Boy of Blood

by Megan O'Russell

  “Raina, do you know where Emanuel is?” Nola asked.

  “Torturing the filthy Vamper didn’t work, so sending a lost little girl to ask questions will make me talk? Pathetic Domers,” Raina grumbled, as though talking in her sleep.

  “You don’t have to tell me where he is,” Nola said. “I only need to know if you can find him.”

  “I fought by Emanuel’s side.” Raina rolled onto her back and stared up at the ceiling. “I will always be able to find him.”

  “Will you take me to him?” Nola’s heart crashed against her ribs. “Me and three outsiders the domes have trapped.”

  “Take you to him to kill him? To collect a bounty on his head? I’ll take torture first.” Raina curled back up into a tight ball.

  “I’m leaving the domes,” Nola said. “I can’t stay here anymore. They used me to murder people. I can’t live with that.”

  “Huh!” Raina laughed. “So, he was right all along. The beautiful girl locked in the domes with a heart big enough to want to save the poor ones left out to die.”

  “Right now, I just want to save the people I’m taking with me,” Nola said, her face so close to the glass her breath fogged her view of Raina. “The city is falling, I don’t think there’s anywhere left we can survive but wherever Emanuel is.”

  “Not my problem,” Riana said.

  “One of the girls is pregnant,” Nola said. “The baby’s father is with Nightland. Raina, please.”

  “I can’t help you.” She turned her head just enough to be able to peer at Nola through the matted strands of scarlet and purple hair. “Even if I wanted to tell you, words alone couldn’t help you find Emanuel.”

  “I don’t want words. I’m taking you with me.”

  Raina pushed herself up to her elbows and glared at Nola.

  “I’m going to get you out of here, but you have to help us get out of the domes and take us to Emanuel.” Nola spoke as though each word were a dart, throwing them at Raina, making sure she had no choice but to understand.

  “You want to let the monster out of its cage, ask it for a favor, and hope it doesn’t rip your throat out?” Raina pushed herself to her shaky legs and wobbled to the door.

  “You aren’t a monster,” Nola said. “You saved me when Nightland attacked. The knife that got you stuck in here was meant for me. So yes, I am going to let you out and hope we can get out of the glass and to Emanuel without the Domers or the wolves killing us.”

  “You left out vampires and zombies.” Raina gave a grin that didn’t reach her eyes. “Fine, better to die on the outside than in this damned room.”

  “But no killing in the domes.” Nola’s fingers hovered above the keypad. “I know they hurt you, but we’re not going to cut innocent throats to get out of here.”

  “I think our definitions of innocent might differ,” Raina said.

  “No killing on the way out. Or I swear I will leave you in this cell to rot.” Nola held Raina’s gaze, every instinct telling her the vampire was searching her for a sign of weakness.

  “Fine,” Raina said after a long moment. “I won’t kill anyone, unless they try to kill me first. Is that all right with you, oh mighty rescuer?”

  “If they try and lock us back up, we’ll all fight, Nola,” Catlyn said. “We won’t have a choice.”

  Nola scrunched her eyes closed, trying to block out the memories of the domes’ floors smeared with blood.

  “Fine.”

  25663

  Panic seized Nola’s heart for the split second between pressing the 3 and the beep of the door unlocking. Raina twisted the door handle and pushed it open, her legs wobbling as she stepped out into the hall. “And here I didn’t think I’d ever get out of that cell.”

  “How are we going to get past the guards to the stairs?” T asked, the twisting of her fingers the only betrayal of her fear.

  “I’m going to get past the guards by the stairs.” Nola walked down the hall. “You wait until there’s an opening and run for it. Don’t let yourselves be seen. Raina will take you to where the way through the glass used to be. I’m sure she’ll remember where it was. She used it before.”

  “Too right I did.” Raina stumbled and tipped forward. Catlyn and Beauford both lunged to catch her before her face hit the ground.

  “Is she going to be able to make it out of here?” T whispered to Nola.

  “She can still hear you,” Raina snarled as Catlyn helped her to her feet, “but she hasn’t eaten in a month. Let’s try starving you for that long and see how well you do?”

  “They haven’t fed you for a month?” Nola asked, louder than she’d meant to. She clapped a hand over her mouth, and the group waited in silence for a moment.

  “I think they wanted to see if it would break me,” Raina said. “Or maybe they just wanted to see how long a vampire lasts without a food source. Besides, I don’t think they would have found it tasteful to feed a guest of the domes blood.”

  “You need to eat.” T turned to Nola. “Do you have something sharp?”

  “What? No.”

  T reached into Nola’s pocket and pulled out the glass seed dish. She took off the top and passed the bottom that held the seeds back to her.

  “T, don’t,” Nola began, but T had already placed the lid on the ground and stomped on it, breaking the glass with a crunch. Without pausing, she reached down and picked up the largest piece of glass, moving it toward her neck.

  “T, no.” Catlyn grabbed T’s hand. “You can’t do that with the baby. You need all the blood you have to stay healthy.”

  “She needs to eat, or we won’t make it out of here,” T said.

  “Then use me,” Catlyn said. “You make the cut, and she can drink from me. I’m not growing a human life. I’m sure I have blood to spare.”

  The two women stared at each other for a moment before T raised the piece of glass to Catlyn’s neck, making a small cut right above her shoulder.

  Ruby drops formed on Catlyn’s skin, sparkling in the artificial light of the hall.

  “Thank you,” Raina breathed.

  “Well, eat up,” Catlyn said. “I can’t stand here bleeding all night.”

  Raina licked the first drop of blood that rolled down Catlyn’s pale flesh. The hall spun for a second, but Nola couldn’t look away as Raina lowered her mouth over the wound and greedily began to drink. Catlyn turned her head away and froze, never moving as Raina drank.

  A faint tinkling sound cut through the air as T dropped the bit of glass she had used to slice Catlyn’s flesh. Her fingers were bleeding, but she didn’t seem to mind. Blood couldn’t bother her if she had sold her own to the Vampers of Nightland. Pale scars lined the base of T’s neck. Nola had never noticed them before.

  I didn’t want to look.

  “Thank you,” Raina said a few minutes later as she pulled away from Catlyn. Blood coated her lips, but rather than making her look like a monster, it made her look glamourous. Like the blood was nothing more than shiny red lipstick.

  “Are you sure you don’t need more?” Catlyn pressed her sleeve to her neck. The wound had nearly stopped bleeding.

  “We can’t afford to slow you down either.” Raina grinned, showing red-stained teeth.

  “Right.” Nola spun to face the door. “When the hall is clear, you get out of here. I’ll meet you at the way out.”

  With more confidence than she felt, Nola pulled the door to the cell corridor open and walked out into the barracks corridor. The two guards still stood at the stairs with their backs to her. Faint voices sounded in the barracks, but there were no longer people meandering around the hall.

  Keeping her shoulders back, Nola walked toward the stairs, not looking at the guards as she passed them.

  “Everything all right then?” one of the guards called up after her. The young one she had spoken to before. He smiled up at her expectantly as though hoping she would stay and talk to him more.

  “Everything’s fine.” She forced herself to
smile. “Well, I suppose as fine as things ever get these days. And thank you, for everything.”

  Nola climbed the steps, ignoring the sounds of the second guard laughing at the first. They were deep down in the tunnels, laughing, secure in their safety. How could they forget fires and blood so quickly?

  As soon as she was up the first flight of steps and out of sight of the guards, Nola turned and walked a few feet down the hall leading off in the opposite direction of Bright Dome.

  Heart racing, she opened her mouth to scream. “Ahh. Ouch! Help! Can you please help!” She let her voice wobble as she lay down on the floor, hoping her cry had been enough to illicit action but not panic.

  “Miss Kent!” the young guard called up the stairs. Two sets of heavy footsteps came running.

  Both guards appeared at the top of the steps, weapons drawn.

  “Miss Kent”—the young guard knelt next to her while the other’s gaze swept the hall—“what happened? Have you been attacked?”

  “No, I just”—Nola pushed herself halfway to sitting before falling back to the ground—“I was walking, and I got so dizzy. I fell, I think I hit my head.”

  “There weren’t any intruders?” the second guard asked.

  “No.” Heat flooded Nola’s cheeks. “I think I just panicked or something. I’m so sorry.”

  “We need to get you to the medical unit.” The young guard moved to pick her up as the other turned back toward the stairs.

  Not enough time.

  “I can walk.” Nola pushed herself to her feet, swayed, and toppled toward the guard who had been walking away.

  “Careful!” the young guard shouted.

  Nola clawed at the back of the other guard. He spun to face her, a look of fear on his face Nola felt sure he hadn’t worn when fighting wolves.

  Nothing more terrifying to a strong man than a fainting woman.

  Nola hid her smile as she fell back to the floor, gasping for breath.

  “I can’t—” Nola wheezed. “I can’t breathe!”

  Both guards stared at her now.

  “Please, I can’t breathe!”

  “Go get a doctor,” the young guard said. The other turned to move, but Nola caught him by the front of his uniform, stopping him from turning just as four sets of feet crept by.

  “No!” she said. “Home. Please, I want to go home.”

  “You need a doctor,” the young guard said.

  “No, I can’t go see them again. Please.” Nola pushed herself up to her elbows. “I’ve already been there today. I got hit on the head, and with the bridge…” Tears streamed from her eyes. “I really think I’m all right. I just want to go home.”

  “Are you sure?” The older guard stood and backed away.

  “Really, thank you.” Nola smiled wanly when the young guard helped her to her feet. “Please don’t tell anyone about this. I don’t think I can take being poked by a doctor again.”

  “Sure,” the young guard said, easing his grip on her arm, “but if you keep not feeling your best, you might have to go see the doctor anyway. Don’t let yourself get sick. Every citizen of the domes is needed, and needed healthy now more than ever.”

  Nola nodded and walked up the hallway, feeling their eyes on her. She wanted to rip her skin off, to get rid of every bit of flesh those guards had touched.

  Needed healthy now more than ever. Breeding. He was talking about breeding.

  Fighting the urge to run with every step, Nola walked up the corridor with a forced calm. She would have to go the long way around to Bright Dome. Stuck for even longer in the tunnels buried in the ground.

  I’ll never have to walk these tunnels ever again.

  The thought stopped her in her tracks, the sheer weight of it locking her feet to the floor.

  She was leaving her home. The only place she had ever lived. The place where she was born and learned to walk and talk. The place where her father had read to her at night, where she and Kieran had played in the trees. Where she had watched the gray smoke climb in the sky when her father died in a terrible riot in the city. Where she had watched them banish Kieran to the other side of the glass. Where she had let herself love Jeremy.

  “I’m not abandoning the domes,” Nola whispered to the empty hall. “The domes abandoned me.”

  Muscle memory brought her the rest of the way to Bright Dome and up the stone walkway to her house. If she listened hard, she imagined she could hear faint rustlings and whispers under the willow tree, but it wasn’t time for her to join the others yet.

  The lights in the house were off. It wasn’t surprising that Lenora wasn’t home. Nola wished for a moment that she were. That she could hug her mother one last time. But it would have made leaving harder, so perhaps the dark house was better after all.

  It only took her a few minutes to steal the backpack from under her mother’s bed. To pull on the warmest clothes she had and shove a few changes into the bag on top of the vials. She managed to empty the kitchen cabinets and fill the three bottles she could find with water so quickly it hardly seemed like she was moving at all. Only the heavy weight of the pack on her shoulders made it seem real.

  “Goodbye,” Nola said to the empty house, then walked out the door.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Nola stayed off the path as she made her way to the willow tree. Night had fallen, and it was easy to slip unseen through the darkness.

  “It’s me.” Nola stepped around the bushes to the open patch of grass behind the willow tree. The tiny space was crowded with four people crouching in it.

  “Took you long enough,” Raina said.

  “We thought you might have been caught.” Catlyn gave Nola’s hand a squeeze.

  “We all could be if we stay here,” Beauford said.

  “You’ll be grateful I took my time when you have something to eat in the morning.” Nola knelt with the others. “Could you get the pane out?”

  “Mostly,” Raina said, lifting a thin metal bar in her hand, “but it didn’t seem right to pull it the rest of the way free without you.”

  “Where did you get that?” Nola asked.

  The thing Raina held looked like a weapon. And sparkling on her hip was a knife, attached to a pair of worn leather pants that matched her leather top.

  “Sweet, sweet Nola,” Raina said. “Never, ever invade an enclosed environment without stashing a few backup supplies. I must say when I was slowly starving to death, I didn’t think my extra bag of goodies was going to do me a damn bit of good, but what do you know? My hoarding paid off.”

  Raina kicked a bag with the tip of her toe. Dirt covered the canvas bag, as through it had been buried. T held up a small dagger and, now that she looked, Nola could see Catlyn and Beauford had weapons, too.

  “Where did you bury them?” Nola reached for the bag. A narrow blade eight inches long was all that remained in the canvas sack.

  “Outside your house, of course.” Raina shrugged. “Now, if you’ve finished marveling at my brilliance and foresight, can we get to the escaping part of this escape?”

  “Do it.” There wasn’t a trace of hesitation in Nola’s voice.

  Raina stood in the shadows and jammed the bar into the crack between the panes. It wasn’t like when Doctor Wynne had pried the loose pane out with his fingers. The weakness Doctor Wynne had utilized had been sealed. But Raina was a vampire, and even the small bit of blood Catlyn had given her had brought back some of Raina’s unnatural strength.

  Nola held her breath, waiting for the pane of glass to move, but the glass wasn’t sliding away. Thin lines formed in the pane, making a spider web just before the glass shattered with an ear-splitting crack. The sound rattled, echoing around the dome, but Raina didn’t stop moving.

  “Did you hear that?” a voice called on the other side of the trees.

  “Is it the Vampers, Mommy?” a tiny voice asked, before the child started to howl.

  Raina didn’t pause to listen to the fear of the people who lived i
n Bright Dome. In seconds, there was another crack as the outer pane shattered.

  “Go.” Raina shoved T through the hole in the glass. Catlyn was out after her in a moment with Beauford close behind.

  “You next,” Raina whispered as voices drew closer.

  “I’m not leaving you in here alone with children and a knife.”

  “Touché.” Raina grinned and ducked through the glass.

  “I think there’s someone back there!” a voice shouted from not fifteen feet away. “Hello? Hello?”

  “Someone call the guards!” a woman shrieked.

  Nola dropped to her knees and crawled past the opening. Glass cut into her palms, but it didn’t matter. In a few seconds, she was free.

  A strong hand grabbed her under the arm, hoisting her to her feet. Nola bit back her scream as she saw Beauford steadying her, and they both ran down the hill, the other three following.

  Raina quickly took the lead, tearing through the darkness at top speed.

  Nola raced to catch up, her feet pounding against the ground.

  She had found the way under the river once before, but it would take her time to do it on her own. They needed Raina if they wanted to beat the guards.

  “T!” Catlyn shouted from behind.

  Nola turned. T had fallen, panting, to the ground. She doubled back, wrapping her arm around one side of T’s waist while Catlyn took the other.

  “Keep running,” Nola whispered. “We’re going to find a safe place for your baby, but you have to keep running.”

  T swayed even while she ran but didn’t stop moving.

  A sharp wailing split the night as the domes’ sirens blared.

  Without speaking, Beauford dropped back to run behind the women, knife in hand. Nola wanted to tell him to run ahead with Raina, that a knife would do him no good against the Outer Guard’s rifles, but she couldn’t spare the breath.

  The crisp, cool night air did nothing to help the burning in Nola’s lungs. The shadows of the dead and dying trees looked like hands reaching out to grab them and drag them into some terrifying darkness. Every instinct told her to stop, to turn away from the shadows, but there was no time.