Dark Stars by Danielle Rollins (best affordable ebook reader txt) 📕

up behind Ash without a sound, withdrew his gun from his holster and calmly pressed the barrel to Ash’s neck. Very slowly, Ash stood, lifting his arms. The soldier said something, but Dorothy couldn’t hear what it was over the sound of the wind rustling the tree branches. That was okay, she told herself. She didn’t need to hear their conversation. She’d heard it the first time around.

A moment later, another soldier appeared, along with a slightly younger, still-brunette Dorothy, Chandra, Willis, and Zora. Moments later, a large truck rumbled out of the trees, and the soldiers ushered them inside.

Dorothy exhaled. This was good. Everything was playing out exactly as she remembered it had. She crept forward, picking over twigs and rocks, careful not to make a sound as she ducked down behind the truck. While the soldiers were distracted, she tried the truck’s back door.

It wasn’t even locked. They were making it easy for her.

No one spoke as the truck lumbered through the trees. The only sounds were the rocks and brush crunching beneath the truck’s massive tires, and one of the soldiers clearing his throat again and again, like he needed a lozenge.

Dorothy was careful to remain hunched down in the back, and she kept her breathing soft and shallow, so she wouldn’t draw anyone’s attention. The woods were a green-and-black blur and rain slanted past her window, speckling the glass. If she craned her neck, just a little, she could watch their progress through the trees.

The truck followed a dirt path that curved out of the trees and deposited them onto a paved road lined by barbed-wire fences. Ahead, a line of soldiers stood guard in front of the Fort Hunter entrance, guns at the ready. Spotlights shone above them. The truck pulled to a stop, and Dorothy heard the slow rise and fall of voices. A moment later, the soldiers shifted aside, and the truck rumbled through.

Dorothy was just able to make out the words WELCOME TO FORT HUNTER COMPLEX on a far wall before the truck lumbered down a dark tunnel, the sound of its engine echoing off grimy brick as it slowed. Several more long minutes passed, and then they rolled to a stop in front of a white station that looked like an oversize tollbooth. The soldier guarding the station ambled over to their truck, gun at the ready.

Dorothy pressed her lips together. She didn’t remember the soldier searching the truck the first time she’d come through here but, still, she couldn’t help being nervous.

The driver rolled down the truck window, and he and the soldier talked for a bit before, finally, he nodded, stepping aside so they could drive past.

Dorothy exhaled through her teeth. She was in. Again.

She didn’t get out at the holding cell with the others but stayed huddled at the back of the truck until, finally, it rolled to a stop near a mess hall and parked. There was a rumble of voices and footsteps, and then the driver and the other soldiers climbed out, leaving her alone.

She counted to a hundred in her head and then, peeking over the top of the seat to make sure no one would see her, she climbed out herself.

Now, to find the Professor.

After an eternal trek through the dark, dank tunnel, Dorothy was certain she was lost. She’d been walking through the darkness for what seemed like hours, the overhead lights growing a shade dimmer with each step she took farther into the tunnel.

She didn’t have a map and, even if she did have one, she hadn’t any clue where the Professor was headed, and even if she did have a clue where the Professor was going, her two choices, at the moment, were to keep following this dark tunnel or head back in the opposite direction, toward the mess hall, where she would almost certainly be seen.

She shoved her hands into her trouser pockets. Her heart was sputtering faster and faster with each passing moment. But, on the outside, she kept calm. Like her mother taught her. She couldn’t risk being caught and thrown in a holding cell before she could find him, so down the tunnel it was. The Professor had to be here, somewhere. He had to be.

Something in the tunnel was dripping; the steady beat of water hitting brick was like a metronome. After Dorothy made it to one hundred, she counted back down to zero. Drip. Drip. Drip. She said the alphabet next—both frontward and backward. She’d just started trying to remember all the words to a nursery rhyme about a sheep when she reached a solid brick wall.

“Blast,” she murmured. Dead end. She turned in a circle, fighting the sudden urge to hit something.

Desperate, she pressed her hands to the wall in front of her, fingers moving anxiously over a brick. There had to be a door. She couldn’t be trapped. There had to be something—

After two minutes of searching through the dark, she felt the rough edge of wood. Her breathing began to steady, somewhat. She knew it. She followed the edges, until she found something cool and metallic. A doorknob. She tried to turn it, and, there, her luck ran out. Locked.

“Well, that’s an easy enough problem,” she muttered, pulling a hairpin loose. When she got back to 1913, she would have to find her old hairdresser and tell her how dead useful these pins had been over the last year. She inserted it into the lock and, biting her teeth, twisted until she felt something catch. The door creaked open. Grinning, Dorothy stepped through the door and into a dimly lit hall, the words East Wing written in faded, peeling paint in front of her.

She turned, pushing the hair out of her eyes—

And saw the corner of a dark jacket whip around the corner.

“Professor?” She frowned, hurrying after him. Her heart was beating in her throat, and blood was rushing in her ears. It seemed to whisper to her, At last, at last.

She