Finding Home - A Post Apocalyptic Novel (The Ravaged Land Series Book 2) by Kellee L. Greene

left?
    Maybe they had.
    Maybe they were long gone and Penn and I would get inside only to be stuck there. We wouldn’t be allowed to leave. And if we tried we’d be killed. It was a risk I’d have to take. I had to do whatever it took to try to find them.
    Penn walked in and started up the fireplace. He kicked off his boots and hung up his coat. I watched him as he peeled off his T-shirt and wrapped a blanket around his toned body. He told me once he didn’t like the T-shirts he had to rotate through. They were either too small or too big and that he felt more comfortable wrapped up in the blanket. I thought he was crazy. If someone ever came snooping around he’d want to be dressed.
    “So any ideas on what the plan should be?” he said sitting on a chair near the fireplace. He leaned forward with his elbows on his knees.
    “I haven’t been able to come up with one yet. I can’t think clearly,” I said rubbing my temples. The fire blazed and crackled behind me, heating the small room quickly.
    Penn started asking me questions about HOME. Some I’d already told him but he wanted to hear it again. He asked me about the process of getting in. I had to retell him everything in detail, twice. I told him about the checkpoint, and then d-con, the helicopter ride, and then what I had seen of the main base. Then I reminded him about the jumpsuit and that maybe somehow I could use that to get inside. He nodded and stared at the floor as I spoke. I suggested again that he could stay here and keep the house safe, but he laughed and said that wasn’t going to happen.
    “Well, then I think there is only one way in,” he said sliding the blanket off his shoulders and tossing it to the side. He stood up and put his hands on my shoulders, “We go in just like anyone else would.”
    I swallowed hard. It would be too risky, and what if someone would recognize me? It was a possibility wasn’t it? Did I look that different? Stepping back on their territory was like not only wearing a target on my back, it was also like having a neon arrow floating above my head flashing and pointing right at me.
    “I don’t know if I can do that,” I said turning my back to him so he couldn’t see my face. I hated showing any weakness around Penn. When he first came here I had been the one in charge, and I was trying desperately to keep it that way.
    “Of course you can. You told me you used to have long blonde hair and now you’ve cut it and dyed it black. There’s no way with all the people they’ve seen they’d recognize you.”
    “But if they did…,” I said flopping down on the sofa. Penn sat down next to me and kicked his feet up on the coffee table. I looked into the flames as if it were some kind of crystal ball and it would reveal what I should do. But it didn’t.
    “You want your friends back, right?”
    “You know I do.”
    “Then it’s a risk you have to take. And I’ll be there with you,” he said staring at the fire.
    I got up again. My body felt itchy, as if there were ants crawling all over me. I couldn’t decide if I should sit or stand. Or do jumping jacks. Penn watched me as I paced back and forth. “OK, let’s say we go to the checkpoint, then what?” I said stopping only for a second to look at him before I started moving again. I was running all the possible scenarios I could think of through my head.
    “We go with as little as possible, keeping most of our necessities here—”
    “Do we take my gun?”
    “No.”
    “But….”
    “They’ll confiscate it right? We can’t lose the gun if we have to come back here,” he said not knowing I already had two other guns hidden away. I figured he’d be upset if he knew he could have had his own gun this whole time to use for his own safety. “You’ll have to hide it somewhere and we’ll just hope we don’t need it on our way to the checkpoint.”
    I nodded knowing that he was right, but I wasn’t thrilled by the idea of going out unarmed. Penn