Christopher opens the door a fraction of a crack and eases closer to the thin strip of light. The stairs creak in succession.
“Nico?” East calls again.
My fist tightens around the hair pick in my hand. Christopher draws his knife and if he had an extra weapon to offer he would have, so I don’t ask.
“She up there?” another voice calls. Christopher leans from the crack to mouth Quinn’s name before he goes back to watching.
Two of them, I think. Or one if we move now.
I tap Christopher and mimic him opening the door before I hold up a finger so he knows to wait for my sign. I tuck the hair pick into my loosening bun and scoot backward until I’m standing in the center of the room. With a quick nod to Christopher, I bend my knees as if I’m readying for attack. He swings the door open, hiding himself between it and the wall. At the noise, the footsteps hurry.
“Nico?” East calls a second before his frame fills the threshold. He spots me, registers that I’m free. “How’d you get loose?”
I wince from him like a scared rabbit, smothering the urge to beg him not to come any closer. The longer it takes anyone else to realize there’s a problem, the better chance Christopher and I have.
East surveys the room, leery of a trick. “Where’s my sister?” he demands.
I blink, doe-eyed, not having to fake the tremble running through me. East takes another step forward, then another, and the door behind him swings shut as Christopher abandons his hiding spot.
Even as Christopher’s knife arcs toward the side of East’s neck, he’s fighting. The skin splits, the blood instant, but the cut is too shallow. He whirls on Christopher, grabs the blade, and blocks the blow as Christopher slashes again. His elbow rocks backward hard, catching Christopher in the stomach. He curls, losing his grip on East. The knife tumbles to the floor.
I leap to snag it. My spin ends with the blade buried to the hilt in East’s throat below his Adam’s apple. His fingers fly to the wound. I jerk left and a red river spills from him. This time, he goes down hard. Christopher tries to soften the landing, but it’s obvious from the thumping on the stairs, Quinn heard.
“East? Nico?”
Christopher’s half squatting, one arm trapped under the dead weight of East’s body as Quinn rounds the corner.
Barreling over the both of them, I use East’s chest as a springboard, praying he doesn’t have enough life left in him to catch my foot as I launch myself toward Quinn. We tumble together into the hallway. If Zen and Keeley didn’t know something was amiss upstairs, they do now.
I’m on top of Quinn with the advantage, but it only lasts a split second before he shoves me in the chest. One of my elbows slams hard enough against the floor to send a pang of agony through my arm. My entire hand goes instantly numb. The knife bounces once and then skids to a stop at Christopher’s feet. Before I can recover, he’s standing between Quinn and me.
Quinn’s voice thins with horror as he crab walks backward. “Don’t!” he begs. “Please!”
Christopher’s hesitating. I can see it in his movements, in the way Quinn is gaining ground between the two of them. If one of the girls comes now, it won’t be one against two. If both of the girls show, we’ll be outnumbered.
Do something, I think.
And then he does. I watch as Christopher falls to his knees. I hear his apology as he raises the knife. I keep expecting Quinn’s expression to change from horror to acceptance, but it never does. Turning away feels somehow treasonous. I do it anyway. It makes the choked gurgle Quinn releases worse.
A brush of wind stirs the hairs at the nape of my neck.
I wheel toward Christopher to see Zen drive her blade into the arm he’s raised to block her. His body twists. A slit gapes in his shirt as she strikes again. Blood begins to seep into the material, sticks to his skin.
“No!” I scream. I hurdle forward, knowing I won’t make it in time as she swings the knife wildly.
Christopher’s eyes meet mine. As he raises a fist skyward, helpless to ward off her blow, Zen brings down the blade.
The gash splits the length of his arm like a pomegranate.
Ploy
Zen doesn’t wait. She flips the blade, changing her hold, and catches me again, this time in the stomach. My blood sluices off the end of the blade before she buries it between my ribs. The agony in my mutilated arm is just now reaching my brain, short circuiting my reaction time.
Allie’s reaching into her bun, ripping free the pencil-like rod holding it in place. She wields them as her blond locks unravel. There’s no one to fight. Zen’s halfway down the hall, running for all she’s worth.
“Go!” Zen yells. “Hide!”
Keeley’s head of brown hair clears the step. She catches sight of Quinn, of me. Her terror melts into malice as she locks eyes with Allie. Keeley’s so concentrated on Allie she startles when Zen snags her arm to drag her down the main staircase.
“But Quinn!” I hear her argue, followed by Zen’s flat, “He’s dead.” And then Keeley’s quieter, “East? Nico?”
This time, Zen doesn’t answer.
“We can’t leave Ploy!” Keeley yells.
I don’t listen for a response. I’m bleeding to death. With my good arm, I tear a length of fabric along the bottom of my cheap T-shirt and fail miserably trying to wrap it around my flayed arm to staunch the bleeding. Another set of hands brush mine aside.
“Are you okay?’ Allie asks.
No. I don’t dare say it. Under the makeshift bandage are severed tendons, bone and fat, and bits of me that should never be exposed to daylight. Wooziness washes through me.
“Hey,” Allie says. The fear in the single word steadies me.
“I’m fine. Shoulder?” I hiss through clenched teeth. She doesn’t remotely look like she believes I’m okay, but she checks my wound anyway as I spider my fingers to the place Zen got me on the side of my stomach, the second hole she stabbed into my ribs.
At least it’s not the spleen this time, I think, and before I can help it the smallest laugh crackles from me even as Allie’s fingers stop probing.
“Barely a flesh wound,” she lies.
“Didn’t feel like much,” I say, returning the favor. The blade went deep enough to do significant damage, and we both know it.
“I’ve got to get you to a hospital,” Allie says.
When I shake my head, her expression shifts to concern.
“Look, they can fix this stuff.” She rotates my arm. Blood’s already soaked the makeshift bandage with no signs of slowing. “You’ve got one more get out of jail free card with me and I didn’t bring any of my supplies, let alone what I need to do a transfusion and—”
“No more lies.” It’s enough to cut her off mid-sentence. “We won’t make it out of here together. Not alive.”
“We will,” she insists. Shrugging herself under my good arm, she fights me to my feet. “Zen ran. She’s gone.”
“Zen’s regrouping.” It’s hard to get air. Something’s wrong in my chest. I don’t want to think about it. “She and Jamison were together. She’s not the type to back off.”
“No wonder she’s such a psycho bitch,” Allie says.
In the silence that spins between us, the unsettling sound of my dripping blood patters against the floor before soaking into the carpet.
“You were leaving town. You should be gone.” She pinches the bridge of her nose. “You were supposed to hate me enough to keep you safe from Talia. How has everything gone so sideways? Didn’t you get my message from LowLow?”
She might have charged in here to protect her cluster, but she tried to make sure I was safe before she did. I hesitate. “You’re really not going to like the plan I have,” I admit.
“What plan would that be?”
I struggle to ease my weight off her, but I’m not sure how long I’m going to remain standing. The only reason I’m leaning on her at all is because I need my strength for what’s coming.
“You’ve got to let me take the hits, Allie,” I tell her. She tenses underneath me. “If you die, they’re going to kill me anyway. Our only chance is you. If you live, you can resurrect me.”
We both know the first resurrection takes a syringe of blood. The second, a transfusion. She told me she’s never heard of a third resurrection on the same person being attempted, let alone being successful. Which means if my plan works, after this, my place in her future might be a lot shakier than either of us is ready to admit. To my surprise, she doesn’t immediately argue, so I go on.
“You’ll have three hours to kill them, get what you need to resurrect me, and do your thing. Plenty of time.” It’s painful to talk. “Even with delays, we’ll escape long before the Doctor gets here.”
“But if something happens to me, I won’t revive in time to—”
I attempt to draw her face into my hands, but only one of my arms will work, so I settle for cupping her cheek. “Nothing’s going to happen to you. I’m going to be your human shield.”
A sharp sting sears my side as Allie touches the stab wound between my ribs, the one I didn’t tell her about. Then her fingers sink to the one closer to my stomach.
I nod. “I’m already done.”
“God damn it,” she murmurs, but she blinks any tears away before they can fall.
“You’re the better fighter,” I tell her. “But you know we’re stronger together. This will work.”
She stares at me for an impossibly long moment before she gives me a sharp nod.
“Compromise,” she says, shifting my weight as she starts us down the hall. “We head for the front door. If we’re stopped, we’ll use your plan.”
“Deal,” I say. My head feels muddled. If I die, there won’t be a plan at all.
The staircase leads to the main floor of the house and spills us into the middle of the room.
Once we leave the carpet, every sound is amplified. We don’t bother attempting to hide our retreat, the creaking stairs, the snapping pops as the old banister adjusts to our weight.
Every movement shoots agony through another part of my body. I don’t dare complain. We can’t stop for me to rest. Instead, I hold my breath and force my feet down each step, praying I don’t pass out before we reach the bottom.
“Almost there,” Allie whispers encouragingly. All we have to do is cross the room and move through the entryway. Sunlight streams through the decorative panels on either side of the door, reflecting bright enough off the wooden floor to blur my vision.
Or maybe I’m hallucinating, I think. Maybe it’s the blood loss. I grip my stomach with my good hand as if it’ll help.
“Still with me?” Allie asks.
My head’s slumped. Instead of answering her, I push forward, one foot sliding awkwardly when my knee gives out. My skin prickles, senses firing in warning. We’re not alone anymore. “Behind you,” I say.
Gathering the last of my strength, I shove Allie. Zen aimed her knife for Allie’s heart. It hits me a couple inches lower and to the side. I grab a fistful of dark hair and yank Zen to me, tangling my fingers in the strands to keep her from breaking free.
When my legs buckle, Zen falls with me. She screams, the sound close enough to my ear to send it ringing, dulling the thumps Allie makes as she rains down on Zen’s back with the sharp stick of a weapon until the other girl goes deadweight.
“Christopher?” Allie shoves, tumbles Zen’s body, and I catch half a breath before she adds pressure to my wounded ribs and fire races through my chest.
I clasp at her arm, an unspoken plea. When she nods that she’s okay, exhaustion floods my system.
“We did it,” she says. “I’m going to—” Her relieved expression freezes and fades as the color drains from her cheeks. Allie raises her hands as she stands. “Don’t.”
Lifting my head, I see Keeley come around the bottom of the stairs from the study. In her hand is the decorative pistol from the shadowbox I saw on the wall the first time I came here. I want to tell Allie it’s okay, tell her the gun probably doesn’t even fire, that Keeley is just a stupid, desperate kid.
But then I hear the shot.
Allie stumbles.
The gun clatters to the floor. Keeley flees. Her shoes send plaster and dirt skittering before I hear the slam of the screen door.
“Allie?” I jam my palm against hardwoods sticky with my blood. Quiet confusion wrinkles her forehead as she raises her palm to her chest. “Allie?”
Eyes unfocused, she twitches forward a half step. A droplet of blood slides from her left nostril as she coughs, the noise wet and hesitant.
“Oh no,” she says. Even before it’s out, she crumples.
Crawling across the few feet that separate us saps my strength. I can’t draw more than agonized pants of air. I swear she sees me, but when I move to help her, she doesn’t blink. “Wake up, Allie.”
She has to live. If she dies, and it plays out like last time, it’ll take far more than three hours before she regains consciousness. There’ll be nothing she can do for me.
I promised I’d come back to her. I cannot break my promise. The last thing I do on this Earth can’t be lying to Allie. Not after everything.
Reaching, I run the fingers of my good hand through hers. I squeeze her hand three times. “I love you. Don’t give up,” I murmur. “It doesn’t end like this.”
On the floor beside me, Allie is still and quiet. She doesn’t squeeze back.
Allie
The softest touch tickles across my lip. I’m distantly aware of my open mouth, a fragile buzzing noise, the taste of blood. My throat burns, parched. I flutter my lashes and my dried-out eyes instantly flood with tears that track from the corners, sliding past my temples and into my hair.
I’m trying to remember where I am, what happened, how scared I should be, except all I want to do is go back to sleep. The crawling sensation drifts across my lip, rings my nostril. A second one, no heavier than a raindrop, lands on my cheek. The buzzing stops.
Flies. I’m covered in flies.
Gasping, I rocket upward into a sitting position. The cell phone resting on my chest clatters to the floor. I snatch at it. It’s mine. When I touch the screen, the time blazes green. Almost nine.
There’s a body on the floor to my left. She’s my age, her dark hair splayed around her. The flies gave up on me and are crawling into the open cavities of her mouth and nose and ears. A shiver of revulsion runs through me.
My head throbs. Nine p.m. I’m missing time. Almost seven hours’ worth. My palm rises to my chest. There’s a hole in my shirt.
Oh my God, I think. I’m missing time because I was dead. I’m missing time because…
Christopher.
Panicked, I whip to the right while the memories flood me. There’s enough ambient light from the last dregs of sunset that I can see him on the floor a couple feet from me. He’s on his back, one hand reaching for me.
“No,” I whisper. “No, no, no, no.” I’m crawling toward him as I do the math in my head. Seven hours have passed. Three hours is the maximum cut off to resurrect someone and I don’t even have the supplies.
I start to say his name but it’s a gravelly croak so I give up on talking. It’s obvious by now he won’t answer. The second I touch him, the slight chill to his skin tells me all I need to know. Seven hours. He’s gone.
My head hangs, my throat clogged with tears. All I had to do was stay alive. He took the pain meant for me. All I had to do was stay alive long enough to save us both and I couldn’t even do that right.
Thoughts tumble through my addled head. Did I get to say goodbye to him? I search for a memory and find nothing but darkness.
I promise I’ll always come back to you, he said.
Sadness wells inside me. Then anger.
“Liar!” I scream at his corpse. It echoes through the empty house, leaves me feeling more alone.
“No,” I say, the word going high pitched as it morphs into a plea. I smack my han
d lightly against his cheek. “Come back! You have to come back!”
His head lolls to the side. The first sob crushes through me as I throw myself over him. A thought pokes at my brain. The gasping sobs taper as I sit up to stare at him. I move his hand, the one stretched toward where I lay dead. In disbelief, I take his chin in my fingers.
His head wiggles easily.
He’s not stiff.
His skin would have chilled relatively quickly, even if it took longer for his core temperature to drop. If he’s been dead seven hours, though, rigor mortis should have been well set in by now. I shift onto my knees to get a better look at him.
On the floor, near his head, are numbers written with smears of blood. They’re patterned in strings of three, each of them crossed out, the next set scrawled below in dried maroon, with another line through them. One hundred fifty-seven, reads the first. Two hundred forty-three, the second. Below them are more, like a list. Three hundred twenty-eight the next one says in shaky, almost unreadable lines as thick as a pointer finger.
I stare, substituting the numbers for letters of the alphabet, hoping they’ll make words, but they don’t. They’re not phone numbers. He’s telling me something. What’s the code? What’s he saying?
Goodbye?
157. 243. 328. 401. 440. 523. The longer they go on, the closer the numbers are to each other. The last set has no line through it.
And then it hits me. They’re not numbers at all.
“Times,” I whisper.
1:57 p.m. would have been just after he watched me die, when he’d already been too weak himself to go for help. By 2:43 he’d been laying with my dead body for forty-five minutes. 4:01. 4:40. 5:23. Hours passing. Hours when he’d been slowly bleeding out, in excruciating pain, holding on as long as he could as he tried in vain to keep his promise. I promise I’ll always come back to you. Only I’m the one who had to come back. Christopher stayed. He stayed for me.
Something Grave: The Resurrectionists Series book two Page 23