In the year 2184, the US is divided. Half the country has moved on with the rest of the world, while in middle America, the survivors of the terrorist biological attack that split the country struggle just to stay alive. Though a century has passed, few people brave going behind the borders meant to contain the danger. Even the privatized military is reluctant to do so.<br><br>But that doesn’t stop recently discharged Sullivan Eberle. Only one thing drives him anymore -- the need to find Raphael Hamada. He doesn’t know why. He only knows he must. If that means a lifetime behind the borders, then so be it.<br><br>Rafe Hamada ran away from the real world when he was still a kid. The last thing he wants is to be found, especially by a soldier who can’t even tell him why it was so important to locate him in the first place. He’d like nothing more than for Sullivan to leave, but turning his back on a man alone and friendless is against everything Rafe stands for ...

Penny Candles

What struck Sullivan speechless were the tattoos up and down her arms, faded remnants of her youth, sagging and distorted from the effects of age. Parts of the designs were lost. Others depicted more graphic emblems than he would have ever associated with a woman her age.


“Eighty-six,” she said. “Just. And if you’ve hit twenty-five, I’ll eat my cane.”


He barely managed to restrain his smile. “I’m twenty-two, ma’am.”


“And stop the ma’am nonsense. People call me Belle. You will, too.”


She kept moving through the house, forcing him to follow. They passed a wide staircase, its risers scuffed but welcoming. The art hanging on the walls more closely matched the tone of her tattoos, hand drawn skulls in charcoal, sharp acrylics in vivid reds and blues, even a watercolor dragon that he wished he could take a moment to stop and examine more closely. Belle didn’t stop in the kitchen. She hooked a keyring sitting on the chipped counter and continued out the back door.


Chapter 21