The Renegades (Book 5): United by Jack Hunt

that the moment we saw those kids. We remained in that house for another hour as we tried to determine the best course of action to take. At first I figured it would just be a matter of getting them to the community. Sure, Sebastian had gone off the rails but there were others there that could help. It wasn’t like there was anywhere else they could go. The chances of them surviving by themselves weren’t good and going with us wasn’t an option.
    What they told us next, changed everything.
    “They have our sister.”
    “There are more of you?”
    The girl walked over to a side table and picked up a photo frame. She handed it to me. It spoke of better times. The parents were smiling, behind them an ocean. The two youngest were out front and a dark-haired girl off to the right.
    “What’s her name?”
    “Jade.”
    “Didn’t she hide with you guys?”
    “She did, but when they began hurting our parents she tried to reason with them.”
    Why would anyone think they could reason with the insane?
    “When they left they took her.”
    Elijah looked at me. “Oh no, no, no. We are not getting involved. We are leaving right now. Like you said. We don’t want to place ourselves at risk any further. Remember?”
    When I didn’t respond he strolled off and kicked the back door open.
    “This is not a good idea, Johnny. The best we can do is get the kids into the community and then get the hell out of here,” Ben said.
    “And the girl?”
    “We can’t help everyone.”
    I looked down at the photo frame and removed the photo.
    How many others had they taken? On one hand we could leave and live. On the other, we could raise a little hell. If we died in the process, well so be it. We should have died long ago. The fact that we had got this far had to mean something.
    Baja got this smirk on his face. He knew me better than anyone else. I don’t even know why it riled me up but the thought of people being taken against their will brought back a flood of memories. Apocalypse or not, no one had the right to supersede another’s will.
    “So when are we going over there?” Baja said as if reading my mind.
    “As soon as we have dropped these kids off.”

    * * *
    I t was still early morning when we rolled out. The idea was pretty simple, we would get them as close as we could to Sunrise Highway and the first access point. Before leaving I had written a small note to Wren and given it to Kiera.
    “Whatever you do, don’t let anyone else see this.”
    I gave her the address of where Wren would be and then we left. The journey took us another two hours to reach the highway by foot. It didn’t help that we encountered a fair number of Z’s along the way. I was starting to think that we had wiped them all out. But that couldn’t be done. They were everywhere, whether that was in homes, below the ground or navigating their way through the forest.
    With a machete in hand, I hacked the head off some old guy who looked as if he had worked as a mechanic in his previous life. His head rolled across the ground leaving a trail of blood behind.
    “I still think this is a big mistake. I’m all for helping people but we don’t know this girl. Does it really make sense to risk our lives for someone who may just die later from a bite? Heck, her sister could be dead for all we know.”
    I stopped in the middle of the road and twisted around to Elijah. “Does any of this make sense? You know, I have been asking myself that from the day we left our small town. What is the purpose of existence if the world we knew no longer exists? What’s the purpose of helping anyone?”
    He rolled his eyes and continued walking. I fell in step.
    “Believe me, Elijah, I’m tired of helping others only to have shit thrown back at us but I will be dammed if I am going to die without having helped somebody.”
    “You have, Johnny. We all have. We don’t need to help everybody.”
    “I hear you. I really do. The odds are stacked against us. No doubt