Read More Than Rum (The Maple Leaf Series Book 3) for Free Online

longer had the ability to comply. All that training, all
those drills, everything he’d prepared for and still he’d ended up a pile of
organs and bones loosely contained in his flesh.
    Scratch that. Some of those
organs were definitely leaking out of holes in that flesh.
    Again he tried to take a deep
breath, to regroup, to get to his goddamn feet, but he could do none of those
things. If only he could get up, put the enemy in the crosshairs of his rifle,
and shoot. It was what he’d been trained for. Sharpshooting was his specialty.
He was known for picking off hostiles with ridiculous precision. But spots
danced before his eyes now and even blinking seemed a monumental task.
    So he didn’t.
    He hoped his parents and sister
would forgive him for dying. He’d promised them he wouldn’t, but apparently
that wasn’t his decision. The Universe had other plans.
    He coughed. It felt as if
knives were jabbing between each of his ribs. He clutched a handful of dirt, sure
it was the last time he’d feel the earth beneath him. He used his last well of
energy to finally close his eyes. Rifle fire was the last thing he heard.
    Adam shot awake in his bed,
gasping for air and covered in sweat. The sheet and blankets were pooled at his
waist, and he struggled to free himself of them and get out of bed. His heart
was at jackhammer level, threatening to smash right through his sternum. He
slumped against the cool surface of the wall behind him and fought to regulate
his breathing, fought for control, fought to stay in the here and now and not
slip into the there and then.
    Jesus Christ . Would
these fucking nightmares ever stop? He was so tired. He couldn’t remember the
last time he’d slept through an entire night. Most of the time he ended up on
the couch, watching something brainless until his eyelids could no longer put
up the fight. It always came to this though. This snapping awake and feeling as
if he were dying all over again.
    What was the point of the
nightmares? He’d survived. He’d been miraculously found and given medical care.
He was okay, but his brain hadn’t gotten the goddamned memo.
    He stumbled in the dark to the
bathroom and splashed cold water on his face. It didn’t help. It never did.
Tasting blood again, he turned on the light and studied his lip. The split had
opened again. He took care of that, and after changing into a fresh T-shirt, he
padded on bare feet to the kitchen and opened the refrigerator, which
unfortunately, was still empty. He’d have to do something about that soon.
    Or get Wendie to do
something about that soon.
    She was good like that. She
wouldn’t let him starve. Hell, if she knew he was up every night, multiple
times, and going through multiple T-shirts, she’d insist on coming over to sing
him a lullaby. Eight years older than Adam, Wendie had sung him lullabies quite
successfully when they were kids. Sometimes he wished he could go back to that
time when his biggest problem was choosing what she’d sing.
    Throwing himself on the couch
now, he turned on the tube and prepared to get zombified. As luck would have it,
a zombie movie marathon was playing on one of the channels. Perfect. He
slouched down so his head rested against the back of the couch and propped his
feet up on the coffee table. Pulling a blanket over himself, he settled in to
watch as humans battled brain-hungry zombies oozing blood and flesh. It should
have disturbed him. It should have made him uneasy. He should have chosen
something with daisies and love songs and a happily ever after to help him
sleep, but it wouldn’t have made a difference.
    He was numb. Hopeless.
    Hope.
    She didn’t like celery. That
hadn’t come up on the handful of dates they’d been on before he’d left for the
PTSD treatment. He’d never met anyone else who didn’t like celery. He’d never
met anyone else like her. Staring into her big brown eyes when she’d looked up
at him in Wendie’s kitchen had been like staring into a