After The Apocalypse (Book 2): Church of Chaos Read Free Page B

stood up. He grabbed his sword up off the floor. I hadn't even noticed that the heavy weapon was there. He must have brought it into the room with him when he'd heard me screaming in my sleep. “Good night, Pilar.”
    I watched him walk almost all the way to the door. “Wait. You're leaving?”
    Seth half-way turned back towards me. “I came in here because I thought you were hurt. You're not hurt and I'm glad you had the nightmare. If you're dreaming about controlling zombies then it tells me that, despite the fact that you're terrified of me, we're probably moving in the right direction.”
    “What direction is that?” I suddenly felt very abandoned and very alone. It stunned me to realize that I didn't want him to walk away angry.
    He snorted back a choked laugh as he grabbed my bedroom door and opened it. “One you aren't ready to hear about until you trust me.”
    He stepped out through the door. His hand was still on the knob as he began easing it closed.
    “I'm sorry.”
    Seth pushed the door back open and stepped back into the room. “You're sorry?”
    I nodded and blinked back unexpected tears. “I'm scared, Seth. I trusted the Powers That Be and they kidnapped my parents and sold them for meat. I trusted Drake and he tried to kill me. Now you're here and I just don't know how I feel. I want to trust you, but I can't force myself to. I'm sorry.”
    He sighed. “And yet when I ask you to give me time, you get mad at me?”
    When he put it like that, he had a point. “I need to trust you before you explain the prophecies to me?”
    “Have you ever considered that maybe I need be able to trust you?” Seth turned on his heel and walked out of the room without giving me a chance to answer.

Chapter 3
    “I hope you understand the depths of the hell you're unleashing.”
    I was sitting on my knees on the cold stone floor of the chapel, staring up the heavy iron cross that crowned the altar. The cross was easily ten feet tall and it looked like it had been in the Church for a hundred years if it had been here a day. The metal appeared to have been hammered into shape. The texture of the surface was rough and pitted as I ran my fingertips across it. I hadn't been able to fall back asleep after Seth had left my room. I'd come down into the main chapel of the Church hoping to find some type of solace in what remained of my faith in my parents religion.
    My mother was a woman of God and she'd read the Bible to me every night when I was a child. She'd spoken often of God, Jesus and the saving grace of the Holy Spirit. I'd never been able to relate, but I'd also never dreamed that I would one day have personal relations with one the false idols that the good book spent so much time ruminating on. If there was ever a time for me to find a relationship with God, this did seem to be it.
    “I don't know what you're talking about,” I said. In a matter of hours, Seth and I would ride for Ra-Shet in a last-ditch effort to save the lives of my parents before they were eaten by cannibalistic upper class of the city. Vera thought my parents were probably already steaks and that we were wasting our time. She hadn't been shy about saying so to my face.
    Vera walked down the aisle of the church and sat down on the pew to my left. Her long, sleek hair hung down her back like a curtain of black silk. Her dress was a short black sheath that would have looked like a garbage bag on me. Her knee-high boots were made of shiny black plastic and featured pointy, open toes and ridiculously high stiletto heels. Clearly she wasn't dressing for function tonight. I wondered which one of the Church's handful of inner-circle members she had dressed to impress.
    “Are you familiar with the battle of Troy?” Vera held up a battered paperback book in her right hand.
    “I'm sorry?”
    “Helen of Troy had a face so beautiful that it launched a 10 year war and a thousand ships.” She tossed the book down in front of my knees. It landed on the