He watched the guard. “Phylicia Reynolds.” He kept his voice low. “I don’t know her well, but my impression of her has always been a good one. And there’s a good chance she recognized me.”
“What do we do?” asked Chris.
“We wait and see what she’s up to.”
The guard ambled all the way to the end of the table rows, looking over the diners as they ate. Then she turned and came back the opposite direction. As she passed their table, something dropped on the floor beside them. She kept going.
“Alek,” whispered Hannah.
“I see it.” Suddenly he dropped the baby bottle. It rolled into the aisle, coming to a stop on top of the object. “You’re supposed to drink it, not throw it,” he said aloud in his southern twang as he handed the baby to Hannah and got up to retrieve the bottle. He returned to his seat and handed the bottle to Hannah.
“What is it?” she asked him.
“A note,” he said, unfolding it under the table. “It’s from our ginger friend.” He glanced back toward the guard. “It appears she’s already begun recruiting.”
“What does it say?” asked Paula, leaning in.
“Julia’s placed her in charge of the camp.”
“This camp?” Paula asked. He nodded.
“This has to be a setup, right?” Hannah’s appetite suddenly went the way of Chris’s. “Julia must have recognized you.”
“Perhaps. But knowing Julia’s quirks, this could be legitimate. She prefers to delegate rather than get her hands dirty.”
“Does it say anything else?”
He nodded and kept reading. “Our new friend here will replace her as the prison secretary. And she believes it’s time to recruit allies among her own people.”
“Is that a good idea?”
He shook his head. “She doesn’t appear to be asking my opinion. Or my permission.” He folded up the note and snuck it into his pocket before folding his hands and resting them on the table. “Is she still there?”
Hannah nodded. “She’s coming back for another pass.”
“I don’t suppose anyone brought a pen?”
They all looked at each other. Paula patted her pockets and shook her head. “I can get her a message, though. I know just what to do.”
Hannah and Alek exchanged a look.
“Oh, come on, you two. Let me do stuff!”
Chris put a hand on hers. “Mom—”
“Hush, now. I’ve got this. Just tell me what to say.”
Alek leaned in and beckoned for Paula to do the same. “Tell her exactly this: Proceed with caution. Watch your backs. And I want to see names. Have you got that?”
“Caution, backs, names.” Paula nodded resolutely. “Got it. Okay, here she comes.”
Paula got up and picked up her tray. As Reynolds reached their table, Paula turned right into her, upending the tray and its contents onto herself and all over the floor. “Oh, my word! I am so sorry! I swear, I’m just not used to you guards lurking around every corner.”
“That’s all right,” said Reynolds. “Let me help you clean this up.” They both knelt down to pick up the mess. After a moment, Reynolds stood up and nodded. “Try to be more careful next time.”
“I will, believe you me!” Paula took her tray to the garbage receptacle while Reynolds moved on.
“That was slick,” admitted Hannah.
Paula returned to the table and sat down as if nothing had happened. “Well? What did y’all think of that?”
“I think you’re the southernest woman in Southernville,” said Chris. She reached over and shoved his shoulder.
“Well done,” said Alek. “We may have to let you do stuff more often.”
Paula grinned. “I feel just like James Bond!”
“Don’t get carried away,” said Hannah. “This is a lot more dangerous than a spy movie.”
“I know that, sweetie. I’m just having some fun. I’ve been moping around this past week wishing I could lay down and die. But now I’ve got my boy back, I’m ready for some joy.” She beamed at them. “Speaking of which, as soon as you’re ready I can show you your surprise.”
Hannah looked at Alek, eyebrows raised.
“I’m ready when you are,” he said.
They followed Paula to the cell block serving as quarters for those from their camp. She led them past their own cells, down the long corridor and into the next block. Still further down, she stopped at a cell where sheets covered the bars. Inside, the bottom bunk was freshly made and piled with pillows.
“I know it’s cozy, and it ain’t no honeymoon suite, but it’ll give you two your privacy.”
“Thank you, Paula,” said Hannah. “It’s perfect.”
“It better be,” said Chris. “She had me running around all afternoon gathering up spare sheets.”
Hannah winced at that. With their history, that couldn’t have been a fun task for Chris. But he seemed to take it in stride. He was even smiling for a change. “I’ll go get your bags.” He headed back in the direction they’d come.
“There’s one more thing.” Paula moved down to the next cell which held a portable crib. “I rustled this up for the little one. They used to keep a nursery upstairs. This thing folds up, so you can just bring it down to my room any time you like. Oh, and I cleared all of this with Louise, so don’t worry.”
Alek put an arm around Paula. “You’ve outdone yourself. This couldn’t be more perfect.”
“I’m so glad you like it. I can’t even tell you how happy I am to see you both. And you brought me my boy...” Her voice broke. She squeezed her eyes shut and fanned her face with her hands. “I said I wasn’t gonna cry anymore.”
Chris reappeared, carrying both of their packs. “Mom? What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong, son. Your mother’s just got more emotions than she can handle.” She wiped her eyes and waved him on. “Let’s go. This little family needs their privacy.” Without another word, she shooed him back down the corridor and followed after him.
“It was really sweet of her to do this,” said Hannah. Alek stepped inside the cell to look around. She followed him. “Too bad she didn’t figure out a way to increase the size of the bed.”
“It’s perfect.”
“It’s definitely nice to have some privacy.” She looked around the room and took in the regulation commode next to the bunk. “Still, not exactly conducive to romance.”
“No, I wouldn’t say it’s perfect for that.”
“What, then?”
He looked at her. “Isn’t it obvious?”
“Let’s say it’s not and fill me in.”
Alek broke into a wide grin. “Paula just handed us our secret lab.”
SEVENTEEN
EDDIE AWOKE IN THE back of the bus, alone. Moonlight washed over the pallet of blankets serving for a bed, and over him, bright enough to illuminate the bite marks and puncture wounds covering his body. He traced the freshest, centered on the curve of his bicep. He shuddered remembering the moment she’d penetrated him, just as he’d finished spending himself in her. A wave of disgust and loathing chased his desire, but not hard enough or fast enough to quell it.
“Esme?” he whispered. If she was on the bus, somewhere out of sight, she would hear. But she didn’t answer.
He rose to see out the window. She stood at the edge of the tree line, her back to the bus. Naked and bathed in moonlight, she looked like a marble statue, or like someone had carved her out of a pearl. But looks were deceiving. Eddie’s hands knew how soft that smooth flesh was, how pliable, and they ached to feel it.
He should kill her. It wouldn’t be impossible, and he’d had plenty of time to consider how. Drag her naked body into the sunlight while she slept like the dead. Or skip the sun and set her on fire. Grab that gun she’d used to threaten him and fill her so full of lead that she’d be too weak to fight, then cut off that pretty head with the knife she let him keep.
Or he could simply slip away and leave h
er to starve.
If he wanted to, this was his chance. While she was so fixated on the prison beyond the woods and the ocean of zombies between them, he could get dressed and slide out through the emergency exit. His knife was all he needed to survive in these woods.
Just when he made up his mind to go through with it, she turned and pinned him with her gaze, as if to tell him that not only did she sense him watching her but also what he was thinking. Her eyes beckoned him, and whether it was some kind of vampire mojo or that body on display and ripe for the taking, he was powerless to resist.
By the time he stepped off the bus she’d turned back toward the prison. He made his way to her, heedless of the rocks, twigs and broken hickory shells biting into his bare feet, until he pressed up against her, running eager hands over smooth skin, kneading pliable flesh. He nuzzled her silky, golden hair. She didn’t respond, but she didn’t resist, either.
“How long are we gonna sit out here watching this place?” he asked.
“Until an opportunity presents itself.”
“What kind of opportunity?”
“We’ll know it when we see it.”
“We could make our own, you know. Go back to that base, get ourselves a tank and storm the damn castle.”
Somehow, he sensed her smile, the one that said she found his idiocy amusing. “Do you know how to drive a tank?”
“As a matter of fact, I do.”
She twisted to look at him, and for a moment he thought he saw a hint of respect in her eyes. Or maybe it was just calculation, noting this new info on the mental checklist she kept of all the ways he might prove useful.
All the reasons she hadn’t killed him yet.
“Well, then.” She turned back toward the prison. “We’ll add that to our list of options.”
“Seems to me that’s the only item on the list.”
“And suppose we ‘storm the damn castle,’ as you so eloquently put it? Then what? We’d be outnumbered and out-gunned.”
“Yeah, but we’d take as many of ‘em as we could with us.”
She sighed, and that was his cue to stop talking, because she was done listening. He didn’t press it. His plan was a bad one, especially if he actually wanted to save the human race.
Esme told him what that damn bloodsucking doctor was up to. How he wanted to turn everyone, humans and vampires alike, into half-breed abominations. He’d already done it to his best friend’s girl. Eddie should’ve taken his head instead of leaving him for the sun. How he’d gotten himself down from that fence, Eddie didn’t know, but he figured Hannah probably had something to do with it.
And now she was a lost cause. Maybe her brother, too.
They had to die before they spread the filth in their blood to the rest of humanity. Eddie would make sure of it.
He and Esme had this goal in common, and their chances were better if they worked together. That’s why he stayed. That’s why he didn’t kill her.
At least, that’s what he told himself.
Esme leaned against him, relaxing in his arms. If he closed his eyes, he could pretend it was only the night air cooling her skin, that she was only a woman and her heart wasn’t as cold as the rest of her, that this thing between them was real and he wasn’t a damn necrophiliac.
She turned around and pressed her body to his. No amount of willpower could have kept his own body from responding as she brushed his neck with her lips. “I’m hungry, Eddie.”
Soon she would open his vein and take what she wanted, but not before opening her legs to give him what he craved. He still wasn’t sure how they’d arrived at such an arrangement, but it couldn’t go on forever.
Sooner or later, he would have to kill her.
Before she ended up killing him.
EIGHTEEN
IT AMAZED HANNAH HOW quickly they fell into a routine. In the morning everyone hit the showers before lining up in the dining hall for breakfast. Afterwards she put in her first shift in the prison laundry. Paula had her own work assignment tending to the garden, so she couldn’t watch Noah. Hannah took him to work with her and converted an industrial-sized hamper into a playpen while she bent over the sewing machine, stitching up tears and patching worn-out clothing.
Her shift ended with the lunch hour. She found Paula and Chris in the dining hall, where she fed her brother and grabbed a quick bite for herself before leaving him with Paula, as happy to oblige as ever.
Hannah hated to take advantage of the older woman’s good nature, but she genuinely seemed to love Noah and seized any excuse to spend time with him, a fact for which Hannah was grateful.
She got back in line to get a tray of food for Alek. They had decided he should spend as little time as possible in the general population areas. The less the vampire guards saw him, the better. Celine had kept his name off the work rosters, and he’d spent the morning hiding out in their cell, setting up his lab.
Even under Esme’s watch the vampires hadn’t paid much attention to the human prisoners’ daily activities, as long as nobody made any trouble. That much hadn’t changed. None of the guards seemed to notice, or care, as she carried a tray of food toward the cell blocks.
She found Alek standing on his toes beneath the high window, examining a vial of liquid in the sliver of sunlight it allowed in.
“What’s that?” she asked, pausing in the doorway. A sheet covered the floor, on top of which sat the centrifuge they’d taken, along with a microscope and an assortment of tubes and vials and a yellow legal pad covered in Alek’s chicken scratch.
He held the vial out to her. “The antiserum.”
She picked her way across the floor and set his tray on the bed before taking it from him.
“Careful. For now that’s all there is.”
“I expected that to take longer.” She held the little vial up to the light.
“Separating a single blood sample into serum doesn’t take that long. Producing the quantities we need will be a more arduous process. But that should be enough for testing.”
“How much do you think it’ll take?”
“That’s what we need to find out. I gave Chris a few pints of my blood—more than was safe, but we didn’t have much choice. For a healthy human, I doubt it’ll take much.” He held a hand out and she handed back the vial. “We’ll have to go by trial and error. Start with the smallest viable dose and work our way up. Thankfully, we have a volunteer.”
“Do you want me to let Captain Burell know you’re ready for him?”
“Not yet. I need to get a message to Celine first.”
“What about?”
“The blood collections. She needs to keep the three of us—four, if Burell’s transformation is successful—off the list.”
“Don’t you think she’s probably thought of that?”
“I’d prefer to make certain.” He set the vial carefully on the back of the sink, cradled between the wall and the faucet, before sitting on the bottom bunk and reaching for the tray. “Thanks for lunch.”
She sat down beside him and watched as he attacked the fresh tomato slices on his plate. She enjoyed watching him eat, the gusto with which he approached every meal. Probably because it was still so new.
“Do you really believe we can pull this off?”
He paused with the fork halfway to his mouth and looked at her. “Luck has been with us so far, but we’d best not tempt fate.”
“That sounds awfully superstitious for a man of science.”
He shrugged as he chewed. “A man of science who spent the better part of a century as an immortal. I’ve come to accept that there are mysteries science and medicine might never explain.” He set down his fork and tenderly tucked a loose tendril of hair behind her ear. “Like how such a bright and beautiful young woman could love a beast like me.”
Hannah gave him a skeptical look. “If you think you’re beastly, you need another look in the mirror.”
He smiled and chuckled, but shook his head. “You know what I
mean. Some of the things I’ve done...”
She scooted closer and laid her head on his shoulder. “Are things you’ve been working to make up for longer than I’ve been alive. You’re a good man, Alek. That’s why I love you.”
She lifted her head and looked at him. The intensity of his gaze startled her. But she also saw serenity in his eyes, a peace she hadn’t noticed before. He slipped his hand around the back of her neck, his fingers sliding into her hair as he pulled her toward him. She went willingly. His kiss was sweet and tender, but promised something more. He pressed his forehead to hers and held her for a moment.
“I love you,” he said at last, his voice husky with emotion.
Hannah took his hand from her neck. She held it to her lips and kissed his wedding ring before releasing it so he could get back to his meal.
“Do you want me to deliver a message?”
He nodded. “Find the guard from last night, if you can. Tell her I want to meet with Celine. She can choose the time and place, but it needs to be soon.”
Hannah stood up. “Anything else?”
He seemed to consider for a moment. “Let Burell know we’re ready. The sooner we start testing, the better.”
“Okay.” She leaned down and pecked him on the cheek and then turned to go.
She didn’t have to go far. She found the captain in the dining hall, sitting alone with his empty plate and a beat-up paperback book. Hannah pulled out the chair beside him and sat down. “Whatcha reading?”
He glanced at her in surprise. He’d been so engrossed that he hadn’t seen her, apparently. He dogeared the page he was on and set the book down. The cover was missing, but Hannah could see the title page. Pride and Prejudice. “I was never much of an Austen fan,” he said, and offered her a sad smile. “It was my wife’s favorite. I found it in the prison library and thought I’d give it a chance.”
“How is it?”
“It’s entertaining. Though given the choice I’d rather watch the movie.”
Hannah smiled. “I’m sure your wife would be proud of you for giving the book a try.”
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