Read Last Light for Free Online Page B

she’d always dreamed of visiting. Hell, if it helped her sleep at night, she’d learn Klingon.
    She moved around her tiny room above the gym, collecting her gear and efficiently sorting it into her ruck. TK had pretty much been on her own since she left high school to join the Corps almost nine years ago. In many ways, even long before then. Her parents had tried their best, but...well, sometimes your best just wasn’t good enough.
    The Corps had been her home. Supporting not just TK, but with the wages she sent back to her parents, her entire family. After leaving the Marines, she’d drifted in the general direction of her hometown—Weirton, West Virginia—but ended up stalled here in Pittsburgh, unable to finish the journey back to the home of her youth. There was nothing left for her in West Virginia. She’d be just as homeless there as she was here.
    The problem with being homeless wasn’t so much the lack of a place to call home. The main problem with being homeless was that there were so many damn people. Especially in the shelters, making it impossible to sleep anyway. So what was the point?
    TK preferred to bivouac in the open air, but again...people. Crowding the alleys that were safest and provided the best shelter, camping out under the bridges or in the city’s parks, attracting more people: street thugs, cops, the church folks.
    The people were the problem, not her lack of a roof over her head. How was she supposed to get any rest when she couldn’t trust who was at her back? How was she meant to “resolve her issues,” in the words of the transition counselor who’d evaluated her prior to her separation from the Corps, when she couldn’t find ten minutes of peace and quiet to just stop thinking, stop waiting, stop anticipating the next attack?
    Sal’s gym had been the ideal solution—she could work out, chat up guys like Wilson who’d been there, done that, had the same scars she had . Share a few laughs at the expense of the suits who had no idea what a Hesco was, much less what it felt like to have thirty-nine inches of sand all that stood between you and the enemy. Hell, it even had a freaking whirlpool and a view of the river. Sal’s leaky, saggy-roofed, should’ve-been-condemned gym had saved her sanity, if not her life. First time in years she’d felt human.
    Not for long. Thanks to the demands of his new fancy-pants clientele, Sal was closing the gym for a complete reno. Leaving TK back on the street.
    She’d saved up enough money to buy a bike, an old BMW R80 a Vietnam vet had given her a fair price on. But now it made things worse. Because where could she go where the bike would be secure?
    If she got a permanent gig with Beacon, she could maybe afford a cheap apartment. Probably up in the Southside slopes and flats, where the developers hadn’t hit yet.
    She didn’t care where it was as long as it was hers and hers alone. Running water and a working toilet would also be nice, but optional compared to her need for security.
    Yeah, the counselors at the VA would have a field day with that, wouldn’t they? Maybe it was a good thing her benefits had dried up after they decided her PTSD and anxiety weren’t a result of her service. She’d been in the Corps since she left high school, so where the hell else had it come from?
    Not like she’d been shot at, blown up, or attacked back home in Weirton. Or the other thing...although, that could have happened anywhere, to any woman. Didn’t make it right. Especially not when it was someone who was supposed to have your back.
    Leave no man behind. But what about women?
    She cinched her ruck tight, slid the concealed knife free from her belt then bent to remove the knife from her boot—stupid TSA, they didn’t trust anyone. The blades went into a metal lockbox secured to the wall, followed by her Beretta.
    “I carry that same model,” Lucy’s voice came from behind her.
    TK whirled, pistol in her hand, settling automatically into a