Taken Over (Book 2 The Ravening Series) (5 page)

  
“What do you say we get some sleep and let the
science wizards do their thing?
” Bret
touched my arm gently; the sympathy in his gaze set my teeth on edge.

 
I nodded my agreement, I was exhausted, bone weary.
I needed to get away from here for awhile
, needed to get away from that
thing
.
All I wanted was to lie down for a little bit before we had to do it all
over
again tomorrow.
Abby was sitting on
a pile of blankets
in the corner of the building
that
we had
claimed
as our own
. The light of the small lamp highlighted the anxiety radiating from her pretty face. Jenna was next to her, curled up against the wall sleeping soundly.

  
“That thing really is dead
,
right?” she asked worriedly.
 

  
“It’s dead,” Bret confirmed.

   I curled up on my thin
pile of blankets
and
tuck
ed
an
old sweatshirt under my head
as
a pillow. Facing the wall, I turned my back on the others, unable to
look at
them. I was afraid they would see the agony and defeat that was slowly crushing my soul.
I stared unseeingly at
the night
as the others settled in around me.
I hated nights the most, when I was alone, when I was stuck with just my thoughts
and my heartache
. When I was trapped with the realization that I may never see Cade again, never touch him, never kiss him
,
never
have the chance to tell him that I loved him
too
.

   I had always held out some hope that I would
find
him
, held out some hope that one day we would be reunited
.
It was what had kept me going for the past couple of weeks.
After what I
’
d seen today nearly all of that hope was gone. How did we defeat these things
, how would I ever get him back from them even if I did miraculously find him alive
? They were everywhere
, they were far more powerful than us, and
now
they had revealed that
their
monsters
could even
look like us
, not just them
.

  
How
c
ould I ever get him back?

   For the first time I let myself
accept the fact that I
c
ouldn’t
, that I probably wouldn’t
. Agony tore through me; I curled up in a tighter ball as I pressed my fist against my mouth. I bit on my knuckles in order to keep
my
scream
s
and sobs
of anguish suppressed
. I couldn’t breathe,
could barely see, I
couldn’t stand the hurt that was consuming me.
I wasn’t survive I could survive this bone wrenching agony.
Though tears burned my eyes, I did not shed them, they would not fall.

   Cade had once told me that he was the only person I
trusted enough to
f
a
ll apart in front of, and he was right.
When h
e
’
d
been with me he’d
made me strong enough to
allow myself to
let
go
of my tight self control
.
I
’
d trusted him enough to
let him see my weakness, my cowardice, my fear, my inner self
,
and he had loved me for it anyway. He had stripped my soul bare, had made me fall in love with him, and he had
left
me.
He’d sacrificed himself for me when I would have preferred that he hadn’t.
He’d left me in this hideous world, one that I was tired of, one that I hated. If it wasn’t for my siblings I wasn’t sure I would continue on, that I would keep fighting. There wasn’t much left to fight for.

   I hated my thoughts, hated the weakness they revealed about myself. Most people would want to keep fighting, everyone else in this building did. But I was a coward; I was weak, broken, and barely able to breathe throughout the increasingly long days and nights. Everyone around me was a fighter, a survivor. I was proud of them all. That pride did not extend to myself. I would not leave my siblings, but it was a constant battle to go on
for
them. If something ever happened to them…

   No, it couldn’t. It simply couldn’t. I wasn’t strong enough to survive that too.

  
I could only try to survive the loss of Cade now.
I would not fall apart, I would not cry
.
I would not give into my weakness, not now, not ever again.
There was no point in crying. I still had Abby, Aiden, Bret, Molly, and as much
as Jenna
and I
didn’t
always
get along
,
she was
a part of
our
group.
She was a connection to a past life forever lost to us all.

   I would not fall apart. I had suffered losses before
.
I had watched my father die; I had lost my mother. I would endure this, I would continue to breathe, I would continue to walk, and I would continue to eat. I would
wake up every day
,
and I would go to sleep every night
,
and I would continue to go on living
without Cade,
even though I
was
dead inside.

CHAPTER 3

  
“Did you get any sleep?”

   I blinked blearily at Bishop as he stuck a piece of cotton against my skin and turned to grab
a band
-
aid. “Some,” I lied.

   I pat the band
-
aid into place
as I slid off the makeshift table. He eyed me carefully, his grey eyes red
rimmed behind his glasses. He couldn’t say much to me as it was apparent that he hadn’t gotten
any
sleep either.
Though his lack of sleep was for far different reasons than mine. The creature was still on the counter, splayed out like the specimen it was. Bishop and Aiden had stayed up all night taking s
amples
, dissecting,
and studying the monster. I eyed it wearily but didn’t go any closer.

   “Why do you keep taking samples of my blood? It hasn’t done you any good yet.”
   Bishop shrugged absently as he placed the syringe full
of blood into
a
test
tube. “Maybe one day I
’ll
get access to some real equipment
and
I’ll be able to run some real tests
. U
ntil then
,
maybe something will come up.”

   “Or maybe you’ll discover someone else with a blood type other than O
.”

   He gave
me
a wry smile, but I knew he didn’t believe
that
. He was set in his belief that
my blood held the key to helping the frozen people. Convinced that because
my blood type was different than
the
other survivors
that
I was somehow
unique.
Everyone else that had survived
T
he
F
reezing, or at least the ones
Bishop had
encountered were all type O, I was not. Bishop was convinced that there was something different about me, convinced that there was some secret in my blood that
he had to uncover
. I
thought
he was wrong, but I was willing to
give him my blood
just in case he wasn’t. If there was some small chance that he wasn’t wrong, then I was going to help
in any way I could
. There may be no hope for my mom and Cade, but there were other families out there that needed it.

   “And if you don’t
find the answers
?” I asked quietly.

   I was immediately sorry I had asked the question. His forehead furrowed in confusion, his soft grey eyes darkened with worry. It was obvious that such a thought had never
even
occurred to him.
Bishop
had never once considered the possibility that he would not find the equipment he needed, or the answers he sought. I admired his dogged determination and optimism; I leaned
more
toward pessimism. I wasn’t sure if I
’
d always been that way
,
or if surviving the car accident had changed me
. I couldn’t recall the person I
’
d been before my father’s death, if I had bee
n optimistic or not. I
knew
I had
once been
a child, but at the age of nine I became an adult, and I had never
gone back to being a kid again
.