The Divide (Soldiers of the Earth Book 1)

Chapter 2

"Stay back," Tyler warns the two Émigrés, pointing his gun at them and clicking the bullet into place as they slide off their vehicles. The Émigrés let out a chuckle, taking off their helmets and finally revealing their faces. It was a boy and a girl around our age, and they both look at Tyler and grin. To my complete surprise, Tyler lowers his gun and grins right back at them. "You assholes," He sighs with a shake of his head.

"We got you good!" The boy exclaims proudly, bursting into a fit of laughter.

"You should have seen the look on your face," The girl smirks, tossing her long blonde hair over her shoulder. Her gaze falls on me for the first time, and she shoots Tyler a curious look. "Ty, who's this?"

"This is Rachel," Tyler turns to face me and moves out of the way so that he's no longer standing in front of me. "She escaped from the Reserve."

"Nice job, Rachel," the boy comes toward me, extending his right hand. I shake it hesitantly, observing his blue eyes and freckle covered face with the help of the headlights. "I'm Alfred Mallon, but you can call me Alfie. That girl over there is Rebecca Morgan. She doesn't like to be called Becca, so don't do it unless she pisses you off." He winks at the girl, who rolls her eyes at him before shaking my hand as well.

"You can call me Bec if you want. They sometimes do." she offers, her grass green eyes gazing curiously at me. "I escaped from the Reserve as well. Alfie and I left together about a year ago. You made the right choice by coming here."

"I can't believe you actually thought we were Émigrés," Alfie says to Tyler, chuckling again. "We're not even dressed in white!"

"Better safe than sorry," Tyler replies with a shrug. "Did you kill any Émigrés to get these?"

"Nope. We just found them next to a building. They must have left them there and gotten on the ships to come after us." Alfie answers.

"We should get going. The sun's coming up." Tyler observes. He grabs the helmet Alfie was holding and hands it to me before getting on Alfie's vehicle. Alfie proceeds to get on Rebecca's vehicle, and she takes a seat right behind him. "You coming?" Tyler looks back at me, patting the extra space behind him.

"Uh, yeah," I answer quietly with a quick shake of my head. I slip on the helmet and slide onto the seat. The vehicle is sort of like a motorcycle. Even though I've never been on a motorcycle either, I manage to find space to put my feet right behind his, feeling my cheeks flush as I wrap my arms around him so that I won't fall off.

"You remember how to ride one of these?" Alfie calls over the hum of the engine as he starts it up. Tyler starts our vehicle with the press of a button, causing it to vibrate to life.

"Not really, but I'll figure it out," Tyler calls back, accelerating forward so quickly that I almost fall off, my small yelp of surprise lost in the wind.

I notice with a bit of interest that there aren't any wheels on the bottom of the vehicle; it hovers off the ground and moves forward because of some kind of jet on the back. It takes Tyler a few seconds to make sure the vehicle isn't hovering too close to the ground, but after a few curse words and random button pressing, he gets us at the right height.

Soon enough, the fields of grass surrounding us give way to a forest. Tyler slows the vehicle down a bit, but we're still weaving through the trees at a much faster speed than we probably should be going. Tree trunks whiz past my vision, and I wonder how he can even see where we are going. It's impossible for me to tell a difference between any of the trees as they all blur together to form a mass of brown and green.

After what seems like ages, he finally slows down as we approach a small building. Right next to it is a man pointing a gun at us. I tense automatically, but Tyler calmly waves. As soon as the man appears to recognize Tyler, he nods and waves us through.