Fate's Surrender (Eternal Sorrows Book 3) by Sarra Cannon (android based ebook reader txt) 📕

Crash was like a kid in a candy shop inside that place.

In the end, he only chose two guns and some extra ammo for himself. He also grabbed a hunting knife for Zoe and the smallest pistol he could find for the fifth. Crash hoped it wouldn’t come down to a couple of kids having to face the kinds of zombies they’d faced so far on their trip, but he wanted to make sure they had at least something to protect themselves if it came down to it.

There were so many other weapons he’d wanted to take, but carrying a bunch of guns while riding on a dirt bike was too impractical. It had truly hurt his heart to leave them all behind.

In a way, it had hurt everyone to leave the compound behind.

He could see it in their expressions as they drove through the gate, leaving safety behind them. It seemed stupid to head straight into the heart of hell like this, but it felt strangely powerful, too.

It felt like destiny.

Crash had been dreaming of this plague and the fallout it would cause for months before it actually began, and no matter how devastating it was, it was all exactly as it was meant to be.

And despite the danger they were speeding toward, there was still hope.

There was still a chance they could end all of this. But the only way to do it was to keep moving toward the danger, not hiding from it.

Crash kept his eyes on the road as things got more and more congested. According to satellite pictures and what Tank had told them, once they got about thirty miles from the city, the roads became parking lot graveyards.

They were going to need alternate means of transportation soon.

Leaving his beloved Humvee behind was definitely going to hurt, but it couldn’t be helped.

He just hoped they could make it to the bike shop before the roads got too bad.

They still hadn’t made contact with the fifth again yet, but as long as they were heading toward the coast, they’d be ready to head into the city as soon as the fifth was ready for them.

Crash kept his eyes on the satellite, and sure enough, about fifteen minutes into their trip, he saw exactly what he'd been looking for. He pulled off the road, waking up a sleeping Karmen in the back of the truck.

“Hey, what the hell,” she said. She sounded pissed, even though he’d told her it would be a short ride.

“Time to say goodbye to the Humvee,” he called back.

The website for this place claimed they sold everything from dirt bikes to golf carts to four wheelers. Crash just hoped there was some good merchandise still available, because from the looks of the outside, this place had been raided pretty hard a long time ago.

“I still don’t understand why we have to ride motorcycles,” Karmen said, yawning.

“We'll never make it to the water in this thing,” Crash said. “Things are already getting congested, and all the roads leading both north and east on my satellite are packed with random pile ups and impassable traffic jams. We need to be more mobile and able to dodge cars and wreckage if we’re going to make it to the waterfront today. If we can find four usable bikes inside, I think I can power all of them even if there’s no fuel.”

“Wait just a minute,” Karmen said, sitting up wide awake. “You expect me to ride on my own? Are you insane? I’ve never done this before.”

“It will be fine,” Noah said, always the patient one. “I’ll help you find a good one, or you can ride with me, if you want.”

“I still don't see why we can't at least try to use this heap of metal we're in right now?” she argued.

Crash guessed she was still pretty upset about the fact that they’d had to leave her Beast behind. They’d managed to lock him up last night so he couldn’t hurt anyone, but by morning, his body had already been massively corroded by whatever acidic power had been running through his veins. The Dark One’s magic was toxic, it seemed, even to the undead.

Besides, there was no way they were getting that thing to the coast and on a boat, although they did try to figure out a safe way to do it. Having a guy like that on their side would have come in handy in the city.

If they’d had more time, maybe they could have built some kind of cage for it that they could have hauled behind the truck, but even then, they would have never gotten the whole thing through traffic.

It didn’t matter, anyway, though. The guy was probably a pile of goo by now. Karmen would have to find a new pet in Manhattan.

Crash was sure she’d have her pick of super zombies once they got there.

“The Hummer’s gotten us through plenty of traffic jams so far,” she said. “Besides, the Z's can't bite through metal. On a motorcycle, we'll just be out in the open. Zombie food. We can just go around anything we find, right? This thing can go off-road.”

“The areas we’re going to are worse than anything we’ve seen so far,” Crash said.

Karmen continued to protest, but Crash wasn't in the mood to spar with her. They had some stressful crap coming up, and his body was still sore from the past two fights.

He didn’t have a speck of energy to spare.

From the look on Parrish's face, she felt the same way. He caught her eye and motioned toward the building. She nodded, opened her door, and stepped outside.

“What kind of bike is best, you think?” she asked. “You guys said to find a dirt bike or something that can do well off-road, but I honestly have no idea what to look for.”

“Let’s get inside and see what they have left,” he said. “Looks like we aren’t the first ones here. Probably people looking for a way out