Free The Renegades (Book 4): Colony by Jack Hunt

group called the Coalition. If they were the same people we had encountered earlier that evening, who knew if they were to be trusted. Time would tell.
    I heard a rustle above us. My eyes flicked up along with everyone else’s. None of us were prepared to risk closing our eyes for the remainder of the night. I gripped the tire iron and kept my gaze fixed on the door above.

SHOOTERS
    I t was early morning when we rolled out of the elevator. We were cold, hungry, and thirsty but alive. Had we not sought shelter inside the elevator shaft or had tire irons for protection, it was very likely we wouldn’t have survived. Over the course of the next hour we carefully navigated our way through what remained of the streets of the Big Apple. It was a hellish amble through disorder and chaos.
    The twisted ruins of skyscrapers protruded upwards out of a cloud of smoke.
    While the idea of returning to the Coalition, the same people who less than twenty-four hours ago had held guns to our heads and tossed us out into the middle of Z land, might have seemed insane, we had few options. We wouldn’t return to the Hive. Each of us was at our breaking point; tired of running from Z’s and lunatics.
    As for me, after the loss of Dax, I could barely see my way through the next hour. Every waking moment felt as meaningless as the next. Meaning? Was it now found in those around us?
    The only thing that seemed to make sense now was finding out about the cure. What was keeping these people alive when others were dying? Who were the Coalition?
    “Damn, I would kill for a beef burger around about now.”
    “Oh, don’t you go there.”
    “The smell of onions frying in a pan, melted cheese,” Baja continued.
    Elijah picked up a half-chewed leg off the floor. “You’ll have to settle for this.”
    Everyone groaned. So how do you navigate your way through a city of the undead? I would like to think it was as easy as blasting Bieber tunes and hoping that Z’s would run for their lives. Unfortunately, it wasn’t that easy. We spent a whole lot of time ducking and diving, hiding behind dumpsters, slipping under vehicles, and climbing up fire escape ladders.
    It was exhausting. The only thing we were grateful for, was that we hadn’t seen any more of those Z’s that could do freestyle parkour. Whatever the hell they were, they weren’t your typical Z. Ben said that if some people were immune to the infection, perhaps that’s why some of the Z’s had evolved. It all came back to what was the purpose of the biological weapon? Was it simply meant to kill? Mutate? All I knew was I didn’t fancy going up against one of those with a piddling little tire iron. I was beginning to miss my assault rifle.
    The only one of us who had visited New York was Ben. He had come here five years ago with his wife. It was meant to be a romantic getaway.
    “Okay, so run that by me again. You brought your wife here to wine, dine, and well…” Jess paused to frown. “You decided it would be romantic to take her to a gun shop?”
    We all chuckled.
    “What can I say, I love me some guns.”
    “Amen to that, brother,” Elijah added.
    “Maybe the apocalypse did her a favor,” Izzy said.
    Ben stopped in his tracks and stared at her in disbelief before continuing on. None of us could believe she’d said that. He shook his head and walked on.
    “What? Oh come on, Ben, I’m sorry. Geez, some people.”
    Elijah came up alongside Izzy. “Ah, don’t worry about him. He’ll get over it.”
    The trek to find this infamous gun shop took us in the direction of downtown Manhattan. Ben told us that not only was it the oldest gun store in New York but that included the United States. It was a place that was hard to miss. It stuck out like a sore thumb, literally. A large silver revolver protruded from the red brick store. It was called Shooters. Of course, Baja heard him wrong and thought he said Hooters. So he was disappointed upon arrival when he was unable to find