Smolder by Abigail Livinghouse (best young adult book series TXT) 📕

 "Careful now Sirenia." Felix said over the roar of the car, casting a glance my way.

 "Watch the road!" I shrieked frantically. He chuckled but actually listened.

 "This is one of our last cars, I don't need you burning the front seat." He cautioned, smirking at the land in front of us.

 I pried my fingers away from the now gooey leather, wiping some of it off on my jeans and looking out the window. The car was kicking up a lot of dust because of how dry it was. It was coating the windows and I was sure the sides.

 "Luis is going to be pissed when I bring this hunk back." Felix sighed. "I sure as hell am not cleaning it."

 I laughed, watching how the more grime caked onto the surface the further we went out.

 There was still a lot going through my mind right now. Most of it was information Felix had provided me with. He wanted my help with something having to do with the Plague. What the hell could I possibly do? Fire only burned and destroyed, it didn't heal. If it did, then I would be of a lot more use. The fact was since it didn't do anything then there was no reason Felix needed me. Although there was another thing I was curious about.

 "How did you know where I was?" I asked, looking over at him. He wasn't surprised at my question. I had come to the conclusion that there was positively nothing that surprised this man.

 "Quite the contrary Sirenia, there are many things that surprise me. You just haven't brought any of them up yet. To answer your question, I had been tracking you for a while. I was just waiting for you to settle down somewhere so I could catch your attention."

 "Knocking me out and dragging my unconscious body to an unknown location was the best you could think of?" I asked sarcastically. He shot me a look that said he wasn't amused at all. Well you can't please everyone.

 "You were fleeing from Trenton Albany and the hospital was surrounded by the Dead. I worked with what I had." He said  plain and simple.

 "Wait. The hospital was surrounded?" I asked, my flames warming my palms.

 "Here" He suddenly stopped the car, in the middle of nowhere it appeared. Felix turned to me, dead serious when he spoke.

 "This is where I must leave you. The hospital is just a few minutes from here on foot. You still have your weapons, I haven't touched them. Judging by the looks of it there aren't any Dead around right now but I suggest you move fast." He instructed. I wasn't so dense though that I didn't noticed he had ignored my question. 

"Felix. The hospital. I asked you a goddamn question. Is the group alright? Did you see what happened?" I asked, my voice growing more frantic with every word I got out. He hesitated a second before shaking his head.

 "I did not. I'm sorry Sirenia, I don't know what state it's currently in." Felix said. He sounded sincere, and honestly I had nothing else to go on so even if he was lying I wouldn't know.

 I nodded, running through scenarios in my head. Everyone could be dead and I could be returning to a graveyard. Or they could be fine and waiting for me. Or they could be fine, I could return, they could all hate me based on whatever Trenton had told them when he was "charmed, and they would attack me. All of the above could or could not happen. I would just have to find out. I didn't even know what was going on with Trenton anymore.

 "Alright." I popped open the car door, about to swing my legs out when I had to ask Felix one more question.

 "You didn't hurt me at all when you had me captive. When I had the dream about you, you tortured me. Why didn't you this time? Why send the dream if you didn't intend on following through with it?"

 Felix scowled at me. Confused, he shook his head. "Sirenia I didn't send you any dreams. I possess the ability, yes, but rarely do I use it. I'm not very good."

 I swallowed, my heart sinking. If not for him, then who . . .

 "Perhaps it was Cal." He provided. He sounded like he was trying to give me some reassurance more than anything else. It wasn't helping.

 "Maybe." I said quietly. Still didn't know who this Cal person was. Frankly I wasn't sure if I wanted to either.

 I got out of the car and closed the door. Felix rolled down the passenger window, speaking through it. "Be careful now. When I see you again I do not want to be bringing back damaged goods."

 With a wink and a laugh, he made a large U-turn in the middle of nowhere before speeding off behind me, leaving a cloud of dust in his wake.

 I rolled my eyes. Crazy maniac-

 A scream from just east of where I stood stopped my thoughts in their tracks. I didn't think twice before spinning and running in that direction. I wasn't about to see someone else get killed, not today.

 I came upon a gruesome scene fairly quickly, and my flames coiled in preparation. There was a large crowd of Half Deads surrounding something in the middle of them. Some were snarling while others were shrieking in hunger. That explained the scream I had heard. There were probably a dozen of them, and I wasn't looking forward to finding out what they were gathered around.

 The probability of the thing they were fighting over being dead was very high. So, there was no harm in using my blaze against this crowd. 

 I ran forward with my knife in one hand and fire in the other. I threw flame after flame at the Half Deads. Many roared when the fire touched them, distracting them from their meal as flames spread rapidly over their bodies. Others that weren't so easily stopped and came after me anyway I simply took out with my knife. One quick jab to the head and they were down for the count. I quickly realized that there were more than I thought, and that there was something moving in their midst that was not dead.

 Looking closer I saw the blade of a knife or sword maybe slashing through the corpses on top of whoever it was. They were nearly buried under the dead surrounding us now, but they were nowhere near close to giving up.

 I turned my attention back to the Half Deads only inches away from me. Curved fingers acting like claws slashing at me. One with absolutely no teeth went for my throat while gnashing it's jaws. I moved as quickly as I could, stabbing, jabbing, slashing, doing all that was possible. Blood spurted from one that I cut and splattered all over me. I grimaced, shutting my mouth tight. Infection spread through bite, but I sure as hell didn’t want to get any of that blood in my mouth.

 The person confined underneath the Half Deads was finally able to get in a crouch position, and I caught a glimpse of wavy black hair and a low T-shirt showing pale chest. It was a guy, and he was fighting viciously. There weren't many left now, so I turned my back and finished off what was left in front of me.

 A grunt from behind and the sound of something wet being squished made me look back. The guy had straightened up completely now, and had used his boot to step on and splatter the head of a Half Dead at his feet. It had sounded like someone stepping on overly ripened fruit. It was disgusting seeing it, so I focused on the person himself.

 He was tall and lean. Covered in blackish blood, and his hair that was black as pitch hung in his face from all the fighting. When he looked up, his eyes were dark brown with a burst of green around his irises. He was pale judging by the exposed skin I could see not coated in blood and dirt. He had a bag slung over his shoulder and a long blade in his hand, much longer than mine. He nodded at me, brushing his hair back.

 "Thanks for the hand. Much appreciated." He leaned down and snatched something up from the ground that he had apparently dropped. I barely saw a glimpse of it before he stuffed it in his bag, but from what I did see I could tell it was a gun.

 Dammit. A gun. It was only just dawning on me now that I had forgotten my gun back at the hospital. Who knows where it was now.

 "How did you get in such a position?" I asked, ignoring my unease. He didn't need to know that  a gun was not in my possession, let him wonder.

 "Wasn't in too bad of shape until they smelled the blood on me." He said. Upon closer examination, and I mean if you looked really close, you could see some red merged in with the black substance smeared all over him. "Had been hunting around these parts and caught a rabbit a few miles back. Carried it with me no more than ten minutes before the first round showed up, then more."

 He navigated his way around the bodies, some still burning from my fire and others so black they looked about ready to crumble to ash. Once he was out of the maze, he stood in front of me. I still clutched my knife in one hand, and my flames didn't hesitate to back me up. I noticed he had hilted his knife, but that didn't mean I was about to do the same.

 "Might I ask your name?" He said simply.

 I didn't answer right away. I didn't know him, I fought to help him, but only because I thought it might've been someone from my group. He was a total stranger to me. He nodded, his lips pursed after a few moments of silence from me.

 "I see. I don't blame you. If some random person covered in blood and found nearly dead under a pile of the living Dead came up to me,  I wouldn't be too keen on giving them my name either. But you did me a service today, and I thank you for that. I'm Dimitri." He said, holding out his hand in a surprisingly human gesture for me to shake.

 I couldn't remember the last time someone went to shake my hand. I ook it, feeling the strength of his grip. I wasn't accustomed to my supposed full name Felix had been calling me, so I gave Dimitri the name I was used to for the past six years.

 "Siren."

 He nodded. "If we were under different circumstances, I would say it was nice to meet you."

 I laughed, agreeing whole heartedly.

 "So where are you headed?" Dimitri asked, his hand now on his bag.

 Another roadblock that I wasn't sure how to approach.

 "Well I was looking for my people. I'm not sure if they're where I left them. We had a little problem before I went away. I’m hoping things are alright when I return. We were attacked." I informed in the most honest way I could.

 "If  you were attacked why did you leave them?" He challenged. I recoiled from what he had said in defense, even though I knew he was probably just being curious. Probably.

 "I didn't have a choice. Where are you headed to?" I rebuked.

 "I came from this settlement a few minutes away. I was out hunting as I said before when I got caught in my little situation. I'm usually not so callous and don't travel so far, but we needed meat." He provided. Hmm, probable. Still, I figured I'd go out on a limb and see his reaction for what I had to say next.

 "Do you come from the place with the big wall?" I came out and asked. He blinked, obviously taken off guard. I