by Toby Minton
I'm not down there, Nikki. I'm with you. I'm...in here with you.
I don't understand, she thought, collapsing back into Elias's arms and looking up into Sam's steady eyes where he knelt between her and the grave.
I don't either, Nikki. We have a lot to figure out, but not right now. For now, get in out of the rain, OK? For me. We'll figure the rest out later.
She didn't understand, not at all. But she knew Michael was right. She let Sam help her up by her muddy hands and turn her toward the church.
She'd shoot for understanding later—maybe much later. In truth, she didn't really want it right now. She knew how unstable she was at the moment, so she wasn't completely convinced the new voice in her head wasn't just something her imagination had cooked up to help her cope.
For now, she didn't care. Some weird how, some weird way, Michael was still with her. And that was all she cared about. She didn't need to know the how or why. For now, it was enough to know that she wasn't alone.
* * *
My generation thinks a hero is somebody who is strong enough to protect the weak. Someone with power and the nerve to wield it. We grew up in a shitty world where the haves piss on the have-nots, and some of the have-nots would rather stab you than share a spot out of the rain, so we tend to cling to stories where people with amazing powers come to our rescue.
Those are the heroes of my generation—the powerful, the mighty.
My generation is wrong.
Anybody can fight if they’re stronger than the other guy. All that takes is the tiniest bit of courage or crazy, and most everybody has some of one or the other. A real hero is someone who stands up and fights when he knows he can’t win. He fights when he doesn’t have any strength left. A hero is somebody who does what’s right, no matter what it costs him. Or, I guess what really makes him a hero is that he does it knowing full well what it’ll cost him.
Michael Flux, my brother, was a hero—the real kind. And now all that’s left of him is what’s flowing through my veins.
My brother left some pretty big shoes to fill. A lot to live up to. Not a chance I can do either. I’ve never been much for pleasing anybody besides myself or living up to much of anything. But I don’t want to let him down. I did enough of that when he was around to see it. I want to do my brother proud, if I can. I owe him that much, at the very least. And I don’t like owing anybody anything, especially not him.
So, here’s me, trying to figure out how to be what he was from the start.
Like I said before, I never wanted to be a hero. But in the end, I didn’t have a choice.
-Nikki Flux, October 29
From a partially burned journal
found in the Wasteland
Books by Toby Minton
The Gateway Series
Children of Genesis
Children of Evolution (Summer 2015)
Children of Destiny (Forthcoming)
Note from the author
If you enjoyed this book, please leave feedback or a review on the site where you purchased it. In fact, even if you didn’t enjoy it, I encourage you to leave some sort of feedback. Reviews help readers, resellers, and distributors make the all important decision of whether to take a risk on a book. Basically, reviews sell ebooks. And, well, I like to sell books. The more I sell, the more time I can devote to writing. The more time I can devote to writing…you get the idea.
Toby’s haunts
Website:
tobyminton.blogspot.com
Facebook:
facebook.com/TobyMintonAuthor
Twitter:
@MintonToby
Goodreads:
goodreads.com/author/show/7191758.Toby_Minton
About the author
Before he started writing novels, Toby worked as a technical writer for the [REDACTED] government and in the private sector for [CONFIDENTIAL]. He edited romance and paranormal romance novels in the freelance sector, and designed board and card games in the close friends sector.
Toby currently lives in Australia with his wife and their two happy food babies, but it’s only a matter of time until he gets them all deported. Truly. When that happens, they’ll flee to a land where home Internet plans don’t have limited data and the spiders aren’t big enough to carry off children.
If you try hard enough, you can find Toby on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Xbox Live, and the PlayStation Network, but don’t believe a word you read about him. You can’t trust anything you find online, especially in e-books.