Free Forever Between (Between Life and Death Book 2) by Ann Christy Page A

loading bay door where the cage is, then quickly away as if seeing that enclosure of chain link is somehow painful to her. I know she had someone in there because I saw her cleaning it again and again after I first got here, but the others don’t know that.
    “I’d agree with that,” Emily says, and makes to get up from the bag.
    Savannah stops her with a hand on her forearm, the only place she isn’t scratched or bitten. “No, you stay still for a while in the sun. It’ll help. Or, at least, you being still and not getting dirty will help.”
    At that, Emily huffs and flops back down. I stifle a grin. I’m not the only one having trouble adjusting to having more people around.
    Jon toddles over and sits down on her sleeping bag. “Squish,” he says, which means he wants her to move over. She does and he lies down in the crook of her arm.
    So, this is it, I think. This is what family is like.
    I guess I could get used to it.
     

Today - Deaders, Deaders, All in a Line
    I thought it would be painful to get back on the bike, and to be fair, there was a tender moment between my butt and the bike saddle when I first climbed on, but overall, it’s fine. We make good time and the vast empty stretch as we near the military base gives us a little relief from the constant watching for any sign of humans or non-humans.
    As the highway widens and we get nearer to the city, the riding is easier and the number of deaders actually diminishes. I hadn’t expected that. I’d thought that a few hundred-thousand inhabitants going in-betweener would have meant we would wind up sneaking through as quietly as possible.
    Sam once told me that the military bases were still going after he holed up. He knew because he saw their trucks and plenty of neatly uniformed people going out and mowing down in-betweeners in the streets with gunfire aimed with peculiar precision at the heads of the afflicted. That’s how he figured out that it was the heads that needed to be destroyed in the first place, he’d said.
    The problem was that the military simply shot everyone they saw, not because they wanted to kill people, but because it wasn’t always easy to tell who was an in-betweener and who wasn’t. Back then, they were still wearing their clothes and seasons outside hadn’t taken such a toll on their bodies. There were only a few times that Sam was ever able to make contact safely, and each time they told him the same thing.
    Stay put. Stay hidden. Take these supplies. We’ll get this sorted out. Be patient.
    But, by the time Sam found me, there were no more such forays and I never once saw a truck—military or otherwise—enter within viewing range of our windows. And I’d joined him and the other kids just a few months after things happened, when Jon was still tiny and drinking from bottles made with formula labeled as disaster relief supplies. So, the military must have been working for a while, just not long enough.
    With tiny kids in his care, there was no way for Sam to bring all of us out here without being sure that the military was still around and helping those who might be left. We couldn’t have kept the babies quiet enough or moved fast enough to get here with our hides intact. There was simply no way to bring them to safety. Likewise, it was far too great a distance for Sam to go alone, not with us relying on his return. And once Emily found me, she didn’t believe there was anything at the military base except in-betweeners and deaders wearing military uniforms. And she wouldn’t hear of me—or anyone else—going there to find out, even to get help for her as she got worse.
    We’re about to find out now. A sign almost covered in kudzu tells us to turn left for the main gate. Three miles.
    Charlie let’s his bike roll to a stop and I pull up next to him. “Okay. Now we strategize,” he says, and reaches for the map. On the back of it there are a few blown-up sections of important things around this city, including