Whispers in the Mist: Black Winter Book Three

by Coates, Darcy

  “On it.” Clare jumped back into the bus. With the lights off, Dorran was almost invisible in the back seat. He lay with one arm under his head and the other fallen over the edge of the bed. He didn’t quite fit. Even with the blankets, he’d huddled over, arms wrapped around himself as though he were cold.

  “Hey,” Clare murmured. She knelt beside him and ran her fingers through his damp hair. His eyebrows pulled down, but he didn’t wake. Clare checked behind them, making sure Beth hadn’t appeared in the doorway, then she leaned closer and kissed his cheek. “Can you wake up? We’re cooking some food.”

  He stirred and squinted up at her. She’d hoped the rest would help him, but the dark circles still lingered around his eyes. “Mm. Clare.”

  “How do you feel?”

  He smiled, but even in the dim light, Clare could see his skin was grey. “Better.”

  “Do you want to stay here? I can bring you some food.”

  “Thank you, but I’ll get up.” He blinked, apparently trying to clear his head. “Are you eating outside?”

  “Yeah. Beth has some shelter and a cooker, so the food will be warm.”

  “That sounds nice.” He sat, moving gingerly.

  Clare wished she knew what was wrong with him. Even more than that, she wished there was something she could do to make it better.

  She found a second jacket for Dorran in the overhead compartments and helped him pull it on. He let her fuss around him, adjusting the insulated fabric over his shoulders and zipping up its front. While she worked, his dark eyes watched her, gentle and inexplicably sad.

  Clare finished adjusting the jacket but left her hands resting on Dorran’s chest, unwilling to let him go so quickly. “What’s wrong?”

  “I am fine.”

  Clare raised her eyebrows. He sighed and tried to smile. The expression came out crooked. “I don’t think your sister likes me.”

  Oh. Clare opened her mouth, but the reassuring words she wanted to give died on her tongue. She patted Dorran’s chest. “Beth takes a while to warm up to new people. She’ll like you once she gets to know you.”

  “What should I do differently?” He was struggling to make eye contact.

  Clare’s heart ached. “Nothing. You’re perfect as is. She just needs time.”

  Dorran nodded, but there wasn’t much conviction in it. He stepped back so that she could lead the way to the bus’s front, and Clare, feeling helpless, followed the path to the outside.

  The scent of rice and curry wafted around them as they stepped through the open doorway. She pushed some enthusiasm into her voice. “That smells great.”

  “It all comes out of tins, but it tastes almost as good as the real thing.” Standing by the pot, the scars on her face lit by the portable stove’s gas flames, Beth looked like something out of a book of myths. Fierce, strong, powerful. “I thought I’d make tonight a celebration. Our curry contains real chunks of reconstituted meat.”

  Three seats had been arranged around the fire: two close together and one set a little apart. Dorran hesitated but mutely took the isolated chair. Clare frowned. She grabbed the second seat and dragged it around, putting herself closer to Dorran.

  Beth watched them, her lips pressed together, as she scooped curry into bowls that already held rice. She passed a serving to Clare first then offered one to Dorran. As he took it, she said, “You’re looking worse.”

  Clare glared at her sister, trying to telepathically tell her to be friendly.

  Beth caught the look and shrugged. “Maybe some food will help.”

  “Thank you,” Dorran murmured.

  Beth removed the pots from the stove but left the flame running to warm them like a makeshift campfire and dragged the third seat closer to Clare. As she sat, she scooped food into her mouth, swallowed, then leaned forward. “Now that we have a moment, why don’t you tell me what happened? How did you end up in the city? Or in the tower, for that matter?”

  “I have a very similar set of questions for you.” Clare ran her spoon through her curry but didn’t eat. “Why didn’t you call me after the last time we spoke through the radio? Why did you go into the city instead?”

  Beth’s mouth twitched. “I lost my radio when I escaped the bunker. I was looking for a replacement.”

  “Still, though—the city was dangerous. Couldn’t you have found one closer to your home?”

  “That’s the problem. Radios are in high demand, since they’re the only way humans can communicate now. A lot of the really remote houses have already been cleared out—not just from radios but from food, bottled water, batteries, fuel, and anything else useful. There are still plenty of supplies in the suburban developments, but there are also hollows. The more populated an area, the better the chance of finding what you’re looking for, but it’s also overrun with ghouls.”

  “Huh. I guess that makes sense.”

  Beth tilted her head to the side. “Your turn. Why don’t you tell me about what happened at Helexis Tower? I won’t lie—after spending days trying to reach it, I want to know who or what was inside. Everyone on the road was talking about the bizarre radio transmission advertising its address.”

  Clare glanced at Dorran, and he nodded back at her. She took a bite of the curry as she tried to gather her thoughts, burnt her tongue on it, and choked. Beth chuckled as she found a water bottle in the bus’s external compartment and tossed it to Clare. She opened it and took a grateful sip.

  The burn wouldn’t bother her for long. The thanites would take care of it within a few hours. That thought was more disturbing than comforting.

  “Okay.” Clare clutched the bottle between her hands, staring into the stove’s flames. “It’s hard to explain the tower without telling you about everything else.”

  “Go ahead.” Beth nodded, her expression intent.

  Clare started from the morning when the quiet zones had swept the world. She explained what had happened after her car crashed, how Dorran had found her and saved her, and then her experience inside Winterbourne. She left out key details: the poisoning incident, some of the riskier adventures that Beth would disapprove of, and how deeply she and Dorran had begun to care for each other. She dreaded Dorran’s response to the last omission, but when she glanced at him, his expression was unreadable.

  From Winterbourne, Clare briefly recounted the journey to Beth’s bunker. Explaining what they’d found at Marnie’s house was the hardest part. Clare’s eyes burned at the memory of her aunt bloated, distorted, and inhuman. Her voice wavered as she told how they’d put Marnie to rest. Beth remained quiet, but she bowed her head. Clare moved on to the events that had brought them to Helexis. Then came the encounter with Ezra, who had introduced himself as Peter.

  She noticed Beth’s eyes narrowed during that part of the story. To Beth, that encounter would simply be reinforcing what she already believed: strangers couldn’t be trusted.

  You weren’t there, Clare wanted to say. If you’d talked to him, I bet you would have believed him too.

  But Beth didn’t make any comments, and Clare pushed through it as factually as she was capable of. She did her best to explain the thanites. Beth interrupted occasionally with questions.

  “Let me get this right. There are more machines still floating through the air?”

  “Yeah.” Clare swallowed a mouthful of curry. “But they’re inactive. The only ones doing anything are the ones inside our bodies.”

  Beth nodded slowly. “So that’s why we’re resistant to infections.”

  “That’s right.” Again, Clare’s eyes were drawn towards Beth’s scars. They couldn’t be more than a few days old, but they were already sealing over. That had to be the thanites speeding up her recovery. Clare’s own cuts were healing themselves nearly as quickly.

  She finished the story by telling how Ezra had tested his so-called cure on Dorran. She stressed the sacrifice he’d made for her sake, but Beth failed to look impressed.

  “Does this mean he’s the onl
y human without thanites now?”

  Clare shrugged. “It’s possible. Something happened. But Ezra didn’t share his results with us. We don’t know if the treatment worked the way it was supposed to.”

  Finally, she talked about Ezra’s death and how they had hidden in the elevator. As she spoke, her mind wandered to the last thing Ezra had ever said to her.

  Give it to me!

  Clare trailed off mid-sentence. There had been no time to examine his words when hollows were swarming up the stairwell, but for the first time, Clare had a chance to recognise what he’d meant.

  Ezra had been looking for the USB stick containing his code. She couldn’t remember what had happened to it after freeing Dorran from the experiment chamber. Clare closed her eyes and tried to think back.

  I shut off the system… I hit the buttons to open the door… and I pulled the USB stick out of the port so that Ezra couldn’t start it up again.

  Her eyes shot open. Both Beth and Dorran were watching her, equally confused and curious. Clare put her bowl on the ground and stood, feeling unsteady. “Hang on. Just a moment. I need to check…”

  She jogged back into the minibus. Her and Dorran’s old jackets—the ones Ezra had lent them—were hung over the backs of chairs as they dried. Clare found hers and hunted through the pockets. In the second one, she found something small, solid, and metallic.

  Oh. She hadn’t been thinking when she’d taken the USB. She’d never intended to put it in her pocket, but somehow, she had. Clare’s throat was dry as she returned to the outdoors seating area and held her hand out to show her companions.

  Dorran’s eyebrows rose. Beth’s lowered.

  “Is that the USB with the code?” Beth asked.

  Clare nodded.

  “And you didn’t think to tell us before now?”

  The tone was sharp. Clare closed her hand around the USB. Dorran glanced between them and silently put his bowl to one side.

  “I forgot I had it. It was a tense couple of hours.”

  Beth leaned back in her chair and pressed her hand over her eyes. She was quiet for a moment then said, “Well, what are we going to do with it?”

  Clare sank into her chair. As night fell, the small amounts of light that made it through the rainclouds vanished, leaving her feeling vulnerable and cold. “Ezra said there were scientists at a research station in Evandale. He said they would be able to work on the code—”

  “No, absolutely not.” Beth’s expression hardened. “We don’t know anything about Evandale or this supposed research centre. I can’t justify travelling across the country for that.”

  “But if we don’t—”

  “We’ll drop the USB off at one of the safe havens. They can worry about it in our place. Then we can focus on getting somewhere secure and protecting ourselves.”

  The USB felt much heavier than it had before. “I don’t know if that’s the right thing to do.”

  Beth lifted an eyebrow. Clare knew the expression; Beth wasn’t happy with her dissent. She forged on.

  “Ezra said the code would kill the hollows. Without it, the thanites will keep them alive for the next ten or even twenty years before their mutations finally destroy them.”

  “I still prefer those odds.” Beth’s jaw was tight. “We’ll find somewhere secure and shore up our supplies to outlast this.”

  “That’s not what I meant. The other survivors—” Clare’s voice caught, and she had to swallow. “People are dying every day. The only chance humanity has against the hollows is to kill them.”

  “We don’t even know it will work. That code was designed by a madman—”

  “I don’t think he was actually insane. He was fanatical. And smart. And jealous. He designed the thanites, so he’s probably the only person who knows how to destroy them.”

  Beth leaned back in her chair, a muscle in her throat twitching. “We don’t even know if the research facility exists or if anyone there is still alive. Survivors like to share the addresses of safe havens, and no one I’ve met has mentioned Evandale. Besides, from what you told me, Ezra lied about literally everything else.”

  “I’m sure he was telling the truth about this. You should have seen the way he reacted when I said I would take the USB to Evandale. He panicked. He was afraid they would steal his credit—”

  “Clare, enough!” Beth slammed her bowl into the ground. “This is your problem. This is why I can’t trust you on your own. You don’t think things through.”

  Heat rose over Clare’s face. “What—”

  “How many times do I have to tell you this before you hear it? The heroes are dying. If you want to survive—if you want me to survive—you have to be careful. And you’re not. You get an idea and just gleefully follow it with no idea of the consequences. ‘Let’s go visit Beth’s bunker.’ ‘Oh, look, there’s that tower we heard about. Let’s stop there.’ And I can already see where this is about to go. ‘Hey, Beth, I found the USB. Let’s drive across the country, looking for a research station.’”

  Clare clenched her teeth, her pulse thundering. “I—I’m doing the best I can—”

  “No, you’re not. You’re acting like a child. You do whatever you want then expect other people to clean up the mess you create.”

  “Don’t speak to her that way.”

  Dorran’s voice wasn’t loud, but it held an intensity that made both Clare and Beth stare at him. He stayed in his chair, but his eyes were hard as he watched Beth.

  Clare felt a swell of gratitude and guilt all at once. She didn’t need him to defend her—she could hold her own against Beth—but it warmed her that he was willing to. Where he’d come from, confrontation never ended well. Even now, away from his mother and her sadistic tendencies, there were signs of stress in the way he held himself. Head tilted, hands clasped, shoulders tight. Subconsciously, he was prepared for retaliation.

  Beth narrowed her eyes at him. “What?”

  His posture tightened further, but his voice remained steady. “She is an equal in this party. Speak to her with respect.”

  “Don’t you dare lecture me,” Beth spat. “You’re not even supposed to be here.”

  Clare held the USB so tightly that it made her fingers ache. “Beth, stop.”

  Beth stood, breathing heavily, her face twitching. She looked from Clare to Dorran and back again. Clare lifted her chin, resolute. Beth’s lips pulled back into a grimace. “Fine. Fine! Looks like we’re done with dinner.”

  She snatched the half-eaten bowls off the ground and stacked them harshly enough that curry sloshed out. Then she grabbed a raincoat from the back of her chair and, holding the bowls under one arm, stalked into the night.

  Clare followed her as far as the shelter’s edge. “Where are you going?”

  “To wash up.”

  Within seconds, Beth had vanished into the mist and the rain. Clare folded her arms across her chest and stepped back, her throat aching as she fought against the building tears.

  Chapter Four

  “Clare, I am so sorry.” Dorran’s fingers grazed over her shoulder. He was hesitating, speaking softly. Clare turned and wrapped her arms around him. He hugged her back. Gentle hands stroked her hair.

  She tried not to cry. Beth was right. She was acting like a child, letting her emotions get the best of her, and crumbling under pressure. Knowing that made the frustration even worse.

  “Shh, it will be all right. I’m here for you.” Dorran rocked her, kissing the top of her head. The hands kept moving in long, slow strokes.

  “I’m sorry, Dorran.” She leaned back to look up at him. “She’s not normally like this. I mean, she never acted like this before. I think… I think the stillness has been hard on her.”

  “Understandable.”

  Oh, Dorran. You’re patient, almost to a fault.

  Clare rose onto her toes to kiss his neck. He leaned into the touch and finally smiled.

  “It’ll get better,” she promised. “I’ll keep working on
her. Just… try to protect yourself. You don’t have to stand up for me if we get into arguments. Leave Beth to me.”

  He lifted her hand and kissed the fingers tenderly. Then, abruptly, his smile faded. Clare pressed closer to him, trying to understand the sudden change in atmosphere. He was looking at her hand.

  “Sorry! The ring! I have it here.” She rushed to pull it out of her pocket. “I just—I—”

  He smiled, but there was no joy in the expression any longer. “That’s fine.”

  A cold rush of guilt filled her stomach. “I only took it off because Beth—with the way she’s been acting—and I didn’t want to make anything worse—”

  “Clare, it’s all right.” He took her hand and wrapped the fingers around the ring. “I understand.”

  “Do you?” She blinked up at him, searching his expression, but it was as though he’d shuttered his face. She couldn’t read his eyes any longer.

  For a moment, Dorran didn’t speak. He was looking down at their hands. Both of his were wrapped around hers, with the ring inside. Then he took a breath and spoke softly.

  “You gave me your word inside an elevator, with monsters surrounding us, and with no hope of escape. It was not a fair situation to ask you in. And not a decision I would hold you to.”

  She shook her head, not sure she understood him. “Dorran…”

  “I heard what your sister said earlier today. About how relationships are tenuous at best in this new world.” His eyes flicked up to meet hers briefly then dropped back down to their hands. His words were growing quicker, tighter, more formal, the way they did when he was under stress. “I do not wish for you to stay with me because of a hastily made promise that you now regret. If you wish to give the ring back, I will understand. I will not resent it.”

  Their hands were still wrapped together. Clare pulled them closer so that she could kiss Dorran’s. Then she glared up at him, infusing all of the conviction she felt into her words. “No chance in hell.”

  The tightness in his expression broke. He blinked at her, shaken.

  Clare pushed forward. “I fully intend to make good on that elevator promise, no matter how hastily made it was. You’re stuck with me now, buddy. ‘Til death do us part.”