Read A Long Road Back: Final Dawn: Book 8 for Free Online

skull section. She says that allowing it to expand prevents further damage and may help her recover her past.”
         “And you don’t want to be here for that?”
         “She said it would take them several hours. That I could be there with them during the examination but that I wouldn’t understand any of it. That maybe it would be better to let Sarah have a little bit of space while they were here.”
         “Are you sure you want to get involved in this?”
         “Brad, that was my wife he hit and then dragged off like an animal. It was my wife he beat and raped. If anyone deserves the right to go along and see that he’s punished for what he did, it’s me.”
         “We’re leaving at the crack of dawn. So we can be back before too many people miss us.”
         “Where did you put Martel?”
         “Hell, Bryan, we never took him out of the truck. He’s been there ever since we got back.”
         Bryan whistled.
         “Wow. I’m guessing he’s getting pretty uncomfortable.”
         “Yes, and I don’t give a shit. And you shouldn’t either. We tried to give him water and he’d have none of it. We would have given him food, but didn’t want to get cursed at again. So yes, he’s been out there for several hours, hobbled in the back of a pickup, unable to move, without food or water. You got any problem with that?”
         “No, not really. It just makes me wonder whether we’ve become the same type of animal he is.”
         As quickly as the thought found its way into Bryan’s mind, he dismissed it.
         “I’m going with you. Sarah will be sleeping for a while anyway, so she’ll never even know I’m gone.”
         “Well, like I said, we’re leaving at the crack of dawn.  But I’m not going to look for you. If you’re here, we’ll take you with us. If you’re not, then you’ll stay behind and your conscience will be clear.”
         “Fair enough.”
         Bryan had returned to his room and had started to set his alarm. Then he remembered it might wake up Sarah. She might demand to know where he was going so early in the morning.
         No, the alarm was a bad idea.
         But Bryan’s body clock had always done a good job of waking him up for important events. He had no doubt it would wake him up for this one.
         And it did.
         Early the next morning he awoke with a start. Sarah was still out, but was starting to stir a bit. He eased out of bed and quickly dressed. Then he went to meet Bryan Too and Brad at the main gate, just as the first rays of the sun peeked over the high wall.
         This promised to be an interesting day for all concerned.
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    -7-
     
         Many things happened after Saris 7 collided with the earth. The most devastating, of course, was that over ninety percent of the industrialized world perished, either as a result of the freeze, or of the plagues that followed the thaw.
         Actually, the United States was lucky in that regard. Third world countries were hit much harder. In some places in the world, humans became extinct, as did most of the wildlife.
         Those humans who were strong enough to have survived counted themselves lucky. The smarter among them stopped dwelling on the past and the way things used to be. For those kinds of thoughts merely brought heartache.
         Most merely accepted the past as gone forever, never to return, and not worth their time thinking about. Instead, they focused on the task at hand: surviving from day to day in a newly harsh world.
         In the United States, citizens stopped worrying about anything not directly related to putting food on their tables and surviving to see another day.
         In a way, Americans had always been that way. In the years leading up to the collision of Saris 7, Americans had stopped watching news