The Havoc Chronicles (Book II): Unbound Read Free Page B

searching for quarry, to hunted prey on the defensive. His eyes met mine, and an expression of embarrassed discomfort crossed his face. He looked like the proverbial little boy caught with his hand in the cookie jar.  
    “Not exactly,” he said, but the tone of his voice made it clear that I had it exactly right.
    “Did my dad put you up to this?”
    Rhys took a step back and raised his hands in a gesture of surrender. A gesture that looked especially strange when done by a glowing Berserker carrying a weapon. “No,” he said. “It was nothing like that. I came down here on my own.”
    “So, you didn’t think I could take care of myself?” Given what had just happened, this was kind of an unfair accusation, but the truth was that I was not too happy at the moment.
    Amy stirred in my arms, turning my attention back to the situation at hand.
    “We’ll talk about this later,” I said, and then filled him in on what had happened.
    As I spoke, Rhys’ eyes narrowed and his jaw clenched. He understood what those two had been planning as well as I did.
    “How badly is Amy hurt?” he asked.
    “I don’t know,” I said. “I was going to take her to a hospital and get some help.”
    Rhys took in a deep breath. I could tell he was thinking the same thing I was – that taking Amy into the hospital would bring up a whole lot of awkward questions. “Amy’s health is the number one priority right now,” he said. “Get her to a hospital as quickly as you can.” He looked past me into the alley where the two men were caged. “I need a moment to visit these two gentlemen.”
    I didn’t know what Rhys intended to do, but from the look of calculated determination on his face, it wouldn’t be pleasant.
    I had no problem with that.  
    As I ran I tried to avoid populated areas, but I only had a vague idea of the general direction I needed to go, and so I accidentally passed a few startled pedestrians. I simply kept going since there was nothing I could do about it right now.
    But before I could find a hospital, Amy’s movements became stronger and she started to wake up. I changed from a full ‘zerk to the less powerful, but more importantly, less glowy pre-zerk.
    Amy immediately started thrashing. “Let me go!” she yelled. “Get off me!”
    I slowed to a stop. “Hey, Amy, it’s me,” I said. “You’re safe.” I gently set her down on her feet, making sure she was completely steady before I let go. She frantically looked around in every direction before finally taking a deep shuddering breath and bursting into tears.
    “Shhhh,” I said, pulling her into a hug in an attempt to comfort her and calm her down. “We’re fine. They aren’t coming after us.”
    For several minutes Amy continued to sob into my shoulder until she had finally cried herself out and pulled back wiping her eyes with the back of her hand.
    “Why are we not dead?” she asked. “How did we get away?” She reached up and winced as she rubbed the back of her head where the man had hit her.
    I really wanted to tell her the truth, but I knew that wouldn’t go over very well with Dad and the Berserkers. I would have to go with a combination of vagueness and complete lies.
    “You started to sneak away and the guy with the knife hit you on the head,” I said.
    “Yeah, I remember that far,” said Amy. “Next thing I knew you were carrying me. It’s the in between that’s blank.”
    It was time for some quick thinking. I took a deep breath. “I screamed after you were hit, and then I heard someone yelling asking what was wrong. I heard footsteps running towards us and the two men got scared and ran out of the alley. I wasn’t going to wait for them to come back, so I picked you up and ran in the opposite direction. That’s when you woke up.” During my explanation, Amy had stared at the ground in an unfocused way that made me nervous. She had been hit in the head and who knew what kind of damage that had done. I lifted her chin