Holocaust (The Deadwood Hunter Series Book 3) by Rachel M Raithby Page A

to ever feel how I felt, how my family felt.” Sarah was full of a sadness, a desperate hope to save the sons she had left.
    “How did this program become so lost?” Lexia murmured, more to herself then Sarah. It was difficult to imagine a time when her mother worked for a good cause, side by side with her father and countless others who wanted to save people, not destroy.
    “The experiment went ahead too quickly, and the side-effects of the hunter gene were not discovered until it was too late. By then, your mother had already under gone the change. When problems started to arise, she didn’t care. It escalated to the point that the government had no choice but to shut it down.”
    “Yet, it wasn’t. Here we stand, more hunters, my mother on a rampage.” Lexia shook her head. “The government didn’t care. They just wanted to wash their hands of this mess. They must know of this place, of the men and women being sent here.” Lexia glared at Sarah, wanting answers; finally she’d found someone who’d been there from the beginning. Someone who could tell her how this mess, this hell, was being cleaned up by a twenty-year-old woman.
    “Some are aware,” Sarah said quietly. “Some are supporters, and some are just scared.”
    Lexia laughed bitterly. “Scared?” She turned away, pulling her hands through her hair roughly, frustrated at the cowards of this world. “Do you not think the people here are scared? God, I’m scared. Scared of what my mother has planned. Scared I’ll never free those who follow me.”
    “The world is full of cowards I’m afraid,” Sarah told her.
    “That’s it?” Lexia snapped, spinning to face her. “That’s all you’ve got for me?” She looked at her in disgust. “You’re a coward like the rest of them.”
    Sarah looked shocked by Lexia’s anger. Standing wide-eyed she didn’t speak for a moment. “I’m maybe not as brave as you, but I’m no coward. For years I have worked against this place.”
    “You are here doing my mother’s bidding,” Lexia scoffed. “Sorting out the degrade whatever that is.”
    “The degrade is when a hunter begins to crack under the weight of all they’ve been ordered to do. Most hunters show small signs in the first year. Most go mad in the third. Lucy believes the more humanity a hunter has, the quicker they degrade. When the recruits go through their final tests, they are tested on the level of humanity they possess.”
    “And then what?” Lexia asked, not sure she had it in her to know the answer.
    “Some are terminated, others put through an extensive re-programing. Others had little comprehension of right and wrong to begin with.”
    “Every one of the recruits made it through this year,” Lexia said quietly. Knowing she’d put them in danger, helping them to conceal what they feel. She’d helped them avoid one danger, only to walk right into another. “What does Lucy suspect?”
    “I believe she thinks her little adjustments to the formula have solved the problem, though I cannot be certain. Lucy is very good at hiding her true intent.”
    “You said you were working against this place. How?” Lexia waited for an answer, for Sarah to tell her all so this soon would be over.
    “I’m working on a cure,” she answered quietly.
    “Cure? How close are you?”
    The pause before she answered told Lexia all she needed to know; not close.
    “I’m missing something. I’m so close I can feel it. Yet…something is missing.”
    “You’re of no use to me,” Lexia muttered angrily, walking away.
    “Wait,” Sarah hissed, catching up to her.
    Lexia paused, aware time was slipping away and soon the humans would be moving around. “Be quick.”
    “I know people, people who are afraid but want this program to end, for good.”
    “What use are they to me if they are cowards?”
    “Get rid of Lucy and the board and they have nothing to fear.”
    “Board?” Lexia said, turning to face Sarah. Staring at her intently, she