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Chapter Twenty
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2024-10-29 19:42:56Felix followed Olga as they walked in silence for a good distance. His mind whirled over what type of conversation with his aunt was about to happen. Was she going to speak to him about his desires for Kendra or his wife’s hatred for her?
Ari had, somehow, discovered his secret longing for Kendra. How did that happen? If only she’d spoken to him about it. He could have explained how it was an old feeling from a time when he thought that Kendra would be the only female he’d ever see and it just came and went from time to time.
He was never good about change. Anyone could tell her that. He’d battled his aunt when it came time to move and wouldn’t have done so if it wasn’t for the fact that Rupert’s knowledge of where they lived was dangerous. He’d balked when Rex joined their little group and took a while to accept him. It was just his way.
Seeing this side
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Center Land (Book 3 of Kendra's Journey) Chapter Twenty-One
On the verge of hyperventilating, Ari had to stop and force her body to calm down. She was furious about the fact that Pete had foiled her plan to take advantage of the zombie battle to take down Kendra. Now, she was sure that all eyes would be on her and the opportunity wouldn’t come again.Her hatred for Kendra was so acute that it surprised her. She needed to take the time to analyze it. Was it really simply because she’d heard Felix moan for her while sleeping? Was that really justification for the anger and pure hatred that she felt?No. It wasn’t.Sitting down at the base of an ancient tree, she worked on balancing her breathing while she concentrated on her feelings for Kendra.Memories of when she’d first met her while hunting began a long movie of the different times they’d been in each other’s company. From being sent on a mission to find her by the leaders of Center Land to
Center Land (Book 3 of Kendra's Journey) Chapter Twenty-Two
Both Felix and Olga expressed their surprise in the fact that Ari wasn’t amongst the group when they returned to them.“We’ve been gone a good long time,” Felix mused. “She should have calmed down and come back to apologize by now.”“How little you know of your wife,” Kendra snipped under her breath as she tightened the cinch on her saddle.Taken aback by his cousin’s remark, he said, “I think I know her as good as anyone.”Swinging into the saddle with the ease of an experienced rider, Kendra did her best to hide the wince as her tender, overused groin settled against the leather seat. “If you did, then, you’d know that Ari doesn’t believe in apologizing. It’s not the soldier’s way. Center Land teaches them to take responsibility for their actions. Own them, but never apologize for them.”He placed his hand on her horse’s neck an
Center Land (Book 3 of Kendra's Journey) Chapter Twenty-Three
“Stay still!” Petra barked as she shifted the handles of the primitive travois in a more comfortable position. “If you rock this thing one more time I’ll punch you out! I’m getting blisters.”“You’re such a whiner,” Jeena grumbled. “She’s not doing anything different than when I was dragging her, but you didn’t hear me complaining.”Ari’s loud grunt matched the thud that was made as Petra let the handles drop to the ground so that she could display the blisters on her palms to her companion. “See this? It’s from trying to hold these poles while she jolts this thing everywhere. The bark is lifting and cutting into my flesh.”Jeena sucked in air through her teeth. “Wow. That didn’t happen to me. It looks painful.”“Ya think?” Petra snapped as she yanked at the parts of Ari’s shirt that weren’
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The group rode in silence. Although they knew that it would not be pleasant, cauterizing Ari’s wounds proved to be a more emotionally traumatic task than they’d imagined it would be. Her screams from the pain were not only heart-wrenching, but were of deep concern since they were very close to the valley of creatures. Two terminator pigs would be the least of their worries if the creatures on the other side of the hill took notice of their presence.Although she harbored dislike for Ari after the way she’d behaved toward the very brave and impressive Kendra after she’d saved her from that amazon woman and a touch of jealousy over the fact that she had Felix and didn’t really deserve him, Alice couldn’t help the deep sense of pity and remorse over what happened to Ari. No one, not even a bitch like Ari, deserved what happened to her.They’d traveled about thirty minutes when a half dozen amazon women on horseba
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It didn’t matter what anyone said about Eugene’s fate. Kendra knew in her heart that her son was still alive and that he’d remember her, no matter how much time had kept them apart or what the mad scientists of Center Land had tried to do to his mind. She was extremely disappointed about the delay in going to fetch him, but her heart wasn’t so cold that she would turn her back on Ari when she was in such a condition.As they rode in silence, she let her mind imagine what it must have been like to have enormous wild pigs tearing at her flesh and crunching at her bones while she lay helpless to do anything about it. Her entire body shuddered at the thought.“Are you alright?” Alice asked in a soft and friendly tone as she urged her horse up next to Kendra’s.“Why do you ask?” Kendra snipped in a tone that was a little brisker than she’d intended. When she saw the mixture of both surprise
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It was only a matter of minutes before a small group of amazon guards rode up on horseback. Like the women, the horses were oversized. Even though the ones that Kendra and her companions rode were the size of draft horses on the surface of earth, the ones that the amazon women sat astride made the ones that Kendra and her companions rode seem like small ponies.“You’re a brave one, Trudy Desmond,” barked the head guard.“Look at the girl on the travois, Gilda,” Trudy said to the guard. “She needs help now.”After a brief second of indecision, Gilda urged her horse closer to Ari. The sound of her sucking in air permeated their ears. “What beast got ahold of her?”“We’ll tell you, but we’re wasting time standing here,” Kendra boldly said. “We traveled an easy hour to get here. She’s been in pain for some time now.”The guard g
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Kendra lay staring at the ceiling while she listened to the rhythmic breathing of her husband. His strong, muscular body lay, naked atop the bedding next to her. Their love making had been sincere, but intense. So intense, in fact, that she momentarily questioned whether the driving force behind Rex’s actions was love or anger.She had no doubt that he loved her. It was just that so much had happened to them and between them that she questioned if that love just might be coated with a bit of bitterness. If that was the case, she didn’t blame him or hold it against him. Admittedly, she harbored a faint bit of resentment that she worked to keep in check over the fact that he’d been used as a stud while in captivity. She supposed that it was natural to have some amount of jealousy mixed in with her emotions of love and friendship. In fact, she thought that it just might be a sign of a healthy relationship.&n
Center Land (Book 3 of Kendra's Journey) Chapter Twenty-Eight
Felix paced the long corridor of the infirmary. His mind was so preoccupied with guilt and worry over Ari’s condition that he barely noticed the patients laying in their beds as he breezed past the open doors.They’d given him very little word on what was happening behind the closed double doors to the operating room. He’d followed them into the room and was there long enough to hear them discuss the possibility of having to amputate one of Ari’s legs from the knee down, but, at the sound of his mournful moan, they realized that he was in the room and promptly escorted him out.Now, he paced the floor, feeling helpless, while he waited for someone to come out of that room and tell him what they done or were going to do to help his wife.Kendra’s soft voice asking him how Ari was doing brought his attention back to his surroundings. He looked around him as if he was unsure of where he was before comprehension set in and h
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Center Land (Book 3 of Kendra's Journey) Chapter Forty-Eight
It took two days of traveling over what they considered treacherous ground to reach Hope. Between keeping their eyes open for newly made alien and amazon zombies and the wild beasts- many of which were prehistoric- their nerves were completely spent by the time they stumbled into Arthur’s house.Alice was sitting on the porch when she spotted them coming down the hill toward the village. Racing into the house, she frantically prepared him for their arrival.Although Arthur was relieved that his love had returned to him and eager to hold her in his arms again, he dreaded having to give the group the news of Ari’s demise. He’d struggled for days to think of the right way to tell them and had yet to come up with it.Pete’s absence was immediately noticed. Although Arthur was saddened, he wasn’t surprised by the news that his friend had succumbed to the virus. Pete wasn’t immune to it and, therefore, was taking a
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Luck was with them as they slipped through the door and scurried across the wide, well-lit corridor and into the shadows. There was no sign of life, but they dared not speak. Drawing from her experience as a prisoner in the past, Kendra behaved as she had while escaping from the alien camp on the surface and slipped from shadow to shadow as silently as possible.Once again, Olga telepathically spoke to Kendra. “These bastards speak a crazy language, but I managed to decipher the location of Eugene. Look for a door with two ‘X’s’, an upside down ‘V’ and an ‘O’ on it in the west wing. That’s where he is. Hurry, they’re preparing to send a search party out for our bodies.”Feeling the pressure of the urgency, Kendra motioned for Pete and Felix to follow her as she turned a corner and began surveying the writing on the doors. They were already in the west wing, but she saw nothi
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The trio cautiously made their way to the south wall of the settlement in hopes of encountering fewer zombies. They had no choice but to cross a small clearing, but managed to escape notice from the guards patrolling the walls. Fortunately, the zombies that they were forced to battle were ones that had regressed to a manageable state of brain dead and were fairly easy to eliminate.Once they’d reached the wall, Pete looked for signs of a possible entry, but could find none. Although she wasn’t as certain about what to look for, Kendra also searched the exterior of the settlement with her eyes, but saw nothing as well.“We might be too close,” Pete mused. “After all, it would be an escape tunnel.”“Where would it come out, then?” Kendra asked with angst. This was a new situation for both of them. She couldn’t be upset with Pete or Felix for not thinking about that before they’d ri
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Kendra was concerned.Rex was in trance for what she deemed an excessive length of time. What could he possibly be seeing that would take him so long? She was seriously considering joining him in trance to find out, but, then, thought better of it.Moving close to her aunt she whispered, “Do you think that one of us should go into trance to see what’s happening? He might need to be pulled back.”Olga knit her brows together. She’d been thinking the very same thing. It had never happened to her, but she’d heard about visionaries getting stuck in a vision and needing assistance coming back. It was a rare occurrence, but it did happen.She grabbed her niece’s hand and held it to her heart. “It must be me who goes in to see what’s up. If he’s stuck, you aren’t adept enough to bring him back.”She knew that her aunt spoke the truth, but the realit
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Kendra was surprised at how close they were to Center Land. The temptation to enter the city and demand the return of her son was almost all consuming. It took extreme willpower to continue on past it toward the alien’s settlement.“Do you think that alien in the amazon’s cell was from this place?” she asked as they carefully slipped behind a large boulder and looked down upon the modest sized alien settlement.Even though it was modest, it was still impressive. The walls were lined with barbed wire that made the community look more like a prison than a place of residence. Looking off in the distance, they soon learned the reason for the set up. With eyes wide with surprise, they watched as several zombies cooperated with each other to create a mound high enough for one of them to climb over the wall. When it reached the top and grabbed onto the wire, a visible jolt of electricity practically fried it to a crisp.
Center Land (Book 3 of Kendra's Journey) Chapter Forty-Three
Arthur insisted that Olga, Kendra, Rex, Felix, and Pete make haste on their very important mission. Promising to tend to Ari as best he could, he waited until they were well out of sight before turning to Alice.With a frown on his face, he asked with concern, “What do you think, Alice? Do you think she’ll even make it to Hope?”The severe wrinkles on her face made it almost difficult to tell that the young woman’s brows were knit together as she looked down at Ari. “She’s in pretty bad shape. I thought that they were saving her life. It looks more like they were keeping her alive for some reason that didn’t require good health.”Arthur shuddered. “They were a deceiving bunch, wouldn’t you say? All that talk about peace and caring for mankind. I wonder why they really kicked out those rogues. From what I could see, they weren’t any worse than t
Center Land (Book 3 of Kendra's Journey) Chapter Forty-Two
As agreed between Olga and Rex, they informed Kendra of their plans, but nothing was said to the others about them. The main reason was that it was unclear if they’d be successful and, since Alice and Pete weren’t behaving as cooperatively as they’d hoped, they didn’t want anyone doing or saying something to make things go awry.As she’d predicted, Olga replaced the batch of virus that was taken from her with a fresh supply while the guards overseeing her assumed that she was working on the antidote. She cautiously slipped several vials into her lab coat pocket before announcing that it was nearing lunch time and she was excessively hungry to the point that it was interfering with her work. She wanted to be returned to her cell so that she didn’t miss the lunch meal.Since she was required to change clothes before leaving the lab, she slipped behind the screen they’d provided to appease her modesty under the g
Center Land (Book 3 of Kendra's Journey) Chapter Forty-One
Kendra sucked in air as a vision of Queen Isabo appeared before her. The amazon queen was standing amongst a small group of aliens. It was Kendra’s first view of the aliens occupying inner earth. They looked exactly like the ones on the surface. She shuddered with repulsion as the memories of her time as their prisoner fluttered through her mind.Pushing the unsettling thoughts away as best as she could, she focused on the conversation that was taking place between the amazon queen and the alien who was clearly of status. They were speaking a language that was foreign to Kendra, but their tones and facial expressions led her to believe that their interaction was friendly.Her heart raced wildly with remembrance and trepidation as the rogue amazon leader, Minerva, walked up to them. Kendra recognized most of the rogues following her from her time in their camp. They stood a short distance away from their leader as they wai
Center Land (Book 3 of Kendra's Journey) Chapter Forty
By the time Arthur and Alice were thrust into the cell, the group had come up with a solution for their lack of privacy that gave them some semblance of comfort while taking care of personal needs. The women had seriously considered pointing out their dilemma and asking to be moved to a separate cell, but, then, thought better of it. Staying together would allow them the chance to put their wits to work as a unified group and come up with a means of escape. So, when nature called, they swallowed their pride and braced themselves to endure the humiliation as they made the announcement of their body’s need so that the others could stand with their backs turned toward the individual until the person announced that all was clear.The lack of consideration for their comfort and modesty made Kendra equate the amazons to aliens on the surface who treated humans like they were no better than animals.Several hours passed before Olga was yanked from the
