I faced the front and watched the headlights fight off the dark.
“I told you,” Jack said, referring to how my attempt to do some good had backfired. “But it wasn’t a complete failure. The commotion created a fine distraction.”
“People died.”
“People die every night.”
Was that why he’d freed them? As a distraction? I stared at his face, all his angles illuminated by the green light of the car’s instrument panels. Just when I’d thought he might have some compassion in him, he snuffed that thought out. He didn’t care about a single one of those people. He’d just wanted something to keep the guards preoccupied while we slipped away.
A siren sounded, loud and long, trembling the car’s windows.
Light flooded in from behind.
“Hold on!” Jack stamped his foot to the floor and yanked on the car’s stick, lurching the vehicle sideways. It fishtailed in the mud, hooked up, and launched us forward.
Wipers thrashed across the windshield, sloshing rain back and forth. Headlights speared into skeletal trees. If there was a road, I couldn’t make it out. A tree sprang into the headlights. Jack yanked on the wheel, jerking the car around it.
Screaming rolled through the air, the sound like metal tearing against metal and worse than the siren. It came from outside.
“What is that!”
“Wyvern.”
“What?” I clutched at my seat as he threw the car around more brush.
“Don’t worry, they keep it on a tight chain. It can’t go far from the—”
Jack’s sentence disappeared as the world flipped over. There was pain, and heat, and noise—so much screaming. Much of it mine. Then the chaos abruptly ended, leaving just the sounds of tinkling glass and my labored breathing.
I was on my hands in a pool of mud inside the car.
Mud dribbled in around my fingers and pooled at my knees. I looked at it, wondering how it had gotten inside the car, and then saw how it crawled around Jack’s perfect face, over one closed eyelid, and into his ear. He lay on his side, lips parted. Mud tried to creep into his mouth too. Was he dead? A deep gash on his forehead suggested he wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon.
Panic demanded I move. Scrambling through the narrow window, I crawled through the mud and out into sheets of rain. Light blinked and flickered in the distance. A howl lifted. A dog, maybe, or a wolf. Vampires often captured the bad kind of lycanthrope, which killed anything when enraged. But those howls were distant, for now.
I was on my feet, stumbling, head still fuzzy and body numb. I had to run, didn’t I? Falling into a run, I fought through sharp branches and jagged thorns. Lycans howled, but they sounded farther away. Maybe they were after Jack? An overseer gone rogue had to be more valuable than another bloodbag.
I ran until my thighs were numb and my lungs ached, the air too thin. The rain was so cold it burned. A root tripped me, and I went down, cutting my knees on rocks, even through the trousers. Back on my feet, I stumbled on, gasping, body throbbing. The ground sloped away. I grabbed a sapling to lean on and listened. Beneath the hissing rain, the sound of gushing water reached me. A river.
A few steps deeper into the undergrowth and a gorge opened up, almost swallowing me before I could grab a tree and steady myself. Glimpses at the bottom revealed frothy white water. There would be no surviving that. I needed a way around—
Thrashing sounded behind me.
The unmistakable sound of snarling beasts bubbled nearby, closing in.
Oh gods, there was no escape. I had to jump.
Thundering paws and snapping branches.
Backing toward the edge, I wiped rainwater from my eyes. The wind coiled and teased at my clothing and hair, crooning at me to jump.
Kensey would never know how I died. Would he look for me forever?
A vampire burst from the brush, teeth gritted and eyes blazing. Jack! He reached out, circled an arm around my waist, and yanked me with him, right over the edge.
Wind, and cold, and rain rushed by. My gut whooshed. Jack somehow twisted, getting beneath me and curling me in close.
He caught my gaze, and in those moments, I felt his fear as if it were my own and saw something else too, something real and true and bright behind his eyes.
Water slammed in, thumped against my chest, and tore at my legs—sucking me out of Jack’s arms. I gasped, and water poured down my throat. My body heaved as I choked, and more water poured in. Water tumbled me over, turning me around. I reached for something, anything, even Jack, but my fingers sailed through blackness, finding nothing to grasp.
Pain exploded across my head, and finally, the noise, the cold, and the terror ended.
Chapter 15
Day
Jack’s face was gray, apart from the cut-up bits on his cheek and forehead, which were pink and gaping like hungry mouths.
He lay unmoving, sprawled on the pebbly bank. Shingle and twigs knotted his hair. His clothes hung askew.
Was he dead? His eyes were closed, like they’d been in the overturned car. No pulse that I could see. I could touch his neck, but he’d be cold and wet and feel dead anyway.
I’d found him while staggering down the riverbank. The river was calm now, burbling over tiny rocks beneath dappled sunlight. Jack must have dragged himself out of the water and collapsed where he lay.
“Well, this is typical…” I told the unconscious-maybe-dead Jack. “Was this your plan? They’re probably still hunting us, and you’re finally dead, and I don’t have a weapon.”
Searching the riverbank revealed little of use, just driftwood. An old water-worn wooden plank had washed up on the shore. I picked it up. The waterlogged wood made it heavy, but I didn’t need the whole plank. A few strikes against a nearby boulder split the board apart. A splinter jabbed my thumb, but the pain was worth it. Now I had a strip of wood with a point on the end. Returning to my spot on the bank, I worked the spike some more, peeling bits off, crafting into a shape less splintery and more comfortable to wield. A pointy stick was better than nothing.
The sun had risen, warming the air and dust-sprites danced above the river’s shining surface. My clothes were soaked and heavy, but the sun worked to dry them off.
I hadn’t died, but now I was in the wilderness, and there were plenty of other ways for the wild things to finish me off.
Jack’s hand twitched.
Sunlight fell across his arm and face, turning his skin a warmer pink.
That had to be painful.
His eyelids flickered but stayed closed.
Not dead, then. I was only half disappointed. I needed him, but if he’d died, it would have been a good day for humanity.
He pulled his hand to his chest and hissed, drawing his top lip back like he could growl at the sun and have it obey. Only then did his eyes flutter open, signaling his slow return to the living. The gash on his head began to reseal itself, and within a minute, he was back to his stern-faced prettiness, albeit colorless, apart from the blue lips. How had I thought him human?
Drawing a knee up, he looked over. “Are you carving a stake?” he groused. His hair flopped over his eye. He swept it back with a trembling hand. “Do you think that will work?” He clearly assumed I planned to stab him in the heart. I’d certainly been thinking it.
“It’s worth a try.”
“How far did we travel?” He eyed upriver, full of ludicrously bright sunshine, prancing butterflies, and shimmering sprites.
“No idea. I don’t even know where we are.”
He brushed sand off his creased pants and frowned at their state. “I need to get out of this sun,” he grumbled, rising to his feet. He stumbled up the bank and took to the shadows beneath the trees. His limp made his progress awkward. It was worse than I’d ever seen it, but then, we had just survived the VG, a wyvern, a car crash, lycans, and a vicious river. All we had to do was survive each other.
“Are you coming?”
I tucked my stake into my wai
stband and trudged after him.
He limped ahead, maneuvering around the undergrowth and river’s edge. “The river should take us to old Wilmington. Once there, we’ll find the rail tracks and follow those back to your station.”
“How far is it?”
He didn’t answer immediately, and the longer he thought about his reply, the more my heart sank.
“It will be difficult,” he said.
Great. “Roughly?”
“There are many obstacles to overcome, not to mention the Dark Ones who’ll track your scent like you’re the North Star.”
“How far, Jack?”
“Jack is not my name.”
“I really don’t care anymore. It’s what I’m calling you.”
He huffed something like a chuckle or a growl. I gritted my teeth and imagined sticking the stake in his back.
“Six days and nights. Maybe seven. That’s assuming we’re not delayed.”
Oh gods, that was a long time for the station to be without me. For Kensey to think me dead. For Etienne to carry out whatever his plan was … Kensey would see through him. Eventually. My brother wasn’t as stupid as he sometimes appeared, even around people he trusted. Although… he’d never trusted anyone outside of Gerome and me before. Etienne was a first.
The sound of the carriage door slamming closed haunted me most, knowing it had been Etienne on the other side. Etienne was all stammer and politeness. He could be rigid, that’s what had made him a good assistant, but he shouldn’t have been able to do this…
What if it had all been a lie? But the station had marked him. It wouldn’t have done that unless Etienne’s intentions were good. But good people did not shut their lover’s sister inside a cage with a mass murderer. Nothing about how I’d come to be trudging through the woods behind Jack made sense.
“I can feel you thinking up all the ways to kill me.”
“You’ll find this hard to believe, but you’re wrong. The world doesn’t revolve around you.”
“Then you haven’t considered my weaknesses?”
I had.
Jack chuckled again, his dry laughter like something made of sugar and spice, with a heart of poison. “You wear the hostess act well, Miss Aris,” he went on, “but it’s easy to be the queen inside her castle. Out here, you’re nothing but bait.” He stopped and I nearly plowed into him. When he spoke next, he held my stare. “I’m not trying to insult you. It’s the truth. During the day, we can make good time, but at night, things will change. Shelter will help, I think, but I’ve never escorted a human in the wild before. You’re a liability.”
“I’ve never been a liability, and I won’t be one now.”
I saw a blur of movement and then pain sparked up my arm. In the space of a blink, he’d snatched my wrist and brought it to his lips. Fangs flashed. I tried to yank free, filling my lungs to scream, but his other hand slammed over my mouth. I shoved, but he stood immobile, as hard and cold as stone.
“Don’t fight or this will get a lot more interesting—” He cut off his own warning and bit down. Pain bloomed, hot and heavy. Horror tried to pull me from the moment and hide me somewhere in my own head—because this was how I died. Then he turned his face away and spat, dropped my wrist, and marched through the brush. “Keep up…” The words came out gruff, like he’d dragged them through hell to speak them.
I looked at my wrist, at the ragged tear weeping blood. The cut wasn’t deep, barely a surface wound and not deep enough to inject venom. The tracker. A quick glance around and I found the small piece of metal shining and bloody on the ground.
He could have killed me and had chosen not to. Why? What did he want from me?
* * *
By dusk, Jack winced with every step.
He veered us away from the river, deeper into what had once been a bustling town but now resembled mounds of bricks the forest had regurgitated. Daytime noises faded into an eerie quiet, the same kind I’d heard when Rafe had translocated me outside the station. Night was coming. Jack must have sensed it too, because he found a nook made of bricks among the trees. He gestured for me to go inside first, said not to light a fire, and when I turned around to question what the shelter was for, he’d vanished. I assumed he’d return at some point and hadn’t just abandoned me in a damp hole.
At least he wasn’t feeding on me, though I didn’t understand why he hadn’t taken advantage when he considered me bait. Why was he even escorting me anywhere? Why not kill me and go back to the station alone?
I tucked myself into the damp, dark corner and shivered the minutes away. The day hadn’t been too bad. Nothing had stalked us, as far as I knew. The walk might have been pleasant if my damp clothes hadn’t chafed. And the company. We hadn’t spoken much. I’d said all I needed to in the carriage.
The darkness outside the den had turned thick and clammy when Jack returned, a silvery shimmer in his hazel eyes. His limp had settled too. He’d killed a poor innocent creature to get his blood fix. Better them than me, I figured.
As he rearranged a few rocks like a mother hen building a nest, I recalled the small army of drones that had waited for us the moment the carriage doors had opened. Soulless machines. The drones would be tracking us. They didn’t tire, not like I did. They’d hunt, and replenish their strength, and continue their relentless pursuit. Drones like those had devastated humanity.
“Maybe we should keep moving.” My teeth rattled as I shivered.
“And have you stumble in front of a phantom or worse?” He propped himself into a corner, wrapped his arms around his torso, then stared at the entrance, seeing far into the dark. “No.”
“Why do you care what happens to me?”
Predictably, he didn’t answer, saying instead, “You may rest. I’ll listen for threats.”
He said it like I was his pet, someone to be told what to do and when. I wasn’t bait, and I wasn’t his pet. I might have been stripped of everything that made me a hostess, but I wasn’t useless. I didn’t have the energy to argue and knew he’d just glare me into silence, so I folded my arms and pulled myself into a tight ball, ready for the long night ahead.
At least I was out of the hellhole they called a farm. The slaughtered peoples’ faces haunted me every time I closed my eyes. There were others back there, living a nightmare every second of every day. My gut rolled. I hadn’t eaten, but if I had, I might not have kept it down anyway.
Once I was back at the station, I’d tell Kensey about the farm. He could do something. Maybe tell his contacts… But to do that, I had to survive the next few nights.
Sleep was elusive, my mind turning over too many things and the night too cold. My thoughts wandered along with my gaze, back to the enigma of Jack, still staring into the night. The now-dead Felipe was exactly how I’d expected Ghost to behave. Jack’s behavior threw me. On one hand, he could be a Felipe, but on the other, he had reflective moments I hadn’t known vampires were capable of. And his markings… what were they for? And why had he run from his duties? He might answer me, if I approached the questions from a different angle.
“How did you get the limp?” I asked.
“A fight.”
“Did you kill the other party?”
He snorted a laugh.
“Why is that amusing?”
“No, I did not kill them,” he drawled.
“Them? So there was more than one?”
“No.” He blinked slowly and slid his predatory gaze to me. “I just don’t want to give you any more information than you already have.”
Now I laughed. “What am I going to do? Tell the squirrels?”
He leveled me with his stare. “You’re with the resistance.”
I looked away and chewed on the inside of my cheek. Denying it was pointless. We were way beyond pretending I was just the station’s hostess. “You think that, yet you’re helping me.” Our gazes met in the dark. “We’re enemies. What’s in it for you if we make it back to the station?”
“You
’re smart, Lynher. Figure it out.”
There was nothing for him at the station. Just… “Sanctuary?”
He bowed his head, admitting it without saying the words. He was running, but what from? He oversaw the VG, at least the East Coast nest. They all worshipped the infamous and terrifying Ghost. Perhaps whoever or whatever it was had been the source of his broken leg.
He wanted sanctuary, but it wasn’t that simple. “Are you hoping the station will mark you because I’m with you? Save me and you get a free pass, is that it?”
“No, Lynher.” He returned to staring into the night. “In all honesty, I don’t need you at all.”
Liar. I knew something he didn’t. The station wouldn’t take him in. It only took in those worthy of its protection. Lilith was an exception, but everyone else who lived there was good. Mostly. Jack was not the kind of creature the station saved. It would sooner devour him than grant him asylum. He was doing all this for nothing. And I’d use him every step of the way.
Chapter 16
Night
“Wake up.”
Jack’s silvery eyes brought me out of a cold dream. I gasped. A rough hand smothered my mouth, holding me down. This was it. He was going to tear out my throat and drink me down.
“Be still. It’s me,” he whispered. “Take this.”
My panic waned, but the intensity in those eyes made sure it didn’t completely disappear.
He peeled open my fingers and placed my throwing knife inside—the one I’d lost to him in the carriage. “Follow me.” Urgency made his words sharp. “Quietly.”
He’d had my knife this whole time? I tightened my hold on the familiar weapon, checked that my stake was safely stowed, and followed Jack out of the den.
The night was thick and quiet too. Every breath coated my lungs. As light-footed as I was, my boots still stirred the leaf litter. Jack moved through the dark like a shadow, black on black. If he got more than a few strides ahead, he’d vanish. I tried to stay quiet, to control my breathing, to step lightly, but as Jack moved farther ahead, his image flickering in and out of my vision, he finally did disappear, and panic started rattling my bones again. The woods felt too thick, like they breathed with me and around me, eager to bury me among the worms so Kensey would never find me. I knew how to entertain a hall full of monsters, surrounded by light and laughter, but this wasn’t that. This was the world outside, and Jack was right—I hadn’t lived it, hadn’t really seen it. I wasn’t prepared.
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