First World (Walker Saga #1)
Jaymin Eve
Chapter 1
I glanced over my shoulder at the approaching darkness. Move your butt, Abby, you’re almost safe.
Safe. I was fooling myself but I needed the pep talk. It should surprise me that this was happening again, but unfortunately it didn’t. Lately it’d become a regular part of my daily routine. Get up, go to class, escape the compound and get chased by gangers all afternoon ... sure, just standard stuff. I really needed to find someone with a normal life, kill them and take their identity. I’m kidding, of course. In my seventeen years, I’ve yet to meet anyone with a normal life.
I ran across the road, tense as I waited to hear the footsteps that had been echoing my own hurried pace for the past twenty minutes. But there was nothing. Where had my pursuers disappeared to?
I hesitated, scanned the area. The street was empty. Shadowy and unnaturally silent. I looked again, more thoroughly, in the last rays of the setting sun. Shattered shop windows – junk piles. Courtesy of the current world crisis. But the gang of tattoo-faced thugs that had struck such fear in me when they’d attacked in Central Park was missing. Four on one hadn’t been the best odds, but I’d managed to shake them off and almost ... almost was back at the compound.
I crept along the street; the slower movements broadcasted my discomforts. My side was particularly painful. Lifting my raggedy sweater, I breathed in, it was immediately obvious I hadn’t escaped the attack undamaged. In the fading light I could just make out the dark bruises shadowing my ribs. Purple already? That was going to be a pretty sight by morning. But being no stranger to pain, I dropped the top back down and focused on the street. One could never forget the dangers.
My eyes were the only part of me still moving.
A rodent scuttled by – but that wasn’t causing the tension filtering into each of my muscles. I couldn’t see the source – or hear it – but I could feel it – I wasn’t alone. Without taking more than a few shallow breaths I expanded my senses, trying to determine where the ambush was coming from.
The world was eerily quiet, but I was missing something.
Unable to stay still any longer, I started to move again. It’s an understatement to say I’m not patient. I acknowledge that. I’m ready for lunch the moment I finish breakfast – though that might have more to do with a love of food rather than impatience. So action of any kind was my preference. I’ve always worked on the theory that in dangerous situations there’s little point sitting around waiting for the axe to fall – a theory expertly formed through my formative years spent watching pirated old-school horror movies. Ah, yes, the loss of television was one of the things I’ve mourned since the fall of New York. Stupid really, considering how many other things lost, but escapism was hard to come by.
So back to my current predicament. My instincts were urging me to get off the street; something dangerous was coming my way. Better to avoid the gangers until they moved on to some other nefarious business – which preferably wouldn’t involve me. I was banking on their notoriously short attention spans. So, making a split-second decision, I ducked into a nearby alley.
Almost no light penetrated this far off the main road. Even with excellent night vision I crept cautiously. The dusky light barely highlighted the short, dirty alley. It contained just a few rusted-out dumpsters scattered close to a brick wall dead-end.
Bad idea, Abby. Retreat. Retreat.
My instincts don’t usually let me down, but it seemed the danger on the street was preferable to being caught in a dead-end alley.
I turned to leave, but only took two steps before the faint sounds of feet scuffing the footpath halted my escape. My heart skipped a beat.
Great.
I was about to become that idiot movie-star-heroine, you know the one: stupid, stacked, blond, and dead. The film industry doesn’t exist anymore, but I had watched enough old movies to know the general plotline. Considering I was neither stacked nor blond, I decided I’d pass on that career choice.
I moved further into the shadows. There were exactly two suitable dumpsters. The rusty faded red, which was emitting suspicious rat noises; or the other, a delightful brown color, which, judging by the smell, was home to at least two dead bodies.
I flipped a mental coin before sliding in behind the red one. There was just enough space to hide. Leaning back against the wall, I ignored the rustling and forced my muscles to relax.