Blood Bond

by Heather Hildenbrand

  I shoved from my mind the fact that she in no way believed me capable of this on my own and focused solely on her last three words. “I love you too, Mom,” I said and hung up.

  I rubbed my neck and stared into the woods. Slowly, two forms appeared. Human, walking side by side.

  “Right on time,” Wes said from beside me.

  “It’s the politician in him. He can’t help himself,” Cord said in disgust.

  The three of us stood shoulder to shoulder, halfway between the house and the tree-line. Wes chose to remain human—to appear less threatening, he’d said—and currently had my hand in a death grip. Jack and the others were concealed in various places around the perimeter.

  “I see you’ve decided to come willingly,” Mr. Lexington said, his eyes flickering to the small bag on the ground at my feet.

  “I’ve come to make a deal,” I said.

  “I’m not sure you’re in a position—”

  “Cord and I will come. No one will harm my friends or family. Ever.”

  “I can agree to those terms,” he said.

  “Ever, do you understand? No matter what happens at this little meeting of yours, you can’t go after my friends.”

  “Fair enough.” His mouth twitched and his eyes took on a decidedly more yellow hue. He eyed Cord. “Olivia has special plans for you, I hear.”

  “Isn’t that funny because I’ve got special plans for her too,” she said.

  His eyes sharpened. Mrs. Lexington shifted nervously.

  “They aren’t alone,” I said under my breath.

  “I know,” Wes said.

  “Whenever you’re ready,” Mr. Lexington said.

  I’d barely reached for my bag when Wes grabbed me and yanked me against him. His arms wrapped around me, squeezing fiercely. “Be careful. You promised.”

  All I could do was nod. If I spoke even one word the tears would fall. I’d been so wrapped up in the going that I hadn’t even prepared for the goodbye.

  “Come on,” Cord said, pulling my sleeve until Wes and I untangled.

  “I won’t be far,” he said, keeping his voice low. I could see his body shimmering at the edges, on the brink of shifting. For once, I understood the sense of safety it would bring. I felt vulnerable, exposed, with all of my emotions on display this way.

  “Just don’t rush in too soon. We need to find Olivia first,” I said.

  “You’re first. Olivia’s second.”

  I sighed and let him kiss me. Then Cord pulled on me again, and shoved my bag at me. I didn’t glance back as I followed her into the trees. It wouldn’t have done any good. I’d already said goodbye to the others, and the only one I hadn’t was long gone.

  *

  We walked for two hours before I relaxed against the feeling of hybrids nearby. They must’ve increased their following distance because the itching against the nape of my neck faded, and I could finally think straight without worrying every step would land in a paw instead of a foot.

  “Are we really going to hike the entire way there?” Cord asked.

  She couldn’t care less whether we hiked or swam, she just wanted action. And maybe a clue as to where we were headed.

  “We’re hiking until we’re not,” Mr. Lexington said.

  “Spoken like a true bureaucrat,” she said.

  We finally stopped as night fell, and Mr. Lexington handed us each a bottle of water. I uncapped mine without hesitation. It was beyond stupid that I hadn’t thought to pack water among the few clothes and a hairbrush I’d thrown in my bag, so now that it was in front of me, I didn’t hold back.

  Cord sniffed hers, eying Mr. Lexington warily.

  “You’re not thirsty?” he asked. Beside him, his wife gulped her bottle in loud swallows.

  “I don’t trust you,” Cord said.

  “You think I put something in it?” he asked. “After you came willingly? We had a deal. I’ll honor it.”

  “Even when you were human, you were rabid. You didn’t give a shit about honor then, so why do you now?”

  He blinked, obviously taken off guard by her vehemence. Temper flashed and his eyes glowed. “You know nothing about me.”

  “I know your daughter. Which is more than I can say for you,” Cord shot back. “She knows you’re alive.”

  For a moment, his expression softened and he looked compassionate, human. “She’s the best of what’s left of this family now. I’ve done what I had to, in order to protect her.”

  Cord shook her head. “You haven’t seen your daughter lately. She doesn’t need protecting. She’s the one others need protecting from.”

  The softness faded and his jaw hardened.

  She says it’s okay to kill you, by the way.” Cord’s eyes danced as she tipped her water bottle up and gulped the contents.

  Cord made it halfway through her drink when it hit me. Sharp pain needled the inside of my ribs, ratcheting from mild to stabbing in a matter of seconds. My eyes widened. I lifted a hand, a silent signal to Cord, but it was too late. My stomach lurched and I retched up what little I’d eaten.

  “Finally,” Mr. Lexington said. There was a hint of impatience in his voice, nothing more.

  I took a step but it landed me on the ground. I struggled to get up past my knees.

  Cord finally noticed and lowered her bottle. “What is it?” she demanded. She stalked Mr. Lexington, every inch the predator. “What the hell did you do?” she hissed.

  He glared at her. “What was necessary.”

  I couldn’t move. My muscles twitched but it was more spontaneous than deliberate. I opened my mouth to ask what he’d done, and why, but no sound came. My jaw barely moved.

  “Olivia wants to kill us, then,” Cord said. Fire shone in her eyes. I wondered why she hadn’t leaped at Mr. Lexington yet. Then I saw the twitch in her knees, the set of her jaw, and I knew the paralyzing pain had begun.

  “The outcome is not my concern, although according to her, a fair amount of retribution is in order,” he said.

  “Retribution for what?” Cord demanded. Her legs were shaking now. I was surprised she was still on her feet.

  “Death, at your hands, the way I heard it.”

  “Did I kill someone she cared about?” Cord’s breathing hitched on the last word. She sank to her knees. The fire in her eyes was dying, replaced by agony. My eyelids drooped heavily.

  “Indeed. I believe you knew her son.” Mr. Lexington’s voice sounded far away.

  “Who is … her son?” Cord managed.

  “Miles DeLuca.”

  Then it all went black.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Acid coated the inside of my mouth. Acid and cotton. Dirt rubbed against my hands and legs, and I forced my eyes open while my brain screamed resistance. I had no idea how long I’d been out. My stomach felt hollow and crampy. I twisted around, taking in the small space, the closeness of the walls. They were made of wood—pine if my sense of smell was working right—and nailed together in a hurry. Splinters stuck out every few inches where the nail heads had been beaten too far into the grain. Whoever built my makeshift cage had no clue what they were doing.

  The access door was on the box’s roof and looked as if it was made a little more securely than the walls, since it was steel and iron locked into place by bright, black hinges.

  “Cord?” I whispered, trying to see past my cage. “Can you hear me?”

  I waited but no answer came. I’d assumed and hoped, really, that she’d woken nearby in a box similar to mine. Somewhere within talking distance. Maybe she was still knocked out. I didn’t want to think about the alternative.

  I listened for any sound that might tell me where we’d been taken. Birds chirped but they weren’t close. Leaves rustled in a breeze. The air carried on the wind might’ve been fresh or clear but it didn’t penetrate my wooden box. Every inhale left a musty taste in my mouth and underneath it, something else I couldn’t identify but made me think of rotting fruit.

  Movement
between the slats caught my eye and I slouched down to see who—or what—it was. The itchiness on my neck was muted. Maybe I’d grown numb to it, or maybe the hybrids were keeping their distance. Either way, I didn’t feel ready to crawl out of my skin yet, which was good since I wasn’t sure this box would be big enough if I suddenly wasn’t human anymore.

  Something moved outside my box.

  A human hand flashed by, smooth and tanned, then another, also human and thick with muscle. They spoke in low voices, one male and one female. At the sound of the female’s voice, Mr. Lexington’s last words flashed through my mind. I believe you knew her son. Miles DeLuca.

  The hollow cramping in my stomach became a heavy brick of dread. I had a moment to wonder what sort of reading George would get from me after so many hours of numbness, and then someone yanked my cage door open from above. A stubbly face with dark eyes peered down at me before moving aside for another. The woman’s features were so similar to Miles’s it made my breath hitch.

  “Get up,” she said.

  I pushed to my feet. My movements were awkward, my muscles stiff. None of that compared to the smell or the roiling in my stomach as soon as I stood. I crawled upward through the opening onto the box’s roof.

  I wrinkled my nose and held my arm up to my face, trying in vain to block the stench. If my stomach had held anything, it would’ve come up as I dry-heaved over the side. Bodies littered the dirt below. Emaciated, shriveled, some already decaying though their chests still rose and fell with labored breaths.

  Beyond them were trees as far as the eye could see, the brown of wide trunks interspersed with hues of green. Their leaves extended upward into a thick canopy, blocking out most of the sunlight, shaking in a whispering breeze. The wind wasn’t strong enough to carry away the acrid odor leaking from the bodies.

  “They smell dead,” I said.

  “The dead don’t smell nearly as bad as those still living.”

  I turned to her, clutching my stomach. “You’re Olivia, Miles’s mother.”

  “And you’re Tara, the girl whose rejection got him killed.”

  “His own violence and insanity got him killed.”

  Her eyes flashed with rage, wild and unpredictable. She stepped in front of me and leaned toward my face. I scooted back as far as I dared without losing my balance. No railing prevented me from jumping, but the ground was so littered with bodies, I knew I wouldn’t be able to avoid them, and the thought of touching them horrified me.

  “My son was a visionary, like his father. You are a weak little girl, a mindless puppet. My son’s only mistake was compassion. You won’t find that here.”

  Miles had compassion? I didn’t want to think what it said about her personality if she thought so. I kept my mouth shut until she retreated enough that I could move my feet away from the edge.

  “Let’s go. We’re wasting daylight, and the smell is giving me a headache.” She went to the far edge of the box and began climbing down the ladder mounted there. The man who’d opened my cage door motioned for me to follow.

  I hesitated. The reason for coming had been to meet with Olivia, to find out who she was and what she wanted, and to live up to my end of the deal so my friends would be safe. But seeing all of these bodies wasting away, on the brink of death—suddenly getting out of here seemed like a great idea. Except I had no idea where Cord was.

  “Chris! Get her down here now!” Olivia screamed.

  The man with the burly arms took a step toward me. I put my hands up in surrender and stepped onto the ladder. He hovered over me, watching without a word. This close, I could see his dark eyes were glassy and unfocused. A thin sheen of sweat coated his face and neck. His cheeks held a flush that looked like fever.

  When I reached the ground, Olivia began walking without a word. She wove in and out of trees on a narrow path that was littered with overgrown brush and downed branches. Within seconds, we’d left the scene of bodies behind us and woods closed in. Was I being executed already? Had she already done the same to Cord? The fact that I hadn’t seen a sign of her yet made me very nervous.

  “Where is Cord?” I asked, picking my way along the trail to keep pace. Chris followed behind. I could hear him breathing.

  “You mean my son’s murderer? She’s none of your concern.”

  My stomach leaped into my throat. I stopped walking. “What did you do to her?”

  “Nothing … yet. Cooperate and keep it that way.”

  “And Mr. and Mrs. Lexington? Where are they?”

  “On vacation,” she said. Her words dripped with sarcasm and I wasn’t sure if I wanted to know exactly what she meant by that.

  Before I could ask, she stopped at a door that I hadn’t even noticed, it was so covered in branches and vines, and turned a key in the massive lock. It swung inward and Olivia disappeared inside. I followed slowly.

  Only every third bulb worked. All I could see were dirtied walls as we made our way down a narrow hallway. The same smell from the woods lingered here as well—sickly sweet made stale by the confines of the space. Alcohol and disinfectant mixed with it, cutting through the worst of the stench. My chest tightened from the combination of the fumes.

  The hallway ended and opened into a larger space. Gurneys, reminiscent of an ’80s horror flick with their yellowing sheets and rusted joints, lined the walls. All of them held bodies in the same condition as those I’d seen in the woods. Faces flushed with fever, skin hanging loose around their bones like victims of famine or plague. Some of their eyes flickered to me but none reacted. Here and there, I could hear wheezing, bodies straining to breathe. Not many were conscious. My eyes watered, partly from the smell, partly from the horror.

  “What’s wrong with them?” I asked.

  If the sight or smell of the room affected Olivia, she didn’t show it. She went to a glass-fronted cabinet and rifled through, filling her arms with various medical supplies before she answered.

  “They are dying.” She said the words so simply, so matter-of-factly, it gave me chills. “Here, hold this.” She shoved a handful of empty vials into my hands and readjusted the supplies she held. “Come here.”

  “Dying from what?” I asked, following her to a small alcove between a wall and a cabinet.

  “Sit.”

  I sat in the scuffed chair she motioned to, barely paying attention to the contents in her hands as she spread them out on the small table in front of her. Her lips moved, but no sound came. I looked over her shoulder at Chris.

  He stood like a sentry a few feet away. His eyes darted quickly from spot to spot. I suspected it was more from disease than alertness. The sweat on his face and redness in his cheeks had not diminished since our walk. If anything, he looked worse. He caught me watching him and I noticed for the first time the faded yellow ring around his irises. As he stared back at me, his pupils dilated and the yellow rim glowed. Then he blinked and they returned to normal.

  I looked at Olivia again. “What are they dying from?” I repeated.

  When she continued to ignore me, I grabbed her arm. She snatched it away and glared at me, her lips pulled back from her teeth like an animal. “Do not touch me,” she hissed.

  “Answer my question. Why are they dying?”

  She regarded me with disgust. “From the change. Now, give me your arm.”

  “What?” All I could hear was the echoing of her words.

  The change.

  They were dying from the change. A shadow of the powerful, monstrous hybrids I’d seen in the cave with Miles, a sicklier version of the zombie-like creatures I’d faced in the forest that night with Wes. Human-shaped. Emaciated. Dying.

  They looked like … people.

  Like a bad infomercial advertising famine-ravaged villages and war-torn countries, looking for “pennies a day to feed an orphan.” No image I’d ever seen on TV could’ve prepared me for this.

  “Give me your arm,” she said again.

  It wasn’t until she’d grabbed my wrist and
held it still that I noticed the butterfly needle in her hand.

  “What are you doing?” I jerked back, holding my arm protectively against my chest.

  “It’s not what I’m doing. It’s what you’re going to do. Now give me your arm.”

  “No. Not until you tell me what this is.”

  Her eyes flashed with the rage I’d seen earlier. It boiled behind the controlled mask for a few moments before she gained control. “Chris!” He jumped and took a step forward. “Bring out the girl. The other one,” she added.

  He left without a word, back the way we’d come. I heard a door open along the hallway, then feet scuffling and the sound of something being dragged.

  A second later, Chris reappeared, struggling as he dragged a barely conscious Cord behind him. Veins stood out on his neck, deep blue and purple, pronounced against the pallor of his skin.

  It was nothing compared to Cord. Her face was a canvas of bloody bruises and welts. One eye had swelled shut, and I could see a trail of blood leaking from the inside of her mouth—her lip?—down her chin. Her arms were dirty and red. I couldn’t see her hands where they’d tied them behind her back, but I suspected they would look the same as her arms. Her feet were bare, her ankles bound by plastic cording. She blinked her good eye at me, but it was slow, exaggerated.

  I gasped and jumped up to go to her. Olivia shoved me back, the motion so unexpected that I fell back against the chair with a thump.

  “What did you do to her?” I demanded.

  Olivia didn’t answer.

  I pushed off again, this time ready to knock Olivia aside to get to Cord. I could take Chris without difficulty. I probably only needed to shove him one good time and he’d topple. I wasn’t entirely sure he’d even attempt to stop me. I hadn’t seen anyone else that wasn’t half-dead since they’d let me out. Escape wouldn’t be too difficult. Olivia was the healthiest person here—and she was half my weight.

  I made it three steps before the cold sound of a gun cocking stopped me midstride.

  I looked at Olivia. Her eyes were crystal clear, calculated, and sure. The gun she held was pointed at Cord. My heart slammed against my chest.