Frenzy (The Frenzy Series Book 1) (13 page)

“Why don’t you want it to happen?”

He shook his head. “Have you ever seen a vampire in frenzy?”

“No.”

“You don’t want to, especially a new vamp. They’re uncontrollable. Feral.”

Feral? That was terrifying. If it scared me seeing Dara, who was so in control most of the time, freak out over deer blood, I couldn’t imagine a new vampire feeding.

Saul was amped up. He squeezed the handle of his crossbow, pacing back and forth like a caged animal while the others gathered their weapons. I didn’t ask him what was wrong because I knew. He wanted to shoot Roman through the heart and rip his head off his shoulders. I felt the same way every time Dara touched him.

Saul was becoming very important to me. His lips were magic, able to set me ablaze or calm me. His hand was comforting when it cradled mine. Saul looked out for me, always considerate and caring. There was certainly no future between a night-walker who would likely live forever and a human who would die sooner rather than later in this diseased world.

A night-walker appeared through the sheets of rain. He was partnered with James. “My name is John Everson. I answer to ‘Everson’. Let’s get this over with.”

His stony expression was typical, but he was young, or looked it. His skin was darker than the other vampires, bronze, and his hair was an odd shade of bright red, which didn’t suit him. He wasn’t tall, but stout and confident. With ease and nary a look back, he crossed the tree in front of us.

James shouted out, “Why can’t the Infected cross this same tree?”

Everson stilled and smiled back at him. “They lose muscle tone rapidly. And it’s a difficult tree to cross, don’t you think?”

It was. I slipped the entire way over, nearly sliding into the river at the other side. Everson’s hand grabbed my forearm before I fell and he jerked me onto the ground beside him. “Told you,” he smirked.

I waited as the others crossed the tree. Saul was last. But before we split up, I heard my name. “Porschia!”

“Father?”

Everson sighed. “Go.”

Each of my footsteps along the slick tree trunk slid off toward the water, but I kept my steps fast and light. He met me on the other side, rain pelting us both. “What’s wrong?” I asked.

“I want you to be very careful tonight.” Father lowered his voice. “We can’t find her.”

“What do you mean?”

“There’s no trace of Meg…not in the river, not at home. Nowhere. It’s like she vanished.”

“That makes no sense.” I shook my head violently. “I
saw
her! She was just floating there and then I...I pulled her to the bank.”

“I believe you, I just don’t know what’s going on. I want you to be careful. Stay with Saul,” Father said, staring down the vamp waiting across the river.

“You think it’s the night-walkers?”

“I don’t know what to think.”

I scuttled back across the trunk, leaving Father staring at us from the opposite bank. Everson smiled and wiggled his fingers mockingly at him. “I’ll take good care of her,
Sir
,” he teased.

“Break the treaty, night-walker. I dare you,” Father warned. My mouth dropped open. Father never even stood up to Mother, and I’d never heard him say anything cross to anyone in my life. However, Everson just laughed and clapped his hands after a particularly loud clap of thunder sounded nearby. I jumped closer to Saul.

“Fun times. Let’s go hunting, children.”

We split up the same way as the previous night. James raced ahead to check the snares, Mary and Tim disappeared into the forest to the east, and I tried my best to keep up with Saul’s determined stride as we headed west. He was quiet, pissed, and soaked to the bone. The rain slanted and pelted our backs as we slipped up one slope and slid down the other side. We repeated this dangerous dance, up and down hills until we were farther than we should have been and I worried we might be lost.

Saul stopped and turned to listen ahead of us. He readied his crossbow and motioned ahead of him while I waited and watched through the torrents of rain. When the deer lifted its head, he fired. And missed. We raced after the animal, Saul trying to get another shot off and me trying to keep up with him once again.

The doe ran off, blending in with the soaked brown trunks and bare foliage surrounding us. “God damn it!” Saul raged, throwing his crossbow on the ground. He paced, threading his fingers behind his head.

I picked the bow up and held it to my side, looking at the dangerous black metal. “If you could show me how, maybe I could borrow another bow and we’d have a better chance at taking them down tomorrow.”

He stopped, lips parted. Water ran down his face and dripped off his top lip. He scoffed. “You think that’s what this is about? I’m off my game, and it’s because of that... that night-walking-fang-fucker!”

My eyes widened. It wasn’t that I hadn’t heard anything like that before or said it to Mercedes during one of our evening giggle fests, but hearing Saul say it was funny. I tried so hard not to smile, not to let out the giggle, but it had nowhere to go once the dam of my resolve broke.

I laughed out loud, head tilted into the rain, abdominals in cramps. His big hands wrapped around my waist. “What do you think you’re laughing at?”

“You,” I hiccupped.

He smiled in warning, eyes firmly hooked on my mouth, and then claimed my lips with his. This was no soft exploration. He lifted me, pinning my back against the bark of the pine behind me. His hands knotted in my wet hair, pulling my head back so he could reach me better. My hands knotted in his coat, pulling him closer to me, but it wasn’t close enough. “Saul,” I breathed into his jaw. His lips moved in again.

A high-pitched keening sound came from my left. Saul’s eyes widened and he pulled away, his fingers digging into my upper arms. “Very slowly, move around the tree.” My lips trembled, but I nodded, easing around the massive trunk I prayed would hide us.

“The branches are low. Let’s climb.” He lifted me until I could reach the branch and pull myself up. I looked down to find him right on my heels. “Go!” he said, looking down below him.
Don’t look down. Don’t look down. It takes more effort to look down. Down impedes progress. We need progress. I don’t want to be eaten.
I felt for my poison ring. It was still there despite the rain, and despite the fact that I didn’t want to use it. It was there.

Sticky pine resin coated my fingers as I shimmied up the weeping pine, its needles hanging down like a willow. Saul tapped my ankle. I looked down to see him hold his hand out. He climbed onto the branch, settling beside me.

“Did you see it?” I whispered.

“No, but I heard it.”

“Why do they scream like that?”

Saul pursed his lips. “Something about the rot on their vocal chords.”

Another high-pitched screech tore into the night from just beneath us. I dug my fingernails into the bark of the limb across my chest, hoping the one beneath my thighs and Saul’s was strong enough to hold us. “What does it want?” I whispered into his ear.

“Us.”

I saw her through the darkness, through the rain that was only beginning to taper off. Her once-red hair was flattened and thin. Soaked tendrils clung to her flaking scalp, dull and lifeless. Her eyes were sunken in. Cheek bones protruded where plumpness had been only a few days ago.

“It’s Meg,” I whimpered. My warm tears met the cold mist now falling. Saul’s hand on my low back steadied me. I wanted to climb down, jump from the lowest branch and throw my arms around her.

How did she get Infected? I saw her in the water. I saw her blood. It coated my dress and skin and hands.

My eyes questioned Saul’s, but they held no answers. Meg kept walking, sniffing the air periodically and letting out those soul-stealing screams. She wore only her white slip, and it was torn from the briars she walked through. She moved past us slowly and then a male chuckle filled the air.

Everson moved toward her. “Must be my lucky night. I get to hunt, too.” Meg stiffened and screamed, her mouth stretching longer than should be possible.

Before I could move, he closed the distance between them, grabbed her head, and twisted hard. The snap of her vertebrae echoed through the wood and Meg collapsed to the ground.

“NO!”

Damn gravity. I clambered down the tree limbs, slipping on the lichens, but I didn’t care. “NO! Meg!”

Falling on my knees in front of her, I reached out to touch the red hair that was strewn across her forehead. A hand clamped down on mine before I could make contact. “Unless you want to be the one who dies tomorrow night, don’t touch her.”

I looked up at Everson. “Why did you kill her?”

“That’s my job. It’s in the treaty.”

“The treaty?” I pulled my arm away from him. Saul was hovering over me, but grabbed my elbow and helped me up.

Everson rolled his eyes. “I’m to keep you safe, to act as a guard, and to eliminate any and all Infected found in the forest. It’s for the good of the Colony, or so they say.”

“She was my friend,” I shoved his chest hard, but he never wavered.

Instead, he snorted. “You should be thanking me. I did your
friend
a favor. Now, either find food or go back to the Colony.”

Saul crouched near Meg’s body. “It’s not her.”

“What?” The word left me in a mixture of gasp and plea.

“It’s not Meg,” he affirmed. “This woman’s been Infected for a while now. Meg had freckles and blue eyes. This one’s eyes are green, or at least they were at one time.”

Milky cataracts covered her corneas, but at the edges, I saw a vivid green.

I just assumed it was her. Why did I think it was Meg?

“The two do look alike. It’s... I don’t know. It’s weird.” Saul drew me away with him. “Let’s go,” he said, picking up the crossbow he left on the ground when he started climbing after me. A chill went through me. What if the Infected could still remember how to use those things?

Our roles were reversed.
I
was the one raging now. That might not have been Meg, but it very well could have been. It could have been Mercedes. Everson disappeared after I threatened to gut him if he touched my sister. She was still out there somewhere, I hoped. If someone... More hot tears carved their way down my face. Every inch of me trembled. It was a mixture of fear, anger, and bone-deep cold.