Twisted World: A Broken World Novel by Kate L. Mary

check in on Mom. Make sure she ate.”
    She lived with her mom. Maybe her family was on the council and that was how she had her connections. It had to be something big, otherwise people wouldn’t be falling all over themselves to make sure she was safe.
    Meg shot Glitter a look before heading off with Jackson. The VIPs nodded my way when they passed, but I barely looked up from my drink. I was too busy thinking about everything that had gone on tonight.
    The fight had gone down the same way it usually did. I always won and the crowd always acted like it was some kind of major victory. Right. Two zombies out of the two million still left roaming this country. How ridiculous. After I’d put the dead down, all I had really wanted to do was get some rest. These assholes liked to act like I was a big shot when we got to a settlement, pretending this release program wasn’t just a more creative way to kill off the prisoners crowded into DC, but when we were out on the road, it was chains and work. When we got stuck in the mud yesterday, I was the one who’d had to dig the truck out. When raiders from an unsanctioned settlement attacked last week after we left Dayton, you better believe your ass the guards left me chained inside the truck while they took cover. Bullets flying everywhere. Nowhere for me to hide. Shit, I came so close to getting hit that I started saying my prayers.
    Yeah, the fight went the way it always did, but this business in the bathroom wasn’t normal. The entertainment areas were always seedy, and things like that happened more than they should, but if it had been anyone else I’d rescued, the enforcers would have shot me or thrown cuffs on me the second they arrived. Meg had pull in the settlement that didn’t make any damn sense.
    “You looking for a little company?” Glitter’s voice broke through my thoughts, and when I looked up, she was practically on top of me.
    “I’m good.” I took a sip, still looking at the waitress but thinking only about Meg. “Tell me something,” I finally said, setting my glass down. “What were you and that girl talking about?”
    “The one who got attacked?” Glitter’s eyebrows shot up when I nodded. “She wanted a job. Just didn’t want the Regulator’s son to find out.”
    “A job here?”
    “Yeah. A job here .” Glitter put her hands on her hips and for the first time I noticed the scars that ran up the inside of both her arms, heaviest in the crook. Junkie. I should have figured. “Something wrong with working here?”
    “Not a damn thing,” I said with a shake of my head. “These days, you have to do what it takes to survive.”
    “No kidding.” Glitter snorted before heading off, obviously tired of me telling her no.
    You have to do what it takes to survive. It had become my damn motto over the past year, going back to Patty and what had happened with her. I’d done what I had to because that's what we did now. Then I got sent to DC, and every day I had to do what it took to stay alive. In there they didn’t give a shit if you killed each other, which meant that if I wanted to make it out of that place one day, I was going to have to get my hands dirty.
    Then came the fights. I started working my way up the ranks of convicts, getting extra privileges and eventually earning my way into this release program. All of it coming down to one thing: surviving. And I didn’t have plans to stop surviving any time soon, either.

T he piece of paper in my pocket felt like it weighed a hundred pounds on the walk home. Jackson wouldn’t leave my side no matter how many times I told him I could make it back on my own. He was so damn determined to make sure I was okay that he wouldn’t hear me when I told him I was fine.
    How the hell had I forgotten about the note, and what was in it?
    That was the main thing going through my head as we reached the edge of shantytown. It had to be after two o’clock in the morning, but this section of the