Eat the Ones You Love (The Thirteen Book 2)

by J. L. Murray

  “I guess you’ve never been one,” said Jenny.

  “Have you?”

  Jenny shrugged. “For a little while.”

  “I can’t fight it anymore,” Declan said. Trix had fallen against the wall, closing her eyes. She was trying to will it away.

  “Let them have Anna,” said Jenny.

  “Fuck no,” said Sarah. “I’m not letting a bunch of rotters desecrate my parents.”

  “You just killed her.”

  “She’s not dead yet,” said Sarah. “Why are they so important?”

  “They’re my friends,” said Jenny. “They helped me. When I died.”

  “You’ve died before,” said Sarah. “I helped you. You just don’t remember.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Jenny. Declan was having trouble controlling himself. Jenny went to him and took his hand. She could smell the rot. His body was constantly trying to make up for the fluids it couldn’t hold anymore. Jenny looked at Anna, at the blood spreading out behind her like angel wings. Declan was going to die. She couldn’t save him. But Sarah was alive. Benji took another step toward Anna, his eyes wild. Jenny could still feel a weak heart beating in her mother.

  “Benji, don’t,” said Jenny, feeling Declan also starting to strain toward her dying mother. The blood was too much for him. .

  “I have to,” he said.

  “Benji, please,” said Jenny. “What about Rayanne?”

  “She couldn’t help it. She’s weak that way. Outside of a lab, she’s so weak. Like a kitten.”

  He took another step.

  “Last chance,” said Sarah. “You’re not touching her. She’s family.”

  “No one has family anymore,” said Benji. Sarah held up the knife.

  “Want to test me?” she said.

  Benji’s eyes flickered. He looked toward the door that Robin used. And he smiled. Jenny let go of Declan and in a moment had her arm wrapped around Benji’s throat. He was still smiling. This wasn’t Benji. This was what took over when Benji was all used up and when the hunger took over. This animal who only knew how to hunt and feed.

  “I’m going to tear her apart,” said Benji.

  “Leave Robin alone, Benji,” said Jenny. “She helped us. She’s like family.” She didn’t notice that Benji had a knife until she heard it. Like ripping fabric. She felt hot blood running down her leg before she felt the pain. She screamed and let go of him to pull the small knife out of her thigh. Blood poured out of the wound and Jenny ground her teeth together. She saw Sarah rush Benji and then heard him groan as he fell, the knife embedded under his chin. The life faded from his eyes.

  Jenny realized that Declan wasn’t standing next to her anymore.

  Robin began to scream.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  Jenny froze when she saw Declan on top of Robin. Declan the wild animal, not the man. She watched as Robin stabbed him over and over again in an abdomen that was no longer there, in the chest, the neck. Her upper arms were pinned and she couldn’t reach far enough to put the blade into his brain. Running toward them, Jenny felt as if she were running through water. She heard screaming behind her and screaming in front of her, as Declan opened his mouth wider than should have been possible. The knife she pulled out of Benji dripped black and red blood.

  The world had gone bigger, thicker, slower. Declan was screaming too, but it was a rotter scream. And then his face disappeared and she was the only one screaming. Jenny wasn’t aware of wanting to scream but suddenly her throat was raw and she was screaming his name, she was screaming as everything else fell into silence to match this new horrifying world. The world in which Declan was a monster.

  Blood spurted on the wall, bright red and shocking. It was warm when she stopped running as it sprayed her face and her neck. It didn’t make her hungry this time, only sick. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t talk, she could only scream. Someone was touching her shoulder, trying to pull her away. Jenny turned her head, finally silent. Sarah was pulling at her, afraid for her to get close, trying to keep her safe. Jenny let out a shaky sigh that should have been a sob and Sarah stopped pulling. Sarah understood and a tear fell down her cheek to match her sister’s.

  Jenny could feel herself crying as she remembered how Declan found her after she died.

  “You’re crying, Jenny.”

  “Dead girls don’t cry,” she said aloud.

  Declan hesitated and Jenny held the knife. Sarah slipped her hand into Jenny’s.

  “You’re not dead, Jenny,” said Sarah. “Not anymore.”

  “I know,” Jenny whispered. “But it doesn’t feel like it.”

  Declan stood, weaving, holding his head with bloody hands. He half turned, not looking at Jenny, not speaking. A trickle of blood-colored saliva dripped down his chin.

  “Declan,” said a voice, full of grief. Full of sadness. Trix stepped up to stand beside Jenny. “What did you do?”

  “I don’t…” he trailed off and then let out a sob that came from deep within and for a moment, Jenny thought he would fall to the ground. Fall to his knees. But instead he stepped back and for the first time Jenny saw his face. It was wet with blood. Robin’s blood. Jenny’s eyes fell slowly to the floor, tracing back along a trail of blood. Robin stared at the ceiling. Still, so still. Her throat was gone. Jenny shook her head. She forced her eyes back up to Declan.

  “Jesus Christ,” he said, pushing a hand through his hair, but pulling it away when he felt how sticky with blood it was. He looked down at his hands and then back up at Jenny.

  “Declan,” Jenny said. “You’re crying.”

  “No,” he whispered and took another step back. “I’m sorry.”

  Sarah took the knife from Jenny's hand and stepped toward him. Declan looked from Trix to Jenny.

  “I’m sorry,” he said again. He took another step back, pulling Trix’s knife out of his belt.

  “Declan, don’t do this,” Trix said.

  “I’m sorry,” he said for the third time. He looked into Jenny’s eyes. “I love you, Jen,” he said. He turned and bolted into one of the supply rooms. Sarah hurried over and crouched by Robin’s body. Jenny heard her shove the knife into Robin’s head to ensure that she would never turn, never be like them. She would never breathe or smile or live again. She would never wake up.

  Jenny realized her feet were moving. She was at the door then, looking in.

  “Don’t,” she said when she saw him. Sitting on bags of flour, watching her as she came through the door.

  “I can’t anymore, Jen,” he said. “Just turn away, okay?”

  “My dad can fix you, Deck,” said Jenny, taking a step. “Even if you’re not like me, he can patch you up, make you something to help you move. You can be whole again.”

  “Stop. Don’t come closer.”

  Jenny halted, hand on the doorframe.

  “You don’t get it,” he said, and she saw that he really was crying. Large tears streamed down, washing the blood away, making him clean. “I’m never going to be whole. I’m never going to be me again. This isn’t who I am. This isn’t anything that I want to be. This isn’t living, Jen. I’m so tired. So fucking tired. And I don’t want to hurt anyone ever again.”

  He put the knife under his chin, holding the handle with both hands wrapped around it.

  “No,” said Jenny. “I love you, Declan. Please.”

  “I stayed for you,” he said. “It was always you, Jen. Everything I’ve done since I first saw you. Everything I’ve been. Every joy I’ve had since we met. You are everything.”

  “Then stop this,” said Jenny. “I don’t want to do this without you.”

  “I can’t,” he said. “I can’t be this thing anymore. I would kill for you. I have killed for you. And now I need to die for you. Before I hurt you again.”

  “You’ve never hurt me,” said Jenny. “You can’t hurt me, remember?”

  “That’s not the kind of hurt I’m talking about,” he said. “I can see it in your eyes. Every time
I’m hungry, every time I lose control, I can see it. I can see myself reflected right there in your eyes. It’s not a man there anymore. I used to love the way you saw me and it made me become something that I was proud of.”

  “You’re still that man.”

  “Your eyes don’t lie,” he said. “I’ll never be a man again. I’ll just stay on the cusp of human and animal. And whenever I’m more animal than man, you’ll know it, and I’ll see it. I can’t live like that.”

  “Please, Declan. It will get better.” Jenny could hear the pleading in her voice and she hated it. She couldn’t breathe out the sobs anymore, they were racking her chest and she had to hold onto the door frame to keep from falling over. “I swear it’ll get better. Just put the knife down.”

  He smiled then. A brilliant smile like the one that he’d given her when they met. It had melted her heart then, but it was shattering her now. She remembered Faron’s face after she killed Angel. A million shattered pieces barely holding together. She felt that way now.

  “I love you, Jenny Hawkins,” he said, and his eyes turned sad. “Since the moment I first saw you, I’ve loved you. I wouldn’t have been worth a damn without you.”

  “Declan, don’t. Please.”

  “I’m sorry, Jen. I’m not strong enough.”

  “I’ll be strong enough for both of us,” Jenny said.

  “I know you will,” he said. “You always have been. Goodbye, Jenny.”

  “Don’t leave me,” she whispered. “Please.”

  “I have to. You’ll die to save me. Over and over you’ll die. And I can’t let you do it anymore. I love you. Save your family, save Zeke. And then run, Jen. Just fucking run. I don’t think these people are fucking around and I can’t save you. Not like this.”

  “Deck…”

  “I love you,” he said.

  And then he thrust up with his hands and gave a grunt, his eyes widening before they went blank, his smile fading, his hands falling away from his chin, just as his body went slack.

  She heard screaming again. Jenny found herself on her knees, crying out. She was out of breath again.

  She tried to call out his name, but found that she already was. She was screaming his name over and over again. She crawled to where he had fallen against the bags of flour and cartons of cigarettes and she pulled him down to her. She clutched at him and screamed for him not to be dead. She screamed for him to blink, to see her, to live again. She pulled out the knife and let it clatter onto the floor. And she willed him to gasp back to life as she had when Faron stabbed her. She sobbed and beat her hands on his chest and shouted for him to breathe. Why wouldn’t he breathe? If he would just breathe, they could live together forever. They could be together…

  Hands on her back. Sarah on one side, Trix on the other. One cold as ice, the other hot. One dead heart and two beating.

  “He’s going to wake up,” she heard herself whisper. “He’s going to wake up and be alive. Just like me.”

  “Jenny,” said Sarah.

  “No,” Jenny said when she tried to pull her away. “No, he’s going to wake up and I’m going to be here.” She clutched Declan to her, his head on her lap, his eyes staring at the ceiling.

  Just like Robin.

  “He’s going to wake up,” she said. “He’s going to wake up, Sarah. And then Mother’s going to fix him.”

  “Mother’s dead,” said Sarah.

  “Everyone’s dead, Jen,” said Trix, so gently. Jenny had never seen her so gentle. And it terrified her.

  “No, call me cheerleader,” Jenny said, stroking Declan’s hair.

  “What?” said Trix.

  “If everything’s okay, you’ll call me cheerleader and tell me I’m being stupid and then you’ll call someone a bitch. And everything will be okay.” Jenny closed her eyes and kept stroking Declan’s hair. “Everything will be fine.”

  “Jenny,” said Trix.

  “NO!” Jenny said, her throat seared from screaming. “Call me cheerleader, Trix. Call me a fucking cheerleader.”

  “I can’t,” said Trix, her pale lip trembling.

  Jenny took her hand from Declan’s hair and covered her mouth. “Why?” she whispered.

  “Because,” Trix said, her words sounding like someone else was saying them. Someone un-Trix-like. Someone who was sad and lost and wounded in a way that would never heal. “You’re all I have left.”

  Jenny felt something break inside of her.

  “Sarah?” Jenny said, slowly opening her eyes. Declan was staring, sightless, slack jawed. Gone. He was gone. Really gone this time.

  “I’m here,” Sarah said.

  “Sarah,” Jenny said again. “Sarah, please.” Without another word, Sarah understood. She held her sister tightly as her body shook with grief. As Trix sat beside her, her cold hand clasped in Jenny’s. Sarah held her as she held Declan, the man who she’d loved. The man who had been everything. The man who was gone.

  “Maybe he’ll wake up,” Jenny whispered, before her voice was lost to sobbing.

  And above the sobbing came the sound of a helicopter. Jenny looked up when she heard it and a light caught her eye, magnified by her tears. A small green light. Blinking.

  A security camera was watching her.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  Jenny didn’t remember being taken. She remembered holding onto Declan as long as she could. She screamed and tasted a tang of blood in her mouth, though whether hers or another's she had no idea. She had a vague memory of movement, of flight and noise and shrieks of rage. She couldn’t move and suddenly she was back in the same hospital where she stayed as a girl, the click of heels announcing a visitor in her room. Of psychiatrists and nurses and drugs.

  She’s not real, Jenny.

  She felt herself being carried then. The smell of iodine and bleach. The glare of fluorescent lights. This must be a dream. She was imagining it all. Because now Sarah was next to her, cuffed to a wheelchair, staring at her, moving her mouth. But Sarah wasn’t real. Sarah was made up in Jenny’s head. She looked slowly down and saw her own wrists were cuffed to an identical chair. She looked at Sarah again. She was still saying something to her. Jenny blinked.

  “Declan,” she said, her own voice disconnected from her body. She saw his eyes again, like a flash of a dream. Dead eyes, really dead now. There was a knife, black with blood.

  I’m not strong enough.

  “No,” she whispered.

  Since the moment I met you…

  “No,” she said again, louder. “No, no, no, no.”

  Paramilitary firing submachine guns in Colorado. Declan’s guts all over the floor. Faron shoving a knife into her chest.

  Jenny blinked and wrenched her arms up, feeling the cuffs cut into her skin. She looked down and watched a red trickle of blood run down the palm of her hand. She blinked again, the beeping of medical machines becoming real, the fluorescent lights becoming real, the chair and the cuffs and the blood becoming real. She turned her face to Sarah, but she was gone.

  People in black jumpsuits were running around her, someone was yelling. A woman’s voice shouting orders. Jenny pulled up hard on her wrists again and she felt something tear. Blood poured out now, covering her arm, her hand, the wheelchair. She yanked again and again and again. The yelling woman now noticed what she was doing, and narrowed her eyes at Jenny. Jenny smiled at her and yanked again and felt the arms of the wheelchair wrench up.

  “Stop her!” she yelled. She had red hair and very pale skin and looked to be in her early forties.

  Jenny felt the blood gushing now, but it didn’t matter. She would heal. It didn’t help that she felt lightheaded, but she would live.

  She yanked again, as she watched the woman grab one of the soldiers dashing around and pointed at her. Again and again, the padded arms were almost loose. A soldier grabbed the back of her chair and wheeled her to face the woman.

  “Stop her, I said,” she barked. “Just grab her.”

  “She’s covered in
blood, though,” she heard a man say behind her. She yanked again and one arm came completely off and one hand was free.

  “I don’t give a fuck if she’s covered in fucking acid. STOP HER.”

  “But the blood…”

  “Goddammit, get out of the way.”

  She was in front of Jenny now and put a strong hand on Jenny’s chest, pushing her back.

  “Thank you,” Jenny said. The woman looking puzzled even as Jenny grabbed her hair and moved her face next to hers.

  The woman screamed, trying to get away, but Jenny held tight.

  “I want you to understand something,” Jenny said as the woman struggled. “I have absolutely nothing to lose. Do you fucking understand me?”

  The woman went still and Jenny felt her nod.

  “I can bite your goddamn face off if I want to and you can’t do anything to stop me. Do you understand that?”

  “Yes,” the woman gasped.

  “Answer me this,” Jenny said. “Do I have a sister?”

  “What?” said the woman, clearly taken aback.

  “Answer the fucking question,” said Jenny. “Do I have a sister?”

  “Of course,” she said.

  “I didn’t imagine her?”

  “No, she’s real,” said the woman, sounding unsettlingly interested for someone who was in danger.

  Jenny felt something stab into her arm and she cried out, releasing the woman.

  “Take her into isolation,” she heard the woman say as her vision blurred. The blood on Jenny’s wrist was gumming up and she held her free hand up to look at it. The handcuff jingled on her wrist. The wound had healed. She pulled halfheartedly on the other wrist, but she was sinking. Someone was moving her, talking all around her.

  “…Isolation…family genetics…hallucinations…keep them away from the boy.”

  “He’s here, isn’t he?” Jenny mumbled. “You have Sarah’s boy here.”

  The world started to go dark, but she heard a man say, “He’s safer with us.” And then she closed her eyes and was gone.

  Jenny saw shadows flickering against the red. Many shadows. Her sister Sarah’s shadow as a small girl, hunkering down on a street corner. The lean and hunched shadow of Casey, her brother. Abel and Fisher and Grayson, all flashing through in the blink of an eye. The fat, squat form of Sully, his frizzy ponytail sticking out behind him, reaching for her, towards her, out of the red. Her mother, a flash and nothing more. Sneaking through, making herself scarce before a looming shape absorbed the red, scalpel in hand, hair clipped neatly to the scalp, adjusting his wire frame glasses just as her grandfather always had. She could almost see his cold eyes flashing. And then he was gone and only one shadow remained. Tall and wide-shouldered and standing straight. She knew the shadow was looking at her, straight into her. Declan.