The Wilds: The Wilds Book One Read Free Page B

Dark Walkers were, which I’d bet my ass wasn’t human, they apparently still liked human men. She smiled back and locked her hand down on him in a way that made me imagine claws hidden under that flesh. “I have a free moment. I can show you around.”
    They walked off and he didn’t even glance back at me. I wasn’t sure where I’d gotten the crazy feeling that being truthful with him was going to set something in motion, but I had. Watching him disappear with one of the monsters made me feel a little heavier in my chair, and the adrenaline that had coursed through my veins while I’d been squaring off with him was now receding.
    This was turning into one really strange day.
     

 
    Chapter Three
     
     
     
    I was still watching their backs from my metal chair when the nurse, the human one, motioned for me to get up and go to the cafeteria. Lunch was in progress. I caught what would probably be my last glimpse of him and then moved on with the business of surviving.
    The cafeteria was in full swing as I made my way over to where they distributed the meals. A lady in a white outfit and hair net handed me my special fare over the food counter and I headed toward the table where the handful of other girls I considered friends sat at.
    There had been a point in my life where I’d never thought I’d have friends. I had this crazy idea that the only reason any of them had come around me in the first place was in part due to their own suicidal tendencies. This place could do that to the best of people, and well, looking around, I wasn’t sure any of us fell into the upper echelon of the human race.
    Not that I was in a place to cast judgment, though. At the time, it was just nice to have a human being to talk to, clinically depressed or not, I hadn’t been too choosy. I’d tried to counsel them to the best of my abilities for my own selfish reasons, hoping they would hold on for a bit. Surprisingly, some of them did. Three of them had become the glue that kept what was left of me together.
    Looking over at the plates of my co-survivors, no one had a gourmet meal in front of them, but they were still more appealing than my own Plaguer fare of broth and bread. They had yellow stuff and a round meat-type thing. The only similarity was the roll.
    I watched as Margo ripped open hers and then placed a piece of mystery meat inside it before laying it back on her tray.
    “Check for clearance,” she said. On cue, Margo, Patty Cindy and myself all searched out our particular corners and the guards who stood at them. When we all gave the okay, her roll was swapped with the one on my tray.
    These three girls had made life bearable here. They alternated who gave up part of their meal for me every day. They listened to me when I had no one else to talk to. They were my sanity and my motivation. I wouldn’t get out of here just for myself but for them, because if I didn’t get out, no one would. I was the best shot we had. It wasn’t because I was the strongest or smartest, but because I was the only one fearless enough to grab the opening if it came.
    “I swear, I think they mean to starve us out sometimes,” Patty said, her dark hair sticking up every which way after we’d gotten hold of a pair of scissors last week. She’d wanted a pixie cut. It wasn’t like any of us had pretended to have a clue on how to cut hair. Luckily there weren’t any mirrors in this place. We were each other’s mirrors, so Patty currently thought she looked smoking hot.
    “Or at least starve Dahlia,” Margo, who still had a normal head of brown hair, said.
    “Who was the visitor?” Cindy, the only blonde among us, asked.
    We’d all been in for a while and none of us got visitors anymore. It was always a big deal when someone came. I got more than anyone and it was never somebody I wanted to see. For the others, the last visit had been for Margo about five years ago, before her mother eventually stopped coming.
    None of these girls were