The Lola Chronicles (Book 2): A Day Without Dawn

by Jillian Eaton

  “So that’s why they can be out in the sunlight. Because at least part of them is still human.”

  “Yes.” His jaw clenching Maximus looked past me at the wall. “And as their drinker half battles with their human half they are ultimately driven into insanity, becoming neither human nor drinker but an abomination of the two. It is not a…pleasant existence.”

  Talk about an understatement.

  “Arland mentioned something about the crawlers being soldiers. What was he talking about?” I knew I was pressing my luck by asking Maximus so many questions, but to my surprise he actually gave me an answer.

  “A crawler is easily controlled by the drinker who made it and will do nearly anything for blood. There are some of us – like Arland – who believe this weakness should be exploited. Think of a dog, raised in darkness and starved for food. The dog is not inherently evil, but it has been taught cruelty at the hands of its master and knows nothing but pain and misery.”

  “Okay…” I said slowly.

  “Now,” Maximus continued harshly, “imagine that same dog, half-starved to death, released in a room filled with defenseless children. That is what the drinkers intend to do with the crawlers. That is why have been created. That is their sole purpose. To be a brutal, mindless killing force that can hunt during the day.”

  My stomach rolled. Just when I thought things couldn’t get any worse…

  “That’s horrible.”

  “That is only the beginning. Now that they have stepped from the shadows the drinkers will stop at nothing to achieve their end goal. They do not care what – or who – stands in their way and they will use any means necessary to get what they want.”

  I couldn’t help but think of the crawler who had attacked me in the middle of town. Yeah, she probably would have slurped up my intestines if I hadn’t kneecapped her, but I hadn’t been imagining the glimmer of humanity in her eyes. Underneath the oozing sores and the craving for blood she was still a person. A person who was lost and confused and slowly going out of their mind. “Is there a way to turn them back? To turn the crawlers back to human?”

  Maximus hesitated before he shook his head. “I don’t know.”

  “But you knew all this,” I said, gesturing with a wild sweep of my arm that sent a jolt of pain shooting up through my elbow. “You knew what the drinkers were going to do when they came here. You knew Revere wasn’t going to be the only town they attacked.” I lurched to my feet as my anger and frustration swelled, tightening my throat and raising my voice. “You knew what they planned to do with the crawlers. And you did nothing.”

  “Lola–”

  “Don’t ‘Lola’ me,” I sneered. So much for playing nice. I was just so sick and tired of watching people suffer. Good people, better people than me, people who had done nothing to deserve all of the horrific things that had happened to them. “You should have tried to stop it, Maximus. You should have warned us. You should have–”

  “YOU DON’T THINK I TRIED?” A vein pulsed in his forehead as he began to pace the length of the living room, mindlessly kicking magazines and cartons of junk food out of his way. “I tried,” he repeated. “But how am I supposed to stop an invading army when I can’t even protect one girl?” He stopped and looked at me, his expression so dark and bleak and hopeless it stole the very breath from my lungs.

  I’m not the only one in pain, I realized. I’m not the only one who is hurting.

  “Okay,” I said quietly as the cloud of anger hovering over my head began to dissolve. “Okay. What we need is a plan. Say I believe that one of my friends is a traitor and the drinkers know we’re going to try to rescue the prisoners in the farmhouse. We can’t just leave them there, Maximus. We have to get them out one way or another.”

  “You think your father is one of the prisoners.”

  It wasn’t a question.

  “Yes,” I said, nodding. “I think so. Along with a girl named Hayley. I mean, don’t get me wrong. She’s a total bitch. But she doesn’t deserve to be drinker food.”

  “I could get them out. It would be difficult, but not impossible.”

  “And the others?”

  Maximus’ gaze flicked to the side, telling me everything I needed to know.

  Say yes, half of my brain urged even as the other half hesitated. This was all I had wanted. To be reunited with my dad. Saving Hayley would just be a bonus. I didn’t owe the other prisoners anything. I didn’t even know their names.

  A week ago I would have jumped at the opportunity. But now… now I knew there was more at stake.

  This wasn’t just about saving myself and my dad anymore. It had become bigger than that. Bigger than us. This was about saving humanity.

  And every life mattered.

  “No.” I sat back down on the sofa and pulled my leg up to my chest, fingers absently skimming across the bandage on my calf. “We have to get them all out.”

  Maximus’ sigh was heavy. “How did I know you were going to say that?”

  “Because I always choose the option that’s most likely to get me killed?” I suggested.

  This time his smile went all the way up to his forehead, dissolving the hard line that was etched between his eyebrows. “I cannot argue with that. It’s going to be dangerous, Lola. Even more so now that the crawlers will be expecting you. They may not be as strong or intelligent as a full drinker, but you can’t underestimate them.”

  “I thrive on danger.”

  His expression grew serious once again. “Not everyone will survive.”

  My friend’s faces flashed through my mind. Hunter, Rose, Greg, Stevenson. Even Livy and Becca and Hayley. I didn’t know if I would call us friends, but I’d gone to school with them. I’d eaten beside them. I’d slept in the same locker room as them. We had a shared connection that went above and beyond anything I had ever experienced before and I couldn’t imagine any one of them dying.

  So I didn’t.

  “We’ll be fine.” Call me stupid if you want. Naïve. Ignorant. But it was what I truly believed. “All of us. But I have to get back to the gym. I can’t let them leave without me. Not without telling Hunter what you told me.”

  Was it my imagination, or did Maximus’ eyes suddenly narrow?

  “Hunter is the blond-haired boy,” he said.

  “How did you – you’ve been spying on me!” I accused.

  Maximus broad shoulders lifted and fell in an unapologetic shrug. “I prefer watching after you to make sure you didn’t do anything too idiotic like running your bike into the side of a building, but call it what you will.”

  “Um I’ll call it spying, because that’s what it is.” Even as I snapped out the words I felt a warm, rosy feeling unfurl inside of my chest. All this time Maximus had been secretly looking out for me. It was…sweet. Okay maybe a tiny bit stalkerish, but mostly sweet.

  “You can’t walk to the middle school from here. It’s too far. I have a car. I will take you and I will help you and your friends on one condition.”

  “Which is?”

  “If it becomes too dangerous and I tell you to run you will run. No questions asked.”

  “Sure.” I lied without so much as a betraying flicker of an eyelash. Maximus wasn’t the only one who knew how to hide the truth. “No problem. So what kind of car do you have?”

  “Just a car,” he said, although there was a definite boyish glint in his eyes that hadn’t been there a few seconds ago. He offered me his hand and I took it, letting him pull me up off the sofa. I stopped in the doorway of my apartment and allowed myself one long, lingering look. It may not have been much, but it was home. And I had the distinct feeling this was the last time I would ever see it.

  “Ready?” Maximus asked, resting his hand on my shoulder.

  I drew a deep breath. “Ready. Except there’s one stop we have to make first.”

  Maximus didn’t need to ask where. He could read it in my eyes. “Are you sure?”

  “Positive.”

 
“Then we had better go.”

  THIS TIME WHEN I LOOKED down into Travis’ grave I didn’t cry. There wasn’t anything to cry over.

  His body was gone, just like Maximus had said it would be.

  And everything I thought I knew had just officially changed.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Easy Peasy Lemon Squeezy

  HUNTER WAS WAITING FOR US when we pulled up in front of the middle school. Not a big surprise since he’d probably heard us coming from a while way.

  Maximus “just a car” was, in reality, a sleek red corvette convertible with black leather upholstery and an engine that sounded like a small jet taking off.

  It wasn’t exactly subtle.

  “Lola?” His gaze darting from the car to me and then back to the car, Hunter slowly approached the curb. Dawn lit the sky in bright slivering streaks of red and gold, making him squint and throw a hand up against his forehead. “Is that you?”

  “In the flesh,” I chirped as I opened the passenger door and climbed out. “Well, most of my flesh. I might have lost a little.”

  “A little?” Hunter repeated, green eyes widening as he took in my new bandages. “What happened to you? And where have you been? And who the hell is he?”

  I turned around to look at the ‘he’ in question. Looking as friendly and welcoming as a cactus Maximus stood leaning against the hood of his car, arms loosely crossed over his chest and a scowl darkening his face.

  “Hunter, meet Maximus. Maximus, Hunter.” I’d already decided not to tell Hunter that Maximus was a drinker. It wasn’t lying exactly. More like withholding the truth. We had a short window of opportunity to work with and I didn’t want to waste it fighting which was exactly what would happen if Hunter found out who – or rather what – Maximus really was. “This is the guy I was telling you about. The one who taught me how to defend myself.”

  “What’s he doing here?” Mimicking Maximus’ aggressive posture Hunter folded his arms and spread his legs apart.

  I rolled my eyes.

  “Can we skip the pissing contest, please? Hunter, there’s something we need to tell you. Alone,” I added when Greg walked out of the front of the school and headed straight for us.

  Or rather straight for the car.

  “Whoa!” Greg exclaimed, his entire face lighting up. “Is that a Stingray?”

  “No, it’s a car. Can you give us a minute? I really need to talk to Hunter.”

  “Is she yours?” Looking at Maximus as though he were Captain America and Iron Man all rolled into one, Greg lovingly brushed at fingertip along the corvette’s hood and then buffed out the smudge he’d left with his t-shirt.

  “Temporary loaner. Want to go for a ride?”

  “Do I–” Mouth gaping open, Greg was in the passenger seat and had the seatbelt strapped on before I could blink twice. “Man, this is SWEET!”

  Maximus met my gaze as he lowered himself into the car. ‘Ten minutes’, he mouthed.

  I nodded to let him know I understood and then stepped quickly out of the way as he revved the engine and peeled out, leaving two strips of black tattooed on the asphalt and the smell of burnt rubber hanging in the air.

  Hunter frowned. “That’s the guy who helped out you and your dad?”

  “Yep. Listen, there’s something we need to–”

  “No offense or anything, but he kind of seems like an asshole.”

  Since I couldn’t exactly argue with Hunter’s assessment, I just shrugged. “Yeah, he can be. But he also knows more about the drinkers than anyone else I’ve met and he’s a good fighter. The best, actually. We want him on our side, Hunter. Trust me.”

  “I trust you. But him…” Hunter shook his head. “No way. There’s something off about him, Lola. I mean, where is he from? What is he doing here? How does he–”

  “You don’t have to trust him,” I interrupted. “You don’t even have to like him. Hunter there’s something really important I have to tell you. Like, right now.” My gaze shifted to the front doors of the middle school. I thought I’d caught a flash of movement out of the corner of my eye. “But not here. Let’s go the playground.”

  “Okay,” Hunter said once we were hidden from view on the far side of the yellow plastic slide. “What gives? And where the hell have you been?” His pupils dilated as his eyes narrowed. “Was Maximus the guy you met in the woods?”

  I bit my lip. I was going to have to walk a very fine line between telling Hunter just enough to make him believe me but not so much that he freaked out. It didn’t exactly help that he’d already decided he hated Maximus, but what had I really been expecting?

  Maximus and Hunter were as different as night and day and in this case opposites were definitely not going to attract. Their differences went way beyond the physical. I might have only known Hunter for a short time – despite attending the same school for ten years – but it didn’t take a genius to figure out he had a moral compass the size of Pennsylvania. He was Mr. Do the Right Thing whereas Maximus…Maximus was Mr. Do Whatever it Took.

  Seeing them standing within ten feet of one another, Hunter with his Golden Boy looks and Maximus all dark and broody… No. No way. I wasn’t even going to go there.

  I was a fighter, not some weak simpering girly-girl stuck in the middle of a teenage love triangle.

  And right now I needed to fight.

  For myself. For my dad. For all the nameless faces trapped in the basement enduring God only knew what at the hands of the drinkers. Even for Hayley, although she was so going to owe me.

  “Yeah, Maximus is who I met in the woods.” I cupped the back of my neck, absently squeezing the tense muscles. When was the last time I’d slept on something softer than a locker room floor? When was the last time I’d slept? “He’s been…spying on the drinkers. Most of them have moved on to other towns, but there’s a few left and they’re all at the farmhouse.” Including the big bad drinker Maximus stubbornly refused to tell me anything about. “That woman who attacked us? The drinker zombie? There’s more where she came from. A lot more. They’re called crawlers and the drinkers are using them to make an army.”

  “Zombies, crawlers, it doesn’t matter what they’re called.” Hunter wrapped his hand around a metal pole, knuckles gleaming white beneath the early morning sun. “It only matters that they’re standing between us and our friends. Between us and your father. But they won’t be for long,” he said ominously.

  Oh boy. How was I supposed to explain that even though the crawlers were going to try to kill us we shouldn’t try to kill them? I didn’t know if there was a way to turn them back. I didn’t even know how much of their human side was left. But I did know that if we killed them we’d never find out.

  “The thing is…the thing is the crawlers are still human, Hunter. At least a part of them is,” I said hurriedly when he looked at me as though I’d suddenly sprouted a second head. “And there might be a way to turn them back. I don’t know what it is yet, but with a little more time we might be able to figure it out.”

  “What are you saying, Lola?” He crossed his arms. “You don’t want to attack the farmhouse anymore? You don’t want to rescue your dad? Rescue Hayley?”

  “I do. And we’re going to. Today, as soon as everyone is ready. Just like we planned. But if we could shoot to injure instead of shoot to kill… Just the crawlers,” I said when Hunter’s jaw hardened. “The drinkers are fair game.”

  “We can try, but if it comes down to one of us and one of them I’m choosing us, Lola. Is that it? Is that what you brought me back here to tell me?”

  “Not exactly,” I hedged, shifting my weight from foot to foot as I tried to think of the best way to tell Hunter the rest. If I’d had trouble believing one of us had joined Team Drinker then there was no way he was going to believe it. Hunter’s faith in us was absolute. He was willing to die for each and every one of us. We were his teammates. His partners. His family.

  All except for one.

  Ever since Maxim
us had told me about the traitor I’d been trying to figure out who would be willing to switch sides. My initial suspects had been Livy and Becca but I didn’t have any concrete proof. Just because we disliked each other didn’t make one of them guilty. Rose wasn’t even a contender and try as I might I couldn’t picture Greg or Stevenson working with the drinkers. That left Ms. Siegel, who I knew the least about, but as far as I knew she’d never left the middle school. Kind of hard to be a traitor when you were always surrounded by the people you were supposed to be betraying.

  That only left Hunter, but if he was the spy then I was a penguin. If there was anyone who hated the drinkers more than I did it was him. He would rather die than work with them, which was why he was the only one I could trust one hundred percent.

  “Hunter, they know we’re coming.”

  His brow furrowed. “Who knows we’re coming?”

  “The drinkers.”

  “What? No. How could they?”

  My cheeks puffed as I blew out a breath. “Because…because one of us told them.”

  He stared at me for a full five seconds, eyes wide and unblinking before they hardened into chips of dark green. “That’s not funny, Lola.”

  “Do I look like I’m laughing? I’m serious, Hunter.”

  “Well you’re wrong.” He looked past me at the middle school. “There’s no way.”

  “You have to believe me on this.” I drew his attention back to me when I reached out and touched his arm. “One of us is working with them. I don’t know who it is, but I know they told the drinkers all about our plan. They’re going to be expecting us.”

  “Who told you this?” he demanded.

  “Maximus.”

  Hunter snorted. “Why am I not surprised? Lola, the guy is bad news. You’d have to be blind not to see it.”

  “You don’t even know him.” Neither do I, but that’s beside the point. “He hates the drinkers as much as I do, Hunter. He even killed one of them last night to save me. There’s no reason for him to lie about this.”

  “And what about you, Lola?” Mouth thinning into a long, straight line of suspicion he shrugged my hand off his arm and stepped back. “Do you have a reason to lie?”