Read Away From the Sun for Free Online

can’t give Shadowface the time to escape. The explosion indicates an attack. Shadowface will already be on the way out.”
    I want my father to listen to Ashley, but I know he won’t. And she knows too, because she doesn’t argue.
    “Mitch,” my father says, “get in the SUV. Ashley, we’ll follow you.”
    I can see the frustration on her face, and I know what she is thinking. I bet she’s thinking: why did you bring me for tactical decisions if you’re just going to ignore what I say?
    When my father turns to get into the SUV, Ashley looks to me for support. Her brown eyes are big and her stare gives me a feeling inside that no one else can give me. I have a deeper connection with her than I do with anyone else. She has been by my side when I have needed her the most. She is the one person, the one exception that I give myself when it comes to surviving. I know it might be my undoing someday, but there are just some things in life that cannot be ignored, no matter how much a person tries. I love her more than anyone. I know loving is not surviving. But I love her more than the idea of surviving. I know that without her, I wouldn’t survive.  
    And she loves me. It’s not one of those things we express through words very much, but we both know it’s true. Before I met her, I never thought about the notion of love. I never wanted it. I didn’t care. But now I do.
    She reaches out and grabs my hand and squeezes. Her skin is soft, and somehow it seems to warm my insides despite the bitter wind that hits me. I know what this touch means. It means that this is the time we are supposed to kill Shadowface. All the other times, I knew we were going to fail. But this time we will get him and my father won’t care if we stay in the group or not. He won’t care that we want to leave and pursue a life away from him. Ashley understands me. She understands my father, probably more than I do. She knows how overbearing he can be and how his obsession might turn his mind to think we are betraying him. By helping him get Shadowface, then leaving, we finish what we started and can go on with our lives.  
    When I slide into the driver’s seat and begin following Ashley and the others, I can’t help but let out a short sigh. I look in the rearview mirror at the motorcycle that I am leaving behind. It’s a small reminder of the things one must give up in order to survive.  
    “I don’t know why you don’t listen to Ashley,” I say to my father. “She knows what she is talking about.”
    “Are you suggesting that I don’t know what I’m talking about?” he asks me.  
    “Not at all. But you let her on our team because she is experienced with this kind of thing.”
      “And she has made calls like that in the past,” he says. “Did we get to Shadowface?”
    I don’t answer him. He doesn’t expect one. “I just don’t want your past failures to make you reckless and get us killed.”
    “Maybe we haven’t been reckless enough,” he says. “Perhaps we’ve been too careful. With great risk there is great reward.”
    “Or death.”
    “This was the plan,” he says, “and we’re sticking with it.”
    Death is waiting for us at the crumbled wall. The gun is deafening inside the SUV as my father lets off rounds into the greyskins’ heads. The truck in front of us is bright with gunfire from all sides. So much ammo is being used to kill the greyskins that I’m afraid we won’t have enough to take on Shadowface’s soldiers.
    The smoke is so thick as we pass through the hole in the barricade that I have to hold my breath for at least twenty seconds. My eyes burn and it’s hard for me to keep control of the SUV as it jostles back and forth over the chunks of broken rock and wood. Reckless doesn’t begin to describe what we are doing. The hope was that the explosion and greyskins would be so surprising, so overwhelming, that the guards wouldn’t even see us slip through, but here we are announcing our