Read Jordan Summers - [Dead World 01] for Free Online

been hoping to be wrong, even if it meant losing face.
    Red made her way toward the team and immediately
spotted the corpse. "What in the hell happened to her?"
    The body of a young woman who appeared to have been
mauled by animals lay sprawled on a barren patch of blood-stained ground. Her
curly auburn hair matted against her head from where the blood and brains had
dried. Her ears had been ripped off, leaving two gaping holes behind. The tips of her
fingernails were scattered around a ten-foot radius, letting the tactical
team know she'd fought hard for her life.
    "Good for you," Red murmured.
    There was a wide aperture where her throat used to be. Bits of
flesh were ripped from her body, exposing bone and sinew. There was no way to
determine her weight; too much of her was missing. Her clouded blue eyes
remained open wide, capturing her frightened expression.
    Red turned away as a wave of
grief swept over her. S omeone was without
a sister, a daughter, or a mother today, their lives changed forever. Unfortunately,
she knew how that felt firsthand. Red pushed her thoughts aside. She couldn't
afford to lose her objectivity.
    Bannon's gaze narrowed as he watched her survey the scene. "How in the hell did you know
about this?" he muttered between clenched teeth, pointing at the
woman's body.
    She glowered. "Gut feeling." Red ran a
trembling hand through her thick black
ponytail. What was she s upposed to say—that she smelled her on the wind
when no one else had? Not a chance. She didn't know how she knew certain things, only that she did. Doc tors blamed it on possible
radiation poisoning in the womb, but Red
wasn't so sure. A lot of kids had gone through
exposure during gestation and turned out per fectly normal. Special, her
grandfather had said.
    Red didn't feel very special at the moment: more like
a freak of nature, which was exactly how her team viewed her. She looked at the
men gathering evidence. Wary eyes stared back.
    The fact that she had special abilities should've
scared the shit out of her, but it didn't. Red accepted it, as much as she
could truly accept societal shunning. Her abilities were one of many reasons
the team kept their distance from her. She scared them and she knew it.
    Being a woman didn't help.
    Bannon turned to face Red. "The only reason
I'm not reporting this incident to the commander and naming you as prime
suspect is because your DNA isn't at the crime scene."
    She slanted her head. "I'm sure your decision
wouldn't have anything to do with the fact that the commander is my
grandfather, would it?"
    Bannon's face flushed. "I always knew you were a
bitch, but this is ridiculous."
    Red snorted. She'd been called worse throughout the
years.
    "It's not natural to be
able to sniff out a body. You aren't a
goddamned dog. So explain to me how in the hell you did it if you didn't have
prior knowledge of the crime."
    "Who said I smelled her?"
    "I'm not a fucking idiot," he snapped.
"I saw you sniffing the air."
    Red wasn't about to touch that
one, no matter how tempting. "Let me
get this straight—you think I killed this woman and then pretended to find the body?
Is this before or after I planned the shootout with the unknowns?"
    "Fuck off." He raised his thick middle
finger for emphasis.
    "You really are an asshole, Bannon."
    Bannon opened his mouth to respond again, but Red cut
him off before he could utter a single word. "We're near the northern half
of the Republic of Arizona, correct?"
    He nodded.
    "In all likelihood, the unknowns crossed the
boundary to the south, given the trace recovered thus far."
    "That's a fair assumption."
    "So what's the name of the
nearest border town? I'd like to check it out and see if they've been having a
problem with feral animals, along with illegal bound ary crossings." She shrugged. "You never
know. I might get lucky."
    "Why don't you ask your friend Rita to
check for the town name? She seemed to have all the answers a minute ago."
    "Rita's geographical locator