The Survivors Trilogy

BOOK ONE || CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

No one looks up as we silently slip inside the Mess Hall.

The whole room is filled with the Wastelanders, talking loudly as they fork food into their laughing mouths. I'm in total shock as I see one group of people near the back of the room throwing food at each other and laughing. No one even notices they are doing it.

We spot our group right in the center of the rowdy Wastelanders, all of them looking as uncomfortable as they probably could be. Our group looks tiny compared to the others; they are all skin and bone while the others are pure muscle. The only exception is Adam; he looks like he actually could fit into this place.

Johanna doesn't stop talking even when we come into her line of sight, right near the back of our group.

"—does not matter if you just arrived here," she says, intertwining her hands on the table. "Every one of us has a part to play. We all have specific jobs for you, and we hope you will learn to get on with them." She smiles such a fake smile at each person in the group that it makes me want to wipe the smile off her face.

They have jobs here? So, it's not just a place where you can do what you want, and everyone will be fine about it? I guess they are more like the Estate then we thought.

Johanna grabs a small piece of paper from the Girl who is sitting to the right of her, and Will is sitting to the left of her. Both have their arms crossed over their chests, faces as impassive as they could be. "The three of us have come up with a job for each of you."

Johanna drops the paper on the table in front of her, and I try to take a peek at it, but she tugs it closer to her, almost like she's trying to hide it from us.

"Okay," Johanna says, eyes scanning over the carefully written words. "Adam." He quickly jumps to his feet. "You will be assigned with Tessa to be a Security Guard down by the entrance—the place we first met you."

Of course they will assign Adam to be a "Security Guard" down near the entrance; they wouldn't expect him to be anything else—and we don't either. Adam has that type of protective physique; he looks like he could crush rock with his bare hands.

Johanna points out who Tessa is, and I crane my neck to take a look at what she looks like. Long light brown hair and even lighter brown eyes. Pretty. Very, very pretty. She is standing just a few tables away from us, talking and laughing with a few people at the table next to hers.

"Damn." Adam runs a hand through his hair, fixes his tight-fitting shirt. "Don't mind if I do—" Then he's off, slowly walking over to Tessa, who still hasn't even looked his way. He runs another hand through his dark blond curls, messing them up slightly just before Tessa looks up and smiles, holding out her hand for him to shake.

I nudge Vicky with my elbow, leaning in closer to her, nodding my head in the direction of Adam and Tessa. "This should be good."

Vicky smiles, her nose creasing slightly at the edges. "You know what's going to happen, don't you?"

I puff out a breath of air, lean back. "Of course I do." I look back over to the pair. "It's Adam; he'll swoop in and try to steal her heart. Probably crash and burn along the way. Then she'll probably come back to him because of his... charm, I guess."

"Sounds about right," Vicky agrees, and we turn our attention back to Johanna.

"Joel," she says, and he lifts his head up from looking at his lap. "You will be working with Zach down in Engineering, fixing things that need to be fixed, building a few things—stuff like that." She points out someone in the distance, who I'm assuming is Zach. He's extremely tall, with long graying hair tied into a ponytail behind his head, head-to-toe in nothing but black.