seat, and he lets out an angry grunt.

"You showed a lot of restraint, all things considered," Samson allows. His black goggles glance at me in the rearview mirror. "But I'm still unclear about our return to Eden. You promised these Wastelanders milk and honey, but that requires getting inside to procure said milk and honey. I've got a feeling Perch has that place sealed up tighter than a bunker on D-Day."

"And isn't there a bounty on your head?" Shechara whispers, looking at Cain as if she doesn't want him to overhear. "What's to keep these Wastelanders from turning you in and collecting it?"

I nudge