Cass ignored her, continuing to work.
I fixed my gaze on Sakura, knowing there was no point trying to talk Cass out of this. But there was no need for Sakura to stay as well. “G-go,” I managed.
Sakura frowned, her dark brows drawing together. With a final glance at Cass, she marched off, heading down the hill.
“Good riddance,” Cass muttered, placing the dry roots onto the small flames at the heart of the fire. Taking out the damp kindling from my bag, she laid it around the fire to dry. As she fed the flames, the space began to grow warmer. Cass continually moved about, laying out our clothes to fully dry, helping me out of my dress, keeping me covered in the cloaks.
Slowly, but surely, as the hours ticked by, I stopped shivering. Cass mashed some of the berries up on a flat piece of rock and heated them over the fire.
They were sickly sweet, but immediately gave me energy and the heat of them helped warm me through to my bones.
“How do you feel?” Cass pressed a hand to my forehead with a concerned frown.
“Better,” I sighed, not mentioning the agonising pain still flaring up from my ankles. Or the fact I knew exactly the effects an infected bite could have. When I was six, I'd been bitten by our neighbour's dog. I'd been playing with him and one of his tug toys and, seeing as I was half the size of a Siberian husky, his teeth had done me some serious damage. I still had the scar on my forearm.
It had hurt like hell, but I'd been so worried about the dog being put down for what had happened, that I wrapped a scarf around the bite and didn't tell anyone. For a six year old, that lasted about half an hour before I went running to Mummy.
Veins were already spreading up my arms by the time I got to the hospital. Infections can move really fast, I learnt that day. I'd made Mum promise not to hurt the dog and I remember her words even now. “You protect everyone but yourself, Selena. Promise me you'll learn to look after yourself, too.”
Her words had more meaning now than they had then. Was I looking after myself now? Would she be proud that I was trying to survive?
“I need to take a closer look at your wounds,” Cass said quietly and I nodded, screwing up my eyes as she gently removed my boots, tugging down my tattered socks. She sucked in air through her teeth and I knew it was bad. Gently, she used the water from her bottle to wash the bite marks and I groaned as the icy stream rushed over them.
“I need antibiotics,” I whispered.
“No.” Cass stood. “You need V blood. All we've gotta do is get you some.”
I shook my head in defeat. “Cass...”
“Don't say it,” she demanded and my brows lowered.
“How do you know what I was going to say?”
“You were going to tell me to leave you here, right?” She planted her hands on her hips and I gave a small nod in confirmation. The longer Cass remained here, the less time she had to reach the checkpoint. I couldn't be responsible for her death.
“Cass, look at me.” She met my eye and sank to her knees. “I'm not getting out of this one.”
She touched my cheek which was burning from a fever.
Elijah had turned up at the hospital after I'd been bitten all those years ago – probably furious that we weren't at home – and said, “Why did you bring her here? It's just a bite.”
My mother had bowed down to him on more than one occasion. But perhaps she'd felt stronger that day, surrounded by nurses and the bustle of patients in the corridors.
“Because she's my daughter and I love her more than anything!”
The implied fact she loved me more than Elijah had drained all the colour from his face. The doctor kept me in that night and when my mother returned the next day, I expected her to be beaten bloody. Apparently, Elijah wasn't stupid enough to hit her where the bruises would be on display to nurses all day. But I saw them. The ghosts of brownish-grey skin peeping from beneath her sleeves, her collar.
I'd asked her that day – still not having learned to button my lip at that point – why she wouldn't leave Elijah. Why didn't we run away into the woods like they did in fairytales and start a new life?
“Because, my darling, he'll find us. And he'll hurt you.”
Of course, that didn't make any sense to me at the time. Elijah did hurt me. Not regularly, not at that age anyway. But I'd received the slash of his belt more than once. It wasn't until I was bordering on fourteen that I realised what she'd meant. Elijah was fully capable of - and willing- to kill us. One rainy, Saturday afternoon, he'd waved a knife at my mother. The second my mother stepped out of line, he'd said, he'd drive the knife into my heart. That's when I knew it was time to act. That's when I started keeping my own knife under my pillow.
It's easy for an outsider to judge. That's what court had taught me. Why didn't you go to the police? Why didn't you show someone the bruises? They might as well have asked, why were you so weak?
As if it wasn't possible that two people could live under the roof of a man that tormented them for so long without them doing something about it. But there was one thing those people were forgetting: fear.
Fear was the most powerful emotion in the world. I believed it was even greater than love. Fear stopped my mother from telling the police, from reporting Elijah, from taking me somewhere safer. She loved me and yet her fear kept us trapped in that house. And Christ, I didn't blame her. I knew what he could be like. I knew the creak of his shoes on the stairs, the jangle of his keys in the front door. Those sounds became warning signals. And somehow, Mum and I adapted to that life.
Cass strapped the wounds up on my ankles with pieces of her dress, helped me back into my socks and shoes then dragged me to my feet.
“We're making it out of here,” she said through gritted teeth, slinging my arm over her shoulder.
Every step hurt; the ache of my ankles was nearly unbearable. But I clung to Cass, desperate to survive, buying into the small sliver of hope that I still could.
As we moved, guilt burrowed into my chest. Cass was sacrificing her chance to help me. I should have forced her to leave. Told her to go. But I knew she wouldn't listen. And secretly, I was glad that she'd stayed.
We made it down the hill and the fresh air awakened my senses. The mist hadn't lifted, not even a fraction between the deathly dark trees that awaited us.
“All we have to do is reach the other side of the forest,” Cass murmured and I broke a delirious, probably infection-infused laugh.
“Oh, well if that's all we need to do...”
We steeled ourselves, moving into the thick fog, engulfed by it immediately. The world was a sweeping plane of grey and, as we moved, the looming tree trunks seemed to shift and shuffle before us. I had to squeeze my eyes shut more than once, forcing away the visions. The mist tasted of something acrid, leaving a vile flavour on my tongue. Perhaps I was imagining it, but the more I breathed it in, the more the world seemed to spin.
The trees aren't moving.
There are no Vs near us.
The clink and tinkle of keys caught my ear and I swung around. That sound. I knew it well.
I forced Cass to stop, clawing at her arm, my breathing coming in ragged pants.
“What is it?” she whispered, turning to me.
Through the darkness I saw her squint at me, then pull away in horror. I nearly fell over without her support.
“What's wrong?” I gasped as she shrank from me.
“You're one of them!”
I touched my face as if I could feel what she was seeing, but nothing was different. I reached for her and she smacked my arm away, raising her stake at me.
“Cass!” I gasped, stumbling backwards.
Her hand trembled as she pointed the sharp tip of the stake at me. “I'm sorry,” she whispered, shaking her head, then darted off into the trees.
My spine hit a tree and I nearly jumped out of my skin. My breathing grew shallow and panic swiftly moved in to fill the hollow space in my chest.
I ran my thumb across my
teeth, searching for fangs, for any sign that I'd somehow become one of the Vs. But I hadn't. I was me. Nothing had changed. So why did Cass think that I had?
The tinkle of keys made me lurch forward again and my boot caught on a root. I stumbled, finding my balance at the last second. Swinging around, I pointed my stake toward the mist.
A blanket of white surrounded me. I was disorientated, turning left and right.
The crunch of boots made my body quiver.
“Selena, it's time you grew up.” My step-father's voice. The same words he'd spoken to me that night.
I groaned in fear, shrinking to my knees and hugging them to my chest.
“Where's Mum?” I'd asked. It was morning. Early. I hadn't gotten out of bed yet.
“She's gone to the supermarket. We have an hour or so.” He locked my bedroom door.
I pulled the covers higher up my legs, thinking of the knife I'd stashed under my pillow all those months ago.
Elijah was muscular, thickset, tall. As a local policeman, he'd become something of an icon in our community; he'd saved a child from a car that had driven off a bridge, plummeting into the river that ran through town. All a disguise. All an act. Covering his back. Mum and I were the only ones that saw the real him.
He ripped back the quilt from my bare legs. He'd been looking at me strangely for weeks. Since I'd turned eighteen.
There were two ways I could have acted that day: the same way I always had, ducking my head and waiting for his punishments to be over. Or, the way I dreamed that one day I would act. And that day, I'd had enough. Enough of the pain, of the fear, of the terror induced by simple sounds like keys in locks and the clink of a whiskey bottle against his watch. I was done. And I wasn't going to let him take a single thing more from me.
I recalled the weight of him, the familiar acridity of his breath. The way his belt got stuck as he tried to unbuckle it. I wasn't in any way stronger. But I was sober. Faster. Quicker with that knife than he ever could have seen coming.
Belly deep. It took a moment for the blood to appear, for the shock to register on his face. He was already hemorrhaging by the time he tried to fight back.
After the autopsy, I discovered that I'd stuck him in the liver. Apparently you can die pretty fast that way. Funny really, Mum always prayed his liver would take him out.
The mist revealed a figure, the wind thinning it briefly so I spotted him moving toward me. Everything about the way he walked: those lumbering, heavy steps he took after he'd had a drink. I knew it was him.
I crumpled to the ground, burying my face in my hands.
It wasn't real. He couldn't be here.
Screams sliced into my head, far away and near at once. I blinked as a heaviness weighed over my mind. The fog wasn't just out here in the trees, it was in my head, clouding my thoughts.
A shadow loomed over me. The stench of whiskey flooded my senses.
I moaned in agony, trying to shuffle away. Elijah stepped out of the mist, grimacing, his eyes fixed on me.
I crawled backwards, cowering against a tree. “No, no,” I begged.
My vision was blurry at the edges. Everything seemed out of focus; everything but Elijah. I gritted my teeth as he approached, bending down, his hands reaching for my throat. I thrust the stake upwards with a screech of defiance.
Blood poured down my arm, hot and fast. So real. The blood had to be real.
I blinked as the vision evaporated and I found my stake up to the hilt with how deep it was buried in the yellow swathes of a satin dress.
Marie sunk to her knees, blood spilling from her mouth as she came eye to eye with me. I shook my head in horror, wrenching the stake free. She slumped backwards, her body twisted on the earth.
“No,” I breathed, falling forward, reaching for her pulse.
Nothing. She was gone. Her lifeless, glassy eyes gazed up at the canopy of the tree. She hadn't even been able to see the sky through all this fog.
Pain tore at my core and I screamed, part of me wanting to bring the whole forest down on my head. I cupped her cheek, falling forward and sobbing into her dress. I lifted my head a fraction, knowing Vs would be upon me at any moment. Marie had a swathe of material tied around her throat, cut into a diamond like she'd been using it to cover her mouth and nose.
I gently took it from her, wrapping it around my own neck. The mist had done this, not me. I told myself over and over again, but no matter how much I spoke it in my mind, I didn't feel any better. Marie was dead because of me. Not the Vs, not the mist, not the Helsings. Me.
My hands stopped trembling as I tied the yellow piece of cloth over my nose and mouth. After a few moments, my vision improved and the world seemed more steady.
I closed Marie's eyes, saying a silent apology and vowing to hurt the people who had put us here. Who had led us to this moment.
Next, I used the thick mud on the forest floor to cover every inch of myself to hide my scent. It was easily done; the mud was wet and sticky. The scent of the earth rushed through my senses as I covered my face, carefully covering the bandanna that was assisting my breathing. Then I took Marie's stake, pressed myself back into the shadows of the trees and waited.
I'd made enough noise. The Vs were coming. It was only a matter of time. I had no choice but to wait, because, for once, I needed their blood as much as they needed mine.
Varick
The mist was a spectator favourite. Ignus had developed it a few years back, driving the girls mad with visions in that forest. The men whooped and cheered around me as Selena drove her stake into Marie's heart because of some entity the fog had conjured.
I felt sick. Ill, even. Mercy's blood was giving me too much of my old self back. I couldn't watch this any more. With every passing moment, I had to battle the urge to run out into those woods and take Selena into my arms. Carry her somewhere far away from harm.
Plans ticked over in my mind. Could I reach the yacht before the Helsings stopped me? Could I get Selena out of here?
Despite the torrent of ideas swimming in my mind, I knew, deep down, that it was pointless. The Helsings would catch my attempt at saving her on camera and send a pack of Vs after us. And when they caught us, we'd be ripped limb from limb as punishment.
My torment didn't go unnoticed by Mercy whose eyes continually found mine across the auditorium. The game was inescapable, projected tenfold on the wall until all I could see was blood and mist. The Vs were hunting in packs, taking down girls one at a time. There were only seven left, now. And Selena wasn't looking like she was going to make it.
With her wounds, she couldn't move fast enough to get through that forest unseen.
As she caked herself in mud, lying in the shadows close to Marie's body, I tried to figure out what she was thinking.
A stake was clamped in each of her hands. So I knew she hadn't given up yet. But the group of Vs heading her way weren't going to be beaten by a single girl. It wasn't possible. Even if she killed one of them, there were four others, including Melinda who was growing stronger every day.
Some of the men were clapping Ignus on the back, congratulating him on his ingenuity. While I, on the other hand, was tempted to snap his neck for it.
Mercy weaved her way toward me through the crowded seats, falling into the single empty one beside me.
“Got to give it to her. She's a determined little minx.”
“Fairing better than you would, I expect.” I shrugged off her arm as she tried to lay it on me.
“You'd do well to have a little more faith in me.”
“I'm pretty sure I had the upper hand last night.”
She thumped my arm. “Hush, will you? People are looking.”
I leant in close so a curl of her hair brushed against my cheek. “What's the matter? Afraid of everyone finding out you have a thing for being fed on?”
Her top lip curled back. “Shut up.”
My attention was drawn to Ignus across the room, chatting in low tones with Ulvic. I tried t
o drown out the din of the room to hear them, but there was too much clamour even for my senses to penetrate it. Ulvic had a worn look about him since the night I'd drank from him, avoiding me at all costs. Whatever Ignus had wanted from him, it looked like he'd gotten it.
“What's your brother up to?” I asked Mercy.
Her eyes whipped toward him. “Nothing that concerns you.”
“So you know?” I raised a brow.
She nodded slowly, giving me a hard stare. “And you're not going to find out.”
I'm not sure if I even wanted to know. Ignus had a twisted of idea of what fun looked like. Especially when it came to the games. Whatever he was planning, no doubt had something to do with the island, and my instincts told me it was nothing pleasant.
“What would it take for you to tell me?” I growled, staring her down.
A challenging smile grew on her features. “Even you couldn't do enough to make me tell.”
I frowned at that. Even me?
Mercy shifted closer, her hand snaking under the arm of the chair to lay on my knee. With a rush of understanding, I realised what all of this torment was about. Maybe it was the newfound humanity she'd instilled in me that allowed me to see it at last. I wasn't just some plaything she liked to torture. Mercy, as improbable as it was, liked me. Perhaps more than liked. The way her eyes glowed at me. The way she flaunted herself in front of me on a daily basis. Why she'd given me her blood. She actually wanted me to fancy her back.
It took several seconds for me to process this new information. And though I had streams of doubt running through me, I couldn't shake the feeling that I had hit the nail on the head. I'd finally sussed out her weakness. And incredibly, it was me.
I wasn't capable of love any more, but even if I had been, no part of me would ever be drawn to Mercy Helsing. She was as despicable as the rest of her family. Demanding the girls be starved before the games. Even once trying to have her father beat them into submission. Always the pretty ones.
I did something then that made my skin prickle with revulsion. I took her hand, winding my fingers between hers.
I have you now, I thought.
V Games (The Vampire Games Trilogy Book 1) Page 19
