Free A Fractured World: A Post Apocalyptic Adventure (Gallen Book 1) by Laurence Moore Page B

mind sharper than any on Gallen. Her hands touched the coarse paper and she allowed her thoughts to dwell on Stone, out there now, roaming in the dark, looking for a trap, scouting for an ambush. She thought of his broken life and found it impossible to marry all those years together to the man he was now. The Tongueless Man. It was a grisly nickname.
    She could hear Tomas and Lucas arguing.
    “North,” he was saying.
    “You’re wrong,” said Lucas. “Son, trust me, you’re wrong.”
    “Who cares what you think?” said Tomas, lifting his crossbow. It scraped loudly on the counter top.
    “Why don’t I just kill you?”
    “Tomas,” called Emil, getting up. “Please, don’t.”
    Tomas raised the crossbow, finger on the trigger. Lucas looked along the shaft of the bolt, the shiny tip aimed at the centre of his face.
    “I’ve had guns, axes, swords, bombs, bows, everything pointed at me,” he said. “Do it or not, son.”
    There was no fear in the biker’s eyes. He was no fool, he knew the world of Gallen, the creed of kill or be killed, and here he still was, air in his lungs. Tomas listened to Emil’s pleading and tried to force her voice and reasoning from his head and the feelings he had for her from his heart. He wanted to punish Lucas. He wanted to destroy and savage the calmness the biker possessed. He knew he wouldn’t kill the man but he badly wanted to; wanted him to suffer the pain he was feeling inside, wanted him to know the confusion he felt through his loyalty to Stone and the pact of vengeance they had made to the feelings he had for Emil, knowing what they were going to put her through. There wasn’t a single reason to fire. So easy to lodge that bolt in his skull - but for what? The man had nothing he wanted. He wasn’t getting in his way or stopping him from getting where he was going. He wasn’t trying to trap or kill him. He was a drifter, like them, heading nowhere.
    “Please, Tomas,” said Emil.
    He lowered the crossbow and put it down on the counter. Lucas turned his head away, showing no reaction. Emil let out a sigh of relief and went back to studying the maps.
    Tomas reached into his pocket for a food bar. He bit it in half and chewed down the bland flavour, the chemical ingredients surging through him, his stomach becoming full. He looked at Lucas and reluctantly offered him the other half.
    “Thanks,” said the old biker, biting into it from Tomas’s hand. “Plenty of these where I’m going.”
    Emil looked up from the booth.
    ”Glad you never took the shot,” continued Lucas. “I don’t mean you any trouble.”
    “Are you heading to Chett?” asked Emil.
    “That’s right,” said Lucas. “Going home. Been living out here for a long time. Trying to tell … I don’t know your name.”
    “He’s Tomas, I’m Emil.”
    Lucas swallowed down the last of the food bar.
    “Nice to meet you, miss. You too, son.”
    He studied her for a moment.
    “You’re one of them girls that can heal, is that right?”
    “You hunting her?” asked Tomas.
    “I’m not hunting anyone, son, just heading home. That’s all. Heading east, towards Chett, not north.”
    “Is this what you were both arguing about? Something about north?”
    “Emil,” said Tomas. “You need to get some sleep. It’ll be light in a few hours.”
    “I’m not tired,” she said, sliding from the booth. “What did you mean about going north?”
    “Your friend here,” said Lucas. “Got no sense of direction. The road out there, that’s heading east, a few days ride now and I’ll be home in Chett.”
    “But we’re heading north,” said Emil, puzzled. “Away from Chett. Right, Tomas?”
    Lucas shook his head.
    “Tomas?”
    “He’s wrong,” said Tomas, quietly.
    “You’re a two or three day ride from Chett,” said Lucas. “You’re travelling east.”
    “Emil, trust me, we’re going north, away from the city.”
    There was a light tap on the door.
    “Are you taking me there?”
    Stone