Blood Run – The Complete Trilogy – First Promise, Two Riders, Last Chance

by Dougherty, Christine

  And was it also sad? And also happy? Yes, she thought so. Happy and sad, both, just like she felt right now. “Yes, it’s me, Chance, your sister. Chance, I’ve missed you so much.”

  “Missss you, Prooomisssssss…”

  Her eyes widened in surprise. He spoke? Words other than her name? Was she hearing things? Somehow hallucinating what she wanted to hear?

  “I’ve been teaching him.” Lea’s voice came from behind her, and Promise jumped, giving out a breathy little shriek. “Oh, Promise, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you!” Lea closed the distance between them and dropped to her knees, too. “I didn’t mean to sneak up on you. They told me to wait outside, but I told them to…well, I told them to go to heck…” She grinned nervously at her friend. “Was I wrong? Should I have left you alone?”

  “How?” Promise asked, ignoring Lea’s question. “How did you teach him?”

  “I just spent a lot of time talking to him. I found pictures upstairs in your old bedroom…you had an album in your closet, do you remember it?…and I put pictures under the door and told him about everyone in them.” She put her mouth to Promise’s ear, whispering. “Mostly pictures of you and friends, the dog you guys had back when he was just a little guy…but I didn’t put any pictures of your parents under the door.” Lea leaned back and checked Promise’s eyes as if she thought she might have offended her. Then she leaned back in. “I didn’t know if that would be too much…too sad, you know? I’m not sure how much he remembers.”

  “No, it’s okay,” Promise said. She felt slightly dazed. “You did exactly right. The exact right things.” Tears welled again as she looked at Lea. “Thank you so much. I could never thank you enough. You and Mark, both.”

  Lea smiled and hugged her. “Don’t give it a second thought,” she whispered. Then she stood. “Listen, I’m going back out with the guys. You visit with Chance a little more, okay?” She didn’t mention Evans and bringing him in to assess the situation for Mr. West. She didn’t need to mention it–the knowledge was written on Promise’s face like eminent disaster.

  Promise listened as Lea closed the front door behind her, and then she put the worry about Evans aside as she turned back to the laundry room door. She smiled. “Chance, I…I can’t wait to see you and to get you out of here. We have something that will help you get better.” She swallowed and relaxed her shoulders. “You hear me, honey?”

  “Yeeessss…”

  She shivered, but still, her smile widened. “Just wait till you see what I have now, Chance. I have a horse! His name is Ash, and he’s pitch black. You’re gonna love him. You hear me, Chance?”

  “Hooorse…aaaaassssshhhh…”

  “That’s right, honey,” Promise said and put her hands flat on the door. The wood grain melted and swirled as tears filled her eyes. She leaned her forehead against the door again and took a deep, shaking breath.

  She talked to her little brother.

  ~ ~ ~

  “Looks good,” Evans said, his voice indicating only a slight surprise. He turned to look at Peter, Mark, Lea and Promise where they sat at the kitchen table. He had inspected the entire outside of the laundry room, including going upstairs to the room above it that held the trap door. Everything had looked tight and strong, well constructed. “I only worry about this.” He indicated the small, hinged door at the bottom of the laundry room door. “This is where you put the, ah, the blood?”

  Lea nodded. “Yeah, but he can’t get out that little door.” Her tone was one of honest confusion, but Evans shot her a look. She cringed back a little in her chair. She was a shy, non-confrontational girl who been raised mainly by an adoptive father who’d had very little to do with her. He’d died or been changed in the initial plague, and she’d gone to the high school where she’d met Promise and Mark. They were the first real friends she’d ever had. She was uneasy around everyone else, except for children, of course. She loved children.

  Promise smiled at her encouragingly across the table. Then she turned to Evans. “Why, Ev? What bothers you about it?”

  “He could reach through it. Grab a hand and pull it in. Bite it.”

  “He’s pretty interested in the blood, though, when we put it through. I don’t know if he even knows a hand is there,” Mark said.

  Evans shrugged. “Doesn’t convince me. I’ve seen a lot of situations where carelessness was the end of a good operation. Just like the kudzu crawling up your safe house, you don’t always see the potential for disaster when you’re too close to it.” He glanced at Promise and then away. Her heart sank. She knew what he was going to say next. “I am going to recommend that this house needs to be sealed, and the four of you are not to come back here. I’m sorry, Promise, I know how much–”

  Promise stood abruptly, and her chair tilted and crashed onto the floor behind her. “I won’t,” she said. “I won’t let you kill him.” Her hands were in fists, and her stomach rolled as though she were ill. Her face was calm, but her voice carried an angry tremor. “Everyone else can stay away. But I’m staying right here.”

  Impatience and anger flitted over Evans’ features. “Be reasonable, Promise. You can’t stay here at night. You can’t keep feeding that thing in there forever. You–”

  “He’s not a thing!” Her voice rose, cutting across his words. “He’s a little boy! And you’re talking about…about killing him!”

  Evans took a step toward Promise, and Peter stood, watching him warily. Evans glanced at Peter and now anger, real anger suffused his features. He looked back at Promise. “What about the base, huh? About what happened there? Those were smart people, Promise. Smart people with a lot of checks and balances on what they were doing. And still it–”

  “That changes nothing! This is entirely different! I don’t care how smart they were or how much they–”

  “It’s not different! It’s dangerous, and you’re putting other people in jeopardy! Are you so selfish that–”

  “Selfish?! Me? You’ve got to be–”

  They were nearly toe-to-toe, yelling, their voices whip cracking through the small kitchen.

  “Be quiet!” Lea commanded, her voice cutting across both of theirs. They all looked at her in shock. She’d never raised her voice before.

  In the sudden silence, a child’s sobbing could be heard from the direction of the laundry room. It was a sound of terribly inconsolable sadness.

  “Chance!” Promise brushed past Evans, pushing him roughly and nearly crashing into the wall herself. Evans grabbed her arms to steady her, and she turned to him. Her eyes were filled with a sadness that matched the childish sobbing. “You hear that?” she said, her voice a whisper. “That’s no monster.” She disengaged herself gently and turned away.

  He followed her as she went to the laundry room.

  She knelt, her forehead against the door. “Chance, it’s okay, no one is going to hurt you,” she said. “I love you, honey; everything is going to be fine.”

  “Don’t leave, Prooomisssss, pleeease…don’t leeeave…” Chance’s voice, more little boy than gibbering vampire, caused Evans to step back, shock and realization dawning across his features. Chance sobbed again. “Love you Proomissss, love you…” The hint of the monster was still there, ringing across the sibilant esses and tightening some of the consonants, but for all that, it was still just a little boy on the other side of that door. Just as Promise had said. All the color drained from Evans’ face. He’d been calmly proposing manslaughter.

  “I’m here, honey, I’m here. I love you, too,” Promise said. She could feel her friends gathered behind her in the family room. “We’re all here, Chance. We’re going to take care of you.”

  Before Evans could react, Promise slipped the lock on the small door and lifted it open. “Promise, no!” Evans yelled, taking a step forward, but Peter put an arm against his chest, stopping him easily.

  A small, grubby hand, the nails as black as pitch, the skin ragged and dry, reached out of the opening. Promise bloc
ked the sun with her body, and her hand hovered over Chance’s. She sighed, her shoulders relaxing, and gripped his hand, squeezing it gently. On the other side of the door, Chance sobbed again. Evans sat abruptly, sliding down the family room wall.

  Promise looked over her shoulder at him. She smiled as tears ran down her cheeks.

  Evans nodded. “Okay,” he said. “Okay, you were right. You were all right.” He looked up at the rest of them. Peter’s eyes were on Promise, but Lea and Mark were smiling at him.

  “Hey…Evans?” Promise said, and he looked at her. “Want to meet my little brother?”

  He knee-walked across to her, and though he wouldn’t take Chance’s hand, he did talk to him. Briefly. His face did not lose its blown away look.

  When they were all back in the kitchen, Evans–getting ready to ride back to Wereburg–asked Promise, “And you said he was fully changed? Before?”

  She nodded. “As far as I could tell, yeah.”

  Evans’ eyes went to Lea. “And you’ve been just…what? Showing him pictures? Is that it?”

  “No, not exactly,” Lea said and smiled. “I’ve been reminding him of things.”

  “I think Mr. West needs to come out here and see him,” Evans said, almost more to himself than to the room at large. He still didn’t seem completely recovered from his shock. The implications of what they’d done here, what they’d accomplished, it would change everything. And right now, that little kid trapped in the laundry room was a pretty big piece of the puzzle. “When I come back tomorrow, I’m bringing a crew with me. We’re going to make this into a safe house, too. Maybe a safe lab.” He looked at Promise and mustered a ghost of his authoritarian attitude. “You’re not to stay here tonight. It’s too risky. But after tomorrow, I think you’ll be able to stay here all the time. Deal?”

  “I’ll come with you,” Promise said. “I can help talk to Mr. West. Whether I stay in the safe house or Wereburg tonight doesn’t matter. Chance will be okay, and I’ll explain it to him, that it’s just until tomorrow, and then I’ll be back for good.”

  “Lea should come, too, then,” Evans said. “She’s the one who trained–not trained–I mean, she’s the one who worked with him. I want Mr. West to hear it from her.”

  “Of course,” Lea said. “I’ll come back with you guys.” But her eyes slid to Mark’s, and she gave him a small, sad smile. Promise caught the look.

  “Maybe we should all go back to Wereburg. It might be for the best, anyway. United front and all,” Promise said and smiled briefly at Evans. Then her eyes found Peter’s. He nodded.

  “Sounds good to me,” Mark said and crushed Lea to his side.

  Mark and Lea went back to the safe house to collect Lady. Evans biked away toward Wereburg, and Promise and Peter stayed back to feed Chance. Peter had offered to give of himself, but Promise wanted her brother to have her blood. She didn’t tell Peter that she had reservations about Chance drinking Peter’s blood…she wasn’t even sure if he would drink it. After all, the other vampires seemed to steer clear of him.

  Peter ran the blade across her forearm and then looked into her eyes, gauging the pain. She smiled at him. She felt like a mother as the blood began to flow…a nourisher, a feeder. For isn’t this what a mother would do, if her child needed it? Of course. Because she was also a protector.

  Promise would be all those things for Chance now.

  ~ ~ ~

  As they cantered away from Willow’s End–Lea holding Lady and sitting behind Promise on Ash; Mark on Snow behind Peter–Promise turned to watch her old house slip out of sight. Tomorrow, she thought to herself. I’ll see you tomorrow.

  None of the four noticed Deidre as she shuffled further behind the trunk of a large, dead tree, watching them as they passed by. Her eyes were dark with disgust, and she scrutinized them warily them until they were gone. Then she turned to look at the house where they were keeping the monster.

  Deidre was tired of Promise getting her way. Even when she hadn’t been around for weeks, she still got her way. The girl got away with murder. It was so unfair. Deidre just wanted things to be…to be right. To be like they used to be. Not just before the plague, but even before that: she wanted things to be like they were in high school. When she’d been the one who always got her way.

  She told herself that turning Chance loose was something she was doing for the good of the town. She didn’t acknowledge that she was also motivated by jealousy, by an urge to hurt Promise for being all the things that she, Deidre, would never be: selfless, brave, strong.

  She checked once more to make sure they were gone, and then she moved toward Promise’s old house. She dragged a bag of clanking tools behind her. She would wait until dusk and then let that thing out. Then she would spend the night here. It would be dangerous, but when they came back tomorrow, and then everyone found out what she’d done…for them…she would be a hero.

  Then everything would go her way once again.

  ~ ~ ~

  “It’s intriguing, and I’d be willing to go and see him–I wouldn’t be much of a researcher if I wasn’t–but I have reservations about putting any of the lab resources out there,” Mr. West said. He spread his hands on the oak teacher’s desk before him, palms down, as if to hold it in place. “It’s doesn’t sound safe, to me.”

  “I think you might change your mind once you see it,” Evans said. “The bottom line is that there’s no safe way to transport the kid here, and even if there were a way, it’s not a good idea. It puts this whole place at risk.”

  “If we move the lab out there, though,” Mr. West said. “You put the lab people at risk, and if there is a fatal incident–like the one at the base–then there’s no chance of fine-tuning Edwards’ cure. Everyone loses.”

  Evans and Miller were sitting across from the desk in school chairs. When Evans had returned from Willow’s End ahead of the rest, he’d sought out Miller first and bounced his idea off her. Then he’d enlisted her help in talking to Mr. West.

  “Yeah, Evans and I talked about that,” she said. “So here’s the idea: we take over the house next door, too. Put the actual lab there. We can guard anyone going into the house with the kid, Chance, in it,” Miller said. She knew getting Chance’s name in there, humanizing him, was a psychological trick, and she felt bad using it. But it might help sway Mr. West to their side.

  He looked at her mildly. “I know him, Miller. He was one of the kids who I took in, took responsibility for. Believe me, I already think of him as ‘human’. But I am responsible for everyone now.”

  Miller blinked and flushed slightly. She scolded herself for underestimating Mr. West’s intelligence…or overestimating her own.

  “You have to consider your other lab rat, too, though,” Evans said. “And as long as she is out there, he will be out there.” He took a breath to explain himself further, but Miller stopped him with a hand on his arm. She wanted Evans to realize that West could out-think them.

  “Lab rat,” Mr. West shook his head. He almost smiled. “You’re right about Peter and Promise, though. And if Chance has come as far along as you say, then it might be beneficial to have her with him. Certainly it will keep him calmer.” He pushed the chair back and stood. “But no more contact. That’s going to have to be a hard and fast rule.”

  Evans face began to light up, and Miller could see he was thinking ‘done deal’. She wasn’t so sure, herself.

  “That is, if we decide to do this at all,” Mr. West said, and Evans’ face tightened in frustration. West walked to the door. “We’ll catch up tomorrow first thing. For now I have to go make sure everything is okay. I’ve got lock up in less than an hour.”

  Miller was surprised. “You do that? With everything else you have going on here?”

  Mr. West turned back with a sad smile. “I’m a fast learner, Miller. I never make the same mistake twice.”

  “That guy is damned smart,” Evans said after West had gone. His voice was slightly awed. “He’s even smarter th
an Lu, and Lu is the smartest guy I know.”

  “Speaking of, I think Lu is going to stay here,” Miller said. “Permanently.”

  “He’s voluntary?” Evans asked, without surprise. Miller knew that was the first question anyone in the National Guard would ask in this day and age.

  “Yep,” she said “and he’s free and clear.” Even for volunteers there was a minimum requirement, but once that was met, they could leave at any time. Not that the minimums and whether one was voluntary or not even mattered very much. No one was able to consistently keep track of the Guard. The world was too different now. Too disjointed.

  “He’s been working with West all day. I think he’s really going to be able to help them out with that lab stuff.”

  Evans considered and then crossed his arms over his chest. It might be nice to settle in one spot. Maybe he should think about it, too. Go and check on what was left of his family and then go from there. Figure out something new.

  It didn’t seem as though Promise would need him any more after tomorrow, anyway.

  Promise looked around the classroom she and Lea had shared before she’d left for the base in New Jersey. It hadn’t been long ago, but the room looked deserted, as though no one had occupied it for years. Lea’s chalk drawings were faded and scratched and their cast off bedding and extra clothes were huddled in forlorn bundles around the perimeter. Then Ash whinnied behind her and began to push her into the room with his nose. She laughed and went.

  Lady jumped from Lea’s arms and tore across the room to throw herself down on the horse blankets in the corner. She rolled on them, her stick-like legs kicking joyously as she snorted her pleasure. Ash watched her with patient interest.

  Promise laughed. “Someone sure is happy to be back,” she said.

  “She is, yeah. I told you she was pining for Ash, but maybe she was really just pining for his stinky blankets,” Lea said from beside her. “Hey, do you think you might keep her in here tonight? So she can get a big dose of her favorite horse?”