CHAPTER 37

RYDER’s POV

It’s a nightmare. My homeland, my territory, my pack; it has all become a nightmare. My anxiety grows when I kill off the jeep’s engine. This vehicle may be a relic, but it served its purpose and for that I am grateful.

But the sight before me drains away any positive feelings I have inside of me. I hear Alisa gasp as she climbs out of the jeep. My land is in ruins. Trees have been uprooted, buildings burnt down and whatever houses left intact appear to have been looted. I see dead bodies carelessly piled next to a broken shed and the glassy eyes of the victims who once called this place a home stare soullessly into the sky. This is practically a reenactment of World War Two.

Is this the future that Zion had preached? At the sight of the horrific culling, a dim recollection stirs within me, a memory of a happier time under my father’s rule when the land flourished and our pack prospered.

I walk over to the pile of corpses and fall to my knees with my head hung low. I fe