Afterworlds Read Online Free Page A

classroom.
    “I’m Lizzie,” I managed.
    He looked puzzled a moment. “Short for Elizabeth?”
    I just stared at him. It was such a strange thing to say.
    Something flashed in the corner of my eye—another man, running fast, ducking and weaving as he went. He wore a gas mask, a black uniform, and a bulletproof vest. He must have been one of the good guys, but at that moment he looked like a monster.
    Yamaraj put his hand on my arm. “This is almost over. I’ll take you someplace safe.”
    “Please,” I said as he turned me away from the muted roar of gunfire.
    But then I saw what was ahead of us—the metal gate that had doomed us all. A dozen bodies lay at its foot, still and silent. One woman had her arm flung across a child. Another man’s fingers were bloody from clawing at the unyielding steel.
    I froze. “This is where they caught us!”
    “Close your eyes, Elizabeth.” His voice had a quiet intensity that forced me to obey, and he led me gently forward. “Don’t worry,” he kept saying. “The overworld can’t hurt you if you stay calm.”
    I wasn’t calm at all. But my panic was like a poisonous snake at a zoo, staring at me from the other side of thick glass. Only Yamaraj’s touch on my arm kept the glass from shattering. His skin seemed to burn against mine.
    With every blind step forward I expected to feel a body underfoot, or to slip on blood, but there was only a slight tugging on my clothes, as if we were walking through brambles.
    “We’re safe now,” Yamaraj finally said, and I opened my eyes again.
    We were in another part of the airport, where rows of plastic chairs faced the sealed-up doors of boarding gates. Televisions were mounted on the walls, their screens blank. Sliding walkways moved between glass barriers, empty.
    The light was just as hard and cold here, and everything still gray, except for Yamaraj, shining and brown. But the tear gas was only wisps and haze around us.
    I turned to stare back the way we’d come. The gate was in the distance, the fallen bodies on the other side.
    “We walked through that?” I asked.
    “Don’t look back. It’s important that you stay—”
    “Calm. I get it! ” Nothing makes me more annoyed than someone telling me to stay calm. But the fact that I could snap at him meant that I was coming out of shock.
    My anger sputtered when I turned to face Yamaraj. His gaze was so steady, and the glint in his brown eyes softened the hard light around us. He was the only thing in this world that wasn’t gray and cold.
    “You’re still bleeding.” He grasped the tail of his shirt with both hands, and with a sharp movement ripped a piece away. When he pressed it against my forehead, I could feel the warmth of his hand through the silk.
    My mind steadied a little. The dead don’t bleed. I wasn’t dead.
    “That girl who found me, she’s your sister?”
    “Yes. Her name is Yami.”
    “She said some weird stuff.”
    A smile touched his lips. “Yami is unhelpful sometimes. You must have questions.”
    I had a hundred, but they all boiled down to one.
    “What’s happening?”
    Yamaraj looked past me. “A war, perhaps?”
    I frowned. This boy wasn’t from around here. “Um, this isn’t a war. It’s some kind of terrorist attack. But what I meant was . . . I’m not dead, am I?”
    His eyes met mine. “You’re alive, Lizzie. Just hurt and scared.”
    “But those other people, they shot them all.”
    He nodded. “You’re the only one left. I’m sorry.”
    I pulled away from him, stumbling a few steps back and sinking into one of the plastic chairs.
    “Were you traveling with someone?” he asked softly.
    I shook my head, thinking how my best friend Jamie had almost come to New York with me. She might have been lying there with the rest. . . .
    Yamaraj settled on the arm of the chair next to mine, pressing the torn piece of shirt against my forehead again. My sanity was clinging to the simple fact that someone was taking care of