Read Dawn for Free Online Page B

of Michael’s people didn’t trust me. I was the queen’s daughter after all. I still had a Harvester chip buried deep within my brain. Add in the fact that I hadn’t regained my humanity via the Cain virus like most of them had. I couldn’t blame Michael’s people for remaining suspicious of me. If the shoe had been on the other foot, I probably wouldn’t have trusted me either.
    When the new camp was set up, it was decided I would stay in the old camp until it was time to make the move complete. I simply considered it a morale measure and tried to not take it personally. Plus, I didn’t care for the way some of the people in Michael’s group looked at me, like I was the one to blame for the way the world was. The sins of my biological mother seemed determined to haunt me no matter where I turned.
    Jace kept me grounded though. Whenever I felt my temper get the better of me, I would simply look at him and feel it ebb away almost instantly. He was my constant. The one piece of my life my sanity depended on. Without him, I feared what might become of me. It was almost like the love I felt for him kept me tethered to my humanity. If I lost him….
    I decided not to consider the alternative and ran a little faster.
    As we ran down the street of houses on the old abandoned air force base, I knew which house Jace had been setting up for us even before Ian ran up to it.
    It was a sweet looking two story home with light gray siding and small front porch with white posts and guard rail. It had a black door and black shutters. But, the way I knew it was the one Jace had been working on for us was because of the field of wheat growing beside it. Jace must have asked Ava to help it grow because it was at least knee high. I wanted to cry at the thoughtfulness but didn’t. My first priority was finding Jace and the kids. Without them, the wheat field would be nothing more than a sad reminder of what could have been.
    Ian burst into the front door yelling Jace’s name.
    I was right behind him surveying the interior quickly but seeing only a furnished living room and no signs of life.
    “Ian, run!”
    It was Michael’s voice. He was close but we couldn’t see him. We walked over to the open kitchen area connected to the living room and found Jace’s father lying in a pool of his own blood behind the kitchen island. He had his hand pressed against a wound on his left side and his back propped against the island. I immediately knelt down and made him move his hand so I could find his wound and evaluate the damage.
    “Get out of here, Skye,” Michael said weakly, barely able to stay conscience. “He’s here for you.”
    I looked up to meet Michael’s eyes, but he had already passed out either from blood loss or pain or possibly both.
    I pressed the palm of my right hand against Michael’s wound to heal it.
    “Damn it,” I heard Ian mutter beside me.
    Ian slowly raised his hands in the air while looking at someone on the other side of the kitchen island.
    “Stand up, Skye,” I heard a familiar voice order harshly.
    I lingered over Michael’s wound, wanting to heal it as much as I could before I stood.
    A shot was fired, hitting Ian directly in the left shoulder causing him to fall to his knees and scream out in pain while he clutched at the wound.
    “I said stand up, Skye! Don't make me say it again!”
    I stood with my hands raised in the air and met the half crazed eyes of Freddy.
    Freddy stood with his gun pointed directly at Ian’s head.
    “God you’re a pain in the ass,” Freddy muttered to me. “I should have just killed you when I had the chance back in Alliance.”
    Freddy looked haggard. His usually crisp black leather Harvester uniform was covered in dust and blood. His hair looked unkempt like he hadn’t bathed in weeks and his eyes looked sunken in and bloodshot.
    “Yes, you probably should have,” I told him.
    “I’d shoot you now if I wasn’t under orders to take you back to the