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Back Heart of the Sun Save as PDF
Chapters (56)
  1. Cover
  2. Praise for the novels of Mia Sheridan
  3. About the Author
  4. NOTE TO READERS
  5. Dedication
  6. prologue
  7. chapter one
  8. chapter two
  9. chapter three
  10. chapter four
  11. chapter five
  12. chapter six
  13. chapter seven
  14. chapter eight
  15. chapter nine
  16. chapter ten
  17. chapter eleven
  18. chapter twelve
  19. chapter thirteen
  20. chapter fourteen
  21. chapter fifteen
  22. chapter sixteen
  23. chapter seventeen
  24. chapter eighteen
  25. chapter nineteen
  26. chapter twenty
  27. chapter twenty-one
  28. chapter twenty-two
  29. chapter twenty-three
  30. chapter twenty-four
  31. chapter twenty-five
  32. chapter twenty-six
  33. chapter twenty-seven
  34. chapter twenty-eight
  35. chapter twenty-nine
  36. chapter thirty
  37. chapter thirty-one
  38. chapter thirty-two
  39. chapter thirty-three
  40. chapter thirty-four
  41. chapter thirty-five
  42. chapter thirty-six
  43. chapter thirty-seven
  44. chapter thirty-eight
  45. chapter thirty-nine
  46. chapter forty
  47. chapter forty-one
  48. chapter forty-two
  49. chapter forty-three
  50. chapter forty-four
  51. chapter forty-five
  52. chapter forty-six
  53. chapter forty-seven
  54. chapter forty-eight
  55. epilogue
  56. acknowledgments

We backtracked an hour and took another route, only to find that one was blocked as well. This one however, had a large group of people standing in front of it, yelling at the men with rifles. At the back of the group there was a man and a woman with a double stroller loaded down with items, a baby and a toddler both crying from the seats. “Fuck,” Tuck swore, banging his palms on the steering wheel. He pulled off to the side of the road and unfolded the map just as the loud crack of a gun made me jump and reach for Tuck, gripping his shirt.

The crowd in front of the barrier was screaming now, as were the men behind it. The people parted, and a man lay on the ground, and even from a distance I could see the blood spreading from his body. “They shot him,” I said. “Tuck, they shot him.”

Tuck dropped the map, backed up and then turned around just as one of the women spotted us, raising her hand and yelling, “Hey! Hey! Help!” and began running toward our car. I watched her through the rearview mirror, the others turning too and beginning to pursue our car, but then stopping as we sped away.

The desperation was palpable. Those people were likely out of food, had no transportation, and were on the wrong side of an already-established line. Parents. Children. Young women my age, alone. I swallowed gulps of air, tamping down my anguish.

Tuck was looking at the map as he drove back around the big rig we’d driven past a few minutes before. “Goddammit,” Tuck swore. “Both roads I was going to take to your parents’ are blocked. We’re going to have to go another way.” He pulled over to the side of the road and I was quiet, trying to process what I’d seen at the barricade as Tuck studied the map. After a few minutes, he set it down and pulled back onto the road. I didn’t ask what new route we’d take, trusting him as I’d trusted him to get me this far.

We drove toward the coast now, the only direction available. “Should we try the highway?” I asked. Maybe back roads had been safest once, and mostly empty in many locations, but perhaps the opposite was true now. I couldn’t imagine what anyone would be trying to protect on a highway, especially one where the cars had been raided.