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“That’s the thing, I can’t write back. You’re a minor, and I’m not about to cross that line. I may have grown up in the hood, but I’m not like that. But you can write to me.”
He slides the paper across the table, and I take it, though I’m not sure why I do.
He’s just another disappointment in my life. Someone that doesn’t want me around.
I get up from my seat.
“You need me to walk you back?”
“I know the way.”
“It’s getting late and—”
I ball my hands into fists, unsure how else to mask my rage. “I don’t want to ever see you again. I thought you were different. That you were somehow better. That you’d care! But you’re just as bad as they are.”
“Brooke!”
I leave, storming back to my father’s plush penthouse and into the clutches of my stepmother.
LOWTOWN
GABRIEL
Four Years Later
Cutting through the newly dubbed Lowtown, I drop rager after rager, hoping to never come face to face with my sis. At least not like this.
Quite honestly, it’d be the death of me, because there is no way in hell I’d ever be able to slice through that innocent girl.
Every time I see a slight blonde, my heart races with the fear that it could be her. That I’m a day late, a dollar short.
It’s been months, and I still haven’t found her. I’ve made sure every single member of the Keep and the Vultures, the people that burn the bodies we drop, know exactly what she looks like and how much she means to me.
Still, she goes unfound.
And now, with this whole ‘avian zombie’ shit, I’m not sure I ever will. It’s not that I’m going to flee for safety the moment the Keep closes its doors. Heck no. Not without Brooke. But with every new variable added to this shit planet, my chances of finding her lessen.
The slap of my boots on the concrete is a hazard, but stealth slows me, so I accept the risk as I storm through the once affluent streets.
Highland Heights is a six-square-block section of the city that, before the apocalypse, one couldn’t hope to live in lest they made seven figures. Oh, how the mighty have fallen.
When things went to shit, every destitute around tried to get themselves a million dollar high-rise, turning Highland Heights into the worst part of the city, and that’s saying a lot.
In the distance, I see a dead head chained to a light pole. Every fucking day, the living never fails to disappoint me. You’d think that with a major annihilation event, the people left would be the smartest among us.
You’d be dead wrong. Apparently, keeping yourself alive in a goddamn dead apocalypse doesn’t take as many brain cells as you’d think.
The living are getting bolder, acting stupid. Letting their guard down. The days of hiding in tiny rooms, barring the doors, going days on end without food have long passed, replaced with recklessness. They don’t take the broadcasted message of the bombs seriously. They never did.
I swear to fucking God, it’s only a matter of time before people start keeping the dead as pets.
I see movement inside a storefront. Shadows shifting. If I had to guess, I’d say he was a peddler. Someone who specializes in locating hard to find items, and right now, what I want is very hard to find.
For the most part, people leave the CP alone, because they know if you fuck with a man in black, you fuck with all of them. In return, we tend not to target the living. We don’t abide trickery and honeypots, but if people wish to rebuild, we won’t stop them.
I enter the storefront, weapon lowered.
“What’s for sale?”
