Frenzy (The Frenzy Series Book 1) (9 page)

“Who burned the city?” With a haunted look in her eyes, she answered, “The only ones who escaped. Though not at first. Running was first. When things settled, people snuck back in to... well, to destroy the infection.”
As well as the people who were Infected
, she didn’t say. Wasn’t that murder? What if those people could have been cured somehow, even if in the future?

“I see the question in your eyes and the same one’s been running through my mind for years.” She paused, folding her hands into her lap. “To answer your question, the Elders were afraid of using clothes from the city. They thought the infection had contaminated everything and were afraid to expose survivors to the germs. There was one factory on the outskirts of town with bolts of fabric and everything needed to make clothing inside: needles, thread, enormous machines that would sew the garments for you. The Elders took what they could from that place, including the few patterns we have, thinking it was better to make our own. The patterns are costumes.”

“I saw that on the package,” I giggled.

“They wanted women to look like women and to be modest. Girls from before were very bold in their clothing choices.” She raised her brow and smiled.

“I borrowed clothes from Ford. Can you tell me how to dart them so that they fit me?”

“Absolutely,” she immediately agreed. “A girl can’t hunt in skirts, now can she?”

Saul was standing beneath the Oak waiting for me, a grin on his cleanly-shaven face. He smelled of pine soap. “Hi.”

“Hi.” I waved with my free hand.
Let the awkwardness begin.

He motioned behind him where a blanket was spread over a nearby log. He must have dragged the heavy wood over, because I didn’t notice it there the other day. “This is nice, thank you.” I settled onto the blanket and took the food from my bag. He brought two boiled eggs and a jar of green beans. We would eat well tonight, and the company here would be much better than at home. Thank goodness he remembered forks and a jar of boiled water for drinking.

“How was the beginning of your apprenticeship?”

He smiled for a quick second. “They aren’t happy that I’m in the rotation; something about losing me before I even get started. They think it’s too risky. That’s why many from town aren’t volunteering at all anymore.”

“The problem with that is that if no one volunteers…”

“Exactly. They will feed, one way or another.”

The river water was gently tickling the rocks in its bed. A few buzzards circled overhead. Normally I wouldn’t have given them a second thought, but Mercedes was somewhere across the creek bank, slowly dying, unless an animal had gotten to her first.

My appetite left in a rush. “Tell me something about yourself,” I asked Saul. It was more of a plea.

He finished chewing and then took a swallow of water. “I don’t like how that vampire looks at you.”

“Tage? The one who—”

“I don’t like him either, but I was talking about Roman, the leader.”

My heart fluttered like hummingbird wings. “I think Tage is the one to be worried about. He seems intense.”

Saul growled, grasping his fork until his fingers turned white. “He’s psychotic. He almost killed you.”

“That’s what they do though, right? I mean, if the treaty wasn’t in place, they would kill us.”

“They could try,” Saul bit out. “I want you to stick close to me tonight. We’re splitting up, but we don’t have to put distance between the two of us – just the other pairs.”

“I agree. I’ll stay close. My father taught me a few things this afternoon.”

Saul smiled, looking up at the evening sky. The sun was inching slower toward the Western hills. “It’s almost time.”

“I know.” Dread oozed into my veins and crawled through my body. I didn’t want to ever see Tage again, but I would have to face him soon.

“They shouldn’t even let him feed from you tonight.”

I swallowed my fear. “They will. They don’t care about us.”

We packed up our dinner and the blanket. “Can we swing by my porch and get rid of this stuff?”

“Sure.” I’d forgotten that he lived along the fastest route to the pavilion. We made tracks toward his house, Mercedes’ sturdy boots carrying me forward beside Saul. His house, a brick Colonial that looked a lot like mine but with a beautiful new porch that spanned the length of the front, was lit up from within. Candles burned inside the windows, flickering like the stars above. I waited near the sidewalk while he quickly jogged to the porch and laid his blanket and bag down.

He hurried to me. “If my mom sees you, we’ll be here till midnight.”

“She doesn’t know about your hasty proposal?”

Saul smirked, clasping my hand and pulling me toward the pavilion. “Not yet. I haven’t gotten a yes from you. We’ll tell her after you agree.”

I smiled over at him. We walked quickly, arriving just as the sun set. But this time, we were the last ones to arrive. Roman looked irritated at our tardiness and at our locked hands. “Change of partners,” he announced brusquely. Tage’s eyes tore through me as he stalked toward Mary. Roman watched him like a hawk.

I squeezed Saul’s hand once before he left to sit on his own bench. I sat on mine and waited. Roman stood and watched as Tage numbed Mary’s skin with a disgustingly slimy lick and then sank his teeth into her neck. He groaned as he drawled deeply three times and then pulled away, licking the wound to seal it. Her blood tinged his fangs a pink-red as he sneered at me.

I felt a warm body slide behind me and then Roman’s voice slid over my ear. “I won’t hurt you.”

I knew he wouldn’t. He didn’t let Tage kill me this morning, and he made sure he didn’t hurt Mary this evening. “Why did you sic him on
her
?”

“It’s a form of punishment. He likes your blood. Hers? Not so much.”

Punishment I could accept, but what
wasn’t
acceptable was making that monster hurt someone else.

“I’ll be quick.” His warm breath fanned my ear as he pushed an errant strand of hair out of the way. I’d worn it up this evening for the hunt. Twisted braids were pinned into place at the nape of my neck, but none of it ever stayed in place. My stomach tightened when his hand pulled me backward, his chest against my back. I glanced at Saul, who was holding his neck. The girl who’d fed from him had already stood and was waiting with Tage by the fountain.

Mary’s eyes fell on mine and then she looked away. Was she angry with me? Tim, Victor, and James were also finished.

Roman’s tongue traced a path up my neck, cooled by the breeze, and then I felt two tiny pinches, simultaneous and barely there. A deep rumble from his chest made me whimper. He pulled his fangs out and quickly licked the wounds, and then Roman jumped away from me as if he’d been burned and strode away, instructing the other night-walkers to provide the rings.

As each vamp found their dinner, Roman paused in front of me with a small, but ornate ring of silver on his forefinger. “Let’s see if it fits,” he suggested with a slight smile.

I held my right hand out, fingers extended.

“Are you left or right-handed?” he asked.

“Right.”

“Then I think you should wear it on your left. If you need to use it, you might be fighting with your dominant hand.”

I extended the other hand. “Do you think I’ll need it?”

Roman shook his head. “Dara is going out with you. She’s fierce and very good at guarding the hunt.”

At least it wasn’t Tage. Roman tried the ring on my pinky and then on my ring finger where it fit best, and he settled it. “Do you know how this works?”

I shook my head. “No. This is my first rotation.”

“I know,” he replied.

He flipped a tiny clasp that opened a compartment which lay beneath the stone. “These are poison rings. They were used in ancient times as a means to kill, to slip poison into the drink of your enemy.”

“Don’t you use them now for the same thing?” He stuck his fang into his finger and drew blood, squeezing it into the ring’s tiny compartment, filling it and then closing the compartment and clasp. “Won’t it dry up or leak out?”

“Vampire blood is thicker than human blood and it never dries.”

“Oh.”

He closed the clasp and sure enough, nothing leaked, even when I turned it to the side. Roman smiled. “Oh, ye of little faith.”

I snorted and drew my hand away from him. The ring had black, swirling patterns along the sides until it tapered into the band. The stone at the top wasn’t quite red, and neither was it purple. It was a strange mixture of both.

“Do not ingest the blood unless you plan to become one of us. One drop will turn you.”

My toes curled. I didn’t want to be a night-walker. “I wouldn’t unless I had to.”

“The alternative is worse, in case you’re wondering. As an Infected, you slowly die. It’s a curse, but being a vampire is also a curse. As a night-walker, you can never die.”

“I thought that garlic or stakes could kill you.”

He chuckled. “Garlic, no, and a stake through the heart would only piss a vampire off. Remove their head and they die, but that’s extremely hard to do.”

A snarl from behind revealed the other coven members. Roman nodded and turned his back to me, leaving with the others.

One drop.

One drop was all it took to turn a person.

Potent venom filled the ring on my left hand; the finger that should carry a wedding band.

Saul found me after Roman turned his back and quickly walked away, talking to Dara, the girl who had fed on Saul and was taking us on the hunt tonight. She was the one Roman said was good at guarding us.

“How often have you seen an Infected? You’ve been on several hunts.”

He didn’t hesitate. “Three. I’ve seen three of them. One was old and so badly decayed, it just stood there and moaned. I think it used to be a woman. All that was left of her hair was a few long strands that came out of her scalp. Her skin was falling off and you could see muscle underneath. You could see tendon. It was.. awful. It was as if she was begging us to kill her.”

“Did you?”

“I didn’t, no. But another member of the group put an arrow through her head. It was a mercy, Porschia.”

My pulse thumped. Would someone try to kill Mercedes? Would I let them? If she still looked like herself, there was no way I could stand by and let someone shoot her. But what if she didn’t? What if she was rotting, starving, falling apart and begging for death?

A shiver rolled up my spine beneath her coat. “I need to change.”

Saul nodded. “Town Hall?”

“Yeah, that’ll work.”

“No one should be there. I’m going to run home and grab my bow, then I can wait outside for you.”

We walked toward the old church. It reminded me that everything in this God forsaken place was rotting.

“If we all die, if we all become Infected, how long will it be until the vamps die?” I asked.

Saul shook his head, stuffing his hands in his pockets. “I don’t know. Roman made it sound like it was really hard for them to die. He never mentioned starvation, but it makes sense.”

“It’s hard not to think about all of this stuff. Sorry.”