Crisis Event: Jagged White Line Read Online Free Page A

went after you, but when we found your bike and all those dead bikers, we couldn’t risk looking any further.”
    “It’s okay,” Sadie said, swallowing down her desire to point at Blakely and say, “you should kill him.”
    “You kill all those bikers?” May asked, and turned to Blakely.
    “Some of them, Ma’am,” he said.
    May smiled and held out her hand. Blakely took it.
    “We thank you,” May said. “They’ve been nothing but a plague. Now we can put an end to ‘em.”
    “Glad I could be of service, Ma’am,” Blakely said, and Sadie wanted to scream. She had to fight to keep a look of disgust from crossing her face. If May figured out what was happening, she and the whole community would be in danger.
    “Is Callie here?” Sadie asked.
    “Afraid not, honey,” May said. “She left early. Said she was going while the bikers were too fucked to function. Her words.”
    Sadie smiled.
    “You’re welcome to stay,” May said. “We could use you. Him too if he knows how to work hard and follow rules.”
    Sadie shook her head.
    “Thanks,” she said, “but I’ve got to find Callie.”
    May stared at Sadie.
    “What aren’t you telling me?” she asked. “Why you all fired up to find Callie?”
    “Did she take the Geiger counter I gave her?” Sadie asked.
        “I guess so,” May said. “We haven’t found one.”
        “Good,” Sadie said. “I just wanted to make sure she took it. Mr. Blakely here says there’s some radiation where she’s heading. I’m worried about her.”
        “That right, Mr. Blakely?” May asked. Her hand had moved to the butt of her pistol, and now she was staring at the sergeant.
        “It is,” Blakely said. “You’ve got to be careful these days. Carelessness is a real killer.”
        “Amen to that,” May said, and Sadie shuddered. She realized she needed to get away from the square. As long as she was tangled up with Blakely and Titman, anyone she knew was in danger.
        “I guess this is goodbye, then” Sadie said. “Thanks for your hospitality last night.”
        “You’re welcome,” May said. “You ever get the urgent feeling you just ought to come back here, you do it.”
        “All right,” Sadie said, and led Blakely away from the town square.
     
    Chapter 4
       
    “We should find bicycles,” Sadie said from beneath her respirator. “Or motorcycles.”
    “No,” Blakely said. They were two miles east of Shanksborough, traveling back the way Sadie had come less than forty-eight hours earlier. Behind them, the little town was disappearing below the crest of a hill. All Sadie could see when she looked back was the curve of the hill and the wall of black clouds shot through with white veins of lightning.
        “Why not?” Sadie asked. She stopped and stared at Blakely through her face shield. “You afraid to ride?”
        Blakely lifted his own respirator.
        “I can’t track from a bike,” he said. “I don’t want to lose her. And I don’t want the general thinking we’ve run off. We’ll catch up to her by tomorrow morning as long as we keep on after dark.”
        “I won’t be out after dark,” Sadie said, both hands on her hips. She lifted an arm and pointed back at the distant storm. “We need shelter.”
    “That’s what abandoned cars are for,” Blakely said. The most important thing is catching this girl.”
    He wasn’t worried about finding five star accommodations. The girl’s tracks were clean and easy to follow, and there was no way he was going to stop.
    He was willing to walk in bad weather and stumble around at night.
    The sooner he got the package, the sooner he could leave the general in his rearview mirror.
    Or kill him, if it came to it.
    He’d already made the decision. When they retrieved Titman’s package, he wouldn’t take another order from the man.
    “The most important thing for me,” Sadie said, “is not breaking my ankles or smashing my face open.