Free The Before by Emily McKay Page A

got onto the highway, it was all over.
    I was right. There weren’t many cars on the highway, but the traffic was still sluggish. Like us, everyone else must have been in a stupor. At some point in the night barricades had been set up, blocking off every exit. Once we got on, there was no way off the highway until we reached the airport.
    Taking Highway 121 through the northern suburbs, we drove in silence. The entire metroplex looked abandoned. The streets were empty. Store windows were boarded up or broken. A strip mall on the outskirts of Coppell was smoldering, like it had just burned to the ground, but there were no fire trucks in sight.
    Traffic picked up as we got closer to the airport, but by the time we reached the exit, we were crawling. Mom was crying, silent tears spilling down her cheeks.
    At the airport, we inched forward as people ahead of us unloaded other teens from other suburbs and towns. There were cars and families from every racial background and social class. I watched as whole families got out of the cars, hugged and then split in two. Fathers cried stoically. Mothers wailed. Kids sobbed. This was what we’d become. This was what fear had brought us to.
    Suddenly, I turned to Mom. “I’m sorry. I just . . .” But loss was choking me and I almost couldn’t speak past it. “I don’t want to fight anymore. And I just have this horrible feeling that this is a mistake and that I’m never going to see you again.”
    “Oh, honey.” She reached across the console and hugged me fiercely. Then I felt her suck in a shuddering breath. When she pulled back, her tears were gone and she’d forced a bright smile onto her face. “That’s not going to happen. This place is going to keep you safe. They’re going to take care of you. And I’m going to be here on the outside fighting to make sure it happens. You have nothing to worry about. You’ll see.”
    But a moment later, when Mel and I were standing on the sidewalk outside of the airport, she hugged us both so tightly. And she whispered in my ear, “Just keep Mel safe. Whatever you do, keep her safe.”
    There must have been a dozen cops on the sidewalk and one walked by, yelling, “Unloading only, people, keep it moving. Keep it moving.”
    Mom climbed back into the car and I tried not to notice how afraid she looked. I ran my hand over my hair where her face had pressed against mine. My hand came away damp with her tears. As strong as my mother was, whatever the future brought, she would have to face it alone. Mel and I? At least we had each other.
    As Mel and I walked into the terminal, the mass of humanity inside hit me like a sucker punch. There were so many people. So many teenagers. Thousands. Maybe hundreds of thousands.
    Mel edged closer to me and slipped her hand into mine. Together, we joined the crowd.
     
     
    • • •
     
    Dying to find out what happens next? Read
    The Farm by Emily McKay,
    available now wherever books are sold
    and online at Amazon !
     

About the Author
     
    Nationally bestselling author and winner of the prestigious Rita Award, Emily McKay got her start writing romance novels. After ten years of writing books with babies and billionaires, Emily decided to try her hand at something different—Young Adult horror. Hey, she just really missed reading about scary vampires. Her Rita-winning book, The Farm , launches a trilogy set in a terrifying post-apocalyptic world where teens are farmed as food and genetically mutated monsters roam the country.
     
    When she’s not devising new ways to kill vampires, Emily lives in the hill country with her husband, the Geek, her two great kids, two cats and two dogs. In her spare time, she raises organic veggies and chickens and tries to hide the fact that she’s secretly prepping for the apocalypse.
     
    You can find out more about her upcoming books at www.EscapeTheFarm.com and www.EmilyMcKay.com .