Read Wasteland (Wasteland - Trilogy) for Free Online Page A

read. But that was about all she knew. Esther had a hunch she might be able to find a new point of vulnerability. “Well, if he’s so good, how come we never see him?”
    Sarah shrugged, seemingly unaffected, as she stacked the plates, her back to her sister. “Levi’s a busy man,” she said.
    Esther scowled, looking down. There was a design on the countertop that she jabbed at with her finger. “Busy bossing everyone around.”
    Sarah’s voice hardened.
    “If he didn’t run things,” she said, “we all would have died a long time ago. And I don’t see you turning down food you don’t work for.”
    Esther’s hunch was right; she had touched a nerve. Still, she flinched from the uncomfortable truth.
    She could not deny that she lived off the food that Levi provided and that Sarah not only earned, but prepared as well. Esther didn’t know the first thing about how to pound the otherwise inedible rice and beans into flour, or how to mix it with water and pat it into flatbread. She had never once stoked the firebowl with charcoal or cooked watery porridge on its blackened grill. These were all Sarah’s jobs, and while Esther had always taken that for granted, she realized that it did not strengthen her position. If anything, it made her even more of a child, someone not to be taken seriously.
    “Besides, who’s better?” Sarah said. “The mutants?”
    “Don’t call them that,” Esther said under her breath.
    Her sister didn’t stop. “At least we didn’t go around attacking people, like the mutants .” She emphasized the hateful word. “We’re better than that.”
    “Whatever’s happening now, it’s not their fault,” said Esther. Sarah rolled her eyes, but her sister continued. “Maybe they’re just hungry. Besides, they mostly don’t hurt people . . . only buildings and things.” And despite herself, she opened up. “They’re nice, Sarah, they really are. Maybe one or two of them are bad, but—”
    Sarah snorted. “Oh, please,” she said as she started putting the dishes away. “I wish to God you’d stop socializing with them. You and your little friend Star—”
    “Skar.”
    “And that lunatic in that building, with all the cats. What’s his name? Joseph? You’re not a baby anymore, Esther. It’s about time you weaned yourself away from all of them.”
    Esther tried to rein in her emotions, but she could feel her control slipping as tears sprung to her eyes. “Why do you hate my friends?” she asked.
    “I don’t hate anybody,” said Sarah. Her voice sounded frozen. “I’m only looking out for you, since apparently you can’t do that yourself.”
    A sob escaped. Furious and ashamed, Esther pushed her fists into her eyes to keep tears from falling.
    Sarah sighed, and her tone softened. “I just wish you weren’t so . . . naive, Esther.”
    Esther felt a new stab of annoyance. “You know I don’t know what that word is,” she muttered.
    “Do you really think they want to be your friends?” Sarah said. She spoke softly, almost gently. “They’re all probably waiting to break in here so they can rob us blind.”
    “Rob us? Of what? Our matching coffee cups?” Esther managed to say. Tears were running down her face and she wiped her nose with her sleeve.
    Sarah gazed at her; you could almost see something settle in her mind. It was what Esther feared all along and she cursed herself. She had once again driven her sister in the opposite direction.
    “Thank you,” Sarah said. “If I wasn’t sure about whether or not to see Levi, I am now. Why all this trouble is going on, I honestly don’t know. But I’m sure he’ll put an end to it.”
    Esther was overwhelmed with bitterness—at her failure to keep her sister from going to the Source, and her inability to control her emotions, to play it cool. To strategize, as Skar would say.
    “Fine,” Esther yelled. “Fine!”
    She pushed past her sister.
    Sarah’s voice betrayed mild panic. “Where are you