Death Before Dawn

by Amelia Hutchins

  It had been one thing after another, and my hope for humanity had hit an all-time low. Cannibalism. Just when I thought I’d seen enough with the rapes, brutal murders, and innocent lives lost, someone decided to tip the cup and throw in the sickest shit I’d ever encountered.

  “You disappoint me,” the voice said, and I closed my eyes.

  “Get in line; my fucks have been given, I’m all out.”

  Throaty laughter filled my mind, and I swallowed hard. Had he heard me? Could he hear my thoughts?

  “You’re my woman, of course I can. I come for you soon…Be ready.”

  “You said mate earlier, I’m not your mate and if you come for me, I will fight you,” I answered inside my mind.

  “I’d expect no less,” he murmured, and my heart hammered briefly, as if he was close and reminding me he could get to me anytime he wanted.

  “Look around, asshole, army of vamps. I’m safe from you,” I purred. I win!

  “Indeed,” he replied, and I felt my heart pounding again, until it reached a dangerous level, and then stopped as quickly as it had started.

  What. The. Ever. Loving. Fuck!

  Sleep came slowly; my mind whirled with thoughts of the guy who seemed hell-bent on driving me insane, and Jaeden, who was sitting with Jolene. She was beaming, he looked pissed; his eyes kept returning to my hammock, and every once in a while, I’d look down at him, regret filling me.

  I needed to talk with him; he deserved that much. Shamus watched me as I watched Jaeden, noting the tension between us. Lachlan had once told me that Jaeden would break my heart, and he had. When he’d left to go find the elders, he’d left me in pieces. Now? Now I was numb, as if he’d broken me so badly, that I was still working on gathering back the pieces of my heart.

  *~*~*

  I opened my eyes, heavy from sleep, and smelled the rich scent of roses. I smiled, stretching out as much as the hammock would allow, and winced as something poked me. I blinked to clear the sleep and tried to bring into focus the splash of red beside my head. Roses?

  I sat up, quickly sensing the increased tempo of my heart as I took in the multitude of roses that covered me and the hammock. I shifted a bit, sitting up even further as I looked around, and watched as the roses started to tumble to the ground. What the hell? I started pushing them off, until I found a note.

  I win ~A was scrawled onto a thick piece of paper. It had a blood-red border, and the handwriting had a beautiful, masculine flair to it.

  He’d gotten to me, and he’d made damn sure I knew it. It had to have taken him a few trips to bring in this many roses! I felt his eyes on me, my heart tripping over the rapid rhythm. I turned to the right and looked to the expansive cliff-side that bordered the valley we’d camped in. There, at the top of the cliff, he stood.

  “Sweet baby Jesus,” I whispered as I started pushing more of the roses off of me, as the vampires took note of them falling to the ground.

  “Emma?” Jaeden called up, as Raphael started to stir. “What the fuck?” he demanded.

  What the fuck, indeed; I wasn’t safe. He wasn’t safe. He’d entered a camp full of vampires and got to me while we were sleeping! I don’t know what worried me more, that he’d done it without waking me up, and no one ever got the jump on me—prepper’s daughter and all that—or that he’d done it right under the noses of the vampires who were supposed to be impossible to get past. Wasn’t that what Shamus had said?

  “Nothing can protect you from me, nothing. I’ll be close, Emma,” the voice purred victoriously inside my head.

  Technically, he’d won that round. Hands down, couldn’t talk my way out of that one.

  “Game on, Asshole,” I replied, using my imagination for what the A stood for.

  Chapter 9

  Everyone was on edge; we’d passed more hairy and visually disturbing shit as the day passed. Human remains, charred cars along with what looked like traps meant to lure unsuspecting people to their deaths. Birds feasted on the dead, or more to the point, they feasted on what had been left on the bones. I’d suspected I wouldn’t get off that easy; one case of cannibalism just wasn’t enough.

  It felt as if we’d been walking forever. Jaeden kept watching me when he thought I wasn’t paying attention; his blood-bag had taken note of it as well. She was currently vying for his attention, pretending to be too tired to walk.

  She did nothing except complain. I didn’t complain, because I’d chosen this path. I knew it wouldn’t be easy, but every treacherous step I took led me closer to finding Grayson. The blisters on my feet had been earned, the never-ending pain in my stomach—it was all worth it.

  I touched my ear, wondering why it hadn’t healed at all. Raphael had pointed out that, while it wasn’t a deep cut, it still needed to be tended to. He’d done so, cleaning it, refusing to allow me to do it myself. Jaeden had watched the entire awkward situation. Raphael had tried not to touch me while trying to fix it. As if he was aware of the murderous looks Jaeden was throwing his way.

  It burned my pride, probably because it was a reminder of how close to death I’d come. I’d been willing to die to protect him; that said something, right? I didn’t want him to be hurt by whoever the masked guy was, who could obviously get as close as he wanted to get to me, as his show of roses had explicitly told me.

  The vampires had been shaken by it, but then again, I figured he’d known they would be. He could have taken me then, why wait? Why the insult of showing me how easy it would be for him, but not following through?

  “Emma,” Jaeden said as he interrupted my thoughts. “This isn’t my choice.”

  “No, I can see that, but I find it funny that Shamus decided to change the rules while I was gone.” I continued to walk at a quickened pace. “Before I left, there was no ‘protect her’ rule, and the moment I come back, there is?”

  “It’s not safe this far south; we told you that. Those who survived the virus think the south is safer, no brutal winters, sun to grow food, basic tactics for survival. They outnumber us here, so we are taking precautions.”

  “I see.” I didn’t, not really. I knew what was happening, even if he couldn’t see it. Shamus was making damn sure we remained at odds. He was up to something, and while I needed to figure it out, Jaeden’s words rang true. We were coming across settlements, ones that contained people who looked as if they’d experienced a lot a shit since the day of the virus. I’d started calling it B.V. and A.V. Before and after the virus.

  Before the virus, these people had probably been happy, law abiding citizens, but after? No one was the same. People were either good or horrible. We’d just entered a town, one with no dead that could be obviously seen. It meant someone had gone through a lot of effort to clear the bodies to keep the town free of other diseases, and our group was walking into a trap, knowingly.

  “I have asked to be given a new feeder,” he offered, pulling me once again from my thoughts.

  “Cool,” I threw out flippantly and stopped in my tracks as a man walked out from behind a building with a semi-automatic rifle. “Saw that one coming,” I mumbled.

  “Turn around and walk right back out of this town,” the man called out as he aimed the rifle at us.

  “Can’t do that,” Shamus said smoothly, his eyes on the barrel of the gun.

  The guy didn’t realize he was aiming that thing at an immortal, but we all did. I wasn’t sure if a vampire could die from a slug to the head, but with the way Shamus had been acting, I was willing to let it play out. After all, it was aimed at him, and not the rest of us.

  “We don’t need trouble,” the guy continued.

  “We don’t intend to cause any,” Shamus replied carefully. “We’re just passing through. We don’t intend to stay, but this is the only route that doesn’t go through the passes.”

  “You’re not from
the army?” the guy asked, lowering the gun a smidge.

  “What army?” Jaeden broke in and ended up with the gun turned on him.

  This was getting old really quick.

  “The Clarkston Army,” the guy sneered, his hatred for the army apparent in his tone. “They take everything.” He frowned. “Women, children, food and gas, pretty much everything that good people need to live.”

  “When was the last time they came through here?” Jaeden continued carefully, his posture at ease even with the gun aimed at him. If he was worried about being shot, he didn’t show it.

  “Few days ago,” he offered, his gun finally lowering.

  “And what did they take?” Shamus asked, and the man answered with a laundry list of things taken, both material and human. I ignored them, noting the men trying to keep out of sight that had weapons trained on us.

  Jaeden took notice of them too; there were at least five that I could find on the tops of the buildings that lined the town. All were heavily armed. If they’d lost women as the man was saying, none of this made sense. Why hadn’t they fought? Obviously they had weapons and were trained to use them.

  “Just one night,” Shamus offered, which pulled me from my thoughts.

  I didn’t trust the guy; his sad story said he’d either hidden while they’d taken his family, or he was spewing lies. I didn’t want to judge him, because I’d seen my fair share of fucked up shit in this new world, but I would have died before I let some army run off with Addy.

  “Fine, but only one night,” the guy responded, offering no argument. I raised an eyebrow at how easily the guy had given in. It could have been as simple as Shamus had used compulsion, or something of that nature, but something about this situation was giving me the creeps and it was odd that the vampires weren’t sensing the same thing. Perhaps they were, and were just too cocky-confident that they could overcome any treachery from the residents of the town.

  I watched the vampires gather towards the front of the group. The men on the buildings pulled away from the rooftops and made their way down the street to join in the masculine handshaking, as if they’d just played basketball and were showing good sportsmanship. I rolled my eyes and turned away from the group, heading back towards the buildings at the edge of town. I easily shook Raphael, who was distracted by the large group of men, and made it into the woods without being noticed.

  I went a few yards into the woods before I climbed up a tree and started to prepare my hammock for sleep. There was no way in hell I was sleeping in a town with an army who stole women and children camped just a few towns over. The vampires seemed to assume they always had the upper hand. Being immortal had its perks, I’m sure, but I had no idea how my own immortality worked, as I had no clue as to all of the powers the Sentinels had, or their limitations. Like, if I took a bullet to the head, would it kill me? Or would it simply regrow my head, and if it did, would I be the same person? Brains were tricky already, who the hell knew if you could come back the same if you lost enough of the cells that made you who you were?

  Once the hammock was set up, I climbed back down the tree and checked my bag, making a mental list of what I needed to collect. I’d been collecting herbs and other items along the way, just to make sure everyone remained healthy, since no one else thought it necessary to do so. We’d be entering desert terrain soon enough, and leaving the mountains.

  No one seemed to notice my absence, and I doubted they would while they fed and replenished the women. I watched them from the trees; Jaeden seemed to be concentrating on the newcomers, along with his ex-wife, who never seemed to be far from his side lately. Jolene stood with her, probably feeling like a third wheel.

  Astrid seemed in her element, smiling and enticing the men, who looked upon her beauty with something akin to worship. Gag. The bitch was bat-shit crazy, and it was bone-deep; fuck, it was soul-deep. She’d messed with me, and I’d be damned if I let her do it again. I was sure she and Shamus had known I’d end up leaving the group if they fucked with me bad enough; what they didn’t count on was me giving orders to the Ark before I’d left it.

  I turned and left them, heading deeper into the woods without a backward glance as I started my search for mint, ginger, and anything else I could find before it got too dark out to see.

  My mind wandered back to the Sentinel, who seemed to be stalking me. He’d told me I was his, and that he’d come for me. He’d been able to get past the vampires, which meant if he ever did come for me, I’d be fucked.

  There was no way around it. He was faster than I was, he knew how to use his powers where I was newly immortal, and on top of that, I had no freaking clue what the hell I was. Sentinel, that’s all I knew. I also had the ability to freeze time for mere seconds, and that only happened when I was in fight-or-flight mode, as Dad called it.

  I didn’t have time to take notes, or try to figure out how I had done it. I just did it. Now, when I wanted to, I couldn’t, which meant I might as well slap a bow on my ass and accept the inevitable.

  A branch broke beneath my foot and I paused, looking around the woods. Shit. I’d gotten lost in my head, and in doing so, I’d gone deeper than I intended to. I looked around at the moss on the forest floor and slowly lowered myself to it, moving it away from the herbs it shielded.

  I picked a few jars of mushrooms, some moss, and the little ginger that I could find and looked up at the trees, noting which side the moss was growing on, observing it was on the north side, and finding my position. Dad had taught me that in the Northern Hemisphere, moss grew on the north side of the tree, and in the southern, it grew south. It was a damn good thing to know when lost in the woods.

  It was dark by the time I made it back to the hammock, and the town was deathly silent. All lights were down, but then so was the electrical grid. I tilted my head, listening…Nothing. I stepped closer and saw a muzzle flash, and gunfire ripped through the night. I backed up, slowly at first, and faster with every step closer I took to the safety of the woods.

  I could hear voices moving towards the hammock, and once I’d reached a safe distance, I stopped, taking shelter behind a giant pine tree.

  “Where is she!?” Jolene’s high-pitched whine rose in the now silent night.

  “You sure she was even here?” the guy who’d aimed his gun at us when we’d first arrived said over her, huffing and puffing.

  “Look up there, see?” She aimed a flashlight up towards my hammock. “That’s where she sleeps, and she’s not in it! I want her found, and I want that bitch alive. Jason will want to see her; she’s not like the others. She’s not a vampire; we need to figure out what she is, and how to kill her,” she snapped.

  “We got the vampires; all of them are down thanks to the holy water we slipped into the well. As soon as those bitches drank it and they fed from them, it went down pretty fucking smooth, Jo. We got an endless supply of food now. They regenerate, and we got their women for all the fun we’ll need for a while. Jason won’t be caring about some bitch. No matter what she is, she won’t be a problem. We got an army.”

  I covered my mouth as a cry of outrage tried to escape. Vampires, an endless supply of food? Motherfuckers. What had I done to deserve this? Had I been some mass murderer of cute and fluffy animals in some other life and earned enough bad karma to flow into this one? Cannibals. It was a fucking army of cannibals?

  “I want her! She fucked with me, put hands on me. Jason will want that bitch for that alone, I’m his favorite!” she whined.

  “Every girl is his favorite, right up until new meat is found,” he laughed, and so did someone else. There were at least four flashlight beams roving around my tree; God only knew how many assholes were in this group.

  I looked around me, wondering how I planned to escape this mess. I wasn’t leaving the vampires to their fate, even though for the briefest moment, I considered freeing eve
ryone except Astrid. Not even I was that fucked up, that I would leave her among people who would consider her a delicacy on the table…blah.

  “You sure there wasn’t more of them?” he asked.

  “Just some wolves, but I heard they got fucked up when we shot them up in the town. They split, so they won’t be a problem; besides, we got silver bullets. They come sniffing ‘round, we’ll get them too, see how wolf tastes.” She laughed, and I fought a bout of nausea.

  It was official: This new world was hell, and there may not be any reason to try and save it anymore. Hate and greed ruled, hunger and need were the weapons of choice, and humans were the main course. Or, ya know, vampires. Like Jolene said, they regenerated and didn’t die like humans.

  I winced at the burning in my legs as I remained squatting behind the tree, listening as they removed my hammock—assholes—and headed back towards the town. Once I was sure I was alone, I suited up in full camo and pulled out the black face paint, and prepared to follow them back to see if I could figure out where they took the vampires. Army of one. Just freaking awesome.

  Chapter 10

  I was able to find a hiding place that still had a great view of the town below. With the light of day, I had figured out that the townsfolk had moved the vampires and their blood-bags from where they’d been captured, and with some difficulty, I had tracked them to this town and had begun my reconnaissance.

  The town was in a strategic location, over a mile or more on almost all three sides of the town, giving them the advantage of seeing any threat moving towards them. The only downfall was the heavily wooded hill behind the town, and that was where I was able to wedge myself fairly comfortably into a tree that was high enough to give me a great view, yet provided enough camouflage to hide behind.