Ravenous (The Ravening 1)

“Perfectly fine,” Abby assured me.

“What happened?” I asked.

“You don’t remember?”

Everything in me shied away from the memory of those last moments on the beach. “No.”

“One of those things hit you, but thankfully the rebellion had been in the woods when we made it to land. They were able to fight it off. You were wounded pretty badly but the doc took care of you so you’ll be ok.”

I managed a small smile for Abby, but I was certain that I was never going to be ok again. “The rebellion?” I inquired.

“There are about sixty people upstairs, eight are soldiers, and the rest are survivors. They have a fair amount of weapons and it’s relatively safe, for now,” Aiden explained.

I had the crushing feeling that too much time had passed, felt as if it was all slipping rapidly through my fingers, but I didn’t know how to stop it. But it had to be stopped; it had to be changed, somehow.

“You have to be hungry.” Abby drew my attention back to her. “We’ve only been able to give you juice and some soup while you were out.”

I was amazed to realize that I was in fact very hungry. Abby continued to prattle on as they led the way down the hallway, up a set of stairs, and into the large warehouse. Her talk was nervous, on edge, and it took me a minute to realize she was trying to fill my head with her words instead of thoughts of Cade. I loved her even more because of it, but it wasn’t working.

I studied the people gathered within the building; some of them were sleeping on blankets and thin mattresses. Others were huddled in small groups, though none of them seemed to be speaking. Lobster pots had been stacked almost to the top of the cavernous ceiling against the back wall.

“This way.”

I followed Aiden through a back door into a small kitchen that must have been used by the workers. There were a few people inside of it, talking quietly as they put dishes away. My stomach rumbled eagerly as the tantalizing scent of food hit me. I was given a plate that consisted of canned beans and a peanut butter sandwich that looked as delicious as a steak would have. I picked at the food. I was starving but I found I didn’t have much of an appetite.

Curtains had been drawn over the windows, but I pulled them back to stare out at the hushed day. As I ate, I planned. There were soldiers amongst the people, trained soldiers that would know how to hunt, how to attack, and how to shoot with confidence and accuracy. Soldiers that could teach us how to hunt, and how to kill.

Soldiers that could help me either find Cade again, or help me exact my revenge. Because if I didn’t find him, or if he was dead, I was going to take out as much revenge as I could until I was stopped. My attention was focused on the two men and one woman standing by the front door in army fatigues.

I placed my half eaten food down and left the kitchen. I didn’t know how I would go about trying to find Cade again, but I did know that I was tired of running and tired of hiding. It was time to stand and fight. It was time to make an attempt at taking our world back from the monsters ravaging it.

And these soldiers were the ones that were going to help me do that.