The Warrior

by Rebecca Royce

“Right, because I weigh so little. You’ll both make it about half a mile before you’ll be hobbled and then none of us will make it anywhere.”

  He clutched his chest dramatically. “Don’t underestimate our ability to cart you around. It burns my ego.”

  I laughed. How could I not?

  “Rachel, listen. I owe you a large apology.”

  My jovial mood plummeted. I dug my nails into my palms. Apparently we were going there. He hadn’t picked up on the vibe I didn’t want to?

  “It’s okay, Deacon. Let’s just move on.”

  “No.” He ran his hands through his hair. “I tried to kill you, and Jason ended up getting killed. I’m not sure there is a large enough apology for kind of thing.”

  “Well.” I stretched out my legs, which ached from my earlier exertion. “You have saved my life several times. Why don’t we say we’re even on the tried-to-kill-you column? And as for Jason…he made the decision to save me. That’s not on you. We can level his death right onto Dr. Icahn’s head.”

  “You’re letting me off the hook too easily.”

  I elbowed him. “I know.”

  But I couldn’t help myself. Deacon equaled home to me.

  ***

  Darren hadn’t exaggerated when he told me he would carry me home. I’d spent most of the day on his back. A small group of us, which included Deacon’s family, walked through the woods, fields, and old neighborhoods, presumably on our way back to Genesis. I had no idea if we were going the right way.

  I didn’t ask. They’d tracked me and whatever they knew about where we were was more than I did. Since I relied on them entirely, and especially considering I could still barely make it across a field without falling over, I couldn’t exactly complain.

  Bouncing along, strapped to his back so if I fell asleep I wouldn’t plummet to the ground and reinjure myself, I listened to Darren hum softly.

  I didn’t recognize the song but it sounded light and airy, not at all the tune a person who had seen everything Darren had should be filling his day with. The man remained an enigma to me and, for now, I had no interest in figuring him out.

  “Am I breaking you?” I’d asked him some form of this question every hour. I didn’t want him hobbled for bringing me home. We had at least a week of this to go.

  “Nope.” A smile in his voice. “I’ve told you, Rachel, you don’t weigh very much. Not for me anyway. Now the boy? If Deacon tried to haul you around, he wouldn’t make it very far. He wouldn’t admit it and he would certainly do his best to try.” He paused. “Before he fell over.”

  Deacon called over his shoulder. “I heard you.”

  Night had started to show over the horizon and Deacon’s father suggested we stop for the night.

  One day less until I could see my family again.

  Darren set me down with instructions not to do more than stretch out my muscles. They were all concerned with a reinjury and I couldn’t blame them. They’d taken Andon’s medical supplies but those wouldn’t last forever. I doubted they could bring me back from another brink-of-death experience anyway. I mean, I know Icahn had made me stronger so I could fight the monsters, but how much could one person’s body handle?

  Keith hadn’t been able to live through getting his throat slit. Warriors died all the time.

  “Rachel.” Deacon handed me a thermos with water inside. “Drink this. Dehydration is not our friend. We’re going to go gather for the night. You good to stay here for a while?”

  I smiled. “Sure. Just call me Rachel-who-sits-a-lot.”

  “You’re doing great. You’re not dead. You’ll get your strength back.”

  “When did you become so cheery?”

  Deacon stretched his arms over his head. “Life feels easier for me these days. I don’t have anyone with me who has any expectations I can’t meet. And I see in the horizon experiences I never thought to have.” His eyes twinkled. “I rescued you without being led to it by any of the Lyons, or Keith Endover.”

  My heart stuttered when he mentioned Keith. “He liked you. He thought you were talented and had great things in store for you.”

  My friend shook his head. “I’m sorry. For a second, I actually forgot he was gone. Weird to think of any world without Keith in it. Helping Patrick, running the Warriors.”

  Tears I didn’t know I still had slipped from my eyes. “You’re telling me.”

  He leaned over to rub my shoulder. “Sorry. Stay here. Rest. Try to sleep. We’ll all be back shortly.”

  I nodded. Would there a come a time when someone could say Keith’s name and I wouldn’t weep? Already, I could feel how far away from me he had gotten. With Chad and the others there was distance, a physical removal. With Keith…space. And even though I couldn’t put my finger on exactly why they were such different experiences, they just were.

  I watched Deacon walk off into the woods. If I had any say in it, I would never ever be the person left by the fire because of injury again. Sighing, I looked up at the sky. Reds and purples dotted the horizon, streaming together to make the world seem, at least temporarily, lovely.

  Maybe life could be more like this now and less like it had been. Icahn was dead. Who knew if the stuff he had spouted out about the other scientists would prove to be true? Maybe we would all get to live….

  I doubled over in pain, gripping my arms. It felt like someone knifed me over and over again. I closed my eyes, knowing what this physical signal meant. Vampires.

  I gulped. Vamps didn’t scare me, not when I had full use of my body. But right now? I could barely move. The severity of the pain signal I’d received told me that there were a whole bunch of them.

  With a little maneuvering, I got to my knees. As I bit down on my tongue to stop from making noise, I moved forward in search of a sharp stick. Because of my injury by a Vampire, the one that had left me permanently scarred on my face, I could sense the undead a few minutes earlier than my comrades.

  Surely, by now, Deacon and Darren should have noted them, too. Wouldn’t one of them come back for me? I really hoped they thought of it.

  This was why we didn’t let regular humans fight with us. The sheer terror of those creatures being out there and me being defenseless made me shake. I stared at my hands. I hadn’t been this fearful of the things going bump in the night since my first trip Upwards. I’d ended up in a faulty Vampire cage, put there by Andon Kenwood, who may or may not have been trying to kill me. I’d been attacked and nearly died.

  I’d never known real fear until then.

  I shook my head. No way, no how, did I intend to visit such an emotional place ever again.

  My arms still worked just fine. If something came into my space, I’d use a sharp stick and I’d improvise. I would not be going down without a fight. The monsters had already taken enough flesh from me. They wouldn’t be getting any more.

  I got close to the fire and pulled one of the medium-sized branches from the pit. The flames had made the end flimsy and I broke it off. What remained inside felt sturdy. I hoped it would pierce flesh.

  I’d never seen a Vampire laugh. They spoke rarely. Only the newer-made ones could still manage speech. Mostly they slithered and hissed, like snakes. But if I poked at one with a makeshift stake and nothing happened, I might actually get to see Vampire amusement, if such a thing existed.

  I really hope I don’t have to find out.

  I could try to hide. For a few seconds, I played with the idea in my head. Crawl into some bush and stay low. As I dismissed the musing, I bit down hard on my lip. They already knew where I was. They could smell me. Hiding would be too silly at this point. If they were coming for me, then I’d have to just wait them out.

  Back on my hands and knees, I crawled to my position by the tree where I’d been before. I supposed I had nothing to do but wait, even though it massively sucked.

  ***

  I knew when it approached. I swallowed, sitting up straighter. Ten minutes had passed. How had Deacon not made his way t
o me yet? I didn’t like the idea something had happened to him. He could fight as well as anyone, but any of us could go at any time.

  All I could do was to hope he made it through tonight and managed to get back to me. Because the closer the Vampire got, the bigger and more looming it appeared.

  It had obviously seen me. Not acknowledging it didn’t seem to be an option any longer. “Hi there.”

  The Vampire nodded to me. So it still communicated, perhaps only nonverbally, but nodding would do.

  “Come to kill me?” I kept the stick gripped in my hand. The undead creature hadn’t even looked at it. Vampires who lived wherever we were must not have been as versed in fighting Warriors. The ones at home would have noticed it right away and tried to take it.

  Right then, they might have succeeded.

  It came closer, tight enough against me I could see the fork in its tongue. “You really are little demons.”

  It hissed and I shoved the stick into its chest. Not as effective as a stake. The vamp didn’t go straight down to the ground before turning into dust. Instead, it staggered backward, looking at the stick in its chest.

  “That’s not going to kill you, is it?” My heart rate picked up. My life-giving organ slammed hard against my ribs.

  He looked at the stick again and then back down at me. His eyes were red and huge, and the side of his mouth dripped blood. The thing had fed. I hoped not on Deacon.

  I struggled to my feet. “So tell me the truth. I just made you really, really pissed, didn’t I?”

  It nodded at me.

  “Well, you can’t blame a girl for trying.”

  It smiled and I knew it intended to leap at me. The sad truth was I could do nothing to get out of its way. Ready for the assault, I gripped the tree behind me.

  “Nice try with the stick, Rachel.” Deacon shoved his stake in the creature’s back and it disappeared into dust on the ground.

  I shook my head. “Took you long enough. I didn’t even see you approach.”

  “I ran into about five of them on my way to you. Might have been six. Sorry for the delay. But I am relieved to see you at least made an attempt to save your own life.” He grinned. “You’ll be better in no time.”

  “Deacon, this new attitude of yours. The positive outlook on life.”

  He smiled. “What about it?”

  “I’m not so sure I like it. The old Deacon would have told me all about every kill and hollered at me for being so weak.”

  He put his arm around me. “Things are looking up, Rachel. I can promise you they are.”

  Somehow, I didn’t feel so sure.

  Chapter Eleven

  I clutched Darren’s back, wiping the sweat from my brow. Something was wrong with me. My elbow ached and I’d been running a fever for hours. I knew it, and I suspected Darren had become aware of the change in my health status as well.

  I really didn’t want Deacon to know. Since the Vampire incident days earlier, he’d been so happy, so sure of everything being wonderful.

  The fact the antibiotics were no longer working on me would come as a huge blow to him. I took a deep breath. It wasn’t as if I wanted to die but I’d had an expectation of my imminent demise for months. I should have expired with the Wolves. These additional days counted as a bonus for me.

  “You okay, Rachel?” Darren kept his voice down when he spoke to me. Whether this was because he also understood about the need not to destroy Deacon’s recently found positivity or because he tried to keep the news private, I didn’t know. Either way worked for me.

  “No.” I gripped his shirt tighter. “I’m not doing well.”

  “I suspected as much. You’ve become a furnace behind me. Taking your medication?”

  I nodded, not that he could see me. “I am. But my elbow hurts. I think it’s infected.”

  “We’re probably about two to three days out from Genesis. They’ll have different medications there, won’t they? Were you guys in possession of antibiotics there?”

  “Some.” Not many. Medicine hadn’t traveled through time very well. Except for what Andon and Icahn stashed. Maybe they’d uncovered hoards of it now. Who knew?

  “It might just mean you need a change of drugs. Not all bacteria reacts the same to every course of drugs”

  I nodded. “Your medic training again?”

  “Funny how it’s all of a sudden mattering again.”

  Life had a way of bringing on our particular skill sets into play when we didn’t expect to have to use them. “Do you mind talking to me for a while?”

  I hated the idea of being this close to Genesis and not making it. I shivered. Darren said I felt like a furnace but the air slapped coldly against my skin, like we’d suddenly stepped into the arctic. Couldn’t be a good sign. Distraction seemed the name of the game.

  “Sure.” He hoisted me up a little farther on his back. I had to be weighing on him. Days of carrying me must be too much. I might foolishly have tried to walk yesterday. Today, I couldn’t do anything even close. “What do you want to talk about?”

  Infection killed more of us than Werewolves. The irony of me dying of one was not lost on me.

  “I don’t know anything about your life Before.” I cleared my throat. “I feel like I should.”

  Who was this man who so quietly shuttled me across the country on his back? We’d been together for weeks and weeks. It might even be months, for all I could keep track of time. He’d taken care of me at Redemption, fought beside me, watched me sleep cryogenically, forced me into the freezing chamber to begin with, worked for Icahn both Before and After, and apparently had medical training.

  My days of ambiguous feelings about him had passed. I liked him, even if I shouldn’t. Deacon seemed to as well. But who was Darren? I wanted to know.

  “So long ago. I hardly remember.”

  “Oh, come on. Indulge a dying girl.”

  He shook his head. “I can’t let you die, Rachel.”

  “Why not? I’ve always wondered. Why me, Darren? With everyone involved in all this crap, why bother with me? How did you decide I was worthy?”

  He sighed, his back muscles clenching. “You reminded me of my sister. She died a year before it all went to hell. Dr. Icahn had been working on a treatment for her. She had a disease no one could seem to diagnose. Lots of symptoms adding up to nothing. Fifteen years old. She finally just didn’t wake up one morning.”

  I really never had any idea what to say to people about things like this. My mother had always replied perfectly. For a second, I pretended to be her. She had a way of saying exactly what she should, whereas I bumbled through life making a mess of things. “I’m so sorry for your loss. It must have been awful for your whole family.”

  “It was.” He nodded. “But I was the only family she had. Our parents had died in a small plane accident years earlier. Anyway, you reminded me of her right off. Spunky, smart, not a quitter. I decided I wouldn’t fail you like I’d failed her.”

  “Darren, you aren’t responsible for disease. You can’t blame yourself for her getting sick and dying. It wasn’t on your shoulders.”

  He shrugged. “She was mine to take care of. If I’d found Dr. Icahn sooner and worked out a deal sooner, then we could have tried more things.”

  “What kind of a deal?” My heart picked up, and my eyes burned. I should never have had this conversation with him. I’d wanted distraction, not more things to worry about.

  That was the problem with really getting to know people; you really knew them. Once you cared, you couldn’t undo it.

  “I worked for him as security, doing what he wanted, he’d try to save her. Whatever else he didn’t do or actually did, he tried with her. Day and night. I watched.”

  Darren’s sister had probably temporarily interested the man. A problem to be solved and then later exploited.

  “What was her name? Your sister?” I didn’t want to know her only as Darren’s sister. She should be remembered for whom she had been.
>
  “Colbie.” I could hear the smile in his voice when he said it. “Colbie Belle.”

  “Pretty.”

  He nodded, the muscles in the back of his neck moving as he did. “Yep.”

  “Darren, if I die you’re, not responsible for it. Do you understand? It pains me to admit this, but even Dr. Icahn can’t be blamed for all of this. This ride we’re all on, it took off without any of our consent, and it’s going to crash and burn. If I get thrown off a little bit early, it’s not on you.”

  “I want you to live, Rachel. I want to see you delivered to Genesis. I want to think of you living there, having a life, making the best of this mess.”

  “Well.” I bit down on my lip. “We’ll both do our best, then, to see it happens. But just in case, you should know you bear no responsibility for any of it.”

  My elbow throbbed, and I closed my eyes.

  ***

  “She doesn’t look well.”

  I stared up at Deacon. Even he couldn’t be fooled forever. By the next evening, he’d noticed my state of illness.

  “Thanks, honey,” I answered, cutting off Darren. “You always say the sweetest things to me. How did I ever do without you?”

  He ignored me, putting his hand on my forehead. “You’re burning up.”

  Darren nodded, settling down next to me. “I’m aware.”

  Deacon hit him in the arm. “Why is she burning up? Why didn’t you say anything?”

  “Which one of those questions would you like me to answer first?”

  Deacon threw his hands in the air. “Take your pick.”

  “She’s burning up because the antibiotics we have are not getting the job done.” Darren yawned. “I didn’t tell you because you yelling at her about it and making her worry about you will not make her better.”

  Deacon’s lips opened and shut twice before he spoke. “We have to get to Genesis. They must have better drugs.”

  “Deacon—”

  Darren interrupted me. “She’s going to tell you this isn’t your fault and you shouldn’t blame yourself for what’s going to happen.” I looked at Darren and couldn’t help the laugh escaping my mouth. There really was amusement to be found in this whole thing. Perverse, maybe, but it was there.