Read Emma: Part Three for Free Online

their women. Bred and farrowed until they were worn out and sent to slaughter.”
    Max had seen and heard some horrible things during and after the war. Cannibalism wasn’t anything new. It was a disgusting and horrid thing but desperate people made agonizing choices. But to farm their own women for food? He couldn’t even fathom the horror.
    “If you keep walking down the tunnels,” Leila continued, “you’ll see the bones lining the walls. My granddaddy was one of the men who found this place and the mole-people who lived down here.”
    “What happened then?” Butch was clearly invested in this ghastly tale now.
    Leila twirled her chem-light. “They called it the culling. Not long after that, the first buildings went up in Purgatory.”
    Leila checked the bandage on Butler’s stomach and grimaced. “We weren’t supposed to come here. It was forbidden by Daddy, but Lance and Lane brought me down here once when we were on a supply run at Purgatory. They led me over to the old bone piles to play hide-and-go-seek. But they left me there.”
    “They did not!” Chloe sounded horrified by the very idea of it.
    “They did, but Luke came for me.” She smiled. “Luke always comes for me.”
    “I bet your Daddy was pissed at your brothers.”
    “He belted their backsides so hard they couldn’t sit down for a week!” She grew quiet for a few moments. “Lance made it up to me. He gleaned some lemons from this property we were breaking down, and Mama made lemonade for me. I’d never had it before—and haven’t had it since.” Her voice grew wistful. “It was one of the last times we were all together as a family.”
    Leila drank from the metal canteen Chloe had given her and then wiped at her mouth. She poured a little of the water in her hand and held it out to Grim who slurped noisily. “There was a second explosion, right?”
    “Yes.” Max checked Butler’s pulse again. He didn’t think this was the time to tell her how it had been set off or why. She’d only feel guilty about Luke running after her.
    “My dad? My brothers?”
    “They looked fine when I saw them,” Chloe lied.
    The guilt at lying to Leila ate at him, but it was the right thing to do. She needed to hear the news about her brother from her father. Selfishly, he silently admitted that he needed her calm and in control, just in case they weren’t as secure as they thought.
    Max felt Butler’s pulse weakening beneath his fingertips. It wouldn’t be long now.
    “He’s one of yours?” Leila asked softly.
    He didn’t have to ask who she meant or why she was asking. “We’ve been together since we were born at Gulf Point. He was three series below me, but we went out into the field together, right after the war began.”
    Leila shot him a strange look. “You’re really old, aren’t you?”
    His mouth quirked. “We don’t age like you. Well—we didn’t.” He wasn’t about to go into a long spiel about their civil war with the Faction or the implosion of GPL and the end of the serums that kept them young and slowed their aging.
    “He’s a good soldier,” Leila remarked. “He saved us, me and Gimp over there.”
    Butch shot her the finger at that comment. Max didn’t reprimand him over it.
    “He gave us covering fire when that truck came out of nowhere. I felt the wind off one of those rounds when it whizzed right by my head.” She touched her temple as if reliving the memory. “He threw me out of the way and saved me.”
    “He did his duty.” Max slid his fingers along the clammy underside of Butler’s wrist and searched for his pulse again. “We were created and programmed and indoctrinated to save you. It’s the reason we exist.”
    “Not anymore,” Leila replied. “Now you have Emma. That’s your reason for living.”
    “Yes, she is.” He didn’t even try to hide the hopeful tone that invaded his voice as the mere mention of the woman who had ensnared him such a short time ago.
    But that hopeful feeling