Free FOUND (Angels and Gargoyles Book 1) by Brenda L. Harper

his back and moved into his arms. And then he pressed his lips to hers, kissing her in a way Dylan had never seen with an enthusiasm that seemed misplaced, and yet, perfect in some way. Dylan stared at them for a long moment, wondering why they would touch in such a way, what purpose there was in it.
    It’s called love, her invisible friend informed her .
    That’s not the kind of love we learned in Genero.
    No, that is romantic love, between a boy and a girl. It’s one of the many things left behind with this society.
    Why?
    But, again, her invisible friend chose not to answer her question.
    “Dylan.”
    She opened her eyes, and the street she had seen in her mind’s eye, the people, disappeared, to be replaced by the weed-choked street and the disintegrating buildings. And Wyatt, standing in front of her with a look of annoyance staining his perfect features.
    For a moment Dylan’s eyes moved to his lips, and she found herself wondering what it would feel like to press her lips to his, the way the young couple in her vision had done. What would it feel like to have those thick, full lips on hers? Would she be able to taste his skin? Would he taste her? Would it be pleasant?
    The thought sent a little shiver up and down her spine.
    “Will you stop daydreaming?” those perfect lips said. “We have work to do.”
    “You have work to do,” she clarified.
    “As long as you’re traveling with me, it’s your work, too.”
    Dylan groaned, but she followed him as he moved farther down the road.
    “What are we looking for?” she called after a minute.
    “I told you,” he said. “Tools, metal. Anything we can use back at Viti.”
    Dylan stooped over and picked up a thin piece of metal from where it had been sticking up out of the weeds. “Like this?” she asked.
    He glanced back for only a second, waving his hand to show his impatience. “No, too thin.”
    “Thicker, then?”
    He didn’t answer. “Are all men this obtuse?” she muttered under her breath, growing annoyed at the lengthening list of unanswered questions that kept sitting in the air between her and her strange companions.
    They walked over something Wyatt called a bridge into a narrow grouping of streets where the buildings were a little shorter than the others. Dylan found herself running her fingers over round signs sticking up on silver poles every few feet, faded numbers inside thin pieces of glass, some of which were broken, covering papers with increments of time written across them. She wondered what these were for. Why would the people of the past need posts on the street that kept track of passing time?
    “This way,” Wyatt called from farther up the street before he disappeared around a corner.
    Dylan rushed to catch up. She turned the corner just in time to see Wyatt walk up the steps to an inconspicuous, squat building with a glass façade that was mostly broken now. She moved into a slow jog to catch up with him, her eyes moving over the details on the outside of the building, a building that looked so much like the ones to the right and left of it. But when she stepped inside, there was very little that was familiar about it.
    It was a deep building, one that seemed to go on forever. She couldn’t even see the back wall. A counter stood in front of her, whatever it once held forever gone in the rubble that lay dusty across its surface. Behind that were rows and rows of shelf that looked nothing like the thin glass shelves that filled the library at D dorm. But the books were familiar.
    She walked to the first set of shelves. Most of the books had been blown from the dark surface of the shelves, but some remain. She picked one up, held it in her hands as though it were the most precious object she would ever touch. Gone with the Wind , the cover read.
    There were others, some with the covers torn off, some missing pages. But the farther she moved into the cavernous room, the more shelves of perfect, completely intact, if dusty and