Reclamation (The Ravening #3)(27)
Author: Erica Stevens

Cade squeezed my arm before he slid his rifle over his back and grasped the metal rungs of the ladder. I wrung my hands before me as I watched him. Cade didn’t hesitate as he grabbed hold of the metal cover, lifted it up and kept it low to the ground as he pushed it aside and slipped free of the tunnel.

"He has no fear," Aiden muttered as he stepped closer to me.

"None," I agreed in a low whisper. I glanced over my shoulder as Lloyd and Darnell pressed closer to us.

Cade’s face was highlighted by the radiance of the sun as it reappeared above us. "Clear."

"Let’s go," Darnell ordered.

Aiden nudged me to go first and I happily took hold of the first rung and began to climb. Cade grabbed hold of my hand and helped to pull me from the hole. I blinked rapidly against the influx of light as I attempted to take in the world up above again. Scraps of garbage blew across the road in the breeze that swirled down the street. The sunlight glinting off the fragments of glass littering the streets didn’t help to make it easier to see.

I went to my knees on the asphalt and tried to get back up before anyone could see me, but my vast relief at being free again caused me to go back to my knees. "Bethany?"

I shook my head as Cade knelt by my side and brushed the hair back from my face. I slipped my hand into his. "I’m ok. It’s just so wonderful to be outside again."

The air, oh the amazing air. I breathed it in gratefully as I savored in its crispness, and the scent of the rotting leaves that littered the tree beds. Even the scent of death seemed to have abated during our time underground and it was wonderful to breathe air that didn’t harbor the aroma of mildew, rats, and body odor.

We were free!

Cade pressed his palm against my cheek as he turned my head toward him. He was beautiful and tempestuous as he grinned at me before kissing me forcefully. I embraced him as I savored in this one small moment of hope and perfection in a world that had none of those things anymore. He caressed my cheeks as he pulled away from me and I was finally able to fully take in our surroundings.

We had emerged on the outskirts of the city as row houses spread out before us. They were mixed in with stores, businesses, and a playground that was missing a few swings and its slide. The road curved around some homes on a hill before disappearing around a bend. From what I could see, Arlene had been right in her assessment that the survivors had all moved on from here.

I stepped away from the hole as the others began to file out. Though none of them had been enthusiastic, and some had even cried as they packed their things, no one had chosen to remain below after the emergence of those new, frightening creatures. I didn’t know how we were going to move so many people, but we’d have to do it quickly if we were going to make it out of this city alive.

We had agreed to head north. The winter would be more challenging up there and we would have to find decent shelter soon, but to move south would only bring us into more populated areas. There were far more cities to our south and west than there were to our north. Cade kissed me once more before releasing me and turning to help some of the others emerging like moles from their holes as they blinked at the bright world around them.

I didn’t care where we ended up just as long as I was free of this awful city and every hideous thing that we had witnessed here.

Chapter 13

The descending dusk was a deeper twilight in the shadows of the forest that surrounded us and I worried about what those shadows hid. I felt like I was asleep on my feet as we trudged through the woods. Right now all I wanted was to sit and put something in my rumbling stomach. Darnell, Lloyd, Cade and Bret moved ahead of us, keeping lookout for any source of danger. We’d made it out of the city with relative ease but I couldn’t decide if that was a good thing or a bad thing. It seemed almost too easy, yet Cade didn’t appear overly concerned.

Everyone stopped moving as Darnell held up his hand and Cade became still in only the way that he could, in only the way that his kind could. My hand adjusted its hold on the gun I held by my side as I studied the huddled group surrounding me.

"What’s going on?" Aiden demanded in a low whisper.

I shook my head, but I couldn’t take my gaze away from Cade as he began to move with the lethal speed he kept hidden from the others. Aiden gasped, I went to take a step back, but Cade’s arms were already wrapping around my waist and he was lifting me up and spinning me around. My hands fell briefly upon his shoulders but even as I was touching him, he was releasing me.

A lethal growl issued from him and a rock settled in the pit of my stomach. I knew there was no way to deny what had just happened, the speed he had just exhibited, or the look that was creeping over the other’s faces. My blood ran cold, my mouth parted as he pushed me backward, nearly pinning me to a tree with his back as his arm swung out to keep me behind him.

I was barely registering what was happening with him when lights began to blaze to life from the woods. The people that had been falling away from Cade now scrambled away from the flickering torches pulsing from the forest like some kind of overgrown firefly. All my dread over what Cade had just revealed vanished as more lights came to life and shaded figures began to emerge from the trees. The dusk enshrouding them, and the bouncing torches, lent a strange air to their presence, one that made it almost seem as if they were walking through a fog.

"Cade?" I whispered.

His hand twitched toward me, but his eyes didn’t flicker in my direction. His muscles rippled beneath his shirt as he pressed closer against me. My heart leapt into my throat, I rested my fingers briefly on his back as I inhaled a shaky breath.

"People," Aiden whispered.

"No!" Cade hissed. "Not all of them."

I could barely breathe through the constriction in my chest and I thought my heart was going to burst through my ribs as Cade’s words sank in. I brought my gun forward and rested it in front of me in a two handed grip as the shadows began to coalesce into people, and apparently aliens.

Though the aliens were darker in hair, skin, and eye color there was no way to differentiate them from a human. They blended in seamlessly with us, a trait that we didn’t share with them as they could spot each other immediately, or at least Cade could. There were so many of them, they outnumbered us at least two to one, and those were only the ones that I could see. I was certain there were more lurking within the forest waiting to pounce upon us like a pack of hungry, rabid dogs. The comparison didn’t make me feel any better as a woman about our age, and a middle aged man separated themselves from the others and took a few steps forward.