by K. A. Tucker
A quick warning glance Julian’s way earned a smirk. “When I start feeding on rats, you have my permission to kill me,” he muttered, taking off out the door.
The purr of the Rover’s engine broke the silence outside.
“Good boy,” I cooed, my feet slipping soundlessly back along the marble tile toward the open door. The Chihuahua’s little paw twitched and tested the tile hesitantly, watching me.
He was cute, I had to admit. Leaning down again, I beckoned him, whispering, “Goodbye, little guy. You should head back upstairs.”
Seconds passed as he just stared at me.
And then the little bastard came flying.
I should’ve been able to avoid his jaws but he was moving fast and I was caught unaware. “Ahhhh!” Tiny, razor-sharp teeth sunk into my hand, just barely breaking the skin.
With that out of the way, he let loose, his ear-piercing bark echoing through the neighborhood.
I bolted out the door, climbing into the passenger seat. “Go!” Julian squealed out of the driveway and threw the car into drive.
“The little asshole bit me!”
Julian laughed. “Why on earth would you let it bite you?”
“I didn’t let him,” I grumbled, wiggling my now-healed fingers. “I was just trying to pet him.”
Shaking his head slowly, his mouth kicked up in a smirk, he murmured, “You’ve changed so much but you really haven’t, have you?” After a pause, he added, “That’s a good thing.”
Looking out the back window, I found the dog standing firm in the middle of the driveway. Perhaps he wasn’t afraid after all. Or perhaps he was terrified but willing to risk everything for those he loved.
Maybe that yappy little dog and I had something in common.
And maybe I needed to tell my yappy big dog that I was not coming home anytime soon.
Before I could make a decision one way or another, the words “Manhattan” and “devastation” blaring over the radio caught my attention. A massive subway train crash in Manhattan, shutting down the entire system … An explosion and street cave-in above the Second Avenue construction site less than twenty minutes later … Half of the city’s emergency crew digging through the wreckage, searching for survivors, while the police were overwhelmed by a swarm of “attacks” and madmen running the streets.
The reporters may not have labeled them correctly but we knew what they were.
Fledglings. By all accounts, it sounded as if Manhattan had been overrun.
Julian buried the odometer needle and I gripped the roll bar handle as we raced toward the catastrophe.
*
“Try her again!”
I hit redial on Amelie’s preprogrammed number and waited. “Still no answer.” A single red power bar glared back at me. “And this phone’s about to die.”
Julian growled and punched the side of his door, his fist cracking the plastic. “Okay. Try Lilly again. Please,” he pleaded, swerving onto the shoulder as we raced down the expressway toward the bridge that would get us into Manhattan.
I did, for the fourth time. This time, she picked up almost immediately.
“Where are you?” I rushed.
“Heading to Central Park. Why?”
“Julian and I are on our way. We’ll meet you there soon.”
“What? No! Turn around,” Lilly’s normally calm voice screeched. “It’s over. We’ve lost. We’re retreating.”
My stomach curdled. Retreating now? Already? But … “But Amelie—”
“She’s missing.”
“I know! That’s why we’re coming in!”
Several yells and grunts filled the receiver, followed by a growl and then a howl of pain.
Then, silence.
“Hello? Lilly? Hello?” A scan at the black screen on my phone confirmed that my battery had cut out. “Shit! I guess Galen didn’t think about extra batteries, did he?” Guilt pricked me with mention of his name and I silently chastised myself for speaking ill of the dead.
Desperately, I rifled through the glove compartment and the console. “Who doesn’t have a phone charger in their car?” I screamed.
“Try the floor,” Julian said.
I leaned forward to search the darkness around my feet. My fingers made contact with wire and I pulled the cord’s end up to the light to see if it would work.
That’s when Max entered my head.
Where the hell are you two?
“I can’t deal with this now …,” I muttered to myself, an even larger spark of guilt stirring in my belly. I’d deceived Max countless times for his own good and had promised never to do it again. Julian’s hunting. If I told Max the truth, he’d be tearing through the woods after me. I needed him there, watching over Veronique and the others.
What’s he hunting?
Deer.
And do the deer have 9-1-1 on their speed dials? Because the police and ambulance sirens have been going off for the past half hour.
I sucked my bottom lip into my mouth. Dixon’s family. I hoped his mother made it. There may have been an incident.
“So? Will it work?” Julian urged, pulling my attention back to our need for communication with the group.
“No. The plug’s too wide,” I said, tossing the cord to the floor.
“A lot of people have more than one phone these days. Let me check under my seat,” Julian offered, leaning forward to fish a hand under the seat, at the same time as Max grumbled, I think you’ve had enough fresh air.
“We’ll be back in an hour,” I lied, earning Julian’s confused glance. I shook my head. “Sorry, I mean …” Maybe this whole communicating via telepathy thing wasn’t so fantastic. We’ll be back in an hour. I followed suit, first reaching beneath my seat, and then turned to fish around on the floor in the back seat.
I’m bored, Max moaned. And Celine talks too much about silly things. And she’s petting me. I may bite her soon.
Just … relax. You did a lot of that in the mountains. I know you excel at it.
We had bigger issues to worry about right now than a bored werebeast and a chatty southern fledgling.
There was a pause and then, I’m definitely going to bite her.
Get out of my head, Max!
Fine. Don’t ask for updates from me.
“Oh, shit!” Julian shouted. I spun in my seat in time to see a blue Toyota swerving onto the shoulder in front of us. Julian slammed on the brakes, sending my body lurching forward. The seat belt cut into my neck. We were going too fast. The roads were too icy. There was no room to maneuver.
The sound of crunching metal and breaking glass blasted my ears as we slammed into the back of the car, our dashboard exploding as the air bags discharged into my face for the second time tonight. I felt the bone in my nose snap—also for a second time tonight. The pain barely registered before it was gone, leaving only a light hissing sound coming from the engine.
“Evie! Are you okay?” Julian yelled.
“Of course!” My nostrils caught a pungent odor. “Is the car—”
“On fire?” Julian shouldered the driver’s side door, shattering the remaining glass in the window as the metal heaved off its hinges. I reached down and tore through my seat belt. Grabbing my arm, he yanked me out, the jagged glass on his seat slashing at my clothes and skin.
People were already climbing out of their cars, some staring at us with wide eyes while others ran to the Toyota, trying in vain to open the doors. I suspected they’d need the Jaws of Life. The thing was folded up like an accordion.
Chaos swirled around us as people ran and shouted and grabbed onto us. I watched Julian’s eyes chasing after them, widening, his arm tensing beneath my grip. Oh, not this again!
“Julian. You are not going to harm any of these people.” With my free hand, I grasped his jaw, forcing his attention on me. “We need to find Amelie,” I reminded him, ignoring the shouts of “Are you okay?” around us.
His head bobbed up and down. “I’ll find another car.�
� He took off, leaving me standing on the side of the highway, surrounded by frantic spectators, remorse stabbing at my insides as I stared at the Toyota.
One heartbeat remained inside.
“Evie!” I heard Julian’s voice and I knew we had to go, to let the spectators deal with this.
And yet I also knew that maybe I could help this person. There were too many witnesses. We were heading into a warzone, based on the horrifying picture that the radio had painted for us. I was desperate to see Caden. I was desperate to find Amelie. There were so many valid reasons to run now and yet my legs didn’t want to move.
Until my ears caught the child’s cry within the car.
Viggo had told me once that children were so hard to resist.
It was followed closely by a waft of honey sweetness.
I didn’t wait. I couldn’t. I bolted for the car, shoving the humans out of the way, beating Julian by half a second to barricade the door. “Don’t you dare!” There was no effort in finding my emotions behind that. I’d witnessed many horrors in my life but I would never allow that to happen. “You will never so much as look at a human and think of feeding off of them again, do you understand?” I pushed out through gritted teeth, that energy within me reaching the boiling point, overflowing into my limbs. I was less intent on compelling Julian and more determined to push my own will onto him. To get what I wanted. And I didn’t want to deal with this anymore.
Cries of confusion and horror filled the air but I ignored them. Julian’s shoes scraped over the shards of glass and loose stones as he stepped back.
Another wail assaulted my ears. Flames blossomed from the hood of our mangled mess. It was close enough to this car to threaten it.
A spider web of cracks stretched across the passenger window but the panel remained intact. I put my fist through it and peered inside.
And almost cried out.
A toddler sat nestled in his car seat, tears mixing with the red smears across his cheeks. A chunk of flying glass jutted out of his little thigh. He was alone back there, the couple in the front snug within their seats, the dashboard pressed against their chests.
Not breathing.
I clenched my teeth against the pain of the jagged glass shards slicing into my hands as my fingers curled around the doorframe. I yanked on the door and it peeled back like a tin can before the hinges finally snapped. I tossed it aside, sending several people skittering back.
“Shhh …,” I cooed, climbing in to stroke the little boy’s cheek. The glass must have severed a major artery because there was so much blood. So much that I wasn’t sure he’d survive long enough for help, especially not with his heart beating three times faster than it should be, pumping the blood even faster. So much blood, and yet it didn’t appeal to me. Not in the least. The only thing that appealed to me was helping this little boy.
Just as I had with Dixon and his broken leg, I felt the inexplicable urge to make this little boy whole again, to close the wound so he would survive.
Even if for just a while longer, until the mess in this world caught up to him.
I didn’t fight that overwhelming energy inside me this time. I knew I wouldn’t hurt him. “You’re fine,” I lied softly, staring into his eyes as I tried to calm his overactive heart. “You’re going to be just fine.”
His hysterical cries turned to sobs and then whimpers, slowing his heart rate. I can’t believe how natural it had become to compel.
The little boy’s eyes were glued to my face as I reached forward, my hand taking hold of the glass. I could see the wound—such a clean cut. The muscles and veins and skin needed mending but the glass was in the way. I pulled the chunk out with one hand while my other held the wound together. That same energy swelled and radiated, my body feeling waves of hot and cold. In my peripherals, the flames from the Rover lashed out as if someone had poured gasoline on them.
In mere seconds, the wound was gone.
Unfastening the car seat, I pulled the pacified boy out, his clothes soaked with blood and shredded by glass. With one last look at his round, chubby face, I handed the boy off to a middle-aged woman nearby who I could sense was eager to protect him. She would keep him safe until the police came, which could be some time.
To any human there, Julian and I simply vanished.
As did an unfortunate man’s blue pickup truck, heading for the bridge into Manhattan.
Despite the pending doom, a smile stretched over my lips.
The Fates may have been kind to me, after all.
*
My smile didn’t last long.
We soon abandoned the stolen truck and instead traveled the rest of the way on foot, easily weaving around the cars. There was too much traffic for this time of night, even for New York City. Most vehicles seemed to be moving in one direction: out.
For me, the throbs of heartbeats, though still fascinating, were beginning to fade into the background, in comparison to all the other things I could do. Of course, I didn’t assume that the steady drum of human life had faded for Julian and so I kept within two feet of him at all times, my attention split between the growing chaos ahead and my friend, whose eyes seemed locked on our path.
Maybe Julian finally had beaten his irrepressible urges. Or maybe he was just that worried about Amelie.
We were maybe six blocks from the north end of Central Park when we ran into the first fledgling. He looked ordinary enough—shoulders hunched, hands tucked into his pockets as he sped down the sidewalk.
Until he suddenly reached out and yanked a passerby into him, his mouth latching onto her neck. My feet faltered and I blinked several times, making sure I wasn’t just paranoid. Her friend’s screams beside them quickly confirmed that I wasn’t. In a matter of seconds, he finished with the woman, leaving her body to tumble to the ground as he went for her friend.
“We need to do something!” I took off, charging for the fledgling. Julian’s feet pounded the pavement next to me.
The fledgling released the second body with a hiss. He took off down the street, the orange sports emblem stitched into the back of his jacket disappearing around the corner just as we reached the two women.
“Are they … dead?” Julian asked. We stood over the two victims.
“No heartbeats usually means that,” I said, glancing around, suddenly worried that someone would think we did this.
“Should we just—” Julian started when the first woman, a pretty blond in her mid-twenties, began to convulse. “What the …” Julian’s voice drifted off. We managed to jump away just as a stream of vomit shot out of her mouth.
“Oh my God,” I gasped. “He turned her!” The other woman’s body began to convulse and we moved away, knowing her stomach contents would soon be making an appearance. “Her too!”
“What do we do?” Julian whispered as approaching footsteps pulled our gaze. A man with a cigarette between his fingers walked along the street, a dog trailing beside him. The man appeared clueless while the dog held its nose in the air.
“Burn them, I guess. If we don’t, they’re going to be killing people within an hour.”
That made sense, though the idea turned my stomach. They’d been alive not two minutes ago. “Do you have a lighter? Matches?”
“No.”
I checked the street around us. More late-night walkers. More witnesses. “Why are these people even out? Don’t they know what’s happening all around them?”
We’d run out of time.
People walking became people running, their phones already out as their boots pounded the pavement toward us. By the shouts, most were calling 9-1-1 but the man with the dog actually snapped a picture of the bodies. What the hell was wrong with people?
“Too late. Let’s go.” Julian yanked on my arm. We ran the way the fledgling had gone.
“Maybe we can still stop him!” I yelled. I had no idea how to fight but together, Julian and I could overpower him.
We rounded another corner, towards the shouts
and bangs ahead. Julian seized my arm, yanking me back into the shadow of a doorway. A large truck parked along the curb helped our cover.
“What?”
Julian pointed at moving figures half a block ahead. Fledglings. Hundreds of them: running, attacking, running again. But that wasn’t what he was pointing at. A wall of soldiers in war fatigues marched into the area, arms laden with heavy-looking guns, all directed out.
“Don’t they know that guns can’t stop them?” I tried to keep my voice down. “They’re going to get slaughtered!”
I spotted the orange emblem of the fledgling we’d been chasing. He darted toward the soldiers just as one raised his gun and fired. As if in slow motion, I watched the bullet—a large torpedo-shaped silver object—sail through the air and drive into the fledgling’s chest.
The fledging dropped to his knees. “One … two … three,” I counted quietly, expecting him to rise. Orange flames suddenly sprouted from the fledgling’s chest. He let out a blood-curdling scream and then toppled over, his entire body engulfed in seconds.
“Holy shit,” Julian said as the soldiers took off, stopping to target the fledglings distracted by their kills. Countless fires burned on the pavement.
These were the special guns that Mage had talked about—the ones that made our kind highly mortal.
“We need to get out of here,” I warned Julian, grabbing onto his hand. We took off, sprinting past the soldiers without earning so much as a head turn. I silently commended them for risking their lives. Truly, that’s what they were doing. Because Julian and I could easily have snapped their necks where they stood.
As we ran deeper into Manhattan, more bodies littered the streets. Countless sirens wailed in our ears. And fledglings ran rampant.
We had to find Caden and the others. And then I hoped we’d run until we found peace, because I didn’t believe that any peace would come to this city despite our best efforts.
Chapter Ten – Sofie
Caden’s lone figure stood leaning against the bronze rabbit, like a beacon within our deep well of darkness. I allowed myself the smallest sigh of relief before distress bowled me over.
