Free Origins (The Wasteland Chronicles, #2) by Kyle West

a weapon powerful enough to pierce their skin. They make their home in the mountains and canyons of the Boundless. Even here, Blights crop up seemingly overnight. We burn them where we can. It’s possible to kill them if you get them early enough. But there is little we can do but run and find somewhere untainted.” He looked hard at Samuel. “We must be off soon, but before I go, a warning: don’t think that Bunker One isn’t on the top of the Novans’ list. I’m telling you this, so that you are not surprised if they beat you there.”
    Marcus started his engine. The rest of the Exiles followed suit, sending a roar across the desert.
    Marcus gave a salute before wheeling around, hitting full throttle as he blazed into the desert. The rest of the bikers followed him, spewing a cloud of both dust and exhaust that left us hacking and coughing.
    When it was finally quiet, Lisa spoke. “At least we’re still alive.”
    “Yeah,” Makara said. “Smooth talking there, Samuel.”
    Samuel didn’t respond. “He gave me much to worry about, I think. This Empire worries me greatly. I thought it was only the winter snow and crawlers we were contending against. Human opponents are much more dangerous.”
    “One day at a time, brother,” Makara said. “One mission at a time.”
    “I suppose you’re right.” He turned away from the train of bikers, for the Recon. “It’s time to get moving.”
    ***
    T hat night we camped north of the ruins of Flagstaff. We went off the road a fair distance to avoid the town, since we didn’t know what might be waiting there.
    We found the perfect hideout – a shallow cave inside one of the rocky hills below the base of a tall mountain, the cap of which was lost in red cloud.
    The landscape had changed greatly with elevation. Besides the drastic temperature drop (the thermometer in the Recon read -12º Celsius), I saw my first trees – at least, the first trees that hadn’t been turned by the xenovirus. They were pines, mostly, and most had been long dead. What few were left alive had the barest tufts of green needles on their branches, indicating that soon they would be joining the rest.
    After we stopped, we collected a lot of dead wood for a fire. Once we had the fire roaring, the natural warmth felt good, and the sticky pine aroma was pleasing in the air. It was nice to smell something natural for once, and not the emptiness of the mostly dead world.
    Though the fire was warm, the night outside was bitterly cold. Anna cooked the evening meal – the same stew we had eaten last night, with the veggies and potatoes taken from Raider Bluff.
    After she gave the stew another stir and covered it, she came to sit next to me.
    “You alright?” I asked.
    “I think so. Saving the world...exhausting business.”
    “What’s your story, anyway?”
    She didn’t answer for a moment. “My story?”
    “Yeah. Everyone has one, right?”
    It seemed as if she didn’t want to talk about it. And if her story was anything like mine, that was understandable.
    Eventually, she did start talking. “I grew up in a settlement east of L.A., in the mountains. It was called Last Town. The man who founded it truly believed it was the Last Town. Even when he found out it wasn’t, the name stuck.”
    “How big was it?”
    She shook her head. “Not big at all. Last Town had maybe three hundred people. Not like some of the other settlements. It was located on I-10, between L.A. and the Mojave. The city survived off trade for the most part. Me...I was just a kid there. My parents were scavengers, mostly. They went around and found useful items in the Old World ruins, like batts, machines, weapons, and metals, and tried to sell them. As the years wore on, business got worse and worse. All the valuable items had been snatched up. When supplies started getting low, people formed groups to fend for themselves. That’s how the first Raiders came about. All the little towns, like Last Town, didn’t stand a