Bound to Ashes [The Altered Sequence: Book 1]

1 • Another Day in Paradise

[Dev]

Sometimes, I think, it would be nice to be able to go outside without getting shot at.

I've got a can of string beans in my left hand and a couple packets of something called 'Souper Ramen' in my right. Which one takes up the least amount of room... provides the most energy... Aw, hell. They're both barely even food. I cram all of it in my duffel bag.

"Hurry up," Cain yells at us. He's kneeling at a window at the front of the crumbling store. He reloads the rifle clenched in his grip and the bullet casing goes flying. Sun filtering through the broken window gives us just enough light to search by. Not that it helps much— this trip's getting cut short. They already found us.

A cutting voice bites through the air— "Shut up, Scruffy." It's Jules, slipping a roll of duct tape around her wrist. She flips a fallen shelf over to reveal another pile of junk to rifle through. "You've got no rank!" She kneels and paws through the empty boxes and shelled-out garbage with quick fingers, eyes darting back and forth.

Cain snarls but sets the gun on the boarded-up, glass-less window so that the barrel peeks out between the boards. He'll buy us time if he sees a human round the corner.

Jules appears next to me, a stack of small boxes tucked under her arms. Maybe some kind of pasta. She settles her back against the side of the empty shelves and says, "Where'd Dogfeet get off to?"

It's pointless to roll my eyes at her. "I don't know." I peer around the aisle. Cain still has his eyes trained on the street and holds perfectly still. For a second, I can almost hear the dust settling. Right about now, I bet the humans are hiding and regrouping, planning a route to the side of our building. They probably saw the shots Cain was pulling off and had to stop. But we better not press our luck.

So I step into the open center of the store and head for the back wall. It's easy to see Ashton towering over the aisles. He's looking at books, of course. Of all the things.

"How did this get to be a bestseller...?" he says to himself, turning the book over and reading the back, probably for the third time. His dark hair hangs in his face and swishes aside when he looks at me.

"You're kidding, right?"

He pockets the small book, says, "Sorry," and smiles. I smile back even though he's wasting time.

"I checked the back already," Ashton says. I get the feeling he offers the information to make up for his wasting time. "Not much we can use."

"That's what we get for picking a ground-level place," Jules says as she joins us. "They're worthless." She plants a fist on her hip even with a load of supplies tucked under arm.

"Well they're here," Cain yells, adjusting the rifle and firing. The gunshot sends vibrations through the air and makes my skin crawl.

"Then let's go," Ashton says, shouldering his backpack. "There's a back door." He glances sourly at Cain, who fires again.

"I'll clean up. Meet you outside," Cain says without looking at us.

Ashton lets his eyes linger on Cain longer, as if searching for a comeback, but just grumbles instead.

The back door Ashton described is a broken-in wall, crumbled in heaps of drywall and mortar. The rubble crunches under our feet.

The darkening city stands like canyon walls around us. More gunshots and yelling echo down the empty streets. Jules and Ashton hesitate, but I say, "Cain can handle it, let's go."

Ashton follows me with no hesitation, but Jules waits for a moment. She glances back at the store, then at us, furrows her brow, and breaks into a jog to catch up.