Myopia (Young Adult Zombie Paranormal Romance) (Wisteria Series) (35 page)

“What are those things?” Wisteria asked as they moved away from the vicinity of the creatures.

“I have no idea.” He was steps away from the back entrance.

She pulled him back. “Bach, we need to seal the building or those things will get out.”

Pausing, he shook his head. “Go, I will stay and---”

“I’m not leaving you and we can’t leave Jason here,” Wisteria protested.

“You cannot stop them.”

“Neither can you. Look, maybe it only wants to attack Family? I might be safe or something.”

“This is not a debate.” There was absolutely no way he was letting her face those creatures. “Leave and I will be behind you.”

*****

Wisteria nodded and continued moving while Bach tried to control what was on the other side of the room. Leaving him felt like she was stabbing herself in the heart. As she ran to the exit, she tripped over something. Scrambling to her feet, she saw it was her sword. As she grabbed it, she felt a heavy thud behind her.

“Wisteria, run!” Bach was tussling with Anfos’s flesher.

Hissing, Benet’s flesher was standing a few feet away from her. It advanced toward her. Dark, thick blood was dripping from his thin, pale lips.

Okay, Wisteria
. She took out her sword. The creature dove at her and she slashed back as hard and fast for as many times as she could.

It lay once again, headless at her feet.

As she jumped over to get past it, the creature grabbed her ankle, causing her to trip. She fell, but kept kicking at the monster until it stopped moving and let go. Grabbing her sword, she used it to poke at the flesher, and it didn’t move. Cautiously, she prodded it again, but nothing.

“Are you all right?” Bach landed in front of her.

“He’s been cured.” Wisteria got up.

“How? Those things are incurable.”

“My sword.” Really, she didn’t know why she’d succeeded. “That’s all I used.”

*****

Another creature, Pol’s flesher, landed a few feet away between them and Jason. It turned to Jason and charged at him.

As it landed on top of him, Bach grabbed it, throwing it against the wall.

“Thanks, brother,” Jason muttered finally coming around.

“I am not your brother.”

“We need to close the doors, so the creatures cannot leave. If they get out they'll infect others,” Jason groaned, ignoring Bach’s response.

“We know that. I just want to get Wisteria out.”

“We cannot risk it. We don’t have—”Jason was pulled away by Anfos’s deformed, half-eaten flesher.

Didan raced to Jason’s aide, slicing off Anfos’s head with his danor. As Anfos’s flesher fell, they all watched in horror as the creature’s body reattached its own head.

“Bach, seal the doors!” Wisteria yelled as she went to help Jason.

“Get out,” Bach shouted as Didan approached. “Wisteria, go.”

She was cornered by the empiric Mateu, who was now infected. Standing between Jason and the creature, she tried to fight the creature off.

Before Bach could get to her, Didan grabbed him. “Your Terran is right, we need to get these doors closed so these things do not reach the rest of the Family. After that, we will focus on getting out of here. Leave her to her fate.”

“Do not touch me.” Bach pulled away from the lead empiric.

He yanked Bach back and sent him careening to the ground. “She is nothing…” Didan’s voice faded as he turned back to Wisteria. “How is she able to defeat those things?”

Getting up, Bach saw Wisteria poking the unmoving body of Mateu with her sword.
She’d cured it too.

“How come you can hurt them?” Bach reached her. “When we cannot.” As he spoke, another infected attacked Didan.

Didan barely managed to fight it off.

“I think it’s because I’ve covered my weapons with bean vine. I suppose the part of him that’s Famila is affected by it.” She took out her small pocketknife and offered it to him. “Take it. I’ve still got my sword.”

“Enric.” Taking the knife, Bach tossed it at his friend, who was trying to fend off Pol’s flesher.

Mina caught the weapon and sliced through the flesher’s head. Mina and Enric waited to see if the flesher moved, but it didn’t.

“Now we can go.” Looking exhausted, Didan walked up to Wisteria.

“Where is the last one? There’s one more in here,” she said.

“
D’cara,
” the lead empiric screamed as the infected Famila snatched him, dragging him through the piles of clutter.

Wisteria ran after him, stabbing Anfos’s flesher’s arm before removing its head. The creature fell.

Confused, Didan got up. “Why did you do that, Terran?”

“You saved his life?” Out of breath, Mina finally made it over to them.

Wisteria shook her head at the repeated question.

Speedily, Bach moved between Wisteria and the two remaining empirics. “This is over, right? Let her go; she saved your life.”

“I know.” Didan winced as he stared at the shana along Wisteria’s exposed shoulder. “Yet these spots she wears changes everything.”

Everything around her went black.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Waking up, all Bach could register was the foul odor of the rotting empirics. He was still in Jason’s lab, on the floor and alone. “Wisteria.” He tried to get up, but felt lightheaded. The empirics had drugged him with something. Using a table for balance, he slipped and fell again. His world faded to black.

When he woke up, he found he was in bed in a dark room without windows. As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he realized this was his den in Hammond Village. The room was in the apartment far beneath the mansion. How did he get here?

Famila were murmuring in another room. It sounded like Enric was speaking with Alba. Getting out of bed, he moved through the corridor to find out what was going on.

“You are out of your mind,” Enric scolded his younger sister. “In time, he would have gotten over the thing with the Terran, but now when he does, do you think he will ever name you as his intended?”

“He was going to break the pledge anyway. You heard him. Bach’s infatuation with the animal was out of control, so I was saving him from himself,” Alba said in a tone that he’d once thought sweet.

“And for yourself?”

“Please, Enric.”

“There was a right way to do it.”

“How? Your way? Allowing him to draw you into his secrets,” Alba scoffed. “He hates me now, but one day he will thank me. I have saved him from a wasted life.”

“Alba…”

“What I did felt right, so it cannot be wrong. In my heart it was the only thing that made sense,” she continued. “You know I am right.”

Enric didn’t reply.

“Enric, admit it: you are relieved Wisteria is finally gone, even if you did not like how I did it.”

“I am, but you humiliated my closest friend.”

“And he lied to you and to me, but I am prepared to forgive him once this all over.”

“Really? And when he finds out you used him to spread the Sleeping Fever across the Terrans in Smythe?”

“That was Didan’s decision and not mine,” she said defensively.

In that moment, Bach understood why some humans despised the Family. He walked into the living area where the two Famila were. “I am glad that you helped me.” Even though he wanted nothing more than to walk away from these two people, he needed them to find Wisteria. “What happened?”

“Mina put you to sleep with darkroot.”

Darkroot was sometimes used to force a Famila into deep regenerative sleep.

“Didan thought it would be better than fighting you,” Enric replied. “I brought you back the day before yesterday.”

“I see.” He tried to smile. “Thank you.”

“Beloved.” Cautiously, Alba came up to him. “I am so sorry for everything.” She wore a red obsidian coral necklace.

“I am ready to see my father,” Bach told them.

Alba gawked over at Enric nervously. “You should rest some more. Mina gave you a lot.”

“I have been regenerating for two days at least; nothing can be better than regenerating on Jarthan.” He stroked her short blond hair. “We can go together.”

Enric looked doubtful as he cocked an eyebrow at Bach.

“Are you sure?” Alba gave him a tentative smile.

“Yes, I am ready to start my life in Jarthan. I got so confused before with the Terran.”

Alba tilted her head back and stepped away. “I am not a Terran fool. You are lying. You want to return to Jarthan and to your rodent.”

“Alba, get away from him.” Enric dragged his sister away. “And Bach, right now, you need to regenerate, so you are not going anywhere.”

“Enric—” Bach felt dizzy again.

“Your father has heard what happened. You are going to face judgment, so you should wait until you are fully regenerated. Sorry, Bach.” Enric let out a sincere sigh.

Enric’s voice echoed in his head as he sank into sleep once again.

*****

When Wisteria awoke, she was cold.
Where was she? How long had she been out?
The last thing she remembered was being taken out of Jason’s lab as Bach passed out for some reason.

Was he okay?
Jason was also dragged out with her, but she never saw him or Bach after that.

Her next memory was waking up here,
wherever here was
.
“Bach,” she called out. The only response was her own echo. “Jason?”

Was she in Lagos? No, it was too cold. Slowly, she sat up and scanned around. She was alone in a large stone hall. Directly in front of her was a massive rock table, surrounded by ancient chairs. On the other side of her was a fireplace, big enough to roast a large cow. The only source of light in the hall came through the enormous stained glass windows all around. Each window seemed to tell the story of a different person.

Shivering, she tried to stand and shuddered as her feet met the icy floor. She was barefoot and all her clothes were different. She was dressed in a very long, thick, deep blue gown that swept across the ground as she moved across the hall. Lifting up the material to take a closer look, she decided it felt like silk.
What is this?
Where is the way out?

There were several doors around the hall. Unsure where to go, Wisteria chose one at random.

“Yeah, I would not go through that way,” Felip called out as he sat on top a column. “I am glad you woke up on your own. I was going to pulse you and that would have been painful for both of us. You look very nice.” Jumping down, he landed on a windowsill of one of the stained glass images. The plaque below read
Biel Zey
. “Did you mother ever tell you about Sen Biel Zey? That he knew your father?”

She barreled to the nearest door.

He laughed as he landed a few feet in front of her, blocking her way out. “And after all the trouble it took to get you out of Bridewell and away from the Family. It took more rhodium than you will ever see to get you here.”

“You can’t keep me here, Felip.”

“Wisteria, you should say thank you.” He reached down to touch her hair.

“You did this. You did all of this. Didn’t you?” She slapped his hand away, hard.

“Of course I did.” He rested his hands on her shoulders. “Since you were not going to come to Jarthan willingly with me, I got the empirics to bring you.”

“Why didn’t you just take me from Smythe, or even in Woolmer a month ago?”

“While you are important to me, Wisteria, you are not my only priority. Things need to be done in a certain order. And frankly, I ran out of time.”

“What do you want?” she snapped, stepping back.

Leaning over to her, he stroked her cheek. “If you help me, I will tell you everything I know about your father and your family. And then I will take you anywhere.”

“Back to the Isle of Smythe?”

“Come on, it would be stupid to send you back to your mother.”

“To my father in Lagos?”

“What? Now you are being unreasonable. Anywhere you have never been or know anyone, but where I can find you.”

“What sort of agreement is that? I’m not helping you.”

“Fine.” He lifted her over his shoulder and jumped onto the upper column. He continued climbing and jumping higher and higher until they came to a balcony. He placed her down gently in front of a black door with the words
Room of Ages
written in the Family’s Dialect.

“Okay, so you just need to open the door,” Felip instructed her.

Wisteria could read the strange lettering but was too upset to wonder why. “You are crazy if you think I’ll do anything you say,” she seethed. “There’s probably something in there that will kill me.”

“I am not crazy.” Felip took her hand.

She snatched her hand away from him. “Don’t ever touch me.”

Forcing her arm out from behind her back, he gripped her painfully. “You just have to grab on to the handle and open the door.”

“No.” Tensing her muscles, she struggled to prevent him from moving her arm. “Why don’t you do it?”

“I can break your arm if you insist on being foolish,” he warned.

“You said you’d never hurt me.” Seeing he wasn’t wearing gloves, she bit down on his left hand.

“
D’cara
!” He slammed her against the door.

“Ahh.”

“Sorry, Wisteria.” He halted. “You are right. I do not want to keep hurting you, but I also promised someone important to get what is behind that door.” Brushing the hair out of her face, he calmly turned and adjusted her dress where it had become disheveled.

“Felip, stop.”

“Wisteria, I want you, but I
need
what is on the other side. And I will get it. I am only asking again, because I do not want to hurt you. You know better than most Terrans, I can get your hand on this door whether you agree to move it or not.”

“Then break my arm, but I’m not helping you.” Wisteria tried to sound strong, but her voice quivered.

Rubbing his face, he stepped back. “Go.”

“What?” For a second, she wasn’t sure what she heard.

“Just go.”

Even though she had no clue where she was going, she didn’t need to be asked again. Stepping past the him, she tried to jump down.

Instantly, he snatched her free arm. Taking her right hand in his, he thrust it against the door handle.

“Ahh,” she winced, as he clenched his hand tightly around hers.

“Sorry.” He squeezed tighter, cutting off the circulation in her hand.

She screamed, as the entire wall folded away, revealing a dust-caked room filled with books, scrolls, and charts.

“Thank you.” He ushered her into the room.

“Why couldn’t you open the door?”

“We will talk when I am done.” He vanished behind a series of shelves.

Scanning her surroundings, Wisteria saw a door, perhaps to freedom, but definitely away from him. Treading quietly, she crept toward the exit.

“Stop this. I am really getting tired of you trying to fight me.” Grabbing her, he dragged her back to the center of the library. “Sit down. We will go when I am done.”

“Felip—”

“Sit.” He dumped her in a stone cube.

“Beloved,” a girl cooed.

Wisteria’s blood boiled as Alba entered.

The Famila girl approached Felip and kissed his lips. “What is she doing here?” Alba froze when she saw Wisteria. “You said she would be dead.”

“I needed her to unseal the door. Watch her.” Felip headed back to the books.

“You only needed her hands.”

“And her breath. She had to speak into the wood or the magic would not work. If I killed her, how do you think I could have gotten that?” He smirked. “Do not be an idiot, Alba.”

“But why is she still alive? You got inside and you have the charts.”