Boy of Blood

by Megan O'Russell

  “Charles is the baby’s father?” Nola asked, not needing T’s nod to know she was right. “Was he with Nightland when they attacked us?”

  “I don’t know,” T said. “He told me to stay inside. He left me with food and told me to lock the door behind him. By the time I came out, the domes were shattered, and Nightland was empty. But if I can find Emanuel and the vampires, they might know where he is.”

  Nola’s anger splintered.

  She’s alone and pregnant.

  “I’m sorry,” Nola said.

  “I’m not going to be able to find him, am I?” T said.

  Catlyn came up from behind and wrapped an arm around T.

  “We’ll make it through just like we always have,” Catlyn said.

  “You need to stay here for as long as the domes will let you.” Nola hated to pile more terribleness on top of everything else. “You were right. The fighting in the city a few nights ago, it was near the entrance to Nightland. I don’t think you can go home.”

  Tears streamed down T’s face. “Now he won’t be able to find me even if he does come back. It really is over.”

  “I’m sorry,” Nola said again. She began to say If there’s anything I can do but stopped herself. There was nothing she could do. The domes would never allow it.

  “Thank you,” T said.

  Nola nodded, not trusting herself to speak.

  “And don’t worry.” T pressed her hand to the small window that separated them. “I won’t tell the guards anything. I guess we both fell in love with a vampire who abandoned us.”

  Nola felt Jeremy tense beside her but didn’t dare look away.

  “We both survived the vampires,” Nola said, “and Nightland. We just have to keep on surviving.”

  “Thank you,” Catlyn said, taking T by the elbow and leading her away.

  Nola stepped away from the window and buried her face in Jeremy’s chest. She wished he hadn’t been standing there. Hadn’t heard what T had said.

  “I’m sorry,” Nola whispered, so quietly no one on the other side of the door would be able to hear.

  “Don’t be.” Jeremy held her tightly. “You were right, about you both being survivors. Nightland hurt both of you. The way that bastard manipulated you—”

  “Don’t. Please don’t. I don’t want to think about that ever again. It makes me feel sick and filthy, and I hate it.”

  Jeremy kissed the top of her head before tipping her chin up so he could look into her eyes. “I will never, ever let any of them touch you again. I swear to you, Nola. I’ll keep you safe.”

  “I know.” She leaned up and kissed him, letting anger and fear flake away at the taste of his lips. “I believe you. But T. What is she going to do?”

  “The Vamper should have thought about that before he got a girl pregnant and abandoned her in the city.” Jeremy’s mouth twisted in disgust. “The domes’ rules might be harsh sometimes, but at least we don’t have a bunch of fatherless babies starving. And even if there weren’t rules, I would never leave you like that.” Jeremy’s face turned pink as he looked down at Nola. “What I mean is—I mean I wouldn’t…” Jeremy mouthed wordlessly for a moment.

  Nola pressed her hand to her mouth to dampen her feeble laugh as his face turned from pink to scarlet.

  Giving up on words and shaking his head instead, he led her back down the hall.

  Pushing the door to the barracks corridor open a crack, he peered through before leading Nola out into the hall.

  One of the guards at the stairs turned to look at them, smirking at Nola and winking at Jeremy before turning back around. It was Nola’s turn to blush as Jeremy led her back into his room.

  “At least we know you’re safe. I wish we could have talked to her away from the others,” Jeremy said, lowering himself onto the bed. Nola took his arm, trying to help him, but instead, he pulled her to lay next to him.

  “I think T and Catlyn will keep them from talking.” Nola untied the knot at the end of her hair, shaking her curls free of the tight braid. “If the domes knew T had ties that close to Nightland, they never would have let her in.” Ties that close seemed an insufficient term for carrying a Vamper’s baby. “That’ll have to be enough for tonight.”

  She lay down on the bed, letting herself melt into Jeremy’s shoulder.

  “No matter what T says,” Jeremy said, his voice growing fainter with each word, “we’re in this together. I won’t let them take you from me.”

  In a minute, Jeremy’s breathing was steady and even. But Nola couldn’t sleep. What if she had been the one with a child growing inside of her? Abandoned by Kieran, not knowing where he had gone?

  She held tightly to the front of Jeremy’s shirt, promising herself that he wouldn’t run from her.

  The outsiders didn’t have the same marriage laws the domes lived by. There were no children born without fathers in the domes. In order to gain permission to have a child in the domes, you had to apply to the Council and go through genetic testing to ensure healthy offspring. She knew some people had snuck into the far corners of the glass, or met in dark passages, in the middle of the night. But unapproved children couldn’t be allowed. The domes’ population had to be methodically controlled. Even with the loss of life in the attacks, they still would have to be careful to repopulate according to dome needs.

  But in the outside world, there was no Council to say who was allowed to be the father of your child. Only a young girl in love with a vampire. And now she was locked in a cell, with no hope for a safe place for her child to be born.

  Tears burned in the corners of Nola’s eyes as she fell asleep. A faint shadow haunted her dreams. A boy she loved, staring down at her as she held their child in her arms.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Dazzling blue filled the bright sky. The gray smoke had stopped drifting up from the domes. The last of the bodies had been burned, and as Nola looked out over the hill there was no sign that anything terrible had ever happened to the domes. The glass that had been shattered in the attack had been repaired or replaced. Cleaning the ventilation systems and making the glass stronger than it had been before were the only things the outsiders were still working on in the atrium and the Grassland Dome. But the labor in the Amber Dome was far from finished.

  It had been three days since she and Jeremy had visited T in the locked rooms. Three days of nothing. No alarms, no scares. Waking up, working, seeing Jeremy, sleeping. It amazed Nola that three days could now feel like a new normal. After everything that had happened, three days of calm seemed an incredible gift. Jeremy had moved into the large barracks room and would begin duty again soon. Nola had gone back to sleeping in her own room. Peace had settled over the domes.

  She didn’t even know she had been humming until T poked her in the arm. “Nola. What’s going on?”

  T had given up on calling Nola Miss after their evening meeting. Their brief talk through the glass had forged a tenuous camaraderie between them.

  Nola smiled as T cocked her head, examining her.

  “Nothing.” Nola grinned. “Just having a good morning.”

  “Well, then.” T smiled back before moving down the long line of new seed trays that were their day’s work.

  Nola reveled in the feeling of the warm earth under her fingers. Planting a seed, knowing it would grow into food that would provide for the domes.

  “It’s a little strange,” Catlyn said from down the row, “that your botanist mother named you after a flower, isn’t it?”

  “What?” Nola laughed.

  “Well, it’s a bit strange, don’t you think?” Catlyn said.

  “Leave it, Catlyn,” Beauford said.

  “My mother likes plants, so she named me after a flower. Is that weird?” Nola asked.

  The guards turned to look over at them. Nola skipped a few pots, moving closer to the others so she could speak more quietly. “I mean, how do they choose names on the outside?”

  “The same as anyone chooses a n
ame,” Beauford said. “Pick a name, call a kid it, and be done.” He stalked back to the front of the row and took an overly long time grabbing seeds.

  “I still don’t understand why my name is strange,” Nola said.

  “It’s not your name she’s worried about,” T said. “Catlyn is unhappy with how I want to name my baby.”

  “Naming it after a man who abandoned you,” Catlyn said. “Tell her, Miss Kent, tell her that’s an awful idea.”

  Nola froze for a moment as both women stared at her. “Do you know if it’s a boy?” she asked, hoping to dodge the name question.

  “Charlie could be either a boy’s or a girl’s name,” T said. “Don’t you think it’s nice, Nola?”

  “It’s great,” Nola said. “If that’s what you want.”

  “A constant reminder of a man who ran out on you?” Catlyn’s voice dripped with disgust.

  “He didn’t run out. It’s more complicated than that, and you know it,” T said.

  Nightland. They were going to talk about Nightland. They were moving from planting seeds and worrying about baby names to Nightland.

  Shadows shouldn’t be allowed to destroy sunny mornings.

  “How did you get your name, T?” Nola asked.

  “I don’t know.” T shrugged. “It’s not my real name. At least not all of it. I think it was a nickname, or a shortening of my name. But my parents died when I was little, and the lady that took me in kept calling me T. She died too, though. By the time I thought to ask what T was short for, everyone who would have known was gone. So, I stuck with T.”

  It felt like someone had punched a hole straight through Nola’s stomach. T carried on, working as though she hadn’t said anything strange or sad at all. Like having no one alive who could tell you your real name was an ordinary thing.

  “And as for you, Catlyn”—T turned back to her, pointing with a dirt-covered finger—“I’m the one carrying the baby, and I’ll name it whatever I damn well please. Maybe I’ll make it a tradition and call the baby C.”

  Catlyn tsked and flicked T’s hand away.

  “We should hurry,” Nola said, grateful for once for the presence of the ever-watchful guards. Glad to have the excuse to walk away and work on the other side of the tray. A normal day. That was what she craved. A day filled with happiness, untainted by fear. A schedule she knew how to follow, and a task to call her own. She hadn’t been able to start back in classes yet. No one had even mentioned when she would be allowed to return to school.

  She felt selfish and angry. She was well-fed and had a bed to sleep in.

  I want my life back.

  A low chime sounded overhead.

  At once, all the Domers stopped, calmly waiting for what would come next. The outsiders glanced around fearfully.

  Nola ran over to Catlyn and T, who stood frozen as the chime sounded again.

  “It’s okay,” Nola said. “It’s just an announcement. It isn’t like the sirens.”

  A voice had already begun to speak.

  “Citizens of the domes. In light of the recent tragedies that have been inflicted upon these domes by the troubles in the city, the Council has requested replacement citizens be brought to live in our community. The twenty-five new residents will be transferring from their home domes tonight. While the majority of new residents are going to be moving directly into the Guard barracks, there will need to be a few adjustments to housing. Any domes’ citizen whose housing arrangements will be required to change will be notified immediately. We appreciate your cooperation and understanding and hope you will welcome your new neighbors with open arms. They have left their homes to help us in protecting ours.”

  With a faint crackle, the speakers went silent.

  More people were coming to join the domes. Twenty-five people none of them had ever met were leaving their own far away domes to come and share Nola’s home.

  “If they wanted more people to fight for the domes, you think they would have looked to those starving in the city,” Beauford said loudly enough for the guards fifty feet away to hear.

  Catlyn and T both turned away from him as though wanting to distance themselves from his words. Though it stung, Nola knew he was right. They had workers living in cells in the domes. It would have been kinder to give them a permanent home instead of bringing in others, but it would never have been allowed.

  They aren’t like us.

  They were outsiders. They hadn’t been given a dome education and had spent too long in the filthy air, drinking polluted water, and eating the contaminated food to be approved for breeding.

  Beauford wasn’t the only outsider who seemed unhappy about the announcement. A woman on the other side of the Amber Dome screeched at the Domer in charge of her group.

  “You’re going to throw us out to starve? You’ve got extra food and space and you’re going to send us out into the city as soon as you’re done with us? Let us burn in the riots or bleed for the vampires? Better yet, be meat to feed the wolves? You’re worse monsters than any of them! At least when a wolf wants you dead, he’s got the courtesy to do it fast with no lies about saving the world or pretending it isn’t plain old murder!”

  A sharp pop sounded from the pack of guards. A tiny silver dart hit the side of the woman’s neck, dropping her to the ground.

  The dart only contained a sedative to make the woman sleep, but the outsiders didn’t seem to know or care.

  The others in the screaming woman’s group ran forward, stepping between her and the guard that had shot the woman. Shouts echoed from all sides of the Amber Dome as people started to panic.

  “They’re going to kill us!” A man charged toward the guards, hitting one in the stomach with a shovel before being knocked backward by another guard, who shot a silver dart into his neck.

  All of the guards in the dome surged toward the fighting. And the rest of the outsiders ran toward the fight as well.

  “Beauford, no!” Catlyn screamed, catching his arm as he moved to join the fray.

  A young man had run forward and grabbed a ladder to push back the guards. A dart struck him in the chest, but two women grabbed the ladder, using it like a battering ram to attack the guards.

  “It won’t help!” T held onto Beauford’s other arm, but he was strong. The two women wouldn’t be able to hold him much longer.

  “Follow me.” Nola added her weight to Beauford’s arm as she helped Catlyn and T drag him away.

  “We can’t let them do this to us!” Beauford fought to pull away from them.

  “You can’t stop it either!” Nola said. “Try and fight if you want, but it’ll only be one more dart they have to fire.”

  Beauford froze for a moment before his arms sagged.

  “Good, now come on.” Running away from the fighting, Nola led them toward the back of the dome, where thick rows of vines sat low along the wall.

  Ducking under the leaves, Nola winced as she felt a vine snap.

  More shouting voices filled the dome. Nola glanced back. She could barely make out a dozen black-clad guards running up the stairs to join the fight.

  “Get down and be quiet.” Nola pushed aside the last of the vines. A set of low, thorny bushes blocked them from the glass. Creating a gap between bushes, she ignored the thorns that pulled at her palms, crouching down and using her weight to ease the way through the brambles for the others.

  “Are we just going to hide back here?” Beauford said as soon as he was through.

  “Yes, we are.” Nola leaned back against the glass.

  The sounds of the fighting had already changed.

  Guards bellowed orders, and Lenora Kent’s voice cut above it all.

  “I don’t care what you’re trying to do, stay the hell off my plants!”

  Nola smiled. Of course her mother would be standing in the middle of a fight, screaming about plants.

  Blood oozed out of the scratches on her hands. She wiped it onto her gardening suit. She would be able to wash her hands soon
enough.

  “I didn’t take you as the type to run from a fight,” T whispered as the last of the screaming stopped. “I figured you for the sort to run in and try to stop it.”

  “That lady shouldn’t have attacked the Domer.” Nola closed her eyes against the bright sun. “But the domes shouldn’t be using you the way they are. Sometimes I feel like the right thing is too abstract for me to understand.”

  “How poetic,” Catlyn said.

  “But I do know that all those people will be put outside on the road before dark, and I don’t want that to happen to the three of you. The most right thing I could think of was to keep you three safe. So that’s what I did.”

  “Who the hell’s got time for a moral compass when north keeps changing?” T said.

  “Nola!” A voice shouted from the center of the dome. “Nola!”

  “Back here!” Nola called. “Jeremy, we’re back here!” Before she could stand, Jeremy had appeared, leaping over plants and dodging through vines to get to her.

  “Nola, are you hurt?” Jeremy took her face in his hands.

  “I’m fine.” She smiled, her heart flipping at the depth of Jeremy’s concern for her. “Really, we all are. The fight started, and we ran.”

  Jeremy kissed her. “Thank you. Thank you for not trying to stop the whole thing yourself.”

  T and Catlyn grinned behind him.

  “And thank you for taking care of her,” Jeremy said to the three outsiders. “Come on, let’s get you out in the open before they think you got into the tunnels.”

  “Did outsiders get into the tunnels?” Nola followed Jeremy to the center of the dome.

  “Some of them tried,” Jeremy said.

  The outsiders who had been fighting were all laid out on the ground. Some of them were bloody or had swollen faces. Others looked like they might have been sleeping.

  “Nola.” Lenora ran up to her daughter. “I should have known that of all the people trusted to work with the outsiders, you would be the only one able to manage them.”

  “I didn’t manage them,” Nola said. “They didn’t want to fight.”

  Lenora wasn’t listening. “Now we’ll have more repair work on top of everything else and no one to help. I think we’ve proven this is a failed experiment.”