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

by Dougherty, Christine

  “Well, of course she’ll stay in here,” Promise said, her voice puzzled. “Where else would she stay?” She looked at her friend’s flushed face and shy smile. “Oh. You mean because you’re not staying in here.”

  Lea’s flush deepened. It looked good on her, Promise thought. Lea’s fair skin warmed pink and pretty across her cheeks. She said, “Do you…I mean, do you mind if I…?”

  Promise gave her a quick, impulsive hug. “No, course not. We’ll be together all day tomorrow. We’ll talk more then.”

  Lea pulled back, her face drawn in concern. “What about Peter? Will he be in here with you, or…?”

  Promise shook her head sadly. “I don’t know. I’m not sure what we…what we’re supposed to be. To each other, I mean. Before we got to the base, it was a little confusing, but it was okay, you know? There were so many other things going on. But something happened, the night it was overrun, Peter, he changed. Now, it feels–everything feels wrong between us. Distant. Not like before.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “We were making some kind of progress, before, I guess. I mean, for all the weirdness in the world now, I was starting to feel all the things you’re supposed to feel in a new relationship. All the things I never felt before. Excited and nervous, unsure. Expectant.” Promise shook her head and dropped her eyes. “But now it’s soured or…” She shrugged. “I don’t know how to explain it. But the way I felt about him, I think it’s gone.”

  “Do you still like him, though? Just as a person?”

  Promise considered the question and sighed. “I guess so, but…”

  “It’s hard to separate the two things?” Lea guessed, and Promise nodded again.

  “I just feel like–” Promise started, but the sound of Snow’s hooves in the corridor outside the door silenced her. Both girls turned to watch as Peter walked in leading Snow.

  “Hi, Peter,” Lea said with a smile. “Bye, Peter. Bye, Promise,” she said and squeezed Promise’s hand. “We’ll talk tomorrow. I have some ideas about…” She glanced at Peter, who had busied himself settling Snow in next to Ash. “…about what we were discussing.” She leaned to whisper in Promise’s ear. “Everything will be fine. I just feel it.”

  Once Lea left, Promise felt awkward at the distance and silence between her and Peter. She glanced at him where he kneeled to pet Lady. She read tension in the set of his shoulders and realized that he, too, must feel awkward. It made her both sad and frustrated. She wanted to put it right, smooth things out between them.

  “Peter, listen, could we–” she started to say, but Peter spoke at the same time, “I’m going to bunk with Evans and them tonight.”

  Feeling hurt, but also relieved, Promise didn’t know what to say next. Here, again, was the confusion she’d been telling Lea about. The confusion of feeling two ways at once. Was she hurt or relieved? Could she really be both at once? It made no sense.

  He stood and faced her. “What were you saying? I didn’t mean to cut you off.”

  She shook her head and smiled briefly, crossing her arms over her chest–over her heart. She shrugged. “Nothing. Tell Ev and them I said ‘goodnight’, okay?” She glanced at her watch. “You better hurry. Lockup in fifteen minutes.”

  He hesitated as though he wanted to say something more, but Promise turned her back to him and looked out the top of the otherwise boarded over windows. “The sun is almost gone,” she said, and her voice was flat.

  He looked past her and up through the window. The sky was turning a deep purplish blue along the western horizon, and the moon, bloated and orange, was leering over the trees. It would lose blood as it rose until it sailed across the sky like a pale, dead ghost, laying down its cooling, silver light. Peter swallowed and tore his eyes away, and his gaze landed on Promise’s profile. Her face was lined in a pearlescent glow, making her look warm and angelic. He allowed the now familiar push and pull of his feelings to wash over him. He wanted her, but was no longer sure in which way. And it didn’t feel healthy, the wanting. The need.

  He was plunged into remorse. He hadn’t done right by this girl.

  “Goodnight,” he murmured and turned abruptly out of the room, nearly stumbling.

  Promise never took her eyes from the window. She couldn’t answer him, the hurt and confusion were too great. It had been a cheat, a lie…the things she’d been told about love. None of those things had come true. But she still had Chance, and that was enough.

  She heard the heavy door close behind her. She would lock it in a minute.

  But for now, she would watch the sun out of sight.

  Chapter 7

  “I’m glad she’s dead! I’m glad, I’m glaaad!” Promise’s scream rang against the front of her old house. Grief and rage and stark disbelief distorted her features as Peter and Mark tried to hold onto her where she stood next to the porch. She kicked and fought, whipping her head from side to side, her teeth gritted.

  Lea stood nearby, hands fisted at her mouth. Tears of shock rolled steadily from her enormous eyes.

  Promise screamed again. “I’m glaaaad! I’m glad she’s dead! Chance! Chaaaaance!” Her cries cut through the thin morning air. “Chaaaaaance! Chaaaaaaaaance!” Her voice broke and became an inconsolable wail, and her face reddened as the veins in her neck stood out blue against her skin. She had no breath, but still she screamed and struggled. Her nose began to bleed, and she coughed and choked over the blood that ran down her throat. She fought harder against Peter and Mark, twisting in their hands. “Let me go! I have to find him! Let me go! Chaaaaance! Chaaance!”

  Lea dropped to her knees and huddled over herself, sobbing. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I’m sorry, oh, Promise, please, I’m sorry…”

  Mr. West slammed through the front door. He had a needle in his hand. “Promise, listen to me! I’m going to give you a shot to calm you down! Can you hear me? Promise? Promise?”

  She twisted and wailed. She kicked out at Mr. West. Her eyes were swollen shut with tears, and the blood from her nose ran over her lip and down into her grimacing mouth, coating her teeth in gore. She looked wild, feral in her misery. “Chaaance! Chaaaaaaance!” Her voice was rough, her throat raw and torn. She heaved against Peter’s arms, nearly throwing Mark to the ground. “Let me go! I have to find him! Chaaaance!”

  Evans and Miller came running from the side of the house. Evans features were black with horrified anger. “Promise!” he yelled and tried to grasp her face in his hands, to still her wildly whipping head. Miller hugged the girl around her torso. Mr. West stepped forward with the needle.

  “Hold her arm! Hold it tight; I don’t want the needle to break!”

  Evans clamped Promise’s arm under his and struggled to hold her still. Her eyes rolled with crazed rage, and she would not meet his gaze. She was utterly alone in her overwhelming grief. Mr. West drove the needle into her bicep and pushed the plunger. She sagged against Evans, a scream dying in her throat. He held her, guiding her relaxing body to the ground.

  He pushed her long, black hair away from her face. Bits of yellowed grass and a long-dead leaf were tangled in its dark maelstrom. “I’m so sorry, Promise. This is all my fault,” he said, his voice a choked whisper. “I’m so sorry.”

  Peter knelt and used the tail of his shirt to wipe the blood from her face. Without looking at Evans, he said, “If it’s anyone’s fault, it’s mine.”

  Mark had gone to where Lea was still huddled over herself, crying. He dropped next to her and gathered her in his arms. She sobbed against his shoulder. “It’s my fault. I’m so sorry. It’s all my fault.”

  Miller sat on the porch and ran a hand through her hair. She glanced back at a handful of people huddled in the doorway. Lu, a few of the lab people, and two civilians from Wereburg. Mr. West sat down next to her. The needle in his hand hung limp as he surveyed the scene in front of him. He sighed and then blew out a long, controlled breath.

  “If it’s anyone’s fault,” he said, addressing everyone at onc
e. “It’s Deidre’s.” He sighed again and ran a hand over his forehead, massaging. “And mine.”

  “What would make her do something so stupid?” Mark asked. He was at the kitchen table, and Lea sat next to him. He rubbed small circles into her bent neck. She seemed completely obsessed with the dirty, pink scrunchie in her hands.

  “I have to wash this,” she said and stood abruptly, turning to the sink. Mark watched her with concern.

  “How well did you guys know each other?” Peter said.

  “Me and Deidre? I didn’t really know her at all before all this–the plague and all–happened. She was a senior when I was a sophomore. Promise would have been a freshman and Lea still in eighth grade. Deidre was big-time popular. Homecoming and in the yearbook in about a hundred pictures.”

  Mr. West came into the kitchen, his face drawn. He looked five years older than he had when they’d arrived here this morning. He glanced around the kitchen. “I haven’t been out here in Willow’s End in a long time,” he said. “I wish I’d made the trip sooner.”

  “How’s Promise?” Peter asked. Despite Mr. West’s declaration that what had happened was his own and Deidre’s fault, Peter still felt a weight of responsibility. As did Lea; you could tell by the slump of her shoulders.

  “She’s sleeping. She’ll sleep for another hour or so, and I think she’ll be fine when she wakes up. Calmer,” Mr. West said. “I’ve asked Evans to take her back to Wereburg, though. I don’t want her waking up out here.” His eyes went to the yawning black cavern of the laundry room next to the family room.

  Deidre had somehow managed to muscle the first door back up and out of the slit that it had been dropped into, thus, setting Chance free. She must have come out late in the day, Mr. West had surmised, just after everyone had left. She had hidden in the small bedroom above the laundry room. When the sun had set, she’d opened the trap door. Deducing from the blankets that were bundled neatly in the corner along with some boards and tools, she’d most likely been planning to lock herself in and spend the night.

  Mr. West hadn’t mentioned the other possibility, that Deidre had opened the door before the sun had set…and he hoped desperately that it wasn’t the case. Deidre was mean and misguided, but was she a psychopath? He hoped not. If she was, if she had tried to make that little boy suffer a horrid, burning death, then he considered himself even more to blame. He’d tolerated Deidre’s pushiness and strident managerial tendencies–he’d never imagined it would lead to something like this.

  But something had gone wrong after she set Chance free. Nothing that she’d brought to block herself in with–the boards, the nails–had been touched. Why had she left the room? There were no signs of a struggle, no fresh blood spilled in the house.

  After they’d got here this morning and discovered that Chance had been set free, they’d found Deidre at the side of the house, bled white.

  Had Chance killed her?

  “Why’d she do it, Mr. West? Why did Deidre let Chance out?” Mark asked.

  “I don’t think we’ll ever know. I could speculate, but it would only be that: guesses, really. I don’t think it matters now, anyway. I think we need to–”

  Heavy tread stomped quickly down the stairs in the front living room, and then Evans appeared in the kitchen doorway. “Where is she?” His glance swung from the kitchen to the bare family room. “Where did you put Promise?”

  “She’s in the middle bedroom upstairs,” Mr. West said, standing. Mark and Lea stood, too. Peter stayed seated, his eyes fixed on the table in front of him. “The one across from the bathroom.”

  Evans was already shaking his head. “She’s not in any of the rooms upstairs. I thought she might be in that smallest room, but she wasn’t, and then I thought maybe she’d made her way down here.” He glanced angrily at Mr. West. “I thought that shot was going to keep her asleep for another hour.”

  “It should have,” Mr. West said, thinking, unperturbed by Evans’ tone. “Are they still outside, or did Miller shuttle them back already?”

  He was talking about everyone who’d been brought to help assess the space for a lab. Miller had gathered them all into the backyard after Deidre’s body had been found.

  “Miller hasn’t left yet,” Evans said and went through the kitchen into the family room. His eyes trailed over the empty laundry room, and he felt another deep stab of guilt. It was all his fault. He should have let Promise stay last night. He should have stayed with her.

  West, Mark and Lea followed him out the sliding glass door into the backyard. A handful of people milled there, talking quietly. Miller was sitting desultorily in a lawn chair, her face long and tired.

  “Miller,” Evans called out. “Did you see her?” Knowing that Miller would know immediately who he meant.

  Her head snapped up, her brows drawn down in concern. “Sleeping. Upstairs.”

  “No.” Evans shook his head and blew out in disgust. “She’s not.”

  The small crowd began to draw closer to Evans. A woman stepped forward with a worried expression. “You mean the dark-haired girl? Promise?”

  He turned to her as fast as a striking snake and grabbed her arms. “Yes, did you see her?”

  “Well, she…she rode off on that horse of hers…the black horse.”

  Evans dropped the woman’s arms, and his eyes scanned the dense forest that ran behind all the houses on this side of the development. She must be headed into the woods to look for her brother. She was going to get herself killed. “Miller, we have to get to the woods! The Humvee will–”

  “She didn’t go into the woods,” the woman offered and stepped back sharply when Evans turned to her again.

  “Which way did she go?” His voice was a growl.

  The woman hesitated, looking from Mr. West to Miller to Evans. She shrugged. “She was headed toward Wereburg.”

  Puzzlement ran from face to face, and Miller shook her head at Evans, raising her shoulders.

  Behind them, Lu said, “The cure. She’s riding to Wereburg to get the cure.”

  In the scramble and confusion to get everyone back in the Humvee, Evans ranted internally at the lost time. He wished he’d driven out on his own. He’d be halfway back to Wereburg by now.

  “Let’s go, let’s go!” he said, impatience leaking into his voice. They’d been even further delayed by questions of what to do with Deidre’s body. Leave it, had been his flat-voiced vote. She could keep the other corpses company.

  Mark and Lea approached him hand in hand. “We thought we’d go stay at the safe house. In case Promise shows up there,” Mark said, and then he surveyed the rapidly filling Humvee. He and Lea had ridden out on the horses with Peter and Promise. It would be tough to squeeze into the Humvee with everyone else

  Evans must have drawn the same conclusion. “If that’s what you want to do. It’s provisioned up? You have everything you need?”

  Mark nodded.

  Lea hadn’t said a single word since the kitchen. The pink scrunchie was hanging loosely from her wrist. Evans reached out, and in an uncharacteristically tender gesture, touched it lightly with his fingertips. “She’s gonna be glad you rescued this for her, Lea,” he said.

  Lea looked up and nodded. Still her eyes swam with tears. “Her mom…her mom gave her this. She…she loves it so much…”

  “Yes, I know,” Evans said with a small smile. He turned back to Mark. “Peter going with you?”

  Mark blinked and then looked around. He dropped Lea’s hand and trotted to the side yard where Peter and Promise had tied the horses out when they’d arrived this morning.

  Snow was gone now, too.

  Mark turned back to Evans. “Peter’s gone.”

  Evans’ lips tightened, and he swung his arm in an impatient circle at the last two people milling outside the Humvee. “Get in, or I’m leaving you to the vampires!” He ran to the driver’s side door and flung it open as the last two people scrambled in the passenger side. He hesitated and looked at Mark over
the top of the Humvee. “Watch out for him!”

  “Who? Peter?” Mark asked, his hands out and palms up, confused. “Why?”

  “He’s not the same! Just…be careful if you see him…okay? Especially if it’s near dusk.” Evans was shouting in his impatience and fear.

  Mark nodded and stepped back, and Lea folded herself against him. He brought his arm up to her shoulders, and they watched as the Humvee drove off.

  “Let’s get out of here,” Lea said and glanced over her shoulder. “This feels like a bad place to me now. A death place.”

  Mark nodded. “Yeah, I know what you mean.”

  They stared at it a moment longer.

  “Peter won’t hurt her,” Lea finally said.

  “You don’t think?”

  “No. He loves her.”

  “Sometimes that doesn’t mean very much.”

  She looked at him, her eyes red with tears and troubled. She was remembering what Promise had told her last night…that something in Peter had changed. Her eyes surveyed the house again, and then she tugged Mark away.

  ~ ~ ~

  He caught up to her a mile from the high school. She wouldn’t stop when he called to her, she wouldn’t even look at him. Her hair flew back in a black veil, and her eyes were red with exhaustion…but still determined. She wouldn’t stop. Finally, he turned Snow in front of Ash, causing Ash to veer and pull up sharply, snorting.

  Promise’s face was a cold mask. She stared at him, chin raised, without speaking.

  “I’m here to help,” Peter said.

  “I don’t need help. I don’t need a shot. I don’t need to sleep,” her voice was low and even colder than her gaze. “You can’t stop me.”

  Peter smiled and then laughed. Some of the coldness slipped from her features.

  He leaned across the horses and took her hand. “I don’t want to stop you, Promise. I want to help…help you find him. Give him the cure. That’s why you’re heading to Wereburg first, isn’t it? To get the cure?”