Read Jenny Undead (The Thirteen: Book One) for Free Online Page A

eyes were cold. He reached out his hand
and Jenny forced herself to stay still. He touched a dark
braid.
    “The smell is starting to make me a bit
sick,” Jenny said, trying to sound shy.
    “You don't have to be afraid of me, you
know, little cat,” he said. “I can be very
nice.”
    Jenny nearly laughed.
    “Jenny?” came a voice from the
stairwell. Lily's voice. “Jenny, are you up there?”
    “Yes, I'm here,” Jenny called,
smiling at Joshua and pretending to look embarrassed.
    “Could you give me a hand with the
dinner?” Lily called.
    Jenny gave Joshua a little curtsy and
sidestepped away from him. She walked quickly to the defunct
escalator and headed down the stairs, throwing a look over her
shoulder at the man who stared after her. She swore he smiled.

FIVE
    Lily was waiting at the bottom. Jenny looked
behind, but Joshua wasn't following. Without saying a word, Lily
took hold of Jenny's arm tight and walked her away from the stairs.
She didn't say a word for the entire walk across the underground
settlement. Some attempts had been made to give people a sense of
privacy. Rooms had been made of stacked debris “walls”
that rose three feet off the tracks. The married couples got rooms
to themselves – though the men were few and far between.
Everyone else had two cots to a room. Lily was Jenny's
roommate.
    “Lily?” Jenny said as they reached
the end of the encampment, and the kitchen area. She was grabbing
cans from a neat stack against the cement ledge. “You
okay?”
    “Pull the tarp down and I'll start the
cook fire,” Lily said, avoiding Jenny's eyes. She slammed the
cans onto the long table constructed from old boards and cinder
blocks. Lily turned brusquely and yanked pieces of wood out of a
nearby pile and threw them into the pit gouged from the concrete.
Jenny sighed and shrugged. Hopping up onto the ledge, Jenny
loosened the rope that held the stitched-together tarps into place.
They had to lower the tarps slightly so they wouldn't block the
holes punched up through the top of the tunnel, to let the smoke
drift out. Someone told Jenny the tarps blocked drafts that blew
through the tunnels. That seemed weird to her, though. The tunnel
wasn't blocked off on the end. And it would do nothing to keep
rotters out. Jenny lowered the material, letting it slacken a bit,
and retied the rope.
    Lily was banging the cans around as she opened
them, angry about something. She had started a small fire and set
the big pot they used for dinners on top of a grate made from an
old shopping cart. Jenny watched the smoke trail up to the ceiling
and out past the lowered tarp. There was a bang that made Jenny
jump. She looked at Lily, but she was busy pouring beans into the
pot. The sound hadn't come from her. Jenny frowned. Looking around
to make sure no one was watching, she stepped back to the very edge
of the tarp, against the far wall. She felt the cold concrete
against her back. With a finger she hooked the edge of the plastic
sheeting and pulled it aside, peering into the darkness further
up the tunnel.
    It was dark without the oil lamps that covered
every surface in the encampment. And the air was cold. Even in the
July heat it stayed cool under the street, but it seemed somehow
unnatural out there. Maybe the darkness made it seem colder, but a
shiver fingered its way up Jenny's spine. She squinted through the gap.
There was something back there. Jenny concentrated to make out the
shape. It was huge. She pulled the tarp wider and the oil light
glinted on a window. It was an old subway car. But not just one.
Jenny narrowed her eyes even further. There were more train cars
back beyond the first one. She stared at them for a second. Why the
hell had she never bothered to look on the other side of the
tarp?
    And then one of the cars shuddered. Like there
was something inside.
    “Jenny,” said a voice right next
to her, startling her. That was twice in a row she'd been spooked.
She was losing her edge. Lily