“Just… Just tired.”
“Come here.” She gently helped him lie down, spread out across the blankets, his head beside her so that she could stroke his hair. His eyes closed, but his breathing remained ragged. Clare let her hand slide to his throat and felt the skin. It was clammy. She swallowed and felt a lump from impending tears blocking her throat.
A cold wind slipped around them, worming into the gaps in Clare’s clothes. The fire was beginning to fall low as its fuel was consumed. Mist snaked across the overgrown grass and through the dead branches at the edge of Clare’s vision. She shivered. Even though Dorran was still at her side, she felt horribly, horribly alone.
“Dorran?” She brushed stray hair away from his face. “Do you want to go back into the bus now? It’ll be warmer there.”
He didn’t respond. Clare tried shaking his shoulder. His eyes opened a sliver then dropped closed again.
Clare looked towards the bus. It was close; she just had no way to get Dorran onto it herself. Until he woke or until Beth returned, they would have to stay outside. Which meant being vulnerable… to the cold and to the hollows.
Clare rose, grimacing as stiff muscles were forced to move. The fire was the one thing that could protect them from both threats, and although the flames were turning into embers, the crop of trees wasn’t far away.
The cold trickled around her as she left the bonfire’s circle of light. Clare kept one eye on Dorran’s still form as she reached blindly into the dark and felt for branches. Dry wood scraped her palms. Clare broke off small branches and clutched them close to her chest as she turned back to their camp.
A noise came from behind her, and Clare froze. It sounded disturbingly like a sigh. An animal? The wind? Clare licked dry lips. Beth?
Clare jogged back to the fire, arms laden with wood, and dropped it into an untidy pile. She fed new pieces into the blaze and breathed a little easier as the circle of light expanded.
Dorran didn’t respond as Clare ran her hand across his forehead. He still felt cold. Clare crossed to the bus, climbed inside, and brought out four of their last clean blankets. Three went around Dorran to shelter him from the wind and to warm him. Clare wrapped the final blanket around her shoulders as she watched the dancing flames.
She had to stay awake. They were in unfamiliar territory, and someone needed to act as guard. But she’d gone through nights of disturbed sleep, and crushing tiredness weighed her limbs down.
When she felt herself start to slip under, she stood and paced around the fire. When her eyelids continued to droop, she pinched herself, relying on a quick shot of unhappy nerves to bring her back. She kept moving until her legs were too tired to hold her up, then she slumped to the ground on the opposite side of the fire to Dorran. Hugging the blanket around her shoulders, she hoped dawn wouldn’t be far away. Her eyes burned as though the soot had never left them, and every blink made it harder to open her lids.
She thought she saw something moving just outside the firelight. Clare squinted, but her mind was so fragmented that she couldn’t separate imagination from reality.
Everything was sore. Not from exercise but from days spent sitting in the same position and bending over her map. She wanted to lean against something to give her muscles a rest. She couldn’t risk it. She couldn’t risk giving into the tiredness.
Clare groaned and rolled her shoulders. The fire crackled, and her imagination tried to say the crackling was all around her, a subtle symphony of feet across dry grass and dead leaves.
Then, she didn’t know exactly when, her world shifted into a dreamscape. She was back in the farmhouse where they had taken refuge, her shoes crunching over leaves blown through the broken window. Immediately ahead, at the end of a long hallway, was the door to the master bedroom. The elastic rope was still fastened to the handle, holding it closed against a being that had no mind to open it.
She knew what she would find inside the room, but she was irrevocably drawn towards it. She reached out and lightly unhooked the rope. The handle glittered in the unnatural light. The creature behind the door was audible. Stifled, gasping breaths. Muffled thumping noises as it writhed. She had to see it. Her fingers touched the handle.
Clare’s eyes snapped open. She couldn’t tell how much time had passed—a minute or an hour. She lay slumped on her side, her face and arms heated by the fire as her cheek rested on the sandy ground.
The noises had followed her into reality. Muffled gasps. The thump of writhing limbs. Clare lifted her head. Dorran lay on the other side of the fire. He was no longer still. Beth was at him. She crouched, one hand holding his head down, fresh blood running over her lips.
Chapter Thirty-One
Clare screamed. Beth lifted her head. Her eyes flashed as the lips curled back into a grin.
Dorran was moving, twisting, but sluggishly. Clare was afraid to look at him. She didn’t want to see. But she had to. She forced her eyes to drop.
Please, no, please. This can’t be happening. Beth’s teeth had gorged a hole in his arm, just below his shoulder. Blood streamed over his chest and soaked the blankets.
He wasn’t fully conscious, she realised. Trapped in a delirium, he was powerless to fight Beth off. She pinned him in place, hunched over her feast, predatory and wild.
“No—” Clare’s groan choked in her throat. She felt trapped in a nightmare, but every detail was too real, too sharp, for it to be anything but reality.
Beth tilted her head to one side. Her eyes glittered. “Go back to sleep, sweet Clare.”
“No, no, stop—” Clare scrambled to her knees, her hand held out.
“Shh,” Beth whispered. “This is for the best. He’s become a burden.”
The wildness in her eyes was horrifying. Her fingers roved across Dorran’s arm, scrabbling, then began to dig into the wound. He whined.
“No!” Clare launched herself towards the blankets where Dorran had left his knife. She pulled the blade out of its sheath and clutched the handle in both hands as she pointed it at Beth’s face. “Get off him!”
Beth hummed under her breath, her tongue slipping out to scoop the gore off her chin. “It’s all right, baby. This is the way it was always supposed to be. We’ll be together, just the two of us. And I won’t be hungry anymore. You don’t want me to be hungry, do you?”
“Get off him!” Clare screamed.
Dorran’s movements had slowed. His breathing sounded broken.
Beth leaned over his body. The spines rippled in the firelight. One of her arms snaked out, deceptively fast, and the fingers wrapped around the blade.
Clare reflexively jerked backwards. The serrated blade scraped across Beth’s palm. A glut of blood dribbled out of it.
“Don’t cry, baby,” she cooed. “This is the way it was always supposed to be.”
Beth wasn’t afraid of the knife. Clare could sense she was already far beyond reason. She’d tasted blood, and she wouldn’t leave her feast for anything short of death.
I have to kill her. The thought came with a wave of ice, freezing around her heart, solidifying in her lungs, until she could neither move nor breathe.
She pictured herself driving the knife into her sister’s chest, or drawing it across her throat, or thrusting it into one of her eyes. Her body was numb. Her mind screamed, the noise trapped, reverberating, growing louder with every second.
Her limbs wouldn’t move. She couldn’t do it. Killing Beth was the only way to stop her attack on Dorran, but she couldn’t. Beth’s eyes, bright and delighted, turned towards the broken skin under her hands as her tongue snaked out again.
Beth didn’t fear the knife. She didn’t even fear her own death. But there was one thing Clare hoped she might still value enough to use as leverage. Clare pressed the blade against her own throat. “Leave him alone!”
Beth’s smile morphed into concern. “Shh, darling. Stop fussing. I’ll take care of you. You’ll like that. Big sister Beth will care for you.”
She p
ushed the knife in harder. The sting of steel cleaving skin was almost a relief. It gave her something to focus on. A drip of warm liquid ran down her throat, but she couldn’t tell whether it was Beth’s blood or her own. “Kill him, and I die too.”
The kindness was melting from her sister’s features. “He’s dead either way. Let me enjoy him while he’s still warm.”
“Get off.” She tilted her head back and pushed the blade in harder. The skin burned. “Now.”
Red lips quivered around red teeth. “Are you actually siding with him over me?”
“Yes.”
Beth arched her back. Nostrils flared, skin blanching pale. “You petulant, spoiled child. Do you have any idea how desperately I love you? Or what I’ve done for your sake? And you throw it in my face—”
The words hurt too much to speak as anything louder than a whisper. “I hate you.”
Beth’s eyes widened then narrowed into slits. “No, you don’t.”
The phrase was having an effect, so Clare pushed on, her voice rising in volume and urgency as she clutched for the harshest words she could find. “I hate you. I loathe you. You’re a monster.”
Beth rose. She had never been a tall person, but at that moment, she seemed to tower. Her eyes flashed, and her voice roared, red spittle flying over her lips. “Recant that!”
“Monster!” She was pushing Beth over an edge. She didn’t know what the result might be, only that her sister’s tone promised violence. But it was her only option left. She couldn’t make herself drive the knife into Beth. She couldn’t abandon Dorran. So she used her words, and she used them recklessly. “Monster, monster, monster!”
Beth screamed, as if trying to drown out the word. The cry rose into a howling shriek, and Clare was suddenly knocked over. The knife skidded away. Wild, inhuman eyes stared into hers, then, in a heartbeat, they were gone.
Clare sat up. Her ears rang, and her hands were sweaty. The dancing firelight made everything seem to be moving; shadows swirled at the peripheries of her vision, but as she twisted towards them, she realised Beth was gone.
Dorran. He was no longer moving. Clare scrambled to him. His eyes were open but half lidded. Pure terror spiked through her as she held a shaking hand up to his open mouth. A faint breath ghosted across her fingers. It was cold, but he was still alive.
Blood ran from the bite wound on his arm. It wasn’t stopping. Clare grabbed one of the blankets from the pile and pressed it against the cuts. Dorran twitched, but there was no other response.
Please, please, I can’t lose you like this. She kept trying to tell herself that Dorran was strong, that he was resilient, that he had overcome everything else life had pushed on him, and that he could overcome this as well. She clenched her teeth as she applied pressure, knowing it would hurt him but that it was the only way to stop the flow.
Already, red liquid was starting to seep through the fabric. She tried not to look. Her eyes were blurred, and her chest ached from breathing too quickly. She wished he could talk to her. He knew first aid. He would know what to do to make it better.
The fire was starting to drop low again, but Clare didn’t dare leave Dorran to refuel it. She felt as though she were walking on ice, and a single wrong step would plunge them both under. Every few minutes, she leaned back far enough to check that he was still breathing. His features were slack and his eyes dull. But his chest continued to rise and fall, and for that moment, that was all Clare asked of him.
Her arms and shoulders began to ache from holding the pressure. Clare shuffled around, trying to relax the tense muscles without loosening her hold. She couldn’t maintain it for much longer. She would have to ease up the pressure and see if it had been enough to stop the bleeding.
Blood had grown in a pool around Dorran’s bed, soaking through his clothes and blankets. There was more of it than she’d thought one human could hold. Clare braced herself then gingerly removed her hands from the towel, rolling back onto her heels. She held her breath as she watched.
Nothing seemed to change. Hoping that was a good sign, she clambered to her feet then ran into the bus and hunted through the racks to find the first aid kit Beth had always carried. It was tucked behind the driver’s seat. Clare pulled it out and sorted through the supplies.
The cloth bag didn’t hold much. There were no painkillers and no stitches. Only a roll of clean bandages, scissors, medical tape, and a near-empty bottle of antiseptic.
Clare found the packet of antibiotics and tucked it in with the bag as she ran back to Dorran. She knelt at his side, popped one of the antibiotics out, and held it up to his mouth. “Dorran, you need to take this. Please.”
There was no response. She touched his forehead. His eyes stayed glazed and half open. His features were blank.
“Come on, please, please.” She tried to push the capsule into his open mouth.
He remained unresponsive. Clare swallowed hot, stinging tears as she tucked the antibiotics away.
The bottle of antiseptic was down to the last tablespoon. Clare guessed Beth had been using it on the open wounds on her back, up until she’d learned that the thanites kept her immune from infection. There wasn’t much left, but she hoped it would be better than nothing.
Clare gingerly peeled the cloth away from the wounds on Dorran’s arm. She could finally see them clearly now that they weren’t washed in blood. The bite marks were deep, exposing red flesh and muscle. She clenched her teeth, shivers running through her, and tipped the last of the disinfectant over the wound.
If Dorran felt it, he gave no response. She swallowed thickly as she applied one of the cotton pads and began wrapping the bandage over the mess. She tried to move his arm as little as possible, but fresh blood began to seep out regardless.
I’m so sorry, Dorran. Please forgive me.
She’d been stupid. Dorran knew first aid. She’d had weeks in which she could have learned from him, but instead, she’d relied on him to handle every situation himself. Now that she was alone, her own knowledge was horribly inadequate. All she could do was bumble through the process and hope she did more good than harm.
Using the medical scissors, Clare cut away his blood-soaked shirt. She threw more wood on the fire to keep him warm and, using one of the bottles of water and a towel, washed him as well as she could.
A twig snapped somewhere off to her right. Clare lifted her head and hunted through the black expanse, but if they had company, she couldn’t see it. Wary, she crawled to the knife Beth had forced out of her hand. The vicious blade was still stained red. Clare wiped it clean and kept it at her side for the rest of the night.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Sleep was no longer a temptation. Any time her mind started to wander, the nightmarish images returned. Beth, crouched over Dorran. Blood running. She would startle back into focus, her heart beating too fast and her stomach in knots.
She tended the fire, keeping it bright and large. Twice, she had to make the trip back to the crop of trees to find fresh wood. The trip took her away from Dorran, leaving him vulnerable for nearly a minute each time, and her mind tormented her with images of what could be happening to him when she was gone. She always broke into a run as she returned to the fire, only to feel the panic fade as she saw him lying undisturbed where she’d left him.
Blood stained the bandages around his arm, but she thought the wounds must have clotted. His breathing was shallow. She had no way to help that. His skin was grey and dry in a way that told her he was dehydrated. There was no way to help that either. Not unless he woke up. And no matter how often Clare spoke his name, he wouldn’t stir. She stayed by his head, stroking his hair with one hand and holding the knife in the other as she kept watch.
Night seemed to last far longer than it should have. Clare’s nerves were burning by the time sunlight brought relief over the area. Finally, she could see the hills surrounding them, the little patches of forest, and even the silhouettes of the mountains in the distance. She was grateful fo
r the light. It chased away the unseen demons. But it was also an awful threat. They had made it through the night, but now she was forced to consider what needed to come next.
She couldn’t leave Dorran where he was. Exposed to the elements, injured, he wouldn’t last long. He needed a doctor. But she didn’t know where to find any. She could drive to the nearest safe haven; Beth had marked their locations on her map. But they were few and far between, and she suspected they wouldn’t be able to provide as much help as she needed. With strangers arriving every day, whatever medical supplies the safe havens had started with or managed to trade for would be depleted.
There was only one medical centre in the area that might have hope: Evandale’s research institute. Clare ground her teeth, remembering what Beth had said. They would be scientists, not real doctors. But at least they hadn’t been marked as a known safe haven on the map. They wouldn’t have become a destination for people seeking help. That meant it was Dorran’s best chance.
She ran her hand over his forehead. Sweat slicked his hair. She found a towel and dabbed him dry.
Having a destination was one thing. Getting there was another. Clare still had the bus, but she had no way to get Dorran into it. He was heavy, and she couldn’t so much as lift him, let alone carry him.
Clare’s head was foggy with stress. There had to be something she hadn’t thought of. Some way to get him onboard without jostling him so much that it started the bleeding again.
To get him inside before Beth returns.
Any time she thought of her sister, her mind threatened to spiral. She didn’t want to think of where Beth was, what she was doing, or what she might intend.
The only truly important thing, the one thing she had to focus on, was Dorran. The research station was their only real hope. And it was close. They should have reached it the night before; it wouldn’t take more than a couple of hours of driving to be at its door.
Whispers in the Mist: Black Winter Book Three Page 22