Blood Awakens

by Jessaca Willis

  Thankfully, Sean replied as such, incredulously. “Never.”

  Pointing a finger in the shape of a gun at Sean, Zane said, “Then give us the metal around your neck and we’ll no longer be a bother.”

  “What?” Sean’s hands felt for his chains. “My dog tags? This was my…” He choked on the words.

  Santiago didn’t know the full story, but what he did know was that Sean’s dad had died in World War III, and his brother had died after the Awakening, also a soldier, but not in the line of combat. It was a safe bet to guess who they belonged to.

  “Why?” Sean demanded.

  Santiago couldn’t peel his eyes from the heirloom around Sean’s neck. Each slab of metal was etched with a name. But it was the square die dangling beneath them that he was most intrigued by, seemingly made from the same stone as the one on his mother’s locket.

  “For Morden’s sake,” Zane said, calling Santiago out of his mesmerized state. “Someone take that weapon from that boy before he shoots someone else.”

  Hand still solidly pointing at Zane, Santiago’s fierceness hadn’t wavered. The gun aligned directly with the man’s head.

  Out of the corner of his eyes, Santiago noticed Sean approach him. So he wouldn’t join them, but he was taking orders from the worst of them? Protectively, his clutch tightened. But when he noticed himself shivering, despite the scorching heat, he let Sean in his gentleness take the gun.

  Zane’s attention flickered with a tilt of his head. His nose wiggled. “That aroma. You smell it boys? Could we be so lucky to have two scores in one day?” His eyes diverted back to the entrance and everyone seemed to spot her at the same time. Zane squinted, his full attention on Graciela. “Color me pink. Is that who I think it is?”

  Santiago shifted uncomfortably, but it was Sean who finally took a stand. “None of your concern.” His chest became a senseless barricade, bouncing off Zane’s solar plexus like he was made of rubber.

  The grin that spread in response was sickening. “Oh, I think it’s all of my concern.” With quick and brutal force, Zane twisted the gun from Sean’s hand and thwacked him over the head.

  Sean swayed to the ground.

  Santiago was next, thrown by some invisible force that he quickly discerned as Zane’s mighty tree-trunk arms. After a brief moment of flying through the air, his head collided with Mara’s, and he too momentarily lost his orientation. Up, down, left, right, they all felt the same as he scrambled off of the woman crawling out from under him. Everything happened so fast, there was hardly any time to register it.

  “I’ll take those,” he heard Zane sneer, followed by the jingling of metal on a chain. Sean’s family heirlooms.

  By the time Santiago found solid ground again, the back of Zane’s tatted skull was already halfway across the field. Nothing between him and Graciela but open earth.

  Vision clearing, Santiago’s voice cracked, “No.” Sheer desperation propelled him. He clawed the dirt to drag himself closer. But he was going at a snail’s pace by comparison.

  Oriented or not, he wobbled to his feet and began the shaky task of trying to reach Zane before the Sanguinatore decided what exactly he was going to do with Santiago’s sister.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Graciela

  Eyes of blue flame and satin blinked at Graciela, and she blinked back. Despite knowing of his involvement with the Sanguinatores, she hadn’t expected to run into Bram away from the group, hadn’t expected to see him ever again actually. It left her heart pattering like the wings of a hummingbird, as if she’d been caught red-handed.

  But it wasn’t she who was out of place. Suspicion lingered behind her words. “What are you doing here?”

  Bram, hair sweeping across his forehead, marched to her in a hurry. His voice was nothing more than a dull whisper, with the same coolness he’d addressed her with in Mexico. “Here you are again, in the midst of trouble.”

  “The only trouble I see is the trouble that seems to follow you and your people.” It was quite possibly the most direct thing she’d ever said to anyone, let alone a complete stranger, let alone someone who had once saved her life. She let her defenses fall back a little. “I’m serious. What are you doing here? Sean let you guys go. He let you live. You shouldn’t be here.”

  Bram snorted. “I’d like to see you or anyone try to make Zane not do something he’s bent on doing.” Though his voice was calm, his eyes were anything but. They darted to the center of the arena, to the exit, and back to Graciela on loop. “We won’t be here long. Just here for a trade.”

  “A trade? What kind of trade?”

  Bram averted his eyes to the ground. It was then Graciela noticed the stuffed animal choked in his grip. In stark contrast to the rest of their unkempt surroundings, a shimmering blue howler monkey with the most peculiar eyes stared back at the world—one the color of the moon and the other a dark, dazzling plum. Why he was clutching the fluffy toy so tightly, Graciela hadn’t the slightest clue, but judging by the white of his knuckles, it meant something to him.

  “You should go back to your seat. Zane doesn’t take kindly to…” With cool contempt, he said flatly, “Loose ends.”

  She gulped. “I can’t. I’m looking for my brother. He ran off when I told him Zane was here.”

  Another snort from Bram. “Death wish, hero, or both?”

  Graciela couldn’t bring herself to answer. Acknowledging any of it would only make her realize just how much danger he could be putting himself in. She shook her head, locks bouncing against her cheeks. “I have to find him.” Tears constricted her throat.

  As she whirled, Bram caught her wrist, gentle force tugging her back. “You smell different.”

  “You’re the second person to tell me I smell weird today—”

  “That necklace…where did you…?”

  Almost without thought, her free hand floated to it. “My locket? It was my mother’s. Santiago found it today. Well, he’s had it for a while, but he gave it to me today. It’s been years since I’ve…seen…it…”

  Something churned in Bram’s gaze, studying the jewelry a moment longer, as long as she’d give him. Too long for her own comfort.

  The intensity of his interest in her mother’s heirloom left her confused, but time was too unforgiving for questions. “I’m sorry,” she whispered forcefully, yanking her arm free. “I have to find my brother before he does something—”

  Thunder clapped throughout the stadium. Not the low, growling kind, but the sharp breaking sound of a tree limb snapping. Graciela flinched.

  Bram remained motionless, almost seeming bored as he finished the thought for her, “Stupid.”

  Graciela followed Bram’s gaze to find her brother on the delivering end of the deafening noise. Matte black in hand. A small tuft of smoke mushroomed from the end of a gun. Just as she’d feared, he’d ran himself directly into the belly of the beast, found the gun used at the start of the games, fired said gun, and actually managed to hit his target.

  Zane growled so loudly that even Graciela could hear it from this distance.

  “¡Ay no!” Her heart stopped beating.

  Graciela only stopped walking when Bram grabbed her arm again. “Listen to me. Remember when I told you that these people will slaughter you in the blink of an eye?”

  Frozen. Time seemed to have slowed. She couldn’t even bring herself to nod as she kept her eyes glued on her brother and what might happen next.

  Bram continued despite the nonresponse. He spun her around with both hands on either shoulder so she could see his eyes as he spoke. “Your brother is as good as dead after that stunt. But you, you need to leave. Get out of here. This place, it’s—”

  Her eyes widened. She thought she yelled to Santiago, but there was no force behind her voice. No one but Bram to hear her. She cried to him, desperate. “He can’t die! Please, don’t let him—”

  “Let him? What makes you think I—” Abruptly, he stopped. A ghost glazed over him, skin pa
ling more than was humanely possible. Bram’s eyes dulling like a gray sky as his expression melted, regressing back into the distant, unsympathetic stranger. “Don’t say I didn’t try to warn you.”

  The cobalt-blue monkey dropped to the earth, and as it hit the dirt floor, Bram kicked it underneath a nearby set of wooden bleachers, a light dusting of dirt catching the fibers to brown the one pristine eye.

  “Put that thing away,” he whispered and looked, wide-eyed, to her necklace.

  She felt the rumbling before any other sense kicked in, a rock gently tumbling against her shoe. Her first thought was of a stampede, but when Bram started to step backward, she realized she’d drawn the attention of the people she feared most. So she listened to Bram, tucked the necklace beneath the collar of her shirt, and slowly turned around to face the man of nightmares, Zane.

  When Graciela spun around, the Sanguinatores no longer stood squared off with Sean, Mara, and her brother—who by sheer luck, was still alive. She allowed herself a brief moment of celebration. Santiago was alive.

  But he was only alive because the Sanguinatores were no longer paying him any attention. They were retreating, headed straight for the same exit they entered. The one Graciela and Bram now stood before.

  And Zane’s unwavering gaze was locked on her.

  “Why if it isn’t the one that got away.” That sneer made her skin crawl, shadows casting menace over his expression. A demon hiding in plain sight. And she was his prey. “Fate has crossed our paths too many times now for it to be only coincidental.”

  It was difficult not to take it personal that with each step they took, Bram slunk closer to the Sanguinatores and farther from her. He had warned her.

  Behind the legion of blood-hungry monsters, her brother drew closer, staggering. “Gracie?” Quiet innocence. In that moment, Santiago sounded just like the little boy she remembered growing up with, the one she’d sworn to protect. She dared eye contact and watched as his confusion developed into dread.

  “Fintan,” Zane called to a lumberjack of a man. “We’re taking her with us. Make sure she doesn’t squirm. And make sure Bram watches.”

  “No!” Santiago bellowed. He closed the gap between himself and Graciela. Limbs flailed about, everyone tugged.

  Graciela couldn’t distinguish her own arms from Santiago’s or the man named Fintan.

  “She’s not going anywhere!” her brother yelled.

  “Seany,” Zane cooed to an irate, but sluggishly approaching Sean. “So help your pitiful soul, if you don’t leash this pet of yours, I’ll euthanize him here and now.” As if he knew Sean wouldn’t oblige, he brought more weight to the threat. “Somehow, some of you are protected. Don’t let that give you false hope. Not all of you share that pleasant upper hand. If anyone tries to interfere, we will slaughter each and every one of the people still vulnerable to our power. Consider this retribution for the long journey here. For our trouble. You can’t protect them all at the same time, Seany.”

  Everything unfolded before Graciela. Reckless Santiago, fighting until his premature last breath. It would come violently, too fast to stomach. Sean too would throw himself into the fray. Judging by the protruding veins in his arms and neck, he was only seconds away from his own form of retaliation. If Mara was in any shape other than a puddle where the Sanguinatores had left her, she wouldn’t be too far behind them either. Either way, with at least one of Hope’s leaders going to battle, you could bet more soldiers would follow close behind. The potential blood bath was so palpable, so likely.

  It couldn’t end like that. They couldn’t die for her.

  “I’ll go.” It was quite possibly the firmest Graciela had ever made her voice, and everyone listened in kind.

  Everyone except Santiago. He spewed arguments and demands. Forceful, but rooted in desperation, helpless despite his best efforts. There’d be no getting through to him, not when he was that invested and worked up. Where Graciela would do anything for her brother, the same could be said for him. But she’d die before ever allowing something to happen to him.

  Graciela walked to Santiago and planted a calming kiss on his forehead, unable to prevent the tears from falling. “Live for me, hermanito.”

  Taken aback, he blinked. It was clear in his expression he could sense the finality of the statement.

  Graciela nodded to Sean, a silent plea to keep her brother safe. Words weren’t needed. His deep, slow nod, said he’d uphold that promise.

  And then Graciela made a choice Santiago would likely never forgive.

  With his head still in her hands, his ears cupped beneath her fingers, she felt the sharp stone clutching his ear and yanked it free from his earlobe. Pain twisted his demeanor, both physical and something so much more devastating. Disbelief. Betrayal. Watching him piece together her duplicity was like taking a dagger to the heart and Graciela’s tears only flowed more freely.

  Fortunately, his pain only lasted a second or two before he ultimately faded. Graciela did her best to gently lower him to the ground.

  She didn’t dare look at the dropped jaws of her friends or the people in the stands. Their silence was telling enough.

  With Zane leading, the group of Sanguinatores finally made their way back out of the arena. Everyone behind them, the people of Hope, Sean and Mara, were a slow-settling fog.

  As they left the confines of the arena, Graciela glanced one last time over her shoulder at her brother. Although limp and stymied, in that moment she saw him for what he truly was, what she always knew he could be: a hero.

  “Te amo, hermanito,” she whispered, a feeling of peace and pride nestling somewhere in her heart. Santiago was safe. They were all safe. That was all that mattered.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Sean

  A dark anger festered somewhere deep beneath Sean’s ribs and burned through his heart. If the evening air were any dryer, his rage might ignite it.

  They’d come for her. Zane and his supremacist onslaught of followers had tracked them down and taken Graciela like she was some prize to be had. Like she was owed to them.

  Zane had also managed to steal Sean’s only family heirloom, from right under his nose, and though they were less important than any human life—especially Graciela’s—the fact that he’d taken them, only added kindling to the fire bellowing within him. No one liked being backed into a corner and made helpless, but that’s how Sean had felt when he saw them all there.

  Only a reckless idiot would’ve attacked them then. At the mercy of a group of Sanguinatores that large, there would be no telling what they could accomplish.

  It wasn’t until the last Sanguinatore left the arena that Sean or any of the others moved.

  It was Mara who broke the silence, a fuming bulge of muscles beside him, despite the toll Zane’s power had on her. “We can’t let them get away with this.”

  On the outside, he knew many had viewed his passivity with Zane and the Sanguinatores as weak and compliant. They thought he had let them bully the people of Hope and kidnap one of their members without bothering to even try to prevent it. On the surface, he supposed there was some truth to that. But there was also much more they didn’t—couldn’t—understand.

  It pained him but letting them leave with Graciela was his only option. In that moment, anyway. “They won’t. We’re going to get her back.” He faced Mara so she could see for herself his resolve. “And then we’ll end this, once and for all.”

  All they needed was the upper hand, and Sean was fairly certain he’d found it.

  Quick to act, Mara’s hands formed a funnel at her mouth, as she called weakly forth the First and Second Waves—their official defense teams—for battle. Amid the inhabitants of Hope, most of whom still stood frozen in the stands or found themselves wiping blood off themselves, only a fraction responded to the call to arms. Sean recognized many of them.

  An eccentric woman with peacock-colored hair that made her scorpion lethality unsuspected. Diesel and his partner Laramie,
who shared goodbyes with a sobbing Caleb as they descended the stairs, hand in hand. A small army of roiders rumbled the stands as they stirred, Trey among them, though he wasn’t an official member of either Wave. A dozen more Awakened followed as well.

  Placated by fear, most of the remaining members of Hope lingered in the stands. A chief member among them, a woman with dulled hair and gray eyes. Sean felt Savina’s gaze before he confirmed it was focused on him. With the force of a small tornado, she pushed her way through the crowd and inserted herself before him. “Don’t you think you’re rushing into this a little fast?”

  “Rushing?” He balked in disbelief. “If we move any slower, Graciela might be dead by the time we find her.” The statement was an entirely realistic possibility, but a devastating and chilling one nonetheless. Self-consciously, Sean scanned his nearest surroundings. The last thing he needed was for Graciela’s brother to be within earshot. Fortunately, Santiago was still unconscious on the ground. He hadn’t budged since the insert had been plucked from his earlobe.

  Sean waved for Trey’s attention. “Can you take him to the infirmary? And don’t give him another insert until we’ve left Hope. Maybe even wait a little longer after that so he doesn’t try to follow us.”

  Savina, whom Sean had honestly forgotten about, snatched his elbow. A small legion of equally disgruntled people drew in around her. “But it’s not our responsibility to go after her. That’s what the Awakened Authority is for. The protocol says we contact them first, and then they send trained soldiers to handle these types of…situations.”

  Frustration bloomed. Sean was flooded by images of Surviving & Thriving, of the bodies left for the buzzards, all the lives brutally lost. No one had come to their aid, despite the obvious threat, despite their pleas to the Awakened Authority. “The Awakened Authority only intervenes when they deem it necessary. If the Sanguinatores aren’t actively knocking on our front door, and it appears like they’ve left, AwA won’t lift a finger. This is something we have to take into our own hands.”