The Gender Game 2 by Bella Forrest (audio ebook reader .TXT) 📕

were nothing compared to this. It was the sound of a massive body of water crashing on the earth—angry and loud. I turned my flashlight, and saw flashes of red making a beeline for us. We had paused for too long.

“Run,” I shouted, turning on my heel. Viggo had already started running with me. I was relieved to see that he was carrying Ms. Dale, but in a few minutes, it might not matter.

Once again, I was going to be responsible for the deaths of the people I cared about. But I wasn’t ready to give up yet.

I ran behind Viggo, keeping up with him as fear fueled our legs to move fast. I kept a canister of aerosol ready, just in case.

The buzzing drew nearer, and as the light from my flashlight bounced over the ground, I saw a flash of crimson. It hit me in the chest.

I looked down in time to see it shoving its needle nose into the flesh of my skin. I slapped it, feeling its body crunch under my hand, its crushed body spurting the blood it had just absorbed all over my shirt and chest. I noticed more coalescing, and could see that one was on the back of Viggo’s neck. I quickly used the aerosol container, and sprayed it.

It fell off, but more were coming.

The insidious thing about red flies, I realized, was that you could hardly feel their bite. Another one landed on me, using its six long legs to clamp down on my skin. For all I knew, there were already a hundred on my back, draining me dry.

I smashed that one, and began spraying the aerosol can behind me, trying to ward them away. It helped, a little. I raced up so that I was running alongside Viggo, spraying us both with the can.

“Here,” I shouted over the cacophony of noise. I thrust the flashlight into his hand and pulled out the other aerosol.

I began spraying both of us in a frenzy. Wave after wave of red flies swooped in to bite us, but they veered off whenever I was spraying the mist. I was keeping them away by doing it, but it was only a temporary measure—I would run out of spray long before they lost interest in us.

Viggo was faltering under Ms. Dale’s weight. I could tell from how he was running. He was winded, and constantly trying to shift her weight around so that they wouldn’t trip, but he couldn’t keep it up for much longer.

Then the flashlight beam cut across some trees, and I saw a blinding flash of white peeking through the green and brown fronds. It was hard to see, like the trees and leaves were there intentionally, keeping it hidden.

As my mind raced, the light again cut across it, stunning my eyes with its brightness. I remembered the flash of white that I had seen from the canopy, before I had crashed. And now again here.

From the air, I hadn’t really been able to make it out. Down here… it seemed uniform. Consistently the same. The white was unnatural and foreign, way out of place for The Green. My mind was scrambling to try and identify it.

Whatever it was, it was worth checking out. I grabbed Viggo’s arm, shouting for him to follow, and then cut toward it. I pushed through the dense undergrowth and when I emerged on the other side, I almost stopped moving when I realized what it was. Excitement coursed through me, and I yelled for Viggo again.

It was a building.

19

Viggo

Running while carrying a woman is no easy feat, even for someone in as good a shape as I was. Running for your life while carrying a woman was an impossible task. I wasn’t even sure how I was accomplishing it at this point. It was like I had flipped a switch in my mind that had turned off everything essential, except what I needed to run. It felt mechanical, like I was a robot, only capable of running, yet it freed my mind to think about some things.

I hated suggesting that we leave Ms. Dale behind. It was a practical suggestion, but it still didn’t sit right with me. I knew that Violet had, and likely was, still considering it. I understood her hesitation, I shared it with her. I wasn’t eager to have someone’s death on my hands.

I imagined it was worse for Violet. She had seen so much death the past few days, and been responsible for more than a few. I could tell that her decision to rescue Ms. Dale was a bit of a selfish one, for multiple reasons.

The first was that the two women shared an emotional connection. Violet was downplaying it, but I had picked up on it when she had talked about her. There was an affection there, which made sense, considering Ms. Dale had clearly been a mentor for Violet.

The death that had been haunting Violet for a while was also playing a major role in her decision. I could see the guilt and regret in her eyes when she talked about the deaths of the last few days—she hadn’t wanted anyone to die—she felt responsible. Because of that, it was like she was trying to prove to herself, and the world, that she could actually save someone. I wasn’t sure that Violet was aware of that drive, but it was readily apparent to me.

But I could also tell that Violet wasn’t only considering her emotions in saving Ms. Dale. There was a logical reasoning behind it. Violet had questions, and Ms. Dale could have some answers. It was all about surviving until she could get those answers.

I couldn’t blame Violet for being selfish: I had questions as well. The mysterious egg that was the focus of all this, and Lee’s letter… It was nagging at me, like an unfinished puzzle with missing pieces. I guessed that was why I decided to become a warden. A lot