by Laken Cane
I was vulnerable, exhausted, and heartsick, and his death scream hit my brain with a violent, vicious malevolence.
He couldn’t hurt me. He was dying.
But as I stood there on the pavement, shaking my head to dislodge the confusion and pain their screams carried, I caught movement behind him.
Mutants.
And not just one or two.
Dozens.
A new group, I figured, on their way to join the cluster in town.
I ran backward, moving my gun from side to side as I sprayed them with an arcing stream of alcohol.
But there were simply too many of them for one girl with one gun. They surrounded me.
And those death screams.
“Shut up,” I shrieked. “Shut up!”
And in the midst of that chaos, another threat appeared. A pack of dogs, wild, starving, and unafraid, threw themselves full force into the fight. They were there to eat, and they didn’t care if they ate mutant or human.
Some of the mutants turned to meet the dogs—they yanked knives, machetes, and swords from their sheaths, and they fell upon the dogs as viciously as the dogs fell upon them.
But the other mutants—the scouts—ignored the dogs.
They came for me. Some of them died before they could reach me, but unlike the simpler orphans, the scouts were canny and quick.
For a brief second I thought longingly of the bear spray I’d once carried—not that it’d hurt the mutants but it could save me from the wild dogs. As if that was something I needed to worry about.
A mutant ripped the gun from my grasp, then used it like a club as he rammed it into my face. I heard my nose crunch, and there was a second of hesitation before blood spewed forth like an explosion of water from a busted water hose.
The sounds were deafening. The dogs with their snarls and growls and screams of pain, the mutants with their clicks and death screams and yells. It was too much. Overwhelming.
One of them caught me as I fell backward. He held me under the arms, his bony fingers digging into my soft flesh. Digging, clawing, pinching—a vivid image flashed through my mind of him tearing the ribs from my body, then using his teeth to strip the meat from my bones.
They would eat me. They would devour me.
Or maybe they wouldn’t.
Maybe they’d plant a hideous baby inside me.
They swarmed me, a dozen growling, screaming mutants, and I knew I was about to die. One way or the other.
Then, with the curious moon watching, one of the scouts grabbed me by the throat. “Mine,” he told the others, as his nuzzled my skin. He inhaled deeply. “You smell of my master.”
He opened his mouth, wide enough that I heard the crack of his jaws, and the moonlight glinted off his fangs.
His face, almost familiar in its humanness, loomed larger and larger in my vision, and then, he struck.
His teeth sank into the side of my throat, and just as the death screams had battered my heart and mind, his bite seized everything that was left.
My body.
My soul.
My blood.
I flew through centuries of memories and emotions and thoughts. Knowledge and hatred and pain battered my brain. Images of death and birth and rebirth flashed through my mind.
And I knew why it was forbidden for a mutant to bite a human without killing that human. I understood what the mutants were.
No, they were not aliens.
When the killing, unstoppable flu had wiped out most of the human race, the mutants had risen from the earth to take their place. To take their turn.
They were not mutants.
And they were not like vampires.
They were vampires.
Just not the vampires of storybooks.
I struggled against my attacker, and with his memories flooding my mind, I drew a breath that almost didn’t end. I released it in a scream.
The scream was mine, but it was his, as well.
It was a weapon.
It was everything.
He’d given it to me.
And as I died, I released it into the air, the town, the world.
My scream.
My death scream.
Chapter Nineteen
When he ripped his teeth from my throat, the memories, thoughts, whatever they were, ended abruptly.
At once.
The screams stopped, as well, but I wasn’t thinking about any of that. I was thinking about dying, about becoming pregnant—though none of the mutants had raped me—and about how Richard looked with his lips pulled back from his teeth, his eyes wild and raging as he, Caleb, and Lila raced toward us, guns up.
Caleb.
They’d rescued Caleb.
They hadn’t seen me. They weren’t there to save me. They were there to kill the group of mutants. Perhaps they thought I was back in town, caught in the cluster of gods.
As I watched, a dog—or was it a wolf?—huge and shaggy, leapt at Richard. I saw it sink its teeth into his shoulder, and then, I saw Lila.
Her eyes widened when she spotted me, and she raced toward me and the mutants who’d attacked me, shooting as she ran.
The mutant who’d bitten me arched and screamed as a stream of alcohol hit the back of his head. It ran over his forehead and face, sizzling as it burned a path over his skin.
Alcohol soaked me as well as the monsters that surrounded me, but it didn’t hurt. I lost sight of my friends as the mutants began falling. One of them, maybe the one who’d bitten me, fell on top of me.
He stared at me as his entire face crisped and blistered, and I swear I saw something inside his eyes. Confusion, pain, defeat.
He tried to rise, but his injuries were too severe.
I shoved him off me and scooted away from the growing pile of melting, smoking mutants, but it took three tries before I could stand.
I scooped what seemed like handfuls of blood from my face and my eyes and flung it away. My mind screamed at me to run, but my body was slow to listen.
Lila rushed toward me, shooting mutants as she ran, and grabbed my arm to drag me away. “Run,” she yelled.
She’d lost her knit cap and her dark hair stood up all over her head. It was strange how different she looked without her hat. I was moving and thinking sluggishly, and had to mentally slap myself to get my thoughts away from the stupid hat. Or lack of stupid hat.
I tried to pry her fingers from my arm. “Help them,” I said, but my voice was raw and hoarse and I knew she couldn’t understand what I was saying.
She glanced at me, then did a double take. There was something in her eyes I didn’t like. Something that scared me.
But there was no time to question her.
I stumbled and fell to my knees, clumsy and disoriented. When she hauled me once more to my feet, there was nothing in her eyes but impatience.
The world tilted and spun, and I groaned weakly as my stomach turned inside out and spewed its contents onto the ground. “I’m sick,” I managed.
“No shit.”
And then my dog came out of the shadows. He slunk toward me, limping, and nuzzled my hand.
“You’re back,” I whispered.
I’m not sure how Lila got me home—I wasn’t conscious for most of it. There were flashes of light and then darkness, then back to light, and I knew it was because of the bite.
His bite would have killed me, had my friends not interrupted. The mutants would have devoured me.
They didn’t leave their bite victims alive. Ever.
Such a thing would get them punished severely. I’d seen it in his memories.
But those memories I’d seen when his teeth were inside me began to drift away, and I was no longer sure of anything.
Lila dumped me on my cot, and I tried to look up at her, but my eyes wouldn’t focus. “You saved my life again,” I whispered.
She leaned over and pressed her nose against my crushed, swollen one. “You were bitten by a dog, do you understand me? A dog at
tacked you. Didn’t it? Do you hear me, bitch?”
Then pain roared through my body. Red, unfamiliar pain. Pain so intense it followed me into the blackness when I passed out.
“Do you want to live?” someone whispered, and the whisper echoed in my mind, bouncing and twirling, over and over.
I thought it was Robin, until I remembered she was dead.
Lila, then.
Someone screamed, and I tried to tell them to shut up. Their screams hurt my ears. But I couldn’t speak, or open my eyes. I could only feel.
I couldn’t fight my way out of the darkness. The suffocating darkness.
But then, there was light.
No, not light.
Fire.
I was on fire.
Burning. Melting.
Dying.
Even through the flames I could hear the screaming.
And then Robin pulled me from the flames.
We stared at each other until finally, I lifted my fingers to touch her face.
I see you.
You can let me go now.
I can’t let you go. You’re part of me.
Always. But you can let me go now.
I can’t. Oh, God, I can’t.
Shhh. Don’t cry. It was never your fault, Teagan.
I didn’t save you. I didn’t help you. I just watched him take you.
It was never your fault.
I didn’t help you!
It was never your fault!
But I—
It’s time for you to let me go.
I can’t.
She peered into my eyes. You’re not alone anymore. You don’t need me now.
I’m so sorry.
I know.
She stepped back, and her smile was exactly as I remembered. Sweet. Happy.
Robin’s smile. My smile.
She was free…or would be, if I could force myself to release her.
I opened my mouth, finally, and dragged in a deep, sucking breath of air. I fought my way to the surface knowing one unquestionable thing.
I was not the same.
My pain was too much for tears.
Richard, Caleb, and Lila leaned over me.
“Teagan?” Caleb asked. “Are you okay?”
“What happened?” Richard asked.
His face was pale and what looked like three days’ worth of whiskers sprouted from his weathered skin. But his eyes, they were the same.
“Yes,” I said. “I’m okay.”
Caleb straightened and shot me a smile that wasn’t even a little bit amused. “You scared us, girl.”
“More trouble than you’re worth,” Lila muttered, and there was a warning in her eyes as she stared at me.
I pushed myself up, then swung my legs over the bed. “What happened?”
Richard crossed his arms. “What do you remember?”
An image of the mutant’s teeth flashed into my mind and I jerked, as though he were right there in front of me. “I was bitten.”
Richard nodded. “Your neck is torn up.”
I felt the bandage on my neck then slid my hand up to another blood-soaked bandage on my temple. “How long was I out?”
“We just walked in,” he said.
“She was out for only a couple of minutes,” Lila said. “I slapped some bandages on her after she passed out.”
Richard sat beside me on the cot and took my hand. “Tell me what you remember.”
“I…” I glanced at Lila, but she was staring at her feet. “I went to search for Sage. I stumbled into a group of mutants and a pack of wild dogs. I wasn’t there long.”
“What bit your neck?” His eyes were steady, his voice gentle, but…
“A dog,” I said. “Or a wolf. I saw one attack you seconds before I was hit. I guess I wasn’t paying attention.” I smiled. “Lila saved my life.”
Lila lifted her eyes to meet my stare, but her face was carefully blank.
“How did she do that?” Richard asked.
Lila’s fingers tightened on the bat she held over her shoulder. “I—”
“I asked Teagan,” Richard said, mildly.
I swallowed. “Can I have some water?”
“I’ll get it.” Caleb turned and walked toward the kitchen.
“Please,” Richard said. “Go on.”
I shook my head, then flinched at the pain and put my fingers on the bandage around my neck. “A dog the size of a small car was busy tearing out my throat, Richard. I’m not sure what she did. I heard a yelp, opened my eyes, and there she was. The dog was lying on top of me. I think she hit it with her bat.” I didn’t look at her. “Then she yanked me up and bullied me into walking home. I don’t remember much of the walk here, or anything else until I woke up and you guys were here.”
He watched me, saying nothing, until Caleb handed me a bottle of water. Finally, he stood. “Get some rest.”
“Richard?”
He turned back. “Yes?”
“How’s your shoulder?”
“I’ll be fine.”
Then he turned and strode into the kitchen.
I stood, realizing only then how violently I was trembling.
“What’s going on?” I asked Lila.
She glanced at Caleb, then shook her head. “What do you mean?”
“Why was he questioning me like that?”
“He wanted to make sure you weren’t bitten by mutant,” Caleb said.
“What if a mutant had bitten me?” I asked. Because I had been bitten by a mutant, and I really, really wanted to know what that meant. I wasn’t sure why Lila had warned me to lie, but she knew Richard better than I did.
Then I caught a whiff of blood, vomit, and piss, and wrinkled my nose. “What is that smell?”
“That’d be you,” Lila said, dryly. “You reek.”
“We don’t know what being bitten means,” Caleb said. “Not for sure, but we think—”
“Let’s let her get cleaned up,” Richard interrupted, sticking his head around the doorway. He and Caleb stared at each other for a long moment before Caleb nodded.
“Sure,” he said. “Are you hungry, Teagan?”
The thought of food turned my stomach. “Thirsty,” I said, and touched the thick bandage on my neck. My nose throbbed as well, and I pressed my fingers against it, wincing when a flash of pain lit up my entire face. “I think my nose is broken.”
“Better than being dead,” Lila said. “You’ll get used to a little pain.”
“I’m going to get some dinner,” Caleb said, and left the two of us alone.
“I’d better get cleaned up,” I said.
“Change this bandage while you’re in there,” Lila murmured. She touched the bandage on my neck, then gently tapped my head. “But this one…”
I frowned. “I don’t remember hurting my head.” I kept my voice to a murmur, following her lead.
She glanced over her shoulder then leaned close to whisper in my ear, “Rub some blood under the bandage on your head.”
I nodded. “I don’t feel well, Lila.”
Again, a warning sparked in her eyes. “You’ll be fine. Don’t be such a girl. It’s just a dog bite. Take some ibuprofen.”
“Why didn’t you want them to know I was bitten?”
“It’d complicate matters. You need to keep your business to yourself.”
I looked around. “Hey. Where’s my dog?”
“So he’s your dog now?”
“Where is he?”
“In the kitchen. He didn’t seem too concerned.”
“I’m going to get cleaned up.” But at the doorway, I turned back to face her. “Lila. Thank you.”
She sniffed, then shrugged. “Yeah, whatever. I found some lights and put them in the bathroom. There’s a first aid kit and some washcloths, as well. Couldn’t find any clothes that’d fit you.”
She’d been busy, and I’d been out a lot longer than she’d told Richard and Caleb.
“You found Caleb.”
She nodded. “He’s got a story to tell us. Hurry back.”
I shut the bathroom door and stared at my reflection in the small mirror, trying to figure out what was different. I looked the same, except for the fact that my cheekbones stood out a little more and my eyes seemed to sink back into my skull.
The skin around my eyes was already turning blue from the blow the mutant had given me. Tomorrow, my upper face would be one big bruise.
My nose was swollen, my nostrils rimmed with flaking bits of dried blood. “Gross,” I whispered, and dipped a washcloth in the bowl of water waiting.
But before I washed the blood from my face, I took the bandage off my neck. It looked like a dog bite. Torn, bloody flesh gaped raw and red and when I actually saw how bad it looked, it began to hurt more than ever.
I grabbed a small square of gauze from the first aid kit and wiped my neck and face with it. When it was good and bloody, I stuck it to my temple.
“Ewww.” It wouldn’t fool Richard if he decided to actually look closely, but if he just peered under the bandage, all he’d see was the bloody pad. Maybe he’d think it was a wound, maybe he wouldn’t. Other than banging my head off the wall and hoping for a knot and a bruise, there was little I could do.
I taped the bandage back over it, then re-bandaged and taped up the bite wound.
My face was pale, and my lips were dry and peeling. I was bandaged, battered, and bruised, but it was still my reflection staring back at me in the dusty mirror.
But something…something was different.
I peered at myself, squinting, trying to figure it out.
And finally, I got it.
Robin. Oh, Robin.
She didn’t answer. There were no echoes of laughter, no reassurances, no whispers.
My eyes were like dark pieces of glass, and if I looked deeply enough, I could see the shards of my broken heart swimming in a pool of unshed tears.
Because my sister was no longer with me.
I’d let her go. Forever.
And I told myself nothing else was different. I was unchanged.
I allowed the lie.
Tomorrow I’d face the truth.
Right then, the truth was more than I could bear.