Darkest Before Dawn (A Guardian's Diary Book 1) Read Online Free

we took supplies to since they’d refused to come to the shelter. Newport is a small town that butts up to two other small towns and sits on the border of Idaho. Our town is so small; you could literally walk from Washington to Idaho in less than twenty minutes if you were so inclined to.
    My dad had begun the process of burning the dead and had led us around town, showing us what needed to be done as far as cleaning up and foraging for supplies. With the breakdown in services and information, all bodies were burned to prevent the possible spread of the virus or diseases like typhoid. Winter wasn’t too far off and we had to gather as many supplies as we could, especially with the growing numbers in the shelter. Since there were mostly girls in our little group, we’d all trained with him. He also was the one who came up with the idea for us to wear disguises since we’d been privy to a few cases of rape, and other abusive scenes which we’d saved a few women from. We all wore black hoodies with sugar skull masks that hid our hair and features.  The sugar skull masks were a find that we scored on one of our earlier trips to Spokane. We’d found a case of them in an abandoned costume shop and altered the intricate masks to a more masculine version with Sharpies to hide our gender. While we appreciated the protection of the hoodies and masks, it wasn’t very pleasant when the temperature hit 106 in the summertime.
    We’d cleaned out the stores and other shops to prevent the goods from being taken out of town. Luckily, a supply train for the stores in town had stopped in Priest River, and no one else had noticed it hidden deep in the thickly wooded area. The only thing we lacked was meat, but that was easily hunted for. Soon after the discovery of the train cars, we’d received increasingly desperate radio distress messages from a group trapped in Montana and my father had left to find and help them make their way here, to the shelter. 
    I’d been his second in command and knew how to do everything he did on a daily basis. He’d been gone for almost a month, and with each passing day, I was losing hope. He’d said two weeks at the most, but I knew trekking through the mountains to avoid marauders and lawless men was dangerous. Time kept passing, and he could be hurt, or worse. Dead. I’d refused to acknowledge that thought, but everyone else whispered it when they thought Grayson or I couldn’t hear them.
    I knew the possibility of him being alive was slim, but I also knew miracles happened… But did they happen to me? Probably not. Did it mean I should give up on the man who everyone called crazy, who saved us all in the end? Nope.
    He was the reason I was out tonight on patrol, looking to help anyone who needed it while protecting the shelter from anyone finding it. He was the smartest man I knew, and had taught us how to survive, which was what I was doing now. Surviving the ‘end of days’ with a pack of pissed off women. We were fortunate that the few other men in the shelter hadn’t decided to go with him, preferring to risk the possible bitch-a-thon that occasionally broke out inside the shelter, to the possibility of death outside of its sanctuary.
    I adjusted the mask and hoodie as I made my way through the town. I flexed my gloved hands and waited for a lone car to pass me. It wasn’t like we got much traffic in our remote location; it was just that some of the people that came through here had been pretty bad and it was wise to be wary of any newcomers. When this had begun months ago, we’d thought our biggest problem would be finding food. Wrong; it was the creeps who decided they found lawlessness appealing and made victims of those who had survived the virus.
    I’d been watching this car circle around for the last hour; it had three occupants. A woman and two mean-looking men. The woman looked scared and pretty much broken. She had bruises on her face, and scrapes on her lips as if she’d