Free Dusk of Defiance (The Era of Ensemble Book 1) by JP Woosey Page A

uneasy in the pit of his stomach... Elizabeth called him Max... Why didn't I recognise Maxwell? Why did I struggle to remember him? It was Max who would always keep Elizabeth beyond her working hours as they finished their various projects. It was Max who never gave her a break. Luke had cursed him for that. But why have I only seen you a few times before? Why did Elizabeth keep us apart? Was she protecting me from him? Luke hadn't trusted Max then, so should I trust him now? Luke thought about their recent encounter. Did he not recognise me before when we met earlier? He was unkempt, had stubble and let his hair fall naturally. I'm the life partner of Elizabeth... Or I was. Perhaps Maxwell only ever thought of work. I wasn't anything to Maxwell... Maybe that's why he didn't recognise or acknowledge me? He's only speaking to me now because he needs me.
    Maxwell quickly departed from Luke’s thoughts as he heard a noise from a room down the corridor. He couldn’t be sure but it sounded like someone speaking. He was too far away and it just sounded like a mumble, but it was definitely a person. Luke walked down the corridor, and stepped over the missing tiles. He looked down as he walked past them. They seemed like bottomless holes in the dark. Luke felt the crunch of glass beneath his feet. He stood still. All he could hear was the continuous mumble from the room ahead.
    The door didn’t open when Luke approached. He checked for a way to open the door, but he found nothing, no handle, no touchpad, nothing. Then he remembered. He needed a pass. He looked up above and saw the glass that protected a sensor inside. His wrist device didn’t have the clearance for the science department.
    Luke had momentarily considered staying clear of the room and carrying on towards the next tram station, but he needed to know who was in the room. Are they sane? Can I help them? He needed hope for his sister’s sanity... and my own . He turned away from the door and began to search the ground. How hard could it be to find a wrist device with clearance? He had travelled past many bodies just lying around, half eaten, with their wrist devices still intact.
    It wasn’t long before Luke found a trail of blood. He’d only taken a right turn as he walked down the corridor. The trail of blood led him into an opening. The room had no door, water dripped from the ceiling, and the walls were scarred with burns. A fire had definitely left its mark on this room. Luke saw the end of a leg which stuck out behind a bench. He placed a hand on the grip of his revolver and moved slowly towards the leg. As he approached the limb, he rediscovered the trail of blood. He peeked around the bench and saw no body, just a leg and a pool of blood which circled around the group of seats ahead. He continued to follow the trail. It seemed to circle around the whole room. He began to think he wouldn’t find anything, but then he glimpsed sight of the body. The torso was intact, with two arms still present. The same couldn’t be said for the other limbs though, but Luke didn’t need them, he just needed the device attached to this unfortunate person’s wrist.
    Luke tapped the torso with his foot. He couldn’t be sure whether it was still somehow alive. It won’t surprise me if it is alive with everything else that's happening aboard the Defiance. The body didn’t respond to his kick. It just lay on the floor in a pool of its own blood. Luke knelt down and lifted one of the arms up. As he slowly brought the arm up, he felt it rise higher than it should. It wasn’t attached to the socket. He checked the arm for the wrist device. At least that's still present.
    The arm missed fingers on its hand. Only a finger and a thumb remained, the others presumably chewed off. The wrist device flashed with errors, but it should still work . He made his way back to the locked door. He waved the disfigured arm at the sensor and the door slid open. The mumble became clearer as the