Free Amplified by Alexia Purdy Page A

the city of Vida. He already likes it there more than being with me. As long you guys leave them alone, he’ll be fine.” I emphasized my words about leaving them alone and narrowed my eyes at Blaze as he walked away, daring him to say otherwise. I knew he could still hear us.
    “The city of Vida will never be under threat from us unless they atta ck us first. You have my word,” Blaze answered over his shoulder before disappearing around the corner.
    If I disliked Blaze any, I sure as hell hated him now. Even with his promise, I didn ’t like how he made it seem that he was doing me a favor by leaving the underground city alone.
    “April… .” Rye was on the floor, his hands on my arms. “You’re not going anywhere. What kind of crazy talk is that?”
    I turn ed and stared hard into Rye’s gunmetal eyes, knowing I was going to miss them like the dickens when I did leave. “There’s nothing here for me anymore, once I have what I want. There’s a medical research facility in California that I want to take the antidote to. They can help replicate it, and we can all put this crazy virus-infested world behind us. I just hope there’s still someone there who can help me.”
    Rye ’s mouth hung open like there was nothing more shocking I could say and withdrew his hands from my arms, though the reddened imprints of his fingers lingered on my skin.
    “ Not everyone wants to change back, April. You’re going to plunge the world into a civil war.”
    “I don ’t care if I have to spray it like a pesticide. I will make everyone take this antidote, and life will return to what it was.” My voice rose over his, and my chest heaved.
    He shook his head and sunk to his knees . “Why would you want to take on that task?”
    “For Jeremy.”
    “He’s happy. Let him have his life down in the City of Vida. He’s fine. Why do you have to become the martyr here?” His eyes turned from hopeless to focused and then bled into fury. He was losing his patience with me. Might as well. I was done.
    “Because he may be happy, he may be a little boy now, but what about when he wants to leave? What will the world be when they emerge to try and repopulate the earth? It will be a wasteland, infested with vampires and ferals alike. It will be in tattered ruins. If I don’t fix this mess, no one will. Rick may not want to help, but I’ll make him and the rest of the world do what they should’ve done before this blew up into the wreck it is.”
    I yanked the blanket back over me and rolled to face the wall, hoping it was message enough for Rye to leave me alone. I was done talking. I’d made up my mind and not him, Jeremy, Blaze, hell, not even Sarah could convince me otherwise. I needed to do something. I couldn’t just sit there and let the time go flitting by with nothing but ashes left to the future. Nothing but soot and ashes.
    As things stood, t here was no future. No future for me, for Jeremy. How could he expect to live secluded, underground forever? How could he be denied the blue of sky, fresh air and snowy mountains? Were they that naïve that the world would work out in the end? Were people so hopeless as to give up on the world and leave it in ruins? How could this have happened?
    I closed my eyes, squeezing fat tears onto my pillow. My mother would ’ve fought for it. I knew she would’ve. This was my future, our future, that I fought for. Why couldn’t anyone else see it that way? As the dawn approached, I shoved at the turmoil in my head and begged for rest. It finally came but not without due payment of nightmares of a future filled with blood and death.
     
     

Chapter Eight
    Truth and Lies
     
     
     
    The humming of the fluorescent lights illuminating the hall felt like a buzzing bee in my ears. I couldn’t sleep, and what little I’d gotten had left me weary and itching to move from the lumpy bunk I was lying on. Blinking, I focused on the lump covered in the scratchy grey military-issue blanket