Crack!
A two-foot square of wall crumbled away.
Blowing the hair out of her eyes, Raina reached into the wall and pulled out a dust-covered, silver case.
“Out of the way,” Raina said, but T didn’t step aside.
“Move!” Raina growled, opening the box and pulling out a needle.
“I can’t.” T’s voice sounded like she had been ill for months.
“Do not make me be the bad guy who throws a pregnant girl against a wall.”
“I can’t let you give her that shot.” T raised her chin, staring defiantly at Raina.
“You can’t let me save your friend’s life?” Raina shook her head and moved to sidestep T, but T blocked her path again.
“She doesn’t want the drugs.” Tears streamed down T’s face. “Not Vamp or ReVamp, not Lycan or anything else. She doesn’t want it.”
“I doubt she wants to die either,” Raina spat. “Take it from someone who just kicked a hole through a stone wall without breaking a sweat. Drinking a little blood is way more fun than dying.”
“Not for her,” T whispered. “Catlyn has lived a long, hard life. Who are we to take her death from her? She said she would rather die. If that’s what she wants, then we have to let her go.”
“Let her go? Let her go!” Raina laughed. “And where do you think she’ll be going? We certainly won’t be able to bury her. We could leave her here in case a wolf gets hungry. If they don’t want her, I’m sure the bugs and the rats will have a fine feast.”
“Stop.” Nola leaned against the wall.
“And where will she be when there’s nothing left but bones and rot?” Raina stepped so close to T their faces were nearly touching. “She doesn’t want to live in the darkness? Darkness is all that waits for her as she decays into nothing.”
“Stop it!” Nola’s scream echoed against the walls. “Catlyn didn’t want to be a vampire. She wanted to die, so let her do it. She died escaping the domes, let that be her end.”
“How poetic.” Raina held the needle in her hand up to the dim light. A faint, shimmering liquid, so thin it could barely be seen, filled the needle. In a practiced motion, she rolled up her sleeve and shoved the needle into her vein, sighing as she pressed the serum into her blood. “Fine, more ReVamp for me.” She looked at Nola, her eyes shining a darker black than they had a moment before. “Or anyone else who actually wants to survive to see Emanuel.” She tossed the needle against the wall, and it clattered to the ground with a finality that shook Nola more than the hand around her throat had.
“Catlyn.” T knelt down next to her.
Catlyn didn’t look like she was breathing.
She might already be dead.
“Thank you.” T pressed Catlyn’s bloody hand to her lips. “Thank you for taking care of a lost girl. Rest well, my friend, and never know pain again.” She laid Catlyn’s hand on her torn stomach and stood. “We should go.”
“Is she dead?” Beauford asked.
“Close enough.” T wiped her hands on her pants, but it didn’t take away the bloodstains. “We have to go. Catlyn wouldn’t want us to risk ourselves to watch her die.”
“She’ll never want anything again,” Raina said.
“How do we get out of here?” Nola asked. If they were going to leave Catlyn lying in a hall, it was better to do it quickly before the evilness of abandonment set in.
“There’s a back way.” Raina relocked the silver case. “It’ll be easier to get to but nasty once we hit open air.”
“Will there be a place for daylight?” T asked. “We can’t have much longer until sunrise.”
“I know a place,” Raina said. “If we’re lucky, I won’t even have to kill anyone to get us in.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Raina led them farther down the hall where the ReVamp had been hidden, moving past more broken doors and shattered light bulbs.
“In here.” Raina lead them through one of the dingiest-looking doors.
Someone had scrawled words onto it. A long string of something Nola didn’t take the time to read.
The room was so small, the light from the hall lit the four cracked walls. Not pausing, Raina headed to a tiny closet in the back. Fabric had been tacked to the wall. Raina pulled it aside, revealing a tiny trap door.
“Big guy might have some trouble.” Raina knelt and yanked a wooden panel out of the wall. “Anyone who minds a tight squeeze can feel free to head out the front.”
“You first,” Nola said.
Please let it be caved in.
It was an irrational thought. They needed to get out of Nightland before they were attacked again. They couldn’t risk another fight. Not after Catlyn.
Nola’s chest tightened. Grief and panic flooded her.
Raina slithered into the hole. In few seconds, all that showed were her feet.
“Come on in,” Raina said. “Nothing here but a little vampire.”
“I’ll go.” T knelt next to the hole.
For a moment, Nola was afraid her stomach wouldn’t fit, but with little more struggle than Raina, she disappeared.
“You next,” Beauford said.
“I can go last.” Nola shook her head. She needed a minute, just one more minute outside the terrifyingly small space.
“I’m going last, and I’m not going to argue with you. Get in the damn hole.”
Nola nodded, not trusting her voice to work, and knelt outside the tunnel.
A creaking sounded behind her. She spun to see Beauford closing the door. Everything melted into black.
“We can’t afford to be followed,” Beauford whispered over the sound of footsteps coming toward her.
“Right.” Nola reached her hands out in front of her, feeling the edges of the tunnel. Her backpack was too big to fit through the gap on her back. She would have to push it in front of her.
For how long?
She closed her eyes and slipped off her pack, pushing it into the tunnel.
“A little faster if you don’t want us to die,” Beauford whispered.
Lying down on her stomach, Nola slid into the tunnel. Dragging herself forward with her hands, she moved a few feet before pushing up onto her hands and knees. The ceiling touched the back of her jacket, but she could still move forward. Push the backpack, move forward a foot. Push the backpack, move forward a foot.
“Nola, Beauford?” T said, from what seemed like miles in front of Nola. “Are you coming?”
Yes. Nola thought the word, but it didn’t make any sound. “Yes.”
“It gets a little tighter up here. Make sure you watch your head.”
Tighter. The tunnel got tighter.
She dug her nails into the dirt and stone beneath her.
Catlyn was right to want to die in Nightland. It was better than dying trapped in a tunnel.
Nola’s breathing quickened as the blackness around her spun.
“Are you all right?” Beauford said. “Miss Kent, are you okay?”
“I-I c-can’t move,” she whimpered, fighting for each bit of air she pulled into her lungs. “There’s no air. I can’t breathe.”
“You can breathe. There’s air just in front of you. Move ahead, and there’ll be air.”
Nola didn’t think her arms were capable of moving, but Beauford’s words made sense. There had to be air somewhere. It couldn’t have all disappeared at once.
“Just move up a foot, and there’ll be air,” Beauford said.
Shaking, she pushed the backpack a foot ahead and crawled after it.
“See, it’s better already, isn’t it?” Beauford’s voice sounded closer now. “Think how good it will be in another foot. Go on. Try one more foot.”
The air didn’t feel better. It was thick and stale, too fleeting for her lungs to grasp.
But Beauford sounded so sure. “You’re nearly to the open air now. If you move just another foot, you’ll be able to smell it. Just one more foot.”
Nola nodded in the d
arkness. One more foot. One more foot, and she could breathe.
The process went on and on. Beauford urging her to move, Nola fighting for every inch she gained.
“Nola.” The darkness changed as the backpack was pulled out of Nola’s path. Shadows replaced the thick pitch black.
A cold hand grabbed her wrist and dragged her out of the tunnel and onto a wooden floor.
“I thought you might have died in there,” Raina said, without a trace of concern in her voice.
Nola rolled onto her back, panting.
The air here smelled thick with dust and the scent of decay she had only ever smelled in the woods.
“Is she all right?” Beauford asked.
“I’m…” Nola began but couldn’t spare the breath to finish saying she was fine now that there was air.
“I think the Domer might be a little claustrophobic. Funny being afraid of small spaces when there are monsters in the world,” Raina said.
“I know there are monsters.” Nola sat up, regretting it as her head spun. “But being trapped in the dark with no air feels worse. You can’t fight air.”
“How…literal.” Raina pulled back the thick curtains that covered the window, letting faint light into the dismal room.
The wooden floor was worn, warped, and dirty. Dust coated the peeling wallpaper, which looked far older than Nola. A chair had been broken apart and tossed by the filthy fireplace that showed no signs of having been recently lit.
“Where are we?” Nola stood.
Beauford took her elbow to steady her. “Careful, Miss Kent.”
“Nola. Please call me Nola.”
“Nola,” Beauford said. “Be careful.”
“Fantastic.” Raina grinned sarcastically. “If we’re finished, we should probably get to a safe place before dawn.”
“This isn’t the safe place?” Nola said.
“You’re never safe near the escape. It’s too easy to be found.” Raina rolled her dark eyes as though Nola were the biggest idiot she had ever met. “What we need to do is disappear into the vastness of the city. The Outer Guard might be able to follow us through the tunnels, but they’ll have one hell of a time following us through the streets.”
“They’ll tear the city apart to find us.” Nola picked up the pack and settled it on her back. The weight of it seemed to have doubled while they were in the tunnel.
“I’m sure they will.” Raina shrugged. “But it’ll take time. And the farther we get from here, the longer it will take them. With any luck, by this time tomorrow night we’ll be outside the city and on our way to Emanuel.”
“Then let’s get going.” Beauford headed toward the one door in the room. His own blood coated his arm from the vampire bite.
“Wait.” Nola slid the pack off her back. “You need medicine for your arm.”
“Later.” Beauford shook his head. “When we’re safe. I’ll survive until then.”
“Smart man.” Raina pushed past him and opened the door. “Try and stay close. You’ll all be scented in a minute, and I really don’t feel like fighting a bunch of wolves before dawn.” She walked out into the hall. Beauford followed, but T stood behind Nola, carefully rolling up her shirt to show her swollen belly.
“You should go next,” T said. “It’ll be safer with me in the back.”
“Why?” Nola asked. The floor squeaked as she walked across it, every step shouting to the world where they were.
“I know the outside must seem dark and lawless to you,” T said, following Nola into the hall, “but there are some rules almost everyone will follow. I’m pregnant. Only the worst wolves would hurt me.”
“Because you’re carrying a vampire’s baby? If you were carrying a werewolf’s baby, would only the worst vampires hurt you?”
“Basically,” T whispered her answer.
Closed doors lined the derelict hall. The smell of stale food permeated the air, and people spoke angrily behind one of the doors.
Nola took a few quick steps to catch up to Beauford, shoving aside the terrible feeling someone could pop out and grab her at any moment.
A big, wooden door blocked the end of the hall.
She tapped Beauford on the good arm and whispered softly, “What is this place?”
“An apartment building,” Raina answered from the front in a carrying, conversational tone. “I’m sure you’ve never seen one. But out here a lot of people consider themselves lucky to live in a place this nice. Solid walls, sturdy doors. I think there’s even running water in this one.”
The door at the end of the hall burst open. Five men came in, laughing and staggering. One of them fell face-first onto the ground as he tried to cross the threshold.
“Ah, company!” the man at the front of the pack shouted, holding his arms out wide. “Look, boys, the party isn’t over after all!”
“Yes, it is.” Raina rested her hand on the hilt of her knife.
“The kitten has teeth!” one of the other men laughed.
“This tigress has fangs.” Raina stalked toward the men. “And she likes to bite. She even likes blood. Anyone here want to give me a snack?”
“Don’t be angry,” the first man said, taking a step back and stumbling over his friend who still lay on the floor.
“Watch yourself!” the man on the ground shouted.
“I was only playing.” Fear filled the first man’s face. “I didn’t mean anything by it. You be on your way and enjoy the rest of your night.”
Raina backed the man into the wall. “Oh, we’ll go.” She leaned in so her cheek rested on his. “But what if I hadn’t been a vampire? What if the kitty you wanted to play with hadn’t had claws? What if I had been a poor defenseless little girl lost in the night?”
“I-I don’t—”
“Sure you do,” Raina cooed. “You would have taken me into the shadows whether I liked it or not.”
She pulled her blade from its sheath and pressed the tip to the man’s forehead without looking at her hand.
The man moaned in pain, but his friends did nothing.
“Next time, think before you decide someone is your prey, little pig. You’d make an excellent meal.” She stepped back, lifting the blade to her mouth and licking away the single drop of blood that clung to its tip. “And now you’re on the menu. Avoid dark hallways, little pig.”
Kissing the man on the cheek, Raina turned and walked out the door.
She’d carved V into the man’s forehead. The mark dripped blood down his nose and into his eyes.
“Come on.” T strode through the men, and Nola followed, nearly stepping on T’s heels as she escaped the hallway.
The sky was still dark, the faint moonlight leaving the streets as terrifying as the hallway had been. Raina led them down a long row of apartment buildings much like the one they had just left. Most were at least five stories tall, and each was broken down and sad in its own way. One missing a front door. Another with all the widows at the ground level shattered. Another had Night Filth scrawled across its bricks in bright red paint.
“You didn’t have to do that to him,” T said as soon as she caught up to Raina.
Walking behind them, a terrifying loneliness clawed at Nola’s stomach until Beauford took his place next to her.
“She was right to do it,” Beauford said.
“See, the big one agrees with me,” Raina said, no hint in her voice that she actually cared what any of them thought.
“It’s only a cut,” Nola said. “I’m sure he’ll heal.”
“It’s a v-shaped cut right on his face,” T spoke through clenched teeth. “She just marked him as a meal. If he keeps showing his face outside at night, he’ll be lucky to survive the week.”
“Don’t think of it as my limiting the time frame of his disgusting little life. Think of it as my giving him an opportunity to realize the error of his ways and have time to seek atonement in this cruel world.”
Raina rounded a corner and headed down a street where the si
dewalks had been piled high with trash. The sign on the corner read Maggot Row, and Nola didn’t have to question where the street had gotten its name.
Raina moved to the very center of the street where a three-foot-wide path cut between mounds of rotting garbage.
The smell of decay hit Nola so hard, bile gurgled into her throat, but Raina and T kept moving forward, arguing about the man. Nola covered her nose with the collar of her jacket and tried to keep from wondering what had created the sticky squish under her feet.
“You condemned that man,” T said. “He is going to die because you cut him.”
“So I should have killed him in the hall?” Raina rounded on T, blocking the way forward.
Nola shook as the piles of trash seemed to creep closer and closer.
“Or should I have stepped aside and let those monsters do whatever they wanted to Nola? Hell, even big boy might have had a moment to shine with the cretins.”
“That’s not what—” T argued.
“Then I should have made them walk nicely away and let them find another girl who doesn’t have a vampire with a knife trying to keep her alive and see what they do to her? There are far worse monsters in this world than I will ever be, little girl. Don’t blame me for getting rid of one.” Raina turned and walked through the alley between trash, not bothering to check if any of them followed.
“She doesn’t understand,” T began, but Beauford cut her off.
“She understands perfectly. You of all people should appreciate that. Now move before someone else comes along and Raina ends up killing them more quickly.”
T opened and closed her mouth several times before biting her lips together and stepping carefully behind Nola and Beauford, waving a hand to tell them to move.
“Do you really think those men would have hurt us?” Nola asked as she and Beauford jogged after Raina.
“Yes.” Beauford’s single, apathetic word sent a shiver down Nola’s spine.
She had chosen the outside, left everything she had to join it, to help save the humans in a monstrous world. It had never occurred to her that humans could be the ones she would need saving from.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Boy of Blood Page 17
