Free Battle Lines (The Survivalist Book 5) by Arthur Bradley

jump away. Instead, she reached up, wiped the snot from her face, and flicked it to the ground. Then she turned back to the elephant and glared.
    “That was not nice.”
    He blinked once and then dropped a pile of dung behind him. Before she could chasten him further, he turned and lumbered down the trail.
    Samantha stood dumbfounded, covered in the sticky brown goo, listening as two sounds echoed through the forest... the soft thumping of the elephant’s footsteps and the hysterical laughter of a two-hundred-and-fifty-pound escaped convict.

Chapter 7  
     
     
    Mason stepped over a section of barbed-wire fencing that had blown into the road from a nearby farm. He turned and helped Leila over the small obstacle.
    “I appreciate you letting me travel with you for a bit, Marshal.”
    “Last time I refused to let a woman come along, she nearly shot me,” he said with a chuckle. “I’m trying to learn from my mistakes.”
    “Your girlfriend?”
    Mason thought about his relationship with Connie West. While they had been lovers for a short time and had even managed to part as friends, neither label seemed to fit.
    “We were something.”
    She smiled and nodded. “Relationships are complicated.”
    “Tell me again why you want to go into Lexington.”
    “It’s simple, really. Someone needs to tell people what happened here. It’s all part of the broader tragedy that started with the pandemic.”
    “Do you think anyone’s really going to listen?”
    She shrugged. “Maybe not today, but one day they will. Who knows, they might even demand that justice be brought to those who created the virus.”
    Like Leila, Mason had long assumed that Superpox-99 was a biological weapon, but with world governments having all but collapsed, he thought it very doubtful that anyone would ever discover its true origin.
    “No one involved is ever going to come clean about how this thing got out.”
    “They may not have to. You know what they say about secrets?”
    “What’s that?”
    “It takes a lot of people to keep them.”
    He shrugged. “You may be right. Someone may let it slip.”
    “Besides, even if the truth remains hidden, perhaps my work will help future generations to prevent this sort of thing from ever happening again.”
    “You’re assuming that mankind will still be around in a hundred years.”
    “We’ll make it,” she said confidently. “We always do.”
    “Yeah,” he breathed, “I suppose you’re right.”
    “For now, we must all find reasons to go on.”
    “Our personal missions.”
    She smiled. “Exactly.”
    “And yours is to document the darkest chapter in mankind’s history? It seems like a terribly dreary job.”
    “Maybe, but when I’m finished, the world will have a little closure.”
    Mason nodded thoughtfully. “It sounds like a noble cause.”
    “And you, Marshal? Why are you out here?”
    “I suppose I’m doing what I was born to do.”
    “Bringing criminals to justice?”
    “Holding people accountable.”
    She eyed him. “That almost sounds like you’re driven more by revenge than justice.”
    “It depends on the day.”
    Leila paused and then said, “Do you mind if I ask how many men you’ve killed over the years?”
    Mason considered the question for a moment. It was the kind of thing people asked lawmen from time to time, and he thought the answer often said more about their character than their prowess with a gun.
    “Too many,” he said softly. “And not enough.”
    She squinted at him.
    “I sense you’re a hard man, Marshal Raines.” She cracked a small smile. “But a fair one too.”
    “I suppose.”
    “And revenge or not, I suspect that your quest is as noble as my own.”
    “You think so?”
    “Look around you.” She slowly spun in a circle with her arms outstretched. “The world is without rules or order, men acting on their basest instincts. Yet here you are with your gun and your giant dog, out trying to set things right. Sounds pretty noble to