Deidre squeezed her arm, and her smile became concerned, sympathetic. Lea couldn’t see the deceit that was there, too, in the harder core of Deidre’s eyes.
“Lea, honey, you can tell me anything. You know how much I care about you,” Deidre said and squeezed Lea’s arm again.
Lea felt almost hypnotized. She’d been overwhelmed with her feelings for Mark, and now, here was pretty, popular Deidre telling her that she cared about her. It was so topsy-turvy. She’d never had so much concern given to her before. In her confusion, she neglected to ask herself why Deidre had never shown her any concern until now.
Lea was like a little plant too long starved of nutrients; now she soaked them up greedily.
“We’re going to save Promise’s little brother,” she said in a rush. Now that she had decided to tell, she felt as though she needed to get it all out at once. “She’s going to keep him trapped until the Guard brings a cure.”
“A cure? A cure for being a vampire?” Deidre’s face drew up in lines of derision, and her hand dropped from Lea’s arm as she fisted her hands on her hips. “What the hell are you talking about?”
Lea’s heart seemed to twist painfully in her chest. She didn’t like Deidre’s tone; she didn’t like being yelled at. She felt suddenly as though she had betrayed her friends, and she was all at once sick to her stomach.
“Deidre, you won’t tell, will you? Please don’t tell anyone! I wasn’t supposed to say anything. But we’re doing it out here so no one is in danger. That’s why we came to Willow’s End, so it will be totally, totally safe. It’s not hurting anything…nobody even has to know! Don’t tell anyone, okay?” Tears were tightening her throat. She reached a shaking hand to Deidre.
Deidre glanced down at Lea’s hand as though Lea had offered her something nasty.
“What’s this cure all about? Does Mr. West know about it? Does it have something to do with that half-and-half?”
Lea smiled shakily. “Yes, Mr. West knows. The Guard told him, when they brought Peter…the, uh, half-and-half…when they brought him here. They’re working on a cure, a vaccine, in New Jersey at the base there. That’s where Peter came from. He knows all about it!”
“In New Jersey? Ha! That’s a laugh,” Deidre said, but she said it to herself. She seemed lost in thought. Then she looked up. “I’ll do you a deal, okay?” Her smile was sarcastic-sweet. “I won’t tell if you won’t.”
“Me? What would I tell?”
“Don’t tell anyone you saw me or told me about Promise’s brother, okay? And I won’t tell anyone you told me about it. You get it now?”
“Oh! Yeah, sure, Deidre. I won’t say anything.” Relief washed through her, loosening her nerves. This was better, the no-telling pact. It made it like it never happened. She could just forget about it.
When she got back to Promise’s old house, Mark asked what had taken her so long. She blushed and reached hurriedly into the backpack, but when she met Mark’s eyes, she saw his concern was with her, not the food.
“Did anything go wrong?” he asked, brushing aside the bag of chips she offered him seemingly in place of an answer. “You were gone a long time.”
She shook her head, not trusting herself to speak. She smiled and shrugged.
He frowned, but his voice was all soft concern. “You’d tell me, right? You can, you know.”
She nodded and smiled. “Now I do,” she said and offered him the bag again. “Eat your chips.”
Mark relented. He showed Lea the hole they’d made in the ceiling of the laundry room. Promise and Peter were trying to decide if rope were the best thing to pull her out with or some sort of heavy-duty straps.
“Why don’t you just drop something down? It would be quicker,” Lea said.
“Drop something down? What do you mean?” Promise asked.
“Make a wider, thinner hole, the width of the narrow part of the room–what is it? about five feet wide, if that?–and drop a board or some kind of screen down, like a kennel door, you know how I mean? Between the inside and the outside?”
Peter looked up at the ceiling and then back down to Lea. “You’re a genius,” he said. “That’s the best idea yet.”
“No joke, Lea,” Promise said. “You probably just saved my life with that. We can do the same thing with the opening. I was just going to pull the laundry room door closed with a rope or something, but a falling door at either end, trapping Chance right in between…that’s way better!”
Mark’s hand went to the small of Lea’s back, claiming and protective, both at once. Lea smiled, basking in their admiration, and struggled to put Deidre out of her mind.
They worked about an hour more and then decided to call it quits for the day. Mark said they’d made good progress. They could finish up the room and the trap system tomorrow and then see about readying the space above, since they’d have to spend at least one night there.
At the safe house that night, Promise slept again in the family room, this time with two horses for company instead of just one. She was tired but unable to sleep as she watched Ash and Snow leaning against each other in the dark. It had been hard, being back at her house today, but it was good, too. Good to move forward with some hope for a future with Chance in it. Her parents would be so happy if they could see how hard she was trying. She wished again that they weren’t dead. She wanted them so badly and missed them so much.
She wondered if she were doing the right thing; if planning on keeping Chance caged like some sort of hamster was the best idea…but it was the only idea she had. She tried to put the questions of right and wrong behind her. She was doing it for the right reasons…that would have to be enough.
Above her, floorboards creaked, sending a shiver of unease down her back. Then she had a thought: maybe it was Peter. Maybe he was on his way downstairs. She listened for footsteps on the stairs, but none came. Eventually, she slept and dreamed that she was at the lake. The breeze was warm on her shoulders, and her hair was wet and slicked back from her sun-tight forehead. Seagulls and children screamed, and her parents were behind her on the big blanket, arguing laughingly over a checkers game. Music floated distantly from someone’s radio. Chance wanted to sit in her lap with a book, and she told him it was too hot; sit on the blanket. She glanced around for her parents, but they weren’t there anymore; only the tumbled over checkerboard remained. Fear wormed into her mind, and she turned back to Chance, but he was gone, too, his book open, and the pages leafing over one by one in the breeze. In her dream, she jumped up, desperate and ready to scream his name, but as she turned, she saw that everyone was gone. The entire beach was deserted. Not even a seagull cried.
In Peter’s dream, he ran fleetly through the dark, and the cool night air filled his lungs, fueling the muscles in his pumping legs. Moonglow dappled the forest around him, and the smell of prey wafted on the breeze, hotly enticing. Then the dream changed, and his face was buried in a soft but muscular neck, and his face was blood-slicked, and it felt so good…the cool moonlight on his shoulders…the thick blood filling his mouth and nose and throat. Like drowning. He sat back on his heels, sated, stomach full to bursting. Before him lay Snow, her white coat glowing almost blue, her neck laid open and gore-streaked…in his dream he began to scream.
Lea slept peacefully in Mark’s arms. He had come into her room and, whispering, had asked if he could share the bed with her. Nervously she had agreed, and he’d lain on the side opposite her, on his back, eyes open. It had taken all her courage, but she’d scooted across, closing the distance between them and laid her head on his shoulder. For an agonizing second, he didn’t respond, and she almost rolled back. But then his arm had come up over her shoulders, pulling her closer. She had sighed contentedly into sleep, feeling more secure in this dangerous world of vampires than she’d ever felt in her haphazard world before the plague.
Chapter 9
The work at Promise’s old house went well, and within two more days, they felt confident they’d done everyt
hing they could to make the trap safe for both Chance and Promise. The only thing left was to lure him into it.
“What were you thinking for the luring part?” Lea asked as the four of them sat around the table of the safe house. Five if you counted Lady, asleep in Lea’s lap. Seven if you counted the horses in the family room.
It was late afternoon.
Promise shook her head and sighed. “I don’t know. I was just going to go out there, into the woods tonight, and find him. I know it’s not much of an idea, but–”
“The woods at night? You don’t think that’s much of an idea?” Mark cut in. “Well, guess what? You’re right.” He stood up, agitated. “What the hell? That’s our plan? You have to be kidding me! What have we been doing out here for three days?”
“It hasn’t all been a waste, has it?” Promise asked, an eyebrow cocked.
Lea flushed, her mouth falling open in surprise and then both girls began to laugh. Mark rounded on them.
“What’s funny? Huh? I don’t see it!” He shielded his eyes with his hand and looked around in an exaggerated posture as though trying to see miles and miles distant. Lea, who’d been getting a hold of herself, burst out in a fresh torrent of giggles. Lady jumped up and tried to lick her face, and Promise bent double in her chair, laughing, tears streaming down her cheeks.
Peter looked at Mark and shrugged, shaking his head, but then his lips began to twitch. He put a hand over his mouth and cleared his throat, trying to contain the laugh that wanted to come. Finally, he couldn’t do it–the laughing girls, the jumping dog, even Mark’s goofy pantomime–he broke down and let the laughter come. His wife flashed briefly to mind, one of the million times they’d laughed together this way, and the laughter nearly dried up in his throat. Then he dismissed the memory and let the laughter take him.
“Ha ha, you guys, very funny,” Mark said and threw himself down on the empty seat at the table. The chair leg rubbed brusquely across the floor sounding like a loud, rude fart. They all looked at Mark, shocked into silence as his mouth dropped open. “That was the chair!”
The laughing started all over again. Even the horses looked up in surprise at the cacophony from the kitchen as all four roared with hilarity.
After it had tapered off, Mark sat forward and folded his arms on the table. “Okay. Let’s get this figured out together. There has to be a better way than more or less offering yourself out as vampire bait!”
“And you did say that vampire was outrunning Ash that day, right? When you were in the woods the last time?” Lea said.
“Yeah, it was,” Promise said and sighed. “Listen, I know my idea isn’t the best one, but I can’t think what else to do. How else am I going to find him?”
“Make him come to us; he might already be doing so anyway,” Peter said.
Promise turned to look at him, head tilted.
He went on, “If they retain some of themselves, he might already be coming back here at night…to his old house. Just from habit, or because it feels safe, or maybe from a sense of longing.”
“Maybe I could just wait in the laundry room,” Promise said, hope dawning across her features. “Call to him, and when he comes in: wham, let the doors down, and then you guys can pull me out! It will be easy!”
Peter shifted uncomfortably, not wanting to ruin her enthusiasm. He took her hands in his. “There are lots of things that can go wrong. We just don’t know what they are yet. We have to go carefully, try and think it through.”
“Yeah, for instance, what if it isn’t Chance that comes in?” Lea said.
Promise made a fist and knocked herself gently in the forehead. “Geez, I didn’t even think of that part. Lea, you’re a genius again.”
“I don’t know what to do about that, either,” Mark said. “We could just go for it the first night and see what happens. I can’t see any reason why other vampires would be hanging out at your old house. We might luck out and get him on the first try, especially if he’s already drawn to the house.”
“All we lose is time. If it doesn’t work tonight, it will another night,” Promise said. “What do you think, Peter? Should we give it a try?”
Peter tried to think, but it was hard with Promise looking at him with that cautious hope in her eyes. He wanted so badly to do this for her. And she was right, if it didn’t work tonight, then it would work another time. What was he so worried about?
He was worried about the things they didn’t know about going wrong; the things they couldn’t predict. As much as these three had seen in the plague and the aftermath, he’d seen worse. He was sure of that.
“We won’t be able to help you. Once we’re in that room above and darkness falls: that’s it, we can’t come out,” he said. He spoke only to Promise, staring at her gravely.
“I know that,” she said. “I wouldn’t want you to put yourself in harm’s way. Any of you,” she said and turned to Mark and Lea. “I say let’s try. We have to at some point, and Lea’s right…going out into the woods would be a suicide run. As long as you guys are in, then I say we go for it.”
Mark nodded and sat back, crossing his arms over his chest.
Lea said, “Yep, I’m in.”
Promise turned to Peter to find his eyes hadn’t left her. “Well? What do you think?” Promise asked. She smiled, and it was a warm smile but there was nothing coquettish or flirtatious in it. Her face was serious, level. “Are you in, too, friend?”
“I’m in,” he said and tried to ignore the twist of unease the words stirred into his gut.
~ ~ ~
Promise took a deep breath and pressed herself more firmly against the back wall of the fortified laundry room. The homey, productive smell of the freshly cut wood was in direct contrast to her hotly racing mind. The sun had set fully about fifteen minutes ago, and it was very dark–the opening opposite her a black rectangle. The sliding glass doors to the backyard had been left open, and the family room was filled with patchy moonlight…but she couldn’t see the sliding glass doors from where she stood. The laundry room door was toward the front of the family room and set at a ninety-degree angle in a small vestibule that also included the door to the garage. She was beginning to realize how short the distance from the laundry room door to the back where she stood really was–only about fourteen feet–and her nerve endings were screaming at her to seek shelter. She tried to tell her nerves to calm down, this was all part of the plan, but they wouldn’t listen. She braced her knees, and that stopped them from shaking. She took another deep breath, but it hitched in her chest.
“Are you okay?” Peter was looking down at her from the hole in the ceiling ten feet above. The opening was roughly two feet square–just enough to pull her through–but it looked very, very far away. Even jumping, she wouldn’t be able to reach it. She nodded at him, not trusting her voice, then refocused on the doorway. She was afraid to let her attention wander for even a second. Cold air was beginning to seep in, and she wished she’d worn a few more layers. Her feet especially were getting very cold. She could tell that her toes would be numb before long. She watched the door and tried not to think about the cold. She strained her ears for any trace of sound in the family room and wished they’d thought to put something across the doorway that would signal entry. It would have been so easy to do, but none of them had thought of it…what else had they missed? It was too late to change anything now.
Above her, Mark held the first ‘trap’ door, the one that was closest to the two-by-two opening and would form the barrier between Promise and Chance. It was a heavy-gauge diamond mesh in a wood frame, and he held it an inch from the slit in the floor. He looked over his shoulder at Lea. She had the other door, the one closest to the true door of the laundry room, ready at the other slit. The door she held was solid–it needed to block the light to the laundry room once they had Chance in there.
When Promise gave the word, they’d each kick their door into the slots and down the doors would slam, trapping Chance and giving Pe
ter time to pull Promise out.
In theory, anyway.
It had seemed like a good idea, but now Mark was uneasy because he couldn’t see into the laundry room; Lea couldn’t see into the laundry room. They were depending on Promise to tell them when to drop the doors, but what if she panicked? What if he dropped the door on Chance? Or on Promise? Suddenly the whole venture struck him as ill thought out; their days of preparing like kids toiling over a tree house. Their ‘trap’ struck him as something a famous, wily coyote would have put together to thwart his fleet-footed nemesis…in other words, laughably inept.
Lea was having second thoughts, too, Mark could tell when he glanced back again. She was leaned over, trying to see into the laundry room through the slit near her feet, and her door was swaying precariously.
“Lea, watch yourself!” Mark said, his voice a harsh whisper. “The door might overbalance and tip.”
She glanced up. “Oh!” she said and pulled the swaying door back to true, her thin arms straining. Mark noted how she struggled with it, trying to slide it back into place. It was heavy, and she was a small girl. He felt sweat begin to bead at his hairline despite the cold temperature. His stomach twisted into a sour knot. This whole thing wasn’t right. They should pull Promise out of there and try to get some things straightened out tomorrow during the day. This set-up was way too dicey.
He turned to Peter, who knelt at the opening above Promise.
“Hey, Peter,” Mark said, whispering. “We need to pull her out and start over. Something doesn’t feel right about this.”
Peter looked up, already nodding, as if he’d been having the same thoughts. “Yeah, okay.” He began to gather the straps that would pull Promise up. “Promise, we’re pulling you out of there. We can try again tomorrow.”
Lea leaned her door against the wall with obvious relief. “I’ll help you, Peter.” She went past Mark and knelt to take one side of the straps. “I’m glad we’re pulling her out. Something is making me nervous about this whole thing.”
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