Reawakening Eden Read Free Page A

looking for you, honey. He’s even put out a reward for your return.”
    “What kind of reward?” Money didn’t mean anything anymore, and with so fewer people vying for survival supplies, there was a deceptive sense of prosperity. Most people weren’t looking ahead to the months or years later when all the prepackaged and preserved goods would run out.
    “The kind worth getting.” Ben brushed his hand in an arc through the leaves, the movement catching her eye. She didn’t notice his other hand reaching behind his back until it reappeared in front of him holding a handgun. Eden’s breath caught. Shit . His smile was gone. “Where’s your car, pretty girl?”
    Eden had never been so happy to say, “It broke down. We left it.”
    “Well, fuck.” Ben glowered.
    She decided it was best not to tell the pissed-off, armed linebacker to watch his language around the kids. It was easy to see why he was upset. The engine sound they’d heard approaching was for a vehicle that wasn’t designed for more than one. How was Ben supposed to drag her and the miracle children back to Seattle and claim his reward without anything to drag them in?
    The big man shrugged. “I guess you’re walking until we find a car. Get up.”
    Eden tried to swallow, but her throat was desert dry, her palms clammy on the rifle. “No.”
    She was banking everything on the fact that Jonah’s reward required all three of them to be alive and unharmed, gambling that Ben couldn’t shoot her. And hoping desperately that she could convince him that she would shoot him if he tried to take them by force.
    “We aren’t going back with you,” she said, startled again by the calm power in her words. Where had that stone-cold-bitch voice come from?
    Ben frowned, considering his options. Even though he knew jack shit about military operations, he wasn’t a dumb guy. Unfortunately. She’d heard he used to work for Microsoft before the plague. She didn’t want to give him time to come up with a plan, but she couldn’t even move without tipping the precarious impasse they’d reached.
    Apparently coming to a decision, Ben straightened and started toward them. “Don’t make this harder than it has to be, sugar.”
    Something deep inside Eden went arctic. Her finger wrapped around the trigger. Could she do it? Was it worth taking a life just to stay away from Jonah? They’d escaped before. They could again…if he didn’t put a guard on her. Hannah Rose made a small sound beneath her. Would the kids be safe?
    Eden took a slow, shuddering breath. Steady, girl. Just exhale and squeeze . In her head she heard her father’s voice, an echo of her former life, the memory of him teaching her how to fire a rifle as crisp as if it had happened yesterday.
    Just exhale and squeeze.
    She was so immersed in her thoughts of guns, the sound of one cocking to her left didn’t even seem odd at first. Then a voice that put her stone-cold tone to shame spoke from the shadows.
    “I believe the lady said she didn’t want to go with you.”

Chapter Three
    Eden kept the rifle trained on Ben but risked looking away from him to search for this new arrival. Lucas jerked the shotgun up and aimed it in the direction of the voice, bless him , but he’d be shooting blind. The forest vista was blank. Abandoned.
    Eden’s gaze raked the trees, but she didn’t see any sign of the speaker, just an uninterrupted sun-dappled landscape like something out of a Walt Whitman poem.
    The wolfhound emerged first, trotting into view with a bouncing step that was at odds with the vicious teeth on clear display and the low growl rumbling out of its massive throat. She recognized the animal from last night, and a shivering sense of unease rolled over her skin. Had it been tracking them? Stalking? Was this a savior or a new threat? Then a figure slipped out from behind a tree only twenty feet away, giving Lucas a target.
    A damn big, heavily armed target.
    Jesus flipping Christ, it’s