Friction (The Frenzy Series Book 4)

by Casey L. Bond

  I killed them all.

  Dead.

  Death.

  Destruction.

  That was all I was.

  That was all I’d ever be.

  I stared down at Pierce. I killed him. Lydia would have killed him.

  I stopped him.

  My fingers. My muscles. Shaking.

  Trembling.

  Terrible.

  I held them up, watching the blood drip down.

  Splatters on the carpet.

  I looked to Pierce, a warm, crimson tear falling from my eye. “No. You deserved this,” I told him.

  His chest didn’t rise. His heart wasn’t beating. He was gone.

  I took a step backward.

  I stared out the broken window, stepping over Lydia, over her head and through the crunching broken glass, smeared with her blood. Outside it was late afternoon. The sun shone on the blanched bodies floating below. It shone on the flowers in the field, the daisies and violets. And it shone on the four people running toward The Manor: Tage, Saul, Roman, and my sister. My sister.

  They can’t see me like this.

  They will see what I’ve done.

  What I am.

  What I’m capable of.

  And it will break me.

  Or I will break them...

  Run.

  Running was effortless, like breathing. In. Out. Left. Right. Being a night-walker felt amazing. Roman ran in front of our group. “The Manor is just ahead!” he shouted.

  And it was. The flattened land gave way to a small knoll, and on it sat a stone home that was castle-like. The sun burned my eyes, but it didn’t dull my sense of smell, and the stench that hit my nose almost knocked me down. I stopped. Cupping my face, I asked, “What is that?”

  Mercedes was in the same shape. She eased the collar of her shirt over the bottom half of her face, her eyes squinting in the late afternoon sun. Roman wasn’t affected by the light at all. Was it because he’d been a night-walker before?

  He sniffed the rancid air and gagged. “It’s coming from the bridge,” he said, pointing ahead of us. Walking forward, we soon found what the scent was. It was rot and decay, but not from the Infected. There were human corpses littering a large ditch that surrounded the main house. The cloudy dark water had a film across its surface, only broken by the insects that skimmed across it. All shades of skin, all walks of life, all ages were made equal in the cruelty of their deaths and in the manner in which they were discarded. Like garbage tossed out of a house, they lay still in the water.

  Mercedes’ eyes began watering, blood flowing from the corners. “I need to get out of here,” she breathed, stumbling across the wooden bridge.

  Tage nodded and helped her across. Roman and I ran around them before stopping at the sight of the front door opening. A woman emerged, human and so dirty she didn’t smell human at all.

  She screamed, “I did what she said! Let me go!”

  “What who said?” Roman asked.

  “The night-walker who freed me. She said to let the other humans go.”

  “What humans?” I asked, but the answer to my question came before he could voice the words. Covered with anything they could find: curtains, towels, or pillowcases, people began pouring out from around both sides of the house, running on bare feet. Desperation filled the air.

  Men, women, and children; old and young, starved and dirty. Mercedes growled, baring her fangs at them. The women pulled their children close and screamed, backing away from her. Tage held her back from them. “We need to get inside and away from them.”

  He stared at me. “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah.” But was I? I didn’t feel hunger. A sense of sorrow filled me up. Watching the emaciated try to garner the strength to leave this place was too much. They needed help.

  Roman opened the main door as Tage pulled Mercedes along. I followed them into The Manor. While Roman and Tage tried to calm Mercedes, I slipped away, walking up the steps. I could smell her.

  Her scent was almost masked by the iron scent of blood, but it was there. She was near. At the landing, I stepped over the bodies of two women wearing enormous dresses. Following the trail of blood leading down the hallway, I found her in a bedroom, soaked in blood. The pale dress she’d worn was soaked through, the hem of it dripping and the droplets splashing the floor and the tops of her bare feet.

  When she sensed me, she stilled, her eyes wild. I eased my hands up, palms out. “It’s just me.”

  She began muttering something unintelligible.

  “Porschia? It’s Saul.”

  A shrill laugh bubbled up from her stomach. “I’m no better than you now. I killed them all.”

  She held her stomach, her teeth covered in blood. “I drained one of them and then threw him out with the others,” she said, pointing out the window.

  “Was he human?”

  “No. He was a night-walker.”

  “What happened to her?” I said, motioning toward the body on the floor, the woman’s head torn from her shoulders.

  Porschia shook her head. “She wanted to be cursed. And so she was.”

  “Is that Pierce?” I asked, looking over the woman’s prone and bleeding body.

  “It is.”

  “And the two in the hallway?”

  “Drained by the cursed one.”

  She backed toward the window and vomited out, blood pouring from her mouth.

  “We met a girl outside. She said you freed her.”

  She panted, grasping the edge of the stone outside the window. “Did she set them all free?”

  “Yes.”

  She nodded, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. Her blood-soaked hair hung in wavy, wet strands, dripping onto the earth below her. I eased toward her. “Do you ever wish you had never volunteered for the rotation?” she asked.

  “Every damn day.”

  Sniffing, she turned abruptly. “You’ve changed.”

  I closed in. “It’s okay. I chose this.”

  “None of us chose this,” she argued.

  “I did choose this. For you. I wanted to help free you; to save you.”

  “You always try, Saul, but there’s no saving me now.” Her eyes searched mine. A sense of foreboding settled deep in my stomach. I changed so that we could save her from those at The Manor, but I had no idea we would need to save Porschia from herself. “I’m a monster,” she whispered.

  “We’re all monsters.”

  “Some are worse than others.”

  I couldn’t argue with that. Some were worse than others. And some were worse at certain times in their lives, in a heated moment where they made the wrong choice.

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered to her, reaching out to stroke her hair. “I was wrong. I see that now.”

  Her short inhalation said more than if she’d spoken for days, but I didn’t need words or forgiveness, I just had to speak those words to her. Now she knew. Now, nothing else hung unresolved between us.

  “Thank you,” she whispered back, staring at my mouth. “Will you turn back now?”

  “Soon. I think we should all wait to turn back until we get everyone out there to safety, maybe back to Blackwater.”

  “We have to stop at Mountainside and offer them the same shelter. Will the new council object?” she asked.

  “I don’t think so.”

  She turned to the window, watching the steady flow of human beings stumble away from this cursed place.

  Tage burst into the room. “Hey,” he said slowly, looking between the two of us. “There was an Infected downstairs. Mercedes elected to change back. If you want to, his blood will still probably work on you.”

  I shook my head. “No. I’ll wait until everyone’s safely in the Colony.” Namely Porschia. Because as much as she could deny it, she had a wild look in her eyes and I wondered if she was going to run as far away from all of this as she could, the first chance she got.

  Tage rushed to her side, whispering to her how he was so sc
ared she would be hurt or worse. I went to look for water and a change of clothes for her before I was sick or decided to take my Frenzy out on Tage. He was an asshole. Roman told me about what he did to Porschia in the city, back when she was in the rotation. He was going to feed from her femoral artery, or so he suggested. Would he have tried something worse? He said Tage knew he was around, but did he? Was he goading Roman or was he going to hurt her? Feed from the vein in her leg? Assault her? The thoughts spun in my head like a top; around and around, teetering and wobbling until they might topple me over.

  As much as the plant curbed the intensity of the emotion I was feeling, it was still there. I just had the option of thinking before acting now. And even though I was in Frenzy and even though I could snap, I wouldn’t hurt her. I knew that, deep inside me. I would never hurt Porschia on purpose. Tage? I wasn’t so sure of that, or of him. And what would he do if she decided he wasn’t what she wanted? Would he let her go easily? Or would he tear her apart?

  There was something in his eyes that said he would never let her go. I didn’t know if he really loved her or if he only loved that he’d won her, that he’d taken her from me. Because as much as Roman thought he would have her, she wanted no part of him. And as much as Tage hated it, she cared about me. She still did.

  Saul was too close to her. I knew what he was doing, apologizing and acting like burning her Mother and the others to death had just been a misunderstanding. Coming to her first while I was busy dealing with Mercedes. Saul swooped in, pretending to be her savior once again.

  Porschia shook. With crossed arms, she hugged herself. “It’s okay, kitten. You did what you had to do to survive.” I saw Pierce lying on the floor, dead. Roman didn’t know yet. This was going to send him into a spiral, and I wanted Porschia away from him when it happened.

  She took a step back from me. “I killed them all.”

  “Good. They were doing much worse. You saw the bodies floating out there,” I said, ticking my head to the window. “You saw The Glen. You stopped them.”

  “I feel sick,” she said. “I feel so sick.”

  “Can I hold you?”

  She shook her head vehemently. “Don’t touch me. I... I don’t want anyone to touch me.”

  “Okay,” I stepped back. “I won’t. I promise.”

  Saul stepped back inside with a basin of water, a towel, and a dark green dress that was poufy and not Porschia at all. “It’s all I could find. No jeans in any of the closets up here.”

  She nodded to him. “Thank you.”

  I eased away toward the door of the bedroom. She needed space to collect her thoughts and wash the remnants of the day away. Time would heal her. Eventually she would see that she managed to survive where others had succumbed. She stopped something so evil that the stink of it might never leave this place. But for now, she had to make peace with herself. She wouldn’t be able to do that with me or Saul in her face.

  I nodded toward the bodies lying in the hallway. “We can clean this mess while she cleans herself up.”

  Saul hesitated, looking back toward her with his hands in his pockets. “Sure.”

  We each carried one corpse outside and tossed the shrews into the moat with all of their victims. It was poetic justice; their stories had come full circle, much like the cycle of life itself. Predators preyed on the weak. They lived well until something stronger came along and ended them. Life. Vitality. Weakening. Death.

  When we were finished, Saul stayed inside with Mercedes, who was in the process of changing back into a human. Her fangs were already gone and shivers continued to shake her body. She lay on the couch beneath blankets that Roman brought down from the bedrooms above.

  I ran to Porschia’s room to find the door locked. Tapping my knuckles against the door, I sniffed the air. Her scent was there. Lavender soap, blood, and fresh water. Hay and daisies from the fields below.

  “Porschia?”

  There was no answer.

  I knocked again but still heard nothing. It took a fraction of a second to break the door in and half of that again to realize that she wasn’t in the room. Running to the window, I saw her on the ground below, crouching low in the tall grass, but looking up at me. “No,” I whispered. “Kitten, don’t run.”

  As a bloody tear tracked a path on each cheek, she sniffed and shook her head. “I just need to get away from all of this; the smell and sounds. The almost-dead people we just freed. I’m not strong enough right now.”

  “Let me come with you,” I yelled.

  She shook her head. “No, I need to be alone. Just for a little while. I’ll meet you at Mountainside. I promise.”

  Everything inside me screamed to stop her, to hold her close and never let her go, but if I did that, if I caged her, I knew I would lose her for good. “Okay,” I said. “I’ll meet you there as soon as I can. Go ahead. Let them know Blackwater will take them in.”

  She nodded. “I can do that.”

  It was a start. She was crumbling, but she still might find a new purpose in helping the residents of Mountainside find a new safe haven in the Colony of Blackwater.

  My skin was finally clean. Using the tepid water, I rinsed the ends of my hair until the water was pink, tinged with Lydia’s blood. The dark green dress was ridiculous, something a princess or queen would wear. Thick material billowed from the corseted waist and way too much chest showed for me to be comfortable. Making my way over the bridge and away from the trail of fleeing humans, I headed toward the only place I knew I would feel at home, toward the woods, tearing at my skirt to make it shorter and easier to travel in. I decided to take a different trail than those of the fleeing people. If they saw a female vampire in a dress like they wore—in one of their dresses, no less—it would terrify them. And that was what I was; no better than the monsters I killed. Terrifying. The thing that nightmares were made of.

  Human nightmares.

  Because night-walkers and Infected didn’t dream.

  They didn’t rest.

  They couldn’t find peace.

  And neither could I.

  But I also felt a duty to these people. They were my neighbors. I would listen and watch from a distance, making sure they made it to The Glen and that those who chose to move on to Mountainside would make it there safely as well. All the way to Blackwater, I would protect them.

  Hay-filled hills gave way to saplings, saplings to trees, and trees to the thick underbrush filling in the forest floor with each passing rain. Disturbing a mouse, he ran for a hollowed log.

  I walked slowly, at the speed they travelled. I listened to them talk about what had happened, how frightened they’d been, and how the first girl I freed told them it was all over and to leave this place and never return. She told them that Mountainside would take them in until they all moved to Blackwater, a haven safe enough and big enough for them all.

  Reflecting on the control of the Elders I could now see that they did wrong by keeping us sheltered, but we had it better than others. I never realized there were people out there like the three women I’d just witnessed. Geographically, we were so close that even Blackwater wouldn’t have been safe from their wrath if they needed to extend their reach to find further victims.

  After passing through several hills and valleys I came to an abrupt stop, much like the trail of rusted metal shells stretching east and west as far as the eye could see. Nature was showing her power through it all. Cars, trucks, vans, and enormous vehicles pulling towering boxes behind them. Three rows in opposite directions. Every vehicle bumper to bumper with only weeds and saplings separating them now. It was a sea of desperation. I stepped closer toward the closest car. Four doors, no windows, and two skeletons picked over inside, the bones strewn over the seats, floor and console, even spilling into the back.

  The other cars would likely be filled with the same. Mother said that when the virus hit, people tried to flee the great city beyond Blackwater to outrun the disease, but it was already too late for most of th
em. Most of them didn’t make it fifty miles.

  I stepped back from the car and moved back up the hill into the trees. I smelled him before I saw him. “Roman.”

  “Tage is a mess,” he started. “You just left him back there.”

  He still didn’t know about Pierce. What had they told him?

  “I’m fine.” The heart beneath the millstone on my chest shouted that I was a liar. Did the same show on my face?

  “You’re not, but for the record, you didn’t do anything wrong, Porschia. You need to accept this or you’ll never find peace.” He didn’t know yet.

  “Was acceptance instantaneous for you? Did you immediately fall in love with being in Frenzy, or being a night-walking creature that fed on your friends and family? Or did it take a while to sink in?”

  He sighed, leaning back against a tree trunk and scrubbing his face with his hands. “It took years.”

  “Then expect it to take me years, too. Allow me the same time to adjust.”

  He nodded, looking down at me. “I have a feeling you won’t have the same luxury of time.”

  I had the same feeling. Something big was going to happen. For years, I had no idea of what was going on around me. I lived in a bubble of fear, trying to avoid Mother’s hatred and sequestering myself from everyone in the Colony. I didn’t see the experimentation, the way the Elders truly ruled, or the way the night-walkers interacted with one another and with others in the Colony. I did what I was told. A lamb among lambs, surrounded by wolves. But there were larger predators than wolves to worry about and no one realized that beyond the forests and settlements beyond, there was a strange wind blowing. Dust was being stirred and I could feel the tiny stinging particles beginning to pepper my skin.

  “Where is Tage, Saul, and my sister?”

  “Mercedes is walking with the other humans, toward the end of the trail. Saul is across the mountain from us watching from that direction, and Tage is running toward the front to make sure we cover all angles.”

  “That’s good.” Mercedes must be miserable. I’d seen how weak Roman felt when he changed, how he got sick almost immediately, how he almost died. I didn’t want that for her. We had to get her back to Blackwater quickly.