Read Delete: Volume 3 (Shifter Series) for Free Online

air, even if I could smell the cloying sweetness of burning. The recycled air in the Hub had made my eyes dry and my throat scratchy, like when you’ve been on an airplane for too long.
    A low rumbling sounded and I jumped, scanning the sky to check for another helicopter or drone. There was nothing but the felt-grey clouds.
    The rumbling grew louder and a sleek black car pulled around a corner. The door opened.
    “Get in,” Zac said, then added an awkward “sir” as an afterthought.
    I climbed into the seat and closed the door. “One thing, Zac,” I said. “You can quit it with the ‘sir,’ OK?”
    “Sure thing, Tyler,” Zac said with a crooked smile. “Like old times, hey?”
    He slammed the accelerator and the vehicle leapt forward.
    “Sure,” I said, looking through the holes in the metal plates and out onto streets I didn’t know. “Just like old times.”
     

CHAPTER FOUR
    I didn’t know where we were going, and I was content to let Zac drive. I sat back, hardly able to see anything outside. Every now and then, I would catch a glimpse of a face in a window. But they always turned away, terrified, and scuttled back into hiding. What had this war done to these people? What had I done to them? Guilt coiled around my spine like a snake pulling tighter and tighter.
    The only sign that anyone still lived in these streets was graffiti on walls and across fences. Most of it appeared pro-army; images of brave British soldiers fighting off enemies. But there were a few scrawled phrases that didn’t see quite so keen on the war effort. “Screw. This. War.” was written in six-foot-high letters on the side of a derelict building. I couldn’t agree more.
    There was also that word again. Shine. I’d seen it when we had been running through the streets. And here it was once more, sprayed in red paint over and over.
    “What does that mean?” I said, nodding at the graffiti.
    “Shine?” Zac said. “No idea. It’s been appearing more and more lately.” He shrugged and looked back to the road. And then groaned.
    “What is it?”
    “Roadblock.”
    Zac pulled to a halt in front of a red-and-white barrier. An armed solider sauntered over to the car and knocked on the side window.
    Zac sighed and rolled it down. “Good morning, Private,” he said with forced cheeriness.
    The private leant forward and peered through the window. “It’s still curfew… Oh.” He stopped, seeing our uniforms for the first time. “S3, is it?” He didn’t sound too impressed.
    “Yup,” Zac said, showing him a tattoo on his right arm – the same tattoo I had – as if it was ID enough.
    The soldier sniffed and straightened up. “On you go then.” He waved us through the barrier.
    “Well, he didn’t seem too friendly,” I said when we were clear.
    “The army pretty much hate us.”
    “But I thought we are the army?”
    “We’re special forces,” Zac said with a grin. “We get all the cool toys and missions, while they get sent off to foreign countries to get their balls blown off. Poor bastards.”
    We drove through another three roadblocks, the soldiers on duty looking less and less happy to see us each time, before Zac pulled up outside a block of modern, glass-fronted flats and killed the engine. The silence after the roar of the car was unsettling, emphasising the quietness of the streets.
    “Where is everyone?” I said.
    “There’s still half an hour till curfew ends.” He tapped at the watch on his wrist; it read 5.33am. “So they’re either inside, or sneaking about and hoping nobody catches them,” Zac said, opening his door.
    I waited, assuming he was stopping to get something. But he walked around the front and opened my door, too.
    “Well, are you getting out?”
    “But… I don’t live here,” I said, stepping out of the car and looking up at the building. The pale, dirty skies reflected in the windows made it look a stone obelisk. It must have been one of the only buildings I’d seen