You Are Mine Little Sister (by Syra Tucker) novel Chapter 160

Two other girls were suddenly pinned, their masks slipping as they attempted to fight back, and that was when I realized it—five of us had made it out of our rooms. All five.

Everyone else was busy clawing and thrashing, trying to salvage order from chaos, and me? I just sat there, mouth wide open, eyes glassing over, helplessly watching the scene in horror.

The driver barked something in a foreign tongue that was too furious to be anything but curses and yanked the wheel into a brutal turn. One of our girls reached for him, wrapped a hand around his throat and tried to stab him in the neck. But that was unsuccessful. Next thing I knew, our car was screeching off the road.

I clamped my eyes shut and screamed into the sound of everything crumpling.

It was noisy one minute, then quiet the next. The silence was so thick I thought it would crush me.

My eyes stayed closed, too scared to open.

Dead.

Dead.

Dead .

Everyone was dead.

The cleaner in my room was dead.

The three in the van with us were dead.

The driver was dead.

I hadn't seen to confirm, but that was all I could think of.

"Rali!" The voice sounded distant.

"Fuck, Rali!" It got louder, followed by a shake that nearly tore my arm from its socket.

I whimpered as I cracked my eyes open and Josephine's worry was the first thing I saw.

"Josephine..." At least she was alive.

"Were you hurt?" She cataloged me with her eyes, hunting for injury.

I didn't even know; couldn't sort the hurts. Even my heart was on the list.

"Come on! We need to get out of here!" Another voice called.

I dragged my gaze around and blinked in disbelief. All five of us were still alive. The others weren't.

Bodies slumped across the benches, heads at impossible angles, blood pooling into the grooves of the floor.

More dead bodies. Just like the one in my room.

Josephine grabbed my hand and tugged me out of the van. I thought the van must've toppled, but it stood upright, its wheels sunk deep into mud. The front bumper was a mangled mess, buried against the trunk of a massive tree.

Every one of us had our masks down, so I could see all our faces.

"This shit is dead," one of the girls hissed, glaring at the van's bumper still welded into the tree.

"Yeah, we can't move it."

"Shit. How the fuck are we supposed to get our of here? I can't see no trace of life."

"No stupid phones. Not even the driver!"

I kept rubbing my arms, my eyes dancing from one spot on the ground to the next. I didn't have any words to offer. How could I when it felt like I'd swallowed a coin that refused to slide down?

"Girls, we don't have time. One of the bodies might've been found by now. We've got to keep moving."

"Are you alright?" Josephine asked quietly.

I looked at her, then dropped my gaze back to the earth. "I'm fine."

"Well, she wouldn't know. She's not the reason we in this, mess okay?" Josephine cut in.

At some point, I'd grown tired of defending myself. 'The Torturer's woman' was always being blamed for something.

"I'm exhausted. Don't think I can keep moving," another girl wheezed.

"We have to. They'll be on us any second. Come on!"

I glanced up at the sky which was starting to dim to bruise-purple. We all sprang up to our feet and resumed the race when we heard some gunshots.

Screams tore out of us as instinct scattered our bodies behind rocks. My chest seized, my knees skidded raw on the dirt.

When I dared to look, one of us hadn't made it. She lay out in the open, twisted wrong, eyes fixed on nothing. It was same girl who'd sworn she'd rather die than be taken.

Another lifeless body. Another ghost.

"No..." The sob came from somewhere near, but my head couldn't register who.

I clamped my eyes shut, took a desert swallow, and pulled a breath through what felt like an hourglass, every grain scraping my lungs raw.

"Rali, shit. You have to keep it together. Not now!" Josephine spoke in a low rough voice. Her grip locked mine so tight it felt like shackles. Only then did I realize she was the only one behind my rock.

From across the rubble, someone hissed, "We should move for the grove! Should be harder for them to track us there."

No time to argue. Josephine yanked me up and we broke into a crouched sprint, heads ducked, shoulders hunched as if the bullets were still licking the air.

We dove into a thicket where trees stood like sentries. Their shade cloaked us, stitching the night tighter around our bodies.

We can get through this.

We can get through this.