Excerpt from Worlds Collide, Book 2 of the Sunset Rising Trilogy

By S.M. McEachern

(Sunny O’Donnell on learning the impact the Dome will have on the outside world)

Bile rose in my throat. An image of my people—my mother—being herded into a garbage chute that doubled as a gas chamber played out like a horror movie in my head. 

“Sunny?” Dena said.

I hadn’t realized that I was actually gagging. Choking back the bile, I faked a cough to conceal my nausea. Jack’s hand sought mine under the table and I reached for him, finding strength in the contact.

I’m not sure why I felt a twinge of shame. It’s not as if the Cull was my fault. My people were the victims of an unjust treaty. But still, I didn’t know how to explain that to Dena. I didn’t know how to tell her that we were consenting participants.

Jack gave my hand a gentle squeeze. “I can see how a pile of bones gives credibility to the legend of Yugo, the giant cannibal.”

“Only now we know it’s not a giant cannibal from the scorched lands living in the mountain.” 

“No, it isn’t.” The corners of Jack’s mouth turned down for an instant. “The real monster living inside that mountain is a whole lot scarier.”

“How scary?”

Jack looked down at our clasped hands and bit his lower lip. “Nuclear-weapons kind of scary.”

Dena blew out a long breath, as if she had been holding it.

“They would never use the warheads as a first line of defense,” Jack said quickly. “Their first strike will be with conventional weapons.”

“Conventional weapons?”

“Guns, maybe grenades…a drone.”

“What’s a drone?”

“A remotely operated aircraft equipped with surveillance and weapons.”

Dena let out a short, sarcastic laugh. “Lucky for us they won’t be using the nuclear weapons.” She sobered. “We’ve had some clashes with recruiters and a few run-ins with hunters, but never an enemy this strong.”

“Recruiters?” asked Jack. I remembered Jin mentioning recruiters and hunters.

“Ryder’s men,” she said. She stared back at our blank expressions. “Forgive me. I forget that even though you’re from around here, you’re not from around here. Thomas Ryder is the self-proclaimed leader of the biggest settlement in the south. He’s power hungry and wants to control the territory. He demands rent payments from anyone setting up a home or a farm on what he’s declared to be his lands. Payment must be made in the form of food, fuel, pieces of technology, or whatever they happen to have—although most have nothing. Our nation has grown a lot in the past few years because of him.”

“Why does he need recruits?” Jack asked.

“About fifteen years ago, northerners came south during the winter months in search of food. Some of the farmers that pay Ryder rent complained, so Ryder sent his men to chase them back north. It caused bad blood and they’ve been fighting ever since.”

“Let me guess,” Jack said. “He’s not exactly asking people to join his army.”

“No. He recruits by force,” Dena said. 

“What about the north? Do they recruit too?” I asked.

“Daemon leads the north and from what we hear, he’s worse than Ryder. It’s rumored he sends children into battle—that he hides behind them.”

Every word she spoke was like a boulder being dropped on to my childhood fantasies, smashing them to little bits. Summer and I had always imagined that once we were released from the bonds of the treaty, we would live a peaceful, free life on a sun-drenched Earth. The world Dena was describing was anything but peaceful. It was more like the war was still being fought.

“Three hundred years later, and we’re still fighting,” I said.

“We were always taught that, with the exception of us, humanity had been wiped from the planet,” Jack said. “It’s hard for me to comprehend that the population is already large enough to be fighting over territory.”

“It’s not about territory,” Dena said. “Thousands of kilometers of uninhabited land separate the south from the north. Their fight is over dominance and it’s fuelled by hatred.”

End of Excerpt