“You’re… you’re going to be okay, Liam,” she whispered. Hesitantly reaching out, she pressed her palm to his cheek with a feather-light touch. “You’ll be okay. Just focus on healing. I’m right here.”
Nodding, Liam closed his eyes and tried to do as she instructed. It felt like trying to wade against the current. For every wound he healed, the more pain he felt from the remaining injuries. It was utterly maddening. Eventually, when the pain in his mouth grew too distracting to bear, he decided to ignore his splintered fingers for a few minutes and focus on them.
To his relief, it turned out that he could replace teeth. The broken ones were easier, of course, and repaired themselves in seconds. Those that were missing completely were harder, but when he felt the first edge of a missing incisor poking out from the gum, he felt a great weight lift from his shoulders. Still, it was a slow, painful process, going from gap to gap with his tongue to discover precisely what needed repair.
“Damn it,” he muttered at last, when the last of the oral injuries had been repaired. “Teeth are the worst.”
Beside him, Jenn let out a laughing sob, prompting Liam to open his eyes. He found her watching him over tear-wetted cheeks and the second their eyes met, she leaned in and kissed him desperately. The kiss tasted of blood, but she didn’t seem to mind.
“You idiot,” she whispered, voice hoarse. “Don’t scare me like that. What in the world happened to you?”
“I—” Liam hesitated. Even if it was the truth, admitting he had jumped off the cliff seemed unlikely to soothe Jenn’s worries. Wincing, he cleared his throat and struggled into a sitting position. “I sort of… fell. Off the cliff.”
“How? Did they shoot you?”
“Yeah. At least once, I think.”
Well, it wasn’t technically a lie. And it was better if Jenn thought he’d been shot first.
“You think?”
With a lopsided grin, Liam gestured at his blood-soaked torso. The motion reminded him of his still-unhealed fingers and he paused long enough for them to shift back into alignment. They seemed to be healing faster now.
“It all kind of blends together,” he said. “I’ll be okay, though. Don’t worry.”
“Don’t worry?”
“That’s right. Don’t worry.” Cautiously testing each of his joints, Liam climbed slowly to his feet. Jenn grasped his elbow, which proved fortunate when he nearly pitched over from a sudden fit of lightheadedness.
“Liam!”
“I’m fine,” he assured her. “Just lost a lot of blood. I’ll be fine in a minute.”
Scowling, Jenn offered her canteen. He drank from it gratefully, surprised by how thirsty he felt. It took all his willpower not to finish it off before handing it back.
“So,” he said. “Want to see what the Occs were guarding?”
Jenn helped him with the first few steps, but by the time they neared the abandoned vehicle, Liam’s legs were strong enough to support him unassisted. To his surprise, there were multiple locks securing the supplies. He frowned, glancing around for a discarded weapon with which to destroy them. Jenn, however, got there first. With a wave of her hand, one of the few surviving cloak-vines snaked forward to examine the first lock. Fibrous threads, so thin they were practically invisible in the gloom, fed themselves into the keyhole. It took the better part of a minute, but soon an internal mechanism clicked and she pulled the lock free.
“That’s clever,” Liam said. Jenn did not respond, but her grin was obvious.
Several minutes later, the last of the locks had been dealt with. Liam wasn’t entirely sure he had recovered enough to handle the weight of the trailer door, but he stepped forward anyway. With Jenn’s help, they undid the final latches and swung the armored doors wide.
“The fuck?” he said.
The trailer was empty. Rather than the floor-to-ceiling pallets of food and weapons he’d expected, there were only a few bare shelves. And beyond them, lying in a pile of rags—
A girl.
“Liam!” Jenn yelped.
The girl pounced, moving faster than was humanly possible. In a single leap, she closed the distance between her hiding spot and the trailer door. She struck Liam with all four limbs, sending the two of them hurtling back onto the asphalt.
Liam grunted as they landed hard. The girl crouched atop him, golden eyes narrowed to slits. Her mouth was open wide, revealing four wicked-looking fangs. In the time it took to blink, her jaws closed around the exposed side of his neck.
And bit down.
Chapter Nine
Liam groaned as the girl’s fangs slid free of his neck. As they did, a jolting, struck-nerve pain shot through him and blood spurted from the puncture wounds.
“Liam!” Jenn shrieked.
He reached for his neck, intending to halt the bleeding. Instead, his fingers found the girl’s head. Her lips closed around the side of his neck, gulping noisily as she suckled.
Then she was gone. Liam hissed, instantly clamping a hand on his wounds. Blood seeped out beneath his fingers as he willed himself to heal. Unlike his tumble over the cliff, these injuries could not afford to wait.
It took close to a minute to complete the healing. By the time it was done, Liam had grown so lightheaded he didn’t dare attempt to stand. But, because he couldn’t do otherwise, he forced himself to sit up, though the effort left him breathless for multiple reasons.
His attacker dangled in midair, feet kicking desperately at the side of the transport vehicle that had held her. One of Jenn’s vines coiled tight around her throat, while others clung to her wrists. Already, the girl’s face was a dark, strangled red.
“Jenn, no!” Liam barked. He started to rise, but the blurring of his vision made him reconsider. “Don’t hurt her!”
Without a sound, the vine around the girl’s throat uncurled. She hit the ground hard, then cried out as her arms were yanked back by the remaining vines.
“Why not?” Jenn snarled, turning to cast a wild, haunted look Liam’s way. “She almost killed you! She’s dangerous!”
“She’s just scared,” he said. This time, he moved slower and succeeded in climbing to his feet. Grimacing, he wiped his hand, still drenched with blood, onto the leg of his trousers.
“Doesn’t look scared,” Jenn said.
She was right. The girl was kneeling, though not by choice. Jenn’s vines had fully entangled her wrists and forced her body into an involuntarily submissive form. What they could not do was erase the murderous expression she wore.
Now that he had a chance to examine her—without bleeding to death, of course—Liam was surprise by how young the girl was. She looked no older than Jenn, perhaps even younger by a year or so, but her waifish frame made her appear much younger than her face suggested. It was difficult to tell, though. Her silver-blonde hair was cut short, nearly as short as Liam’s, and the matching, pale gold of her eyes was so captivating that it was difficult to focus on any other characteristic long enough to take note.
Any characteristic but one, at least. Contrary to his initial impression, the girl was not clothed in rags, but rather a white gossamer dress so thin it was practically transparent. Not that it concealed much to begin with. The hem fell just above her knees and the low cut neckline had fallen open to reveal her inhumanly pale skin all the way to her navel.
Liam forced his eyes up to meet the girl’s venomous stare.
“What’s your name?” he asked.
The girl’s lip curled into a sneer.
“Not scared,” she said.
“What?”
“Not scared,” she repeated. “Hungry. Lucky, too. Both dead if not hungry.”
Beside him, Jenn let out a bitter laugh. “You see? Let me kill her.”
Liam ignored her. Kneeling, he tilted his head and made a show of rubbing the newly grown skin where the girl had bitten him. For just an instant, he could see surprise register before the girl managed to hide
her reaction.
“We’re not with the Institute,” he said. “And we’re not Occs. My name is Liam.”
The girl stared him down, a hint of uncertainty beginning to peek through her callous expression. She fidgeted, tugging irritably at her restraints.
“Don’t care,” she said. “Institute, not-Institute. Don’t care.”
“Yes, you do,” Liam murmured. He sat in front of the girl and stared deep into her eyes, trying to convey everything he couldn’t hope to convey with words alone. “I’ve been there. I know what it’s like. I know exactly how much you care.”
“Don’t care,” the girl muttered stubbornly. Then, after a moment of hesitation, reluctantly added, “Kathryn.”
“Kathryn,” Liam echoed, smiling. He jerked his head. “This is Jenn.”
Kathryn’s eyes did not so much as twitch in Jenn’s direction. Instead, she stared him down and cocked her head in a So, now what? gesture.
“The Institute enhanced you,” Liam said. It was not a question. “And now you… drink blood?”
She flashed a fanged smile. “Drink blood, fast and strong. Can show.” Craning her neck, she nodded at one of the fallen Occs. “Warm?”
Something about the way she said it made Liam’s skin crawl. He glanced at Jenn. By the revulsion on her face, it was clear she shared his opinion.
“You can show me later,” he said, returning his attention to the girl before him. “First, I—”
“Hungry.”
“—need to know that—”
“Hungry!”
Liam sighed as the girl glared at him. He shared another look with Jenn. Her thoughts were obvious, almost uncomfortably so.
“We have some food,” he said.
“Liam,” Jenn growled, warningly.
He barely heard her. Kathryn’s demands had ceased and she beamed up at him with bright, unnervingly wide eyes.
“Food now!” she chirped.
Liam shook his head as he climbed to his feet. This time, much to his relief, there was no accompanying dizziness.
“Not right now,” he said. At Kathryn’s frown, he continued, “Institute could be here any minute. We need to find a new hiding spot. Then, you can have some food.”
Kathryn continued to scowl, but gave a grudging nod and began to tug at the vines still pinning her arms back. For a moment, it appeared Jenn was not going to release her. Then, with an all-too-obvious note of disapproval, the vines went limp and retracted.
Jenn stepped close, eyes not leaving the new girl.
“I don’t like this,” she murmured. “I don’t like her. She’s too dangerous, Liam. I don’t care if she’s scared; she nearly killed you.”
“So did you,” he reminded her, gently. “Just give her a chance.”
Jenn stiffened, eyes narrowing. Without a word or a glance, she turned on her heel and marched away. Liam watched as she began to check the pockets and bags of the Occs they’d killed, claiming whatever supplies caught her eye. When he finally turned back around, Kathryn was standing in front of him, uncomfortably close, with a ravenous smile on her face.
Without so much as asking, the girl reached out and dragged her fingers across his chest until they were covered in his blood. She licked them clean with obvious relish, then started to reach for a second helping. This time, Liam caught her wrist and shook his head.
Grumbling, Kathryn drew back
“Food when?” she asked.
***
Despite having fully recovered from his wounds, the hike that led them away from the scene of the ambush was easily the most uncomfortably one Liam had ever experienced. Jenn would not speak to him. Unfortunately, the same could not be said for Kathryn. In fact, the girl hardly seemed capable of shutting her mouth. She chattered endlessly, mostly with questions about the promised meal and the spare rifle Liam had recovered, but also concerning every little thing they passed, however ordinary. Fallen trees, unusual rock formations, and even the occasional remains of dead wildlife. At one point, a passing bird so fascinated her that Liam had to literally drag her away by the back of her dress.
All the while, Jenn watched with the same silent, disapproving glare.
They’d set out looking for a cave like the one Scott had used. And though they passed several, none proved large enough to shelter even one of them, much less all three. So, in the end, it was not a cave that they settled on, but the remains of a modest barn.
Two of the walls had given out some time ago, but rather than collapse, the structure had managed to catch itself against the base of a tree. Over time, dead branches and sprouting bushes had grown to more or less replace the exposed walls.
Declaring the barn ‘safe enough,’ Jenn had promptly retired to a nearby tree. She lounged in the lower branches, pulling vines from the trunk and stripping off the leaves to replenish the tattered remains of her cape. Nothing proved enough to distract her from her work, no matter how many pleading looks Liam sent her way.
Kathryn, on the other hand, proved utterly delighted by their new lodgings. Though every other sentence she spoke was a request for food, it seemed to be from mere habit at this point. She climbed one of the barn’s inner supports, uninhibited by the effects this had on her dress, and entertained herself for several minutes by poking at an abandoned bird’s nest.
Resigned to the current state of affairs, Liam decided to see to his own needs. Not the least of which was a bath. His clothing was utterly ruined by now, from both his fall and the canteen’s worth of blood he’d covered it with. Reluctantly stripping off his shirt, he retrieved his rifle and set off hunting for a creek or spring in which to clean himself up.
Much to his dismay, he found neither. Apparently, while the changing terrain had proven better for hiding, it had also grown drier. As a result, he was in a decidedly fouler mood by the time he returned to the barn.
Kathryn was waiting for him.
“Food now!” she demanded. There were bits of straw and dried grass clinging to her hair and dress. It seemed the bird’s nest had not survived her appetite.
“Quiet!” Liam snapped, unable to suppress his rising irritation. “Do you want the Occs to hear you?”
For just a second, shock appeared on Kathryn’s face. Then it faded, along with any hints of a smile or frown. All emotion seemed to vanish entirely, and she stared at him with cloudy eyes like those of a corpse.
“Don’t care,” she murmured. “Liam give food. Laoban give food. Hungry. Hungry….”
Liam sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. It wasn’t Kathryn’s fault. Hell, he didn’t even know the last time she’d eaten. The Occs could have been starving her on the way to the Institute, for all he knew.
“Sorry, Kathryn,” he said. “We’ll eat now.”
The blankness of the girl’s face disappeared at once, replaced by a wide grin. Practically dancing, she followed him into the barn. Her enthusiasm made things difficult, as she crowded around him and blocked the light. At the scent of the mildewed blanket he’d wrapped things in, however, she recoiled.
“Smells bad,” she said.
Liam chuckled, nodding in agreement as he unwrapped the bundle and began gathering up the loose ammunition that had mingled with the food. It seemed cruel to make Kathryn wait any longer, though, and he offered her a cloth-wrapped package of berries. From the dampness of their container, it was obvious they’d been crushed beyond recognition, but the tart aroma was enough to make his stomach growl.
Kathryn accepted the food hesitantly, sniffing at the cloth and giving it an experimental squeeze.
“Better,” she noted. Then, somewhat awkwardly, she bit into the cloth wrapper.
“No!” Liam said, startling her. At Kathryn’s expression, he laughed again and helped her unlace the top of the cloth. “You don’t want to eat that part.”
Even in the semi-dark of the barn, he could see Kathryn’s eyes light up. She tore into the berries with a snarl, shove
ling the dripping pulp into her mouth with both hands. In seconds, she’d devoured the entire bag of them, fingers stained and juice leaking down over her chin.
Given her penchant for blood, the sight was more than a little disturbing. Liam stared at her, stomach flip-flopping.
“Good,” Kathryn said. She beamed, fangs gleaming. “Blood better. Food good, too. More?”
Liam shook his head and said quickly, “No. Those were the last berries. But I have a little meat.”
Kathryn’s eyes went wide. The second Liam’s fingers brushed the package of dried meat, she lunged. He flinched, lifting the meat out of reach by pure instinct. Which, of course, meant that the girl flopped directly onto the pile of supplies laid out before him and sent ammunition rolling in every direction.
“Hey!” Liam growled. Pushing her back with a hand to her brow, he glared at the girl. “Behave!”
Kathryn growled unhappily, but picked herself up and seated herself in an identical fashion. When Liam continued to hold the meat out of reach, she made a face and quickly gathered up the loose rounds she’d displaced.
“Meat now?”
Liam eyed her sternly. “Please,” he said.
She made a face. “Meat now, please.”
Well, he couldn’t expect much more. The first meal he’d shared with Scott had undoubtedly been at least as uncultured. In fact, if he recalled correctly, the food had been the only reason he’d even stayed to hear what the man had to say.
Unlacing the bag, Liam handed over the meat. Unlike his first meal with Scott, however, Kathryn did not immediately tear into the food. She stared down at the strips of venison, frowning.
“Meat?” she asked, plainly disappointed.
“What’s wrong?”
“Smells old. Bad.”
Frowning, Liam reached over and plucked out a bit. He sniffed it, found it smelled exactly as it should, and then popped it into his mouth. The taste was fine. Far from old and fresher than some he’d eaten over the past few weeks.
Feral Empires: First Spark Page 9