Free The Alpha Plague by Michael Robertson Page A

the briefest second, he stared into his son’s dark eyes. For the briefest second, everything around him stopped. He slipped both items into his pocket.
    Then he looked up and breathed a relieved sigh. “Jake?”
    Except it wasn’t Jake. Not anymore.

Chapter Ten

    Rhys recoiled from the personification of hate and let out a high-pitched yell as he closed his eyes and raised his arms up in front of him.  
    The expected impact never came.  
    When he opened his eyes, he saw a woman shoulder barge Jake. It sent him sideways over the low wall that surrounded the water fountain. A popping crack sounded out as Jake’s top half went towards the water, but his feet remained in the same place. Jake seemed oblivious to his clearly broken shins. Instead, his twisted features remained fixed on Rhys. His desire to attack seemingly overrode what must have been pain beyond measure. Either he didn’t feel the pain, or his lust for the kill burned brighter than anything else. Something inside told him it was the latter and a chill gripped Rhys.  
    The blonde woman passed Rhys at a flat-out sprint, so he called after her, “Hey, wait up.”
    She didn’t.  
    For a second, he froze and stared at Jake in the fountain. The boy’s legs pointed at impossible angles to his body, and he thrashed and writhed as if he were drowning. A loud roar grabbed Rhys’ attention. He saw another one of the crazed people nearby. “Sorry, Jake,” he said, spun around, and sprinted off after the woman who’d just saved him. In the insanity that surrounded them, she seemed to be the only person with purpose.
    The combination of too much noise and too little air in his lungs made it a struggle to get his words heard, but Rhys tried anyway as he called after the woman again, “Wait up.”
    She still didn’t react.
    The crowd continued to flee from the square. At least he didn’t have to run against them anymore. Although, with so many bodies, he lost sight of the athletic woman who’d saved him.
    The roars of the people from the tower spread. The woman then came back into view as she tore a zigzagged path through the pandemonium, and Rhys tried to keep up.  
    Rhys gave everything he had, but the woman continued to pull away from him. The crowd thickened and she disappeared from view again.  
    This far back, no one seemed to know which direction to run. Two people in front of Rhys fell to violent attacks.  
    A strong grip stung Rhys as it locked onto his shoulder. He shook it off, stumbled, and turned to see the bloody eyes of one of the crazed people. They tripped and fell before they could grab him again.  
    The sound of his own ragged breaths echoed through his head, and Rhys dug deep as he pushed on. The heat of the day suffocated him, and sweat cascaded into his eyes. It didn’t help to run in slacks and a shirt; they raised his body temperature by what felt like a thousand degrees. Thank god he had his trainers on. The woman came back into view through the crowd. She had about a ten–metre lead on him.  
    An impact stung Rhys’ left side and an older lady spun away from him like a top. Her arms and hair flailed out from the collision. She fell and someone jumped on top of her. Before Rhys had passed her, she screamed as the person that had pinned her down bit into her face.
    More people got between Rhys and the athletic woman. All of them seemed occupied by their own personal panic. At least a third of them fell to attacks before his eyes as the amount of enraged people multiplied by the second. With raised arms, Rhys shoved anyone who got in his way aside and kept his focus.
    When a gap opened up in the crowd again, Rhys saw the woman disappear down a tight alleyway between two buildings.
    He hurdled a bench, shoved a man with blood-streaked cheeks away from him, and followed after her.

Chapter Eleven

    Rhys burst from the other side of the alleyway and found himself on a road with a line of thick steel pillars that protruded from the