The Warrior

by Rebecca Royce

“How did you survive it for so long?”

  A cold breeze picked up around us. It was spring. Wasn’t it supposed to be getting warmer? I shivered into my light jacket.

  “I was never in the mines. I was too young and then they decided to eliminate me right away when I became difficult. I guess I was too much of a pain to ever warrant them.”

  That made sense. I told him how I’d used his techniques to annoy the Vampires and how it had gotten us expelled to the cages.

  “I’m proud of you. The most important thing down there is to not lose your head to the horror.”

  “I didn’t.” But then I’d lost Chad. I closed my eyes for a moment.

  “What?”

  “How do I live with my level of culpability?”

  How do I live without him? How can I love Jason with Chad dead? How could I have loved both of them at the same time? But I didn’t say that aloud.

  “I guess you either self-destruct like your father did, or you find way to move forward. You find what drives you, and you let it give you a purpose.” His cheeks turned red as the wind assaulted them. “Through the doing, maybe you find forgiveness.”

  “Chad’s never coming back to forgive me.”

  He shook his head. “I mean forgiveness from yourself. Who knows what happens after we’re gone? This is the only time I’m concerned with.”

  We arrived at the tent and Deacon grabbed a medical mask that was stored by the entrance. I touched his arm to stop him.

  “You can’t catch what Tiffani has.”

  His arm stiffened under my touch but he put the mask back down. “I hate sick rooms. I don’t want to die in one.”

  I snorted. “Don’t worry, Deacon. You’ll get killed out in the field, just like the rest of us.”

  “Thanks for that, Rachel. I feel so much better.”

  We stepped into a room that looked much like my own tent. It was a small front room that had, I knew, a tiny room behind it that served as a bedroom. The smell of soap wafted through the air and I knew it could only be that strong a scent if someone diligently scrubbed it several times a day. My own tent had stunk like mildew when I left and I didn’t want to imagine how badly it must reek now.

  Since Tiffani probably wasn’t in any condition to do that herself, Keith must have been down on his hands and knees cleaning endlessly.

  The thought made my stomach lurch. I could almost see it. The strong, proud Warrior on his hands and knees trying to make things sterile for his wife whose pregnancy was making her ill.

  I looked up at Deacon, whose face had gotten two shades paler. He really, really didn’t like a sick room. I hoped he didn’t faint. There were always stories of men hitting the ground when women got ill.

  I cleared my throat to announce our arrival, and Keith tore out of the back room. He did a double-take when he saw me and his face erupted in a grin. I couldn’t help but meet his smile with my own.

  “Rachel, when everything went to hell I thought for sure we’d never see you again. Either you’d be dead or you’d get back here and we’d be dead.”

  My smile fell. I hoped this was the last time I’d have to give the bad news. The rumor mill could take the rest of it for me. “Chad is dead.”

  Keith swore, violently. I looked at the floor. To me, that kind of profanity isn’t said so others can hear it. The one doing the swearing is expunging so much pent up anger or distress they have no choice but to let it out. It feels like a private thing to me.

  “The Werewolf—Jason—brought her back.”

  I rolled my eyes and looked up. “We aren’t here to discuss my love life with Keith.”

  “No, you’re right.”

  Keith stepped forward, crossing his arms over his chest as he went. “Why did you bring her?”

  “Because I have to tell you Liberty has already fallen.”

  Keith narrowed his gaze at me. “Damn. I guess we can’t expect any relief from there.”

  “And I have to tell you that this whole thing—the Warriors, the Habitats—all of us—we’re an elaborate game to the Vampires. Icahn lets them loose on us so they practice hunting prey. That’s all we are. We’re not defending humanity from anything. We’re just being picked off one by one—for their amusement.”

  “Keith!” A scream from the backroom made me gasp. Deacon took two steps for the door like he wanted to bolt.

  Keith whirled around and ran into the room. I heard whispered voices. Keith and Tiffani. I didn’t really think about whether I should follow him, I just did. I loved Tiffani. If she was going to die, I needed to see her before she did.

  “Rachel.” Tiffani’s voice was barely a whisper. She looked bloated. Puffy and heavier than I’d ever seen her.

  I sat down on the edge of the bed and took her hand. “Has your labor started?”

  I hoped it had. I couldn’t imagine her looking any worse. Pregnant women usually appeared…radiant, even at the end. Tiffani looked like her body waged a war.

  “Slowly.” She shook her head. “But the medic told us it’s turned the wrong way. I won’t be able to deliver it.”

  I swallowed down this information. “What does that mean?”

  “It means that when I try to deliver it, I will die.”

  Keith paced to the small flap that served as a window in the tent. His back was to us but I could see the tension in the muscles in his back.

  “I could fight back Vampires. I could behead Werewolves. But I can’t do this one thing women have been doing forever.”

  “Don’t say that.” I heard the sob in my voice and hated myself for it. She was suffering. Not me. I didn’t get to cry or to make this about me. “It could still turn, right?”

  She shrugged and groaned. “Maybe. Even more than that, I’m not doing pregnancy very well. My blood pressure is too high.”

  “Tiffani, I can’t stand how resigned you sound.”

  Her gaze bore into mine. “What else is there to do?”

  She was right. Sometimes there were battles you could fight and sometimes there were battles you could not even wage. I knew that better than anyone. Still, holding her hand in her bedroom, I wanted to rage at the unfairness of it all.

  Hadn’t she done enough? Couldn’t they have gotten one small, teeny, tiny break?

  “How did the trip to Liberty go?”

  I looked to Keith for guidance as to what to say but he didn’t move. Maybe he’d tuned us out completely and gone somewhere in his own mind. I envied people who could do that while they were awake.

  I finally spoke the words my gut told me to say. “It went well.”

  “That’s so good.” She groaned. “Keith really needed a break.”

  He turned his head as he heard his name spoken before turning around to look out the window again.

  These two people—Keith and Tiffani—they defined the word love to me. The way he held her hand, the way she pinched him when he teased her, the way her eyes followed him around a room….

  They weren’t the only ones though. A vision of Carol sobbing into Patrick’s shirt as he stayed strong for her filled my mind.

  What would happen to Keith when he lost Tiffani? Would he be able to go on? Or would I have to pull the strongest man I’d ever known out of father’s bar at night and hold his head while he puked in the dirt?

  What would happen to the Warriors if we lost him?

  I couldn’t bare the thought.

  “Tiffani.” I bent over. “There was this place that Chad and I found, it was a Vampire temple. Human beings worshiping them like they were gods.”

  Her eyes got huge. “You’re kidding?”

  “No, I’m serious. They would pray and then the Vampires would come and put on this whole show. It was crazy.”

  She laughed, which made me smile.

  Keith turned around to regard me. “What did you do, Rachel?”

  “I burned it to the ground and I killed the Vampires.”

  Keith nodded. “Right on.”

  Tiffani
grasped my arm. “You are so unbelievably strong.”

  “I’m not. I’m lucky. There’s a difference.” I swallowed. “But if you need me when the time comes, I’ll come and be with you.”

  “Oh, sweetheart.” Her eyes filled with tears. “If I had anything to do with your upbringing, with making you the kind of person who would say that, then I did a lot of good while I was here.”

  Deacon chose that moment to step in the room. “It’s almost sundown. Are you fighting tonight?”

  Keith sat down next to me. “Go. If the time comes, I’ll send someone to find you.”

  I stood up. One more battle to fight. One more endless night.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Despite, the nearly debilitating ache that Chad’s death caused in my soul, the night started out as most of our evening patrols went. Fighting had seemed like a good distraction from everything I couldn’t deal with.

  Deacon and I stuck close to each other. He seemed worried to have me out of his line of vision, and I was missing the Lyons family so much that I wasn’t anxious to be alone. Besides, Deacon could fight as well as anyone I’d ever known. Seeing as I was exhausted, I stood a better chance of making it through the night if I didn’t complain.

  Sometimes in the old movies we used to see in Genesis the moviemakers would put music in the movie to indicate something important was about to happen. That doesn’t happen in my real life.

  Instead, Micah arrived. Even in the darkness I could see he looked worn and tired.

  “What are you doing here?” I hissed. “Shouldn’t you be with your family?”

  He shook his head. “Shouldn’t you? Why did you run off without coming to see me? Without coming to see Tia?”

  I couldn’t answer that. I didn’t want to see Tia. Not because she had done anything. Truthfully even her plan to have a baby to get out of fighting showed she hadn’t changed at all. But I had changed.

  Deacon came up behind us. “Do you two want to take out an advertisement to let the monsters know where we are?”

  I shook my head as I bit down on my lip. He was right. We were being careless.

  Still, Micah wasn’t done. “No one blames you. This is the life we lead. You’re family. You need to come home.”

  Deacon swore. Apparently, his need for us to be silent didn’t hold when he was annoyed with a Lyons. “She’s not your family. She was your brother’s pseudo-girlfriend.”

  “She’s family.”

  I put my hands between them and shoved them away from each other. “We’ll talk later.”

  Just then my Vampire radar went off. It wasn’t the worst signal I’d ever gotten, which meant there weren’t too many of them. I grabbed Deacon’s arm to let him know.

  We shut off all lights, even the small barely visible ones we carried.

  There were a lot of us out tonight. It shouldn’t be a problem to take them out. I took a deep breath and braced myself in case it was my continued bad luck to have to be one of the ones to fight them.

  A crunch next to me alerted me that we weren’t alone. I whirled around, stake in hand. I felt energized, my earlier exhaustion gone.

  But the Vampire who approached me made me lose my breath. I blinked a few times to make sure I saw it correctly. I’d have to be blind not to, since it carried one of the small lights the Warriors always had on. It illuminated the night around us like a beacon of death.

  How long since I’d last seen its clothes? Simple, yet always clean. Brown pants, grey sweatshirt, brown shoes. How long since I’d last heard it utter my name in the way only he had been able to?

  I covered my mouth with my hand as I heard Micah swear behind me. At least I knew I wasn’t crazy.

  “C-c-chad,” I stuttered.

  Only it wasn’t Chad. Not really, not anymore. His eyes were different. They were black and red Vampire eyes. The veins in his face protruded out neon red through his dead pale skin. But the biggest difference were his fangs.

  My boyfriend. My beautiful, wonderful, strong, powerful boyfriend was a Vampire. It was too horrible for words.

  “Rachel Clancy.” His voice sounded like a snake hissing at me.

  I could feel the stake in my hand as my palms sweated around it. But I couldn’t move. I couldn’t make myself take the stake in my hand and push it through the familiar planes of Chad’s chest.

  I shook where I stood.

  “Micah, Deacon.”

  I didn’t know what else to do but call their names for some kind of assistance. I spared a glance at Micah. The pain radiated from his gaze made me want to fall to my knees and weep.

  “I can’t move, Rachel.”

  I knew the feeling. If Icahn wanted a way to take me down, he couldn’t have construed a better way to achieve his goal. There was no way right here, right now, completely unprepared for this event, that I could raise a hand against Chad. Even if he was a member of the Undead now.

  In fact, it momentarily occurred to me that perhaps there would be some kind of poetic justice to dying like this. I’d gotten Chad turned into a Vampire—and now he would end my life.

  Deacon grabbed the back of my shirt pulling me to him just as Chad pounced. If I’d been where I’d stood just moments before, he would have gotten me. Letting go of me, Deacon grabbed Micah and shoved him backwards.

  “Run.”

  I’d never heard Deacon say that word before. It seemed to go against his nature and perhaps that is why I moved so fast. I ran until my legs burned and I had to stop.

  I nearly doubled over as I panted for breath. Deacon nearly hit me from behind as he skidded to a stop, Micah close on his heels.

  Deacon bounded around looking everywhere as I put my head between my legs. I wanted to puke.

  “Is. He. Behind. Us?”

  Deacon shook his head. “No.”

  Micah groaned and grabbed my head. “My brother’s a Vampire. My brother’s a Vampire.”

  I’m not sure how many times he repeated that phrase over and over again. Each time he said it felt like a small death.

  Deacon leaned against a nearby tree. “Yes, he is.”

  I stood up. My arms felt like lead and my legs like tree trunks. I could hardly move. Micah stared at me.

  “Did you know?”

  I shook my head. “No, not at all.”

  “How am I supposed to drop this bomb on my parents?” Micah shouted like he wanted to bring down the trees around us. “This is going to kill them.”

  This was the nightmare, I realized. It wasn’t so much that they could kill us. It was that they would change us. I’d made Chad promise he wouldn’t leave me a Vampire. I made him promise me if that ever happened, he would kill me. Now, here he was—a bloodsucking Vampire—and I’d run away.

  “We can’t leave him like that.” My hands shook and I hadn’t noticed until just now. “I ran away. I couldn’t do it. But I have to find a way to do it.”

  “I couldn’t either.” Micah paced between Deacon and me. “I couldn’t move.”

  “Yes, we have to end it.” Deacon stepped away from the tree. “But I think we need to address something here.”

  I thought I might fall over. “What?”

  “Have you ever seen a Vampire so young before? I mean we all recognized him as Chad. When have any of us ever seen one that could still be recognized as ever having been human?”

  He was right. Never before. What did that mean?

  “Have you Deacon? When you lived underground? Did you see them so newly made?”

  “No.” He shook his head. “Newly made Vampires are kept away. They’re vulnerable and easy to kill. That’s why we got away so easily. Otherwise, we never could have run.”

  That made sense. “Someone made the decision to send a newly made Vampire after us.”

  Micah swore. “Someone sent a message.”

  I didn’t think we needed to guess who that was. Chad was changed after the explosion, and Icahn sent him after us to make some kind of sick point. He’d done so
we’d know—he had bested us. He had taken someone who belonged to us—someone he once knew personally when Icahn had lived in Genesis—and he’d done the most abhorrent thing possible.

  In my mind, I fell to my knees and stopped breathing. In my mind, I wept on Deacon’s shoulder until I had to be carted back home. In my mind, I had time and ability to mourn for Chad the way I should have.

  But in real life, I stood still giving no one any outward indication of the scars forming on my heart inside of me. In real life, I did what was expected of me—I stayed silent and held my pain to myself.

  Deacon moved forward. “We’re going to have to do something about this, Rachel.”

  “I know.”

  And if I had something to do with it, I would be the one to give Chad what I know he would have wanted—the end to the hell that it must be to be turned Vampire.

  ***

  I stood outside the tent and let Micah give his family the horrifying news. Despite Micah’s proclamation otherwise, I didn’t feel like family anymore. I was Tia’s friend, well I hoped I still was, Micah’s friend, and their dead son’s girlfriend. I had made it out of the wreckage that had ultimately led to his becoming Undead.

  After a few minutes, I quietly opened the flap to the tent. None of the Lyons mulled about the room. I imagined they’d all gone off to their rooms in grief. I didn’t want to intrude but there was something I had to do, someone who I owed a visit.

  Tia’s room was next to her parents. They had one of the largest tents in the compound because of the sheer size of their family. I walked on quiet feet until I reached her area. Poking my head in, I saw she stood staring at a picture attached to her wall. One of her younger siblings must have colored it for her. It was a remarkably close replica of the Lyons family all standing together in front of a brown tree.

  “Tia.” I hated to interrupt but I didn’t want delay the inevitable.

  She whirled around. When she looked at me, her eyes were huge. “Rachel!”

  Tia rushed in my arms and I hugged her—hard. She’d been my best friend for such a long time. I felt a large chasm between us now. Our destinies would be different. I knew it in my bones like I knew when a Vampire approached. Still, I loved her like the sister I’d always wanted.