Strike Read Online Free Page A

West.”
    â€œI forgot how much you and Mikey liked crappy movies,” Wyatt says. “Idiot. It’s nothing like that.”
    â€œThere’s no law, the law there is went corrupt, and you can shoot anybody without consequences. That’s pretty fucking Wild West to me, bro.”
    â€œWhy don’t you just go join the Citizens for Freedom?” I say, hoping to scrape them off.
    Gabriela looks up from beside the kid. “The what now?”
    â€œOkay, so we found out about this meeting—” I start.
    â€œDon’t!” Wyatt puts a hand on my arm.
    â€œUgh!” I wave my arms around and pace up and down the hall. “Why not? What do we have to lose? They’ll see the flyers one day anyway. Let them go. Maybe the Citizens have medicine for the kid.”
    Wyatt leans in to whisper, “You want them to go to the meeting?” He inclines his head toward Chance. “Look, I know this guy, and you don’t want him on our side.”
    â€œIf I’m a bad guy, you’re a bad guy, too, bro,” Chance says lazily, turning the gun around like he’s looking for the gold stamp.
    â€œWhy don’t we all go?” Gabriela says. “If you were going anyway. Strength in numbers.”
    Wyatt’s voice is strained. “I don’t like this.”
    Gabriela stands and walks to me. “Okay, so let’s work this out without the gorillas. Do you trust him?” She motions to Wyatt, and I nod. “Well, I trust him.” She points to Chance. “So if you and I can trust each other, maybe we can all live. But if we dick around, I’m pretty sure the kid’s not going to be okay. And we don’t have a car.”
    I look at the kid on the floor, and he’s so pale he stands out against the darkness of the rotten house. He’s painfully small and still, just as floppy as Amber was. I don’t want to be haunted by another ghost. And even if Wyatt doesn’t trust Chance, I like Gabriela. And I think she’s right. Maybe it’s because I lost my best friend this week, but Iwant to agree with her. And if it all goes south, we’ve still got more bullets than they do.
    â€œSeriously, you’re not considering this?” Wyatt puts his arm around my shoulder and turns me away, but I notice he keeps his gun on Chance. His whisper is even softer this time. “That guy is bad news. Seriously bad news.”
    â€œHe hasn’t shot us yet.”
    â€œThat doesn’t mean much.”
    I turn around and raise my voice, because I’m so damn sick of this tension, of the way the temperature in a room ratchets up as soon as someone aims a gun.
    â€œLook. Here’s my final say. I don’t trust them, and they don’t trust us, but I’d rather join forces than shoot three more people. They can come with us to the Citizens for Freedom meeting tomorrow, or they can leave right now, or we can kill them. I just want to go to sleep and forget today happened. Prey animals live in groups for a reason. So come on or get out.” I plunk down on the sleeping bag and shine my flashlight in Chance’s eyes. “And give me back my goddamn gun.”
    Chance reaches into his pants and gives me his gun, his empty gun, and it feels all wrong in my hand even though it’s a Glock just like the one Valor gave me.
    â€œThis is not my gun.”
    â€œSo fill it with bullets, and then we’re all on the same page. I’mnot letting my sister sleep in the same room with two armed strangers and me holding my dick.”
    It’s probably the sleep deprivation and insanity talking, but I kind of see his point.
    All this time, Gabriela’s been dealing with the kid, but now she’s hunting around the room for something.
    â€œIf we’re sticking around, we need to elevate his leg,” she says.
    I grab a few moldy pillows from the corner and put them under his foot.
    â€œBlankets?”
    I