CHAPTER 11
A creak on the stairs caused him to pull away. Disappointment filled me, I felt lost as Cade's hand slid away from me and he took a step back. The moment was broken but my body still pulsed with unfulfilled desire.
The door opened and Bret stepped out from the cellar, he glanced questioningly at Cade before focusing his attention on me. "Are you ok?"
I smiled wanly at him as I nodded. "Fine."
His gaze traveled back to Cade before returning to the window. "Are they out there?"
"Not right now," Cade responded. "But they will be."
"They'll come in here."
"Yes."
I shuddered, my hands dug into my arms. "We should figure out a plan then."
Cade said nothing. What was there to say? Bret came forward and wrapped his arms around me. Though there wasn't a whole lot of excitement in his arms, there was a sense of comfort and rightness that was undeniable. Bret loved me; I loved him. Maybe I didn't love him the same way he loved me, but it was still love. Or maybe I did love him in the same way, and this strange attraction toward Cade was just clouding my judgment.
Either way, I didn't have the time to figure it out and wasn't entirely sure I cared to. There were more important things to worry about now. "Where are your parents?" I tilted my head back to look up at Bret.
His jaw clenched, his eyes became sad as he shook his head. "My father is one of the lost. I thought..." He swallowed heavily and cleared his throat. "I thought we'd be able to get back to him after we checked on you and Abby. I didn't know; I would have brought him."
I rested a comforting hand over his. I could already sense his inner light growing dimmer and I hated it. "It's not your fault," I assured him.
He nodded. "My mother wasn't home, but I assume she’s probably like them also. It seems most people are." He said the words, but there was hope still within his gaze. "I should have left a note or something just in case, I really thought we'd be able to make it back."
There were no reassurances I could give him. "The others are awake, we should go back down," Cade said.
I stiffened as Bret tried to lead me toward the stairs. Like a stubborn child, I could feel my heels digging into the floor in an attempt to stop his forward momentum. "Wait." He stopped, frowning as he looked down at me. "We should stay up here, we're trapped down there."
"We're trapped up here too. They might not be able to find us down there, and you should eat."
"We won't know if they come in and we're down there!" I protested hotly. I hated the unreasonable dread already beginning to build in my chest at the mere thought of going down there again. I cursed this weakness and my susceptibility to it.
"It will be fine Bethany, we'll leave the door to the room open so we can hear them if they come in."
I was frantic, desperate not to return to those awful, gloomy depths, but I had to. I couldn't stay up here, it was too risky, and I was starving. I also didn't want anyone else to know about my weakness. Certainly not Bret, he already thought I was fragile, already thought I was someone who always needed to be protected, even when I didn't.
I tried to choke back my alarm, but I had very little strength and courage left to draw upon. Those resources seemed to be quickly drying up. I clung to my pride as I relented enough to be pulled back down the stairs. I didn't look at Cade again, I couldn't. I didn't want to see the displeasure over being interrupted, or the pity I was certain was burning within his eyes.
He knew, no matter how much I tried to hide it, he knew about my phobia and he pitied me for it. I kept my attention focused on my feet and concentrated on simply breathing in and out as Cade closed the door behind us.
We stepped off the steps and into the shadows. Someone had been waiting for us as the bulb immediately clicked on at the bottom. Aiden stood beneath the dangling bulb, string in hand as he surveyed the three of us. His clear mahogany eyes, so similar to Abby's, were still swollen from sleep, but he was alert.
"What's going on up there?" he asked.
"It's quiet, for now," Cade responded.
Aiden nodded, his hand slid off the string. The door to the secret room creaked open and Abby poked her head out. "Can we eat now?"
"I told them to wait until everyone was here," Aiden explained. "Yes."
Abby went back into the room and reemerged with the bag of food. My stomach felt empty, I needed nourishment, but my appetite was gone. "Is there any change in them?" I inquired while nodding at Peter and our mom.
"No."
Abby handed me a package of peanut butter crackers. "Will they ever wake up?" she asked.
My gaze drifted toward Cade as thoughts of the man from the street flashed through my mind. He had woken up. He had come back to life, either because the pain had been so excruciating, or because there was something about those suckers that reawakened their victims. Or maybe it was the aliens themselves somehow triggering a reawakening in their victims. Maybe the aliens enjoyed watching people suffer before they died such an awful death.
I shuddered, the crackers crunched in my clenched hand. "Bethany," Abby scolded.
"We saw one wake up," Cade said guardedly.
"When? What? How?" Jenna squeaked.
Cade held my gaze, but I wasn't going to explain about the man's reawakening. I couldn't. He turned away from me. He told them what we had seen, and how the man had come back to life. And then he told about the man's death.
The silence that followed his statement was thick and heavy. No one made a sound, no one moved, I was fairly certain no one even breathed.
"So extreme pain, or those creatures, maybe even the aliens themselves, can wake people up," Aiden pondered as he tapped his chin thoughtfully. I could almost see the wheels in his curious mind spinning as he tried to solve the mystery. He would have made an outstanding doctor or scientist if the aliens hadn't arrived to rob him of his dreams.
"It could have just been that one man who was able to wake up again," Bret pointed out.
I tossed the crushed crackers back to Abby. We couldn't afford to waste any food, no matter how destroyed it was, and I wasn't going to eat it. "Well how do we find out which one it is?" Jenna asked.
The answer was obvious but no one could voice it. "The old man..." Aiden's voice trailed off when Cade bristled at the suggestion.
"What would we do to him?" Jenna asked breathlessly.
A muscle in Cade's cheek jumped but he didn't offer any protest. "I don't know," Bret responded.
"Who would do it?" Abby demanded.
No one answered. We would have to deliberately harm Peter, deliberately be cruel to him in order to see if he would come back to life. The intentions were good, but carrying them out wouldn't be. I already knew who would be the one to do it.
Cade wouldn't look at me now as he stared into the hidden corner of the cellar with his jaw clenched. I wanted to tell him it didn't have to be him, but I knew it would do me little good. I couldn't lie to him either, I couldn't offer him false words; everything inside of me was against doing such a thing.
"I won't be long," he muttered.
I took a step toward him, hating the haunted look on his face and the pinched set of his mouth, but he had already disappeared into the hidden room. Bret tried to stop me as I turned away, but I shrugged his hands off. Biting on my bottom lip I strained to keep my tears from spilling over. I didn't hear anything from the room, I didn't know what Cade was doing to him, but the smell of burnt hair drifted toward me.
I cringed, my hands dug into my arms to the point of bruising. I didn't hear a yelp, or a burst of motion like the man outside had shown. My heart sank. I didn't turn back around when Cade reemerged, I wasn't disgusted with him; I was disgusted with all of us.
"Nothing."
The simple word was like a dagger to my chest. What had we done? What had we stood by and allowed to happen?
What were we going to do?
"How long can they stay like that before they die?" No one answered Abby's ques
tion. "They can't stay like that for long, can they? I mean they have to eat, they have to drink; they have to go to the bathroom for crying out loud! Don't they?"
Still no one responded to her. "Don't they?" she demanded.
"We don't know Abby," Aiden said calmly.
A low sob escaped Abby. I didn't know the answers to her questions either, but I could at least give her some sense of comfort. I moved to my little sister and wrapped my arms around her as I took comfort in her warm body, and small arms. I still had Abby; I still had Aiden. I was more fortunate than most.
Far more fortunate.
I couldn't feel pity for myself; I couldn't cower in here, trapped and cornered. We had to survive, somehow. Abby had to survive, no matter what happened.
"What are we going to do?" Jenna's voice was smaller than usual.
"Not stay here," I answered.
"Bethany, how are we going to get mom somewhere else?" Abby whispered.
I looked toward Cade, but Aiden answered. "We don't Abigail."
I closed my eyes as anguish tore at my heart, shredding it and turning me into something I wasn't. I wasn't cold, I wasn't uncaring, but I could feel something creeping over me, through me, that left me frozen.
"No!" Abby nearly screeched. I slammed my hand over her mouth, cringing as my gaze shot to the door at the top of the stairs. We all stood motionless, breathless as we waited to see if Hell would descend upon us. I moved my hand cautiously away from her mouth when it appeared we were still safe.
I held onto her, but I barely felt her anymore, not through the ice encasing me. Aiden sighed as he ran a hand through his hair, Jenna's eyes were rolling in her head, and Bret wouldn't meet my gaze. Only Cade stared at me head on. His eyes burned with the intense desire to make me understand, to make me see, but I already understood, I already saw the situation for what it was. I just didn't like what I saw.
We couldn't stay here.
It would only slow us down to bring her with us.
Or maybe we could stay here. Maybe this would all blow over. We had food; we had water, a bathroom, and weapons. We had a secure hiding place; we could make a stand for a while. It may even be better if we stayed. Why did everyone think it best to leave then, including me? Well, I wanted to leave because I hated to be trapped anywhere. For my mom though, I knew I could suck this up and stay in that room for however long I had to.
We could all stay here. It would be fine, they wouldn't find us, we would be safe until someone saved us, and of course someone would save us. We still had military, or at least I thought we still had a military, at the very least some military personnel. We’d been shut off from the world for so long I wasn't sure we had a military anymore. For all I knew the aliens had taken them out first. In fact, they probably had been the first target, even ahead of the government.
Although every part of me screamed against leaving our mother in the tiny room, a place I never wanted to return to myself, I wasn't sure there was anything else we could do. There had to be some members of the military left, but I doubted there were enough of them to launch much of an attack. More than half, if not almost all of them, were probably frozen.
Vehicles may still work, but no one could drive them without being spotted instantly in the deadened streets. That was if cars would even work anymore. No one I knew had tried to drive a car in weeks. Never mind planes and helicopters, or tanks. There was no way to know if we could even attempt to mount any sort of defense against these monsters.
There was no one coming to help us, no one out there to rescue us. The realization wasn't gradual in coming. Yes, it had taken me awhile to get to the train of thought because I hadn't had time to go there yet, but the realization slammed me with sudden, horrifying intensity. I was cold, choked with an agonizing sense of despair and yet oddly accepting of the unraveling of our fates.
There was no one coming. There was no help out there for us anymore.
We couldn't stay. To hole up in here and cower was to admit defeat. To hole up in here and cower was to die. With no rescue coming the food would run out, the water would dry up. Maybe, just maybe, the aliens would move on from here before all of that happened, but there was no guarantee of that. They could stay out there forever, waiting for us to emerge like a cat looking to pounce upon a mouse slipping from a hole. We could stay here for a little bit, but eventually we would have to leave. We would have to.
When the time came, we wouldn't be able to take our mother with us.
Maybe we could stay for a bit, maybe we could wait, and we could hope, but eventually reality would catch up with us. It was better to face it now, rather than wait and see. It would be better if we broke free while the aliens were distracted with the remaining people, than to wait for them to come to us. Better to leave here before they came inside and discovered us.
"Oh," I breathed.
"Bethy..."
I shook my head, holding up my hand to stop Aiden's words. I couldn't hear them, not right now. I understood them, but I couldn't hear them spoken aloud. Bret rested his hand on my shoulder; I didn't shrug him off. He was a good man, strong, and I needed his comfort and strength right now. "We'll stay today," Cade offered.
"No, we have to wait a few more days," Abby protested.
"They haven't started going through the inside of buildings in this part of town yet, the longer we wait the more likely they are to come here. No matter how many of them there are, it will still take them awhile to go through all of the houses. We have to get out of here before they reach us, and we should leave under cover of night," Cade said.
"You don't even know if they're going through all of the houses and buildings!"
"What do you think they were doing last night at our home?" Aiden asked. My mind was spinning, running through everything I did, and didn't, know. Abby would have to go on. Aiden would take care of her; protect her with his life. "We have to carry as little as possible. It will be difficult at night but it will offer us cover."
"Wait," Abby's words were choked. "We can't."
"It will be ok Abby," I assured her as I hugged her. "It will be ok, you'll see."
"But we can't leave her here all alone. We can't."
"We won't," I promised.
"Bethy," Bret protested.
I shook my head, hugged my sister close again and released her. It would be ok I told myself, knowing full well it wouldn't be.
Ravenous (Book 1, The Ravening Series) Page 13