The Last Girls on Earth

The Last Girls On Earth Book 2: Gluttony HAYLEY ANDERTON Copyright © 2023 Hayley Anderton All rights reserved. This book is dedicated to the girls on Bookstagram. The ones who I’ve never met in real life, but who support me so unconditionally anyway. I love you all. OTHER BOOKS BY HAYLEY ANDERTON All books are available to purchase as paperbacks or ebooks. All books are also enrolled in Kindle Unlimited. The Last Girls on Earth Series Book 1: Sloth Book 2: Gluttony Book 3: Greed Apocalypse Series Book 1: Apocalypse Book 2: Fallout Book 3: Chaos Book 4: Sacrifice Book 5: Outlast Book 6: Alliance Coming Soon… The Risen Series Book 1: The Risen Book 2: The Lost Book 3: The Remains Other Books: Homebound What isn’t yours you hope to claim, You clasp lone scraps with shame, A mouth starved never tires Of a hungry heart's wildest desires. RILEY My head hurts like a bitch. It’s my first thought as I pry open my eyes and look up. I can feel cool air brushing my cheeks, and I can see the sky. Am I still in the Pit? Have I woken up with Bull’s blood on my hands? Guilt sears through my heart like an ice pick. But then I realize I’m moving. Someone, or something, is carrying me, and they’re not doing a very good job. I’m bouncing around all over the place on some kind of stretcher. I try to sit up instinctively, but a wave of nausea sends me shooting backward. As my shoulder hits the stretcher, pain bursts through me. Whoever is carrying me yelps and loses their balance, toppling us to the ground. “Bloody hell!” I cry out as my spine jolts on the tarmac. I blink through the pain. We seem to be in some dark alleyway in a city that seems unfamiliar to me. Away from the Pits, then. “What the hell is going on here?” “Sleeping Beauty awakes,’ Squid grins, his dopey face hovering over mine. “About bloody time too, if you ask me. I was starting to think you’d joined the land of the dead.” I blink through the bleariness of my eyes, and three faces come into focus. Looking down on me are people I thought I might never see again. Pup’s eyes are filled with worry, while Tiger seems relieved and Squid has a huge grin on his face. “Don’t joke about that,” Pup whispers. “It’s too soon.” “Agreed,” Tiger says with a disapproving sniff. “We’ve just lost two. Pup’s all beat up-” “It’s Elianna,” she says softly. “We don’t need those nicknames anymore.” “In any case...Elianna is beat up, and-” “-Riley can’t even walk by herself,” Elianna finishes for him. “So no more jokes about death, okay? It’s just not funny.” Squid raises an eyebrow at me. “Well, there you have it. No room for jokes. You two are just a barrel of laughs, aren’t you?” Squid pauses, prodding me with his finger. I wince. Every single inch of me feels sore. “Well, say something, eh? Cat finally got your tongue?” I huff. “Fuck off.” “There she is…” “Does someone mind telling me what the hell is going on?” “You’re on the road, kid,” Squid says. “We left the Pit behind three days ago. We wanted to stay longer, let you and Pup recover…” “It’s Elianna.” “...but they closed down the ward. Lion was practically shoving us out the door. I guess she’s moving on to bigger and better things.” I take a few deep breaths, forcing my body to start thinking for itself again. Three days…that means I’ve been out for at least that long. Given how badly I got beaten up, it must be longer than that since I was last conscious. But that means it’s been at least that long since I ended Bull’s life. A chill runs down my spine. How could I be capable of what I did? Am I really that desperate to live that I would kill one of my own? Apparently so. The pain of my guilt hurts worse than the ache in my jaw and the blow to my nose. Worse than the throbbing in my back that I can feel now. Much worse than the place where the knife entered my shoulder and the slashes across my face. And I know this is the kind of wound you can’t patch up with some bandages. I clutch my stomach. I feel like I might throw up. “The world is spinning.” “Lie back down,” Elianna says, trying to help me, but I shrug her off. I’m not in the mood for her to act like nothing happened between us back at the Pits. Sometimes I think you don’t have a damn heart. That’s what she told me. Well, if she wants me to act heartless, I can manage that just fine where she’s concerned. I shift into a more comfortable position on the ground and the others ditch the stretcher to sit with me. We’re quiet now, not knowing what to say to one another. This alleyway smells of piss and it’s making my headache worse. Elianna fishes in her bag and produces some slightly moldy looking bread. “Are you hungry? You must be?” she says gently. I narrow my eyes at her. What, does she think now that I almost died, now that I had to kill one of our own, that I’ve been punished enough for coming up with the idea of the fight in the first place? Pfft. She wouldn’t have made it this far if I hadn’t done that. Even if she was the one carrying me and not the other way around, she’s alive because of me. They all are. I made the sacrifice so that they didn’t have to. I snatch the bread from her hands and gnaw at it, picking away the moldy parts. Then I realize just how hungry I am and scarf those bits too. I need to remember my