Read The Arrivals for Free Online Page B

everything.”
    After a moment’s pause, Chloe decided that there weren’t a whole lot of options before her. She could go along with the people in her dream/hallucination, or she could stand around staring at the giant lizard while she waited for reality to right itself.
    “I’m not dead, right?” Chloe asked.
    Jack flashed her a grin before saying, “Well, no one’s ever accused Katherine of being an angel.”
    “And jackass here isn’t as much a devil as he’d like everyone to think,” Kitty added in a soft, consoling voice. “It’ll all be all right, Chloe. We’ll go back to camp and rest a bit, and soon enough you’ll feel right as rain.”

Chapter 6
    T hey were only a mile outside camp when Jack noticed the unfamiliar tracks and decided that it was in everyone’s best interest to carry the disoriented woman. She’d been chattier than most, rambling about concussions and brain tumors affecting her perceptions and then explaining that she must be in a hospital filled with drugs that were creating elaborate hallucinations. She finally fell quiet when Jack lifted her into his arms and walked faster.
    Katherine picked up her pace without question.
    Jack did his best to think about getting them to camp safely—without thinking about the last woman he’d carried into camp. Mary was truly dead. Thinking about her didn’t change anything. The new one— Chloe, he reminded himself—was lighter than Mary. It was harder each time to remind himself that they were all individuals, people, not simply replacements for the Arrivals who’d died.
    He knew that this one— Chloe —was from a later year than most of them, possibly around Mary’s time period. Her clothes were different. She wore the tightest pair of denim trousers, of jeans, that he’d ever seen. A blouse of some sort of delicate material was covered by a soft leather jacket that narrowed at the waist like a woman’s dress would. With such revealing clothes, any man would’ve noticed her. Jack was neither a saint nor a preacher; he definitely noticed her charms—and immediately felt guilty for it.
    As Jack, Katherine, and Chloe reached the perimeter of the camp, Jack saw Edgar leaning against the barrel that served as a stool at the guard point. He looked at them with his usual methodical assessment.
    “Kit,” Edgar said with no obvious inflection. Then the taciturn man glanced at Chloe, who rested half asleep in Jack’s arms. “Jack . . . and . . . ?”
    “Chloe.” The girl lifted her head from Jack’s shoulder and looked at Edgar. “I’m not sure of anything else today, but I’m definitely Chloe.”
    Jack lowered Chloe’s feet to the ground, but he kept an arm around her waist. She wavered a little as she stood, but despite the exhaustion, shock, and lingering travel sickness, she was upright. In truth, she was doing remarkably well. “Go with Katherine, Chloe. You’re safe here.”
    Without any of her usual sass, Katherine stepped up to Chloe’s other side and wrapped an arm around her middle just under Jack’s arm. “Lean on me,” she offered.
    Once Chloe shifted her weight onto Katherine, Jack lowered his arm and released the woman into his sister’s care.
    Edgar lit a cigarillo. He was studying Katherine as intently as he always did when she returned to camp after a patrol. Katherine continued pretending not to notice, but neither of them persuaded anyone—including themselves. If anything ever happened to Edgar, Jack would have no idea how to look after his sister. He was tempted to lock the two of them in a room to sort themselves out, but he’d tried that once before with less than grand results.
    The two women slowly tottered toward Katherine’s tent. Once they were inside and Katherine closed the tent flap, Jack turned to Edgar. “She’s the new Arrival.”
    “I figured, but you don’t usually cart them in like that,” Edgar said, holding out a second neatly wrapped cigarillo.
    Jack shook his head.