Brandy Creek (Book Two Completed)

Part 12

Natalie

Almost everyone in the camp is milling around the courtyard. There's only a few perimeter guards missing and a few people who are to hurt to leave bed. Adam steps up onto one of the picnic tables and claps his hands once to gain everyone's attention. "I have been having some conversations since yesterday, and I have been considering something that has been brought up to me. We could have a second settlement, the one in Kentucky."

That raises some questioning voices and Adam holds up his hands to shush people. "I know for our new people it will hold really bad memory's, but as of now we are over populated. In time I'm sure we can build more cabins, and get more trailer homes, that will just take awhile. We might find more people before we have enough room for the people already here. We wont turn away honest people looking for safety and we aren't throwing people out for space."

He stops to look around at everyone, I can see on some of the faces closest to me how they were considering his words. A lot of people were happy to have a safe place, but it was cramp and it would get on everyone's nerves really fast and lead to infighting. Adam starts up his speech again. "Having a second settlement, one with real houses could be a great thing, or it could end up being a really bad idea. I wont lie, the wall around it isn't finished, its close to a large city, and out in the open. But a second settlement with actual houses means we can help more people, our group can scavenge more, more room to grow crops. There are many things we can do with a second settlement. If we do this, team Alpha and team Bravo will be moving there along with a couple others. I wanted to see if anymore would want to go, to help build that settlement up to be a safe place for more to come."

A hand shoots up and Adam raises a brow. "Yes?"

"I'm volunteering to go." Its Becca, and honestly I'm not surprised. She had impressed me early today when we had our light training, she listened to directions well and seemed to have a good intuition.

After her announcement I see two more hands creep up, some of Casey's teenage friends. I'm not sure if Adam would let them go but I know they aren't bad kids, they could be a big help. Another hand raises and another, I see Jack at the back of the group and he raises his hand. He looks scared as shit but he still does it. Adam nods to everyone. "Okay, okay. I'm going to give all of you time to think about if you want to go or not. If you do well hold another meeting after dinner to discus a game plan."

"You are the leader for Brandy." Becca says over the murmuring voices. "You can't be in two places at once, are we going to have someone leading over there?"

"We are going to have someone else lead over there." Adam says, when he looks over to me I narrow my eyes. "Natalie might be young, but she has life experience none of us have. She's already proved that she'll protect our community and that she'll do what she has to to help people."

A bunch of attention was being thrown my way and I try to keep my face from showing my displeasure of being thrown into this role. I didn't want to be a leader of a gang, I had ruined Fernando's legacy and ran from that life. I don't know if I want to be in charge of multiple peoples lives, to be the person they looked to for guidance. I know I wanted to be free to leave and scout, or jump around from area to area. But now there is the baby, Theo and Sarah in my life. They needed somewhere safe and a sure future, I just didn't know if I should be the one to lead a group in the hope of that.

When the crowd thins out I turn to Mato and frown at him, he drinks from a beer and looks anywhere but me. "You knew."

At my accusation he shakes his head. "I knew you were brought up as a option but I didn't know if that is what Adam had planned."