Reclamation (Best Laid Plans Book 4) Read Online Free

explosion would spray radiation into the surrounding area for miles.
    Sometimes that fallout could be seen, but the smaller particles were often hard to detect with the naked eye, bringing lingering sickness that could lead to a slow agonizing death or an even more agonizing recovery that could take years, if it ever fully happened at all.
    The broadcaster on the radio returned to the more local aftermath of the Retaliation after a while, specifically how the Gold Bloc invading forces had responded to it all. Whatever Lewis might think of the name, here at least it was fitting, and that was in the response it had provoked. In the last day the surviving blockheads who'd escaped the targeted strikes on their camps had regrouped, and in many cases began pursuing retribution on the prisoners they'd captured.
    In the chaos many of the prison camps had erupted into mass riots and a large number of people had escaped. Those prisoners who hadn't managed to get free had either been left behind to succumb to the fallout, gunned down if they tried to flee to safer territory still in Gold Bloc hands, or simply killed outright in mass executions.
    Not satisfied with that horrific bloodshed, the Gold Bloc soldiers had begun chasing down the fleeing prisoners and shooting them on sight. They'd also stopped their efforts of searching for any US citizens still remaining in the areas they moved into, to capture and take to the internment camps, and begun murdering them in cold blood instead. The death toll from these atrocities was already estimated in the hundreds of thousands.
    As the horrific details kept coming Lewis looked away, sickened. A lot of those prisoners were people captured in Michigan, and Trev and his family could've gotten caught up in that. The thought was almost too horrible to contemplate, but at the same time he firmly told himself he had to be prepared for the possibility he might never see his cousins or aunt and uncle again.
    He wasn't sure how long the broadcast lasted, but at some point he realized with a start that he was hearing things he'd already heard before. His suspicions were confirmed as the crowd around him, which had been still and silent as they listened to the news, began to shift around and murmur to each other, verifying that the message had looped.
    Matt turned to look at him, eyebrows raised in question, and Lewis shrugged and nodded. He'd come late to this, but he was pretty sure he'd heard all this before. Before too long just about everyone agreed they'd heard everything they were going to.
    Chauncey leaned forward and turned off the radio, hand shaking slightly. Even that effort seemed to tire him, and he seemed relieved to sink back into his chair, scratching at the bandage around the stump of his leg.
    “It's awful, but I'm glad that at least we're far away from all of that,” Matt said after a short silence.
    Lewis shook his head. In some ways they were far away, but in others they were pretty close to smack dab in the middle. And with Gold Bloc forces to the east and west of them the trouble would probably be heading their way before too long, until they really
were
smack dab in the middle.
    The mood was already bleak enough, and most of the people here had likely already come to the same realization, so he kept his pessimistic thoughts to himself.
    Unfortunately Chauncey decided to speak up in his place. “Not so far,” he muttered, gritting his teeth as his scratching fingers moved onto the stump itself. “Closer than any of us would like, and headed our way.”
    The room sank into an even grimmer silence, and Matt sighed. “I'd sort of hoped the Retaliation would stop their invasion.”
    Chauncey shook his head. “If anything it forced them into a position where they have no choice but to keep going.” He abruptly yanked his hand away from his leg, clenching it into a fist on the armrest of his chair. “Which means at some point we might have to deal with them right here. They're