The Warrior

by Rebecca Royce

  Because if I couldn’t do this, if I couldn’t make him disappear, then I would never be rid of him in my heart. He would always reside there somewhere, torturing me.

  “Not sure I can do what you want, Rachel.” He ran a hand through his curly blond hair. “I have to go back and see my father. If it turns out that he lied, then I’m going to find you and never leave you alone again.”

  I laughed as my tears abruptly ceased. “If he lied. See right off the bat, we have a big problem. If he lied implies that he might not have, which means that you don’t entirely believe me. If makes me want to hit you, hard.” I shook my head. “Go home, Jason. The intricacies of your Wolf pack and the way you live are beyond me. It was clearly a really good thing that we were separated. Maybe your father knew what he was doing after all.” I shrugged. “I would have waited for you forever. That’s the difference between us.”

  “Would have?”

  I nodded as I turned my back on him to walk back to Chad. I called over my shoulder. “That’s right, would. Past tense. Leave me alone.”

  I sat down next to Chad on the ground. After a moment I made myself look up to see if Jason still stood where he’d been. He was gone. I waited for the relief I expected to feel. He’d done what I asked.

  So why did I feel like I wanted to vomit?

  I sat for a while, staring into the darkness as I forced myself not to think, not to feel. Gradually I lost track of time. Looking up, I glanced at the moon and tried to recalculate how long Chad had been asleep. It wasn’t more than a few hours.

  I sighed and leaned back onto the ground.

  When we’d first met, it had been so joyful to be with Jason. Well, once I’d gotten over being really freaked out that he was a Werewolf. Jason’s pack had all gone to what amounted to sleep for years that had lasted over forty-years. Then they’d woken up and realized that not only had they been participating in the destruction of humanity, but also that the world they had known was gone.

  Humanity had gone through an Armageddon, and Jason’s pack had not been aware it happened. They’d participated in the destruction and death of most of the human population, and they couldn’t remember a thing.

  How much they could be held responsible for atrocities committed while they weren’t in control of themselves was something Andon, Jason’s father, struggled with.

  Or—I amended—he claimed to have trouble coming to terms with. He was a liar, and it was clear that nothing he said should be taken at face value. Jason had been eight at the time. He’d woken up four decades later, still eight years old, to find his mother dead and his life forever altered.

  Technically, his mother wasn’t ‘dead’. She was Undead. But he didn’t know that. Just something else Andon kept from his children.

  A shiver racked through my body and I doubled over in pain.

  Oh wow. I closed my eyes. This was a bad one. Vampires were coming, a whole slew of them, and they were approaching fast. I stood up. One Vampire I could handle on my own. Even two would be doable. This many? I needed Chad, and I needed him up immediately. I shook his hard on the shoulder, and he grumbled.

  “Up, Chad. Vampires, coming. Now.”

  His eyes flew open as he instantly came alert. We’d been trained to sleep in rough situations, but the word Vampire roused us every time. In seconds, he was on his feet looking around.

  “How many?” His head darted right and left, and I knew he looked for potential escape routes. I hoped his clever mind did better than mine, since I couldn’t come up with any at all.

  “At least a dozen.”

  I shivered again. Any second, Chad would sense them. That would mean they were close, almost too close to escape.

  “Right or left?”

  I pointed in the direction where I felt their presence.

  He nodded. “Then I guess we run this way.”

  He grabbed my hand. We ran side-by-side through the night, only the sound of our breaths following us in the darkness. If I hadn’t felt the mounting pain in my insides letting me know the Vampires were coming, I would have been relieved. But that was the problem with being a human Vampire detector; there was no such thing as false hope.

  I might have killed for a little ignorance now and again.

  Moving my feet one in front of another, I tried not to be furious about what was happening. Now that I knew what we were to them—that we were prey that they hunted for their amusement while they kept another food supply underground—I despised the idea of running away.

  Were they loving this? Were they getting off on it? I wanted to throw something.

  I supposed we could simply stop. Chad and I could turn and face them. But two of us against twelve—or possibly more—of them? It would be suicide.

  The little voice in the back of my head that made me nuts whenever it chose to share its opinion reminded me that getting out of bed every morning as a Warrior was a kind of suicide. What were my chances of making it to nineteen anyway? I’d known the statistics when we’d lived in Genesis, but now I couldn’t even do the math.

  The thought made me stop short. Chad jerked on my arm before stopping himself.

  He panted as he spoke. “What’s the matter?” He tugged on my arm. “Rachel, we need to go.”

  “No.” I shook my head as my resolve filled me with the strangest sense of calm. “I’m tired of running. I’m not going to do it anymore.”

  “Sweetheart, you and I can’t beat them alone.”

  I shook my head as I stared into his features. Chad was like the nighttime come to life. It was like darkness had gotten together and framed his eyes with its embrace. What would his life have been like if we’d lived in another time? What would mine have been? Would we even have known each other? If we had, would we have had anything in common without being Warriors?

  “I won’t be their prey.”

  He let out a small laugh. “You’re no one’s prey.”

  “I am. You are. It’s all a big game. They’re probably hunting for us because we blew up their temple, another game destroyed.” I took a step back. “I won’t play it anymore. If this is it—if I’m supposed to die here in the middle of nowhere—then so be it. But I’m not going to run anymore.”

  I raised my voice. We had been whispering. We always did but halfway through my little speech, it occurred to be how completely futile the whole thing was. They were Vampires. Who the heck knew how well they could hear? I know that Werewolves could hear us from great distances away. Why was I bothering to whisper? And once I made that decision, I couldn’t seem to stop screaming.

  Maybe I’d lost my mind. Perhaps that’s what this level of clarity I felt actually was—a total and complete break with reality. Or possibly I was finally seeing things as they were for the first time in my life.

  Either way, it felt fantastic.

  “Rachel, we are about to be overcome by a group of Vampires. Are you telling me you want to die?”

  Chad looked a little bit frantic. I could sense an edginess to him I wasn’t used to. Obviously, he wasn’t prepared to deal with my new way of seeing things.

  “Chad, do you want to be a game to them?”

  He shook his head. I noticed that when he spoke, he shouted now, too. “Who cares what we are to them? This is our life.”

  “It’s no kind of a life.”

  He grabbed my shoulders. “It’s the only one we’ve got. Rachel, we need to run. Please don’t make me put you over my shoulder.”

  “I’m not crazy, Chad. I’m just done.”

  He pulled me into his arms. “You can’t be done. You’re only sixteen.”

  “Then why do I feel like I’m eighty?”

  Chad put his hands over his chest, dropping me from his embrace. I looked up at him. If he’d been signaled of a Vampire approach that meant they were close to us now. Too close to do anything but fight back.

  “You should run.”

  I stared at Chad as I said the words. I meant them. I loved him. I didn’t
want him to not exist in the world. He was the kind of person who, if there was any way to attempt to make things better, could do it. He was bright, handsome, and talented. He needed to leave me and run away.

  “Do it, Chad. Go.”

  I had been insistent that I stay and fight, and now I was equally as determined to see him go. My own life I could do with as I wanted. His? I wouldn’t take the risk.

  “I would never leave you to the Vampires. Do you understand?” He shook my shoulders. “Where you go, I go. If you die, there is no life for me anyway, Rachel.”

  His words made my eyes fill with tears. No one had ever done that before. Everyone abandoned me when I needed them. But not Chad.

  “No, this is my craziness. I need to do it. Not you. You should run.” I choked on my words. It was like a lump in my throat had formed and there was nothing I could do about it now.

  “You’re right, Rachel. It’s crazy to keep running. Where would we even go? At home we would at least know the places to hide.” He looked around as if searching for one last time to see if there was an obvious location to go to. “This will be like one of those Wild West movies we watched in the Quad growing up. The last stand.”

  Those were supposed to be at noon in the sun with two opponents facing off with guns. Not in the dead of night in the middle of nowhere against opponents whose venom and fangs made them almost unbeatable. Not to mention, we only had two stakes between us.

  Like snakes slithering through the grass, the Vampires appeared around us. It never ceased to amaze me how they did that. One second they wouldn’t be there and the next they were.

  Surrounding us, they made a collective hissing sound that I remembered too well from the night I’d been attacked by the Undead. I’d been alone, in a cage put together by Jason’s father. I’d been terrified.

  At the moment, I wasn’t afraid for myself. I wished I could find a way to do this without involving Chad, but wishing didn’t get much done and I couldn’t undo what was happening.

  I looked at Chad one last time. “Promise me you won’t let them change me.”

  His gaze was hard, determined. “I swear it.”

  I looked at the Vampires. “We’re not running from you.” I felt good speaking the words I needed to say aloud, even if it was pointless to do so. “We may not even fight you. So we’re not going to be anymore interesting to you than any of the humans you have trapped in cages beneath us.”

  Silence met my remarks, and Chad reached out to grab my hand. I wished I never had to let go. But I knew, despite my confidence, that if one of them came at me I was likely to fight back. I had years of training to make me do just that. Maybe it was muscle memory.

  To my utter horror, one of the Vampires, one of the ones who stood right in front of me, smiled, showing his split tongue and huge fangs. I swallowed, wishing I could give in to my very real urge to vomit.

  “Hello, Rachel Clancy. We have been waiting for you.”

  Oh hell. It knew my name. That couldn’t be a good thing.

  “She’s not Rachel Clancy.” Chad sounded cool and collected, like he was talking to the guys who lived next door to him instead of the Undead. “I know Rachel. I left her back at Genesis.”

  Chad never lied. Except that twice now, he’d had to for me. I hoped it wasn’t the last thing he ever said.

  “We’re going to kill the male.” The Vampire spoke to me like he was letting me in on some great plan. “Then we’re taking you with us.”

  Chad fisted his hands at his side. “You’re not taking her anywhere.”

  “Dispose of the male.”

  The Vampires hissed, and I moved to stand in front of Chad. I would die before I let them harm one hair on his head while I could still prevent it.

  I spoke fast. “I’ll go quietly if you leave him alone. I won’t fight. I won’t cause any trouble.”

  “Rachel!” Chad’s voice was hard to hear over the hissing Vampires.

  “But if you take him, if you hurt him, I’ll kill myself before you can take me.”

  I had no way to follow through on this threat. How on earth could I possibly end my own life standing in this circle of Vampires? I supposed I could stake myself….

  “Rachel, no!” Chad shouted as the Vampire in front of me nodded.

  “Agreed.”

  Two sets of hands grabbed me from behind. Pulled off into the crowd of the Undead, I heard Chad shout behind me.

  Wow, I really hoped I hadn’t made a terrible mistake. My insides went numb. I had no idea what was going to happen to me, and nothing I could do to make this any better. I’d made a deal with the Undead. I could only pray they kept their end of it; even as the sickening reality that I had no reason to believe the Undead would keep their word struck me hard.

  I tried to do a quick headcount as a rag was put in front of my mouth. It smelled funny and despite my struggles, I passed out.

  Chapter Nine

  I woke up slowly with a bad taste in my mouth. Again. I looked around at my surroundings. It was dark, but a little light seeped into the room from under what appeared to be a doorway. I’d read somewhere, in a book I found in the Genesis library, that sometimes people are afraid of the dark. There had been a whole slew of fears in the catalog. Some people were afraid of heights, some people were afraid of dogs, and still others went so far as to be afraid to leave the house in general.

  Waking up in that strange place, I knew I wasn’t scared of the dark, and there wasn’t a bug on Earth that could make me shake or shiver. But I understood why people were afraid to leave their homes. Even when they didn’t know it—before Armageddon they couldn’t have known—there were things out there that wanted to kill them. The only difference was that I knew what they were, and this time they’d been looking for me personally.

  I stood up, surprised to find I wasn’t at all restrained. Free to wander wherever I was held, not that I could see where I could go, I tried to be silent in my movements. The Vampires would know I was awake if they listened for my heartbeat. All I could do was hope they weren’t currently listening.

  I bit down hard on my bottom lip. This could have been a colossal mistake. I’d trusted the bloodsuckers to keep Chad alive. No, I amended my thought; the truth was I’d bought Chad time. Given slightly better circumstances than the ones we’d faced, Chad could survive. He was an amazing fighter.

  So why was I terrified he’d died?

  My stomach clenched and I forced my thoughts from the boy who had loved me silently for years, and who had rocked my world off its axis when he’d announced how he felt earlier in the year. Ours wasn’t a world for romance, and yet people did fall in love, had families, made plans. When I’d finally let myself think of Chad as my own, I had, in the back of mind, hoped we would be amongst that group that lived in Genesis and carved out some semblance of a life together.

  Now, I had to figure out how to survive this mess I’d gotten myself into. The door swung open, cancelling any hopes I’d had that they didn’t yet know I was awake. Two Vampires entered. Their movements seemed more like floating than walking; I’d gotten used to seeing them that way. Truth was, while their illusion made them look they floated, it was more like they slithered. More and more I found reasons to compare them to the slithering creatures found under rocks.

  They grabbed me by the arm, lifting me off the ground as they pulled me forward.

  I cleared my throat. “And how are you today?”

  They were silent, which meant they were either the type of Vampire that could no longer communicate verbally with humans, or they ignored me. I guess I must have a crazy streak considering I had convinced Chad we needed to make a last stand against these blood suckers. For some reason I didn’t want to fathom at the moment, I couldn’t seem to stop taunting the Undead.

  “Tell me something, what do you guys do for fun? Do you go on dates? What’s a good time?” I laughed, a cold hard sound even to my own ears. “How do the female Vampires determine which one of you guys
they want to go out with?”

  The one holding my right arm squeezed tightly into my arm. “Careful boys, you don’t want to poke me.” This time I snorted. I couldn’t help it. Either I had to find a way to make this situation amusing, or I was going to go completely insane from terror.

  “I’ve already survived a Vampire scratch. I’m not sure if you can nearly die from an attack more than that. But if you can, I wouldn’t want you to get in trouble for bringing me injured to whoever it is that wants to see me.”

  I wasn’t entirely certain how it worked. I didn’t know if it was like a cold, where you couldn’t catch the same one twice or if there were different strands of it or something. All I knew was that I didn’t want to get scratched again because it really, really sucked the first time.

  They walked faster through the dark hallway. There were torches lit everywhere, which seemed a little bit ridiculous to me considering that one of the ways you could kill a Vampire was to burn them up. You would think they would avoid flames like the plague.

  Like an explosion, a game plan erupted in my mind. It wasn’t much of a game plan, but it was something at least. I might only get one chance to do this correctly, if that.

  Using my left leg, I kicked hard at the Vampire who held my left arm. He jarred to the side slightly, and I used his momentum to tumble us all down to the floor. I jumped to my feet and ran as fast as I could, knowing I wasn’t likely to outrun them for very long.

  But it was worth the chance. Who knew? Maybe I’d get lucky and find an escape route.

  Glancing over my shoulder, I heard the hiss of the two Vampires as they chased me down the hall. I smiled even though I knew it was sick and twisted to do so. Deacon had often spoken of how nice it was to taunt the Undead when he lived in the cages.