Don't Look Back (Warders of Earth) Read Online Free Page A

nothing but smoke weed.
    He raised his glass high. Liquid sloshed over the side. A few drops splattered onto Crystal’s bare skin and she squealed.
    Ignoring Crystal, Kevin added, “Hey, Tara, how’s it going? Haven’t seen ya since school.”
    “I’ve been busy.” Avoiding Kevin’s spaced-out, red-rimmed eyes, I opened the cash register then placed the change onto the calculator. I couldn’t ‘read’ maths sums and equations but I was a wizard at arithmetic in my head and provided I didn’t have to write anything down. Picking up an already clean glass, I polished it with the tea towel.
    “Yes, growing vegetables and pouring drinks makes for such a hectic life,” Crystal snickered. She ran a hand down the newcomer’s arm and fluttering her lashes, cooed, “Alex and his father have moved here from the city. I intend to make certain they receive the best possible welcome.”
    “I bet,” I smirked.
    The guy, Alex, swept that calm appraisal over me once more.
    I raised my chin and stared back.
    His lips tilted at the corner in a mocking smile and he turned his back, leaning against the bar while he lowered his head to murmur something in a low voice to Crystal.
    My gaze immediately zeroed onto the tattoo on the back of his neck, easily seen since the guy wore his hair cut military short.
    My heart hiccupped.
    Goose-bumps rose on my skin as coldness flashed like an icy wind over me.
    What to others might appear as a random squiggle of lines and squares in something that resembled an Aztec drawing, I saw a word;
    WARDER.
    Mum had mentioned the word, Warder .
    Another coincidence?
    The glass slipped from my hand and smashed onto the floor, showering splinters over the sticky tiles.
    The guy spun round, narrowed eyed and pinned me where I stood with the intensity of his stare.
    Move.
    Act natural.
    The words hammered into my brain. Feeling as if I lacked control over my muscles, I forced myself to crouch and retrieve the glass fragments. Hands trembling I cleaned up the mess and placed the remains into a bin.
    Holding my breath, I straightened.
    Looked around.
    But the guy was gone.
    ***
    Alex
    Changing down to second gear, I turned off the road and my car glided to a stop in the wide concrete parking lot outside the new mechanic’s shop. I switched off the engine. In the sudden silence, the sounds of the night floated through the open window, the soft rustling of leaves and the creak of branches as a light breeze sighed across the land.
    The muscle at the corner of my right eye twitched. A soldier had no right feeling lonely; not when the stakes were so staggeringly high. I had a job to do.
    And not just any job.
    This was the job of my life.
    My defining moment.
    What I’d trained, walked, talked and breathed for every moment since I could remember.
    Before hauling my arse out of the car, I concentrated, filtering out the muted indistinguishable babble of the neighbour’s television, the screech of fruit bats fighting over the seeds in a nearby cocas palm tree, the barking of a lone dog further down the street.
    All clear.
    Satisfied, I climbed out and locked the door, giving my ‘baby’ an affectionate slap on its neon paint work as I passed.
    Striding around the side of the concrete-block building I went through the gate then on into the narrow yard separating the business from the house. No welcoming lights blazed from the darkened windows. The air between the two buildings was stuffy. I took a deep breath, sucking down heat, the stink of garbage overlaid with the sweet scent of a scraggly rose bush that somehow managed to survive in rock hard ground and pitiful rainfall. A cat shot out from its hiding spot under the building and took off down the street, setting the dogs further along the road into a frenzy of barking.
    Small towns.
    All so similar.
    I’d lost count of the number of places I’d scoured over the years searching for my mark. But now? Now we were close.
    The knowledge sat satisfyingly deep