Free Running Away - A Post-Apocalyptic Novel (The Ravaged Land Series Book 4) by Kellee L. Greene Page A

They were working together to bring the water jug upstairs. Sienna followed them carrying the cups.
    Carter had lowered Alice onto the smaller bed. He stood in the doorway as if blocking our entrance into the room. She moaned and then rolled over onto her other side.
    “Come in here with us… let her rest,” Sienna said lightly tugging on his sleeve. “She’ll be OK in there. If anyone came up inside we’d hear them.”
    Carter glanced back at his sister and then followed Sienna into the larger bedroom. It was obvious how much he cared about his sister. Just like Dean and Sienna.
    Penn sat by the window in a chair that had a broken armrest. Dean and I sat on the bed. Carter glanced at the door but then slid down to the floor and stared at his feet. Sienna lowered herself down next to him and smiled.
    “Well take turns keeping watch out of this window,” Penn said mostly for Carter’s ears, but after our night at the river he probably already had how we did things all figured out. “I’ll go first.”
    Dean tossed Sienna one of the two flat pillows and a ripped up blanket. I laid down on the mattress and felt instantly warmer when Dean laid down behind me. He wrapped his arm around my waist and I smiled.
    I closed my eyes and tried to sleep, but as I often did, I struggled to relax my body. Sleep wasn’t finding me as easily as I had hoped it would.
    Sienna was whispering something to Carter. I watched them between the narrow slits of my semi-closed eyes. Every once in a while a smile would appear on one of their faces and I knew what was happening.
    I knew she had felt it practically the minute she saw him, but now I saw he felt it too. His smile would fade and he’d turn towards the door every time the bed in the other room squeaked or creaked, but once it settled again, his attentions would return to Sienna.
    The last thing I saw happen before sleep finally found me, was Carter twining his dirty fingers into Sienna’s equally dirty fingers. They couldn’t hold one another’s eyes for long before they’d look away with big smiles on their faces. It was obvious… they had it bad.
    I wasn’t sure how long I had been asleep when I woke up to the smell of smoke.

8
    eight.
    I had been dreaming . I was inside a large building and was walking down a long, dark, empty hallway. The feeling of aloneness was so strong that after I had woken it still lingered.
    In the dream I walked past rooms, each one containing something different. Some of them I couldn’t see inside, but I still knew that what was inside of them was scary. Not something I even wanted to see, necessarily.
    One of the rooms was filled with doctors and nurses moving around. I couldn’t see the patient, but I knew they were preforming surgery. I could see the patient’s unmoving feet. Then one of the nurses pushed the door, and it swung shut.
    At the next room, the door had been open just a crack and I could hear the whispers of the people inside. It was like they were talking another language. None of it made any sense.
    Before I could look inside the next door, I saw an orange glow coming from the last room at the end of the hallway. I ran towards it, sensing someone was inside and needed help.
    When I looked inside the door, Seth was standing there smiling at me as the fire surrounded him. I started to back away as his flaming body moved closer to me. My back was against the wall as he stopped in the doorway and stared out at me.
    I wanted to scream but I couldn’t. My lungs felt like they were filled with smoke and I felt like I was struggling to take in a breath. That’s when I must have woken up, because I was staring at the walls trying to make sense of where I was and gasping for air. I could still smell the smoke lingering in the air.
    I saw Penn sleeping in his chair and I knew I wasn’t in the cold building with the strange rooms any more. I remembered we were in some random house, but I couldn’t shake the sense something wasn’t