We're Still Alive(Book1)BEING REWRITTEN

Thirty-Two

Illinois

   He didn't think she would do it. When Wes came up behind her, he was sure she would give in. She looked more scared than before, and her gaze kept flicking to the horse. It was tossing its head in Max's

grasp and would barely lift off the ground every few seconds.
   He mentally yelled at himself for walking around the hummer. It gave her a clear shot at him, though he didn't expect her to start waving the gun around. What surprised him the most was when she actually pulled the trigger. Two shots rang out, and he collapsed when one slammed into his shoulder. He saw the girl struggling with Wes but the growing pain in his shoulder distracted him from anything else. He heard Max yell something and tried to stay conscious as Martine helped him to his feet. They stumbled forward to a building on the side of the road. His shoulder felt like it was on fire. Once inside, he saw that it was a bowling alley. Martine set him down and said something about Max and the door, but Gavin blacked out before he could finish.
   When he woke up again, he noticed that he was laying on his back on a pool table. He rolled onto his side, then immediately laid flat on his back again. Looking down, he saw that his shoulder had been
stitched up and bandaged. It still hurt, but the pain was nothing compared to what it had been. He sat up and looked around the building. The door had been blocked with some of those big arcade
games. Martine was asleep on the floor next to him with Buddy laying at his side. Max was at the front counter, looking through his bag. Wes was standing in the far corner with his gun trained on the girl.
She had the horse with her, and she never took her eyes off of it. She was patting it and rubbing and scratching behind its ears. He could have sworn that he even heard her talking to it.
   He pulled himself into a sitting position with a grunt. Max looked up from his bag and smiled.
   "Good to see ya still alive. Martine! He's up!" He kicked Martine as he said it, and Gavin smiled. Martine was on his feet in a second. Buddy followed, jumping up beside Gavin and laying in his lap.
   "Are you okay? Does it still hurt? Does it feel infected?" Gavin wanted to answer Martine, but his head had started throbbing and he couldn't think straight.
   "I'm fine." He said.
   "Yeah, you're lucky she didn't hit anything important." Max said, patting him on his good shoulder. Gavin looked back to the corner. Wes was smiling at him, and the girl gave him a quick look before going back to her horse.
   "Who is she?" He asked, looking back at Martine.
   "Dunno. She hasn't said anything." He shrugged. "There's no way she's out here alone, though. There's gotta be others."
   "Is that bad?" Gavin asked.
   "If they're anything like her..." Max started, "Then yeah, that's probably bad."
   Gavin looked at the corner again. She hadn't taken her eyes off the horse. Instead she was slipping the bridle off of its face and inspecting the side of its mouth.
   "What's she doing?" He asked.
   "That thing was going pretty fast when I caught it. It had to have caused some kind of damage." Max answered.
   "Hey, most of these guys are gone. There's a few left, but they're just wandering around." Martine called from the door. Gavin looked at the ground where he'd been laying, then back to the door. Teleporting?
That would be a useful skill.
   "Well unless you want them to come back, I'd advise that you quit yelling!" Wes growled from the corner. Gavin saw a the girl smile, just for a split second.
   "Let's wait here a while, till they're gone completely before we go. Gavin's still healing and I doubt we could get the horse past those things..." Max was interrupted by Martine.
   "Or we could use it to distract them." For the first time, at least from what Gavin knew, the girl took her eyes off the horse and gave him a death glare. He stared back for a few seconds before eventually
looking away.