Crashing Down - A Post-Apocalyptic Novel (The Ravaged Land Series Book 3) by Kellee L. Greene Page A

being both.
    “Oh! Did you mean alone?” he said with a smirk.
    “Mmm-hmm.”
    “Well, why didn’t you say so?” he said snapping his fingers at Dezzie and Mack. They all walked single-file towards the door. I waited until they closed the door behind them before I dared to open my mouth. But for all I knew they had a way to listen in anyway.
    “So… should we stay?” Sienna said quickly as if she was afraid they’d come back in after only a few seconds. She rubbed at her wrists where they had been tied together.
    Penn lowered his head as if in thought and Dean shrugged his shoulders. It didn’t seem as though any of us knew what we should do. It was as if we were waiting for some kind of sign, but that sign didn’t come and Dominick would be back soon demanding we give him our answer.
    “There’s supposedly food and water here… probably a shelter of some kind, right?” I said pressing my lips together tightly. The words had felt strange on my lips, almost sour. If everyone back at the resistance camp was like Dominick, I would instantly regret what I had just said.
    “We can always leave if we need to down the road,” Penn added.
    “Are you sure about that?” Dean said raising his eyebrow at Penn. I was pretty sure when we were at HOME they had told us the same thing. That we could leave any time we wanted to, and that hadn’t been true. Maybe the resistance wouldn’t let people leave either. After all, they wouldn’t want people leaving their camp and going back to HOME with information that could get them all killed.
    “We could get out of here one way or another… we got out of HOME,” Penn said sounding confident. Knowing his skill-set, he probably could get us out if he had to, but that wouldn’t be an ideal situation. And it would probably be too risky. One of us could get hurt. Just like Slade when we escaped from HOME.
    I wondered if that’s why Penn hadn’t tried to make a move to get us away from the resistance. Maybe he was afraid of what could happen to one of us. Then again, if he thought we were in any imminent danger I’m positive he would have acted. I wasn’t sure if he could choose not to act if it was necessary.
    “If you are sure you can get us out of here, then I vote we stay for now,” Dean said watching me for my reaction.
    “I agree,” I said with a small smile. I wasn’t thrilled about being here, but I was worried about what Dominick would do if we declined their offer.
    Sienna nodded just as Dominick, Dezzie and Mack walked back into the room. They were laughing about something, but I knew whatever it was they were going to keep it to themselves.
    I sighed. For whatever reason I felt a little sick about our decision. It wasn’t that I was afraid to be here, well I was, but it was more that I didn’t want to be anywhere near Dominick. I didn’t want to be under his rule. For whatever reason, he just rubbed me the wrong way. I was fairly certain the others felt the same, but I hadn’t had time to ask them during our brief discussion.
    Dominick seemed like he was conceited, heartless, bossy, and considering the burning of flesh, sadistic too. It was insane that he was leader of this particular resistance camp. It truly worried me about the people we’d soon be meeting.
    “So what’s it going to be? Will you stay?” Dominick said keeping his expression neutral as if he didn’t care one way or the other. But if we said no, I imagined they’d pull out those guns and kill us on the spot. I looked down at the floor to see if I could find bloodstains from anyone before us who may have chosen not to stay.
    “We’ll stay,” Penn said wincing the tiniest amount. I didn’t think Dominick had even noticed the small movement. Maybe the wincing was because Penn was already feeling his flesh burning. But it was probably just that he didn’t like the idea of staying here with a hundred people we didn’t know or trust.
    The best part of the resistance camp was that