The Killin' Fields (Alexa's Travels Book 2)

by Angela White

  “You will eventually be in danger from me,” Alexa told them. “This thirst is…powerful.”

  The men were all tempted to swear their lives to her again, but Alexa wouldn’t allow them to hide from the truth. “You’ll have to watch me as much as our enemies. You should leave now; salvage what you can of your lives.”

  Denials filled the room and brought her other two men up the stairs. Each one waited to be heard and Alexa had no choice but to listen.

  “We’re a team. We’re not going anywhere.”

  “The quest ends when we reach Safe Haven and not before!” Mark insisted.

  “You don’t scare us,” Edward lied. “We’ll stay.”

  Alexa had to keep trying to protect them. “I won’t be able to control it. You’ll all be in—”

  “We’re staying,” David told her firmly. “And so are you. We’ll adjust.”

  Alexa felt more of those red tears slip from her eyes and she understood their bond had finally sealed itself. Very little would be able to come between them.

  “So, do you have any, uh, extra gifts?” Jacob asked curiously.

  Alexa snorted, reading the thoughts in the room. “A clique of vampire fighters. Yeah, Adrian will let us in that way.”

  Realizing they would be denied entrance to paradise, the men didn’t ask her to share the virus so they could be like her. They’d planned to, but discovering that Adrian would view them as evil quickly changed their minds.

  Alexa was glad. She wouldn’t have refused these men anything they wanted, but it wasn’t right and it would have cost them everything. Considering their leader was now a legendary creature who had to feed on the weak, Alexa wasn’t sure if they might not already be doomed.

  “Paul brought Tabitha back while we were gone,” Edward told her. “She came up to help you.”

  Alexa sighed. “She smelled too good. Keep her away from me until I have more control.”

  “Maybe she can help,” Billy insisted. “What if we stand between you two?

  Alexa reluctantly agreed to let the woman come up, hoping her will power was strong enough to keep from ripping out Tabitha’s throat. Alexa had never been so hungry and she preferred to test her strength on a stranger and not her fighters.

  2

  Paul and Tabitha came up the steps slowly, eyes wide as they took in Alexa. The glow on her skin was a lie, an appearance of health that the rabbit knew she didn’t really have. “You’ve completed the transformation.”

  Alexa nodded, trying not to breathe deeply. “Suggestions?”

  Paul glanced at the fighters without speaking and Alexa shook her head, voice sharp. “They’re not cattle. I’d never do that.”

  “You did with me.”

  Alexa stared at his exposed skin in anguish and control. “Yes, and I thank you for that. It allowed me to finish this part of the quest and I’m grateful.”

  Paul frowned. “So why wouldn’t you—”

  “We’re not like you, rabbit,” David explained. “We’ll change if she… Hey!”

  All the men understood at the same time and turned to sweep Paul with fresh accusations and curiosities.

  The scientist flushed, confirming their suspicions. “It was one of the first things Corbin did when he realized I had gifts.” Paul’s voice was scornful. “He thought he could make me a man, but crossing descendants and vampires didn’t work for me.”

  “What do you mean?” Mark wanted to know.

  “It cancelled out my inherited power. I became impotent.”

  Next to him, Tabitha giggled and Paul brushed a hand down her arm in affection. “I’ll find you some Advil.”

  The men stared in shock. Where was their frightened scientist who couldn’t survive on his own?

  As if to remind them that he was still the same klutz, Paul took a step toward Alexa, caught his foot in a blanket, and went sprawling.

  Chuckles filled the room and Alexa soaked it in as deeply as she could, trying to mend her heart. During all the chaos, she’d figured out who Brian was.

  “Tabby made breakfast,” Paul announced as he picked himself up, still bitter about being laughed at, but not as much as before. Facing his fear of the fire and of Shane had helped him to grow mentally. In time, he may not even hate the big brutes that Alexa had surrounded herself with.

  Paul led Tabitha to the bed, and retreated a step. He shoved those big knuckles into his pockets and waited. This was his last chance.

  Alexa and Tabitha had both frozen as they scented each other. Alexa in ravenous hunger, Tabitha in horror.

  “It’s too late. You’ve already changed.”

  Neither of them spoke again for a moment, where Paul’s future hung in the balance.

  “Would you give yourself to me?”

  Tabitha shook her head as if coming from a daze, and Alexa smiled gently. “Then get the hell out of here.”

  Alexa turned her head, holding her breath as Tabitha fled all the way to the kitchen downstairs.

  “Food?” Edward asked Alexa. “A little?”

  Not sure she could take a single bite, Alexa reluctantly let Edward help her from the bed. She’d never been so tired.

  Edward noticed that her smaller injuries were healed and wondered if her ribs were slowly doing the same. Her slow grunts and breaths as they went down the stairs said the vampire process didn’t fix everything and the horseman was almost glad despite not wanting her to be in pain. He’d been anticipating caring for her.

  Alexa’s hand tightened on his arm. “Thank you.”

  Edward hugged her. “It’s my honor.”

  3

  The nine travelers enjoyed a meal together, but Alexa stayed in the corner and her men provided a wall between her and Tabitha as she finished cooking. The eggs and bacon had come from the house stock, dehydrated, but the biscuits and gravy were fresh and for a while there was only silence as the men got their fill.

  Only Edward noticed Alexa wasn’t actually eating her food, but dropping forkfuls onto his place to make it appear that she was. He began to understand right then how hard the rest of their quest might be. Her diet would was now drastically different than theirs.

  Paul and Tabitha served the food and made the rest of them feel invisible in the way only lovers can. It seemed like a good match for the twitchy man and the fighters were even a bit jealous. Until Edward muttered about descendants having an unfair advantage and the others realized Paul was using his gifts to keep Tabitha with him.

  Daniel used the hand code to question: Do we need to help her?

  Edward studied the barefoot woman humming with the music as she served them all. Between rounds, she gave Paul small smiles of contentment and happiness.

  No, Edward signaled. Let them have a chance. He won’t hurt her.

  Daniel agreed and the two men put it from their minds, but it did ease their feelings of inadequacies to know he had help as a lover.

  “I’m not cheating!” Paul protested suddenly, answering their thoughts. “She’s sad over her cousin. I’m helping with that.”

  Edward raised a brow. “No help for you?”

  “No.” Paul flushed with male pride. “I’m just that good.”

  Tabitha giggled again. “Yes, rabbit, you are.”

  Paul swung around to deliver another swat to her behind as she passed and everyone chuckled except for Alexa. She was staring out the window, trying to pretend that the smell of the food wasn’t making her stomach churn. To control it, she’d been counting the corn stalks, but a shadow had caught her attention.

  She knew who it was and pain flooded her in fresh waves. She remembered her own days of being on the outside, of waiting to be old enough to join her father. It had felt like forever while she peered in windows and tried to stay alive.

  “Why doesn’t he come in?” Tabitha asked suddenly, following her line of sight. “He’s one of the nice soldiers.”

  An awkward silence fell as the men saw Brian sitting at the edge of the corn, eating some
thing that looked dried and dusty.

  Edward glanced at Alexa, but the emotions made her sharp.

  “You have spent this trip talking, drawing stories, and filling in your blanks. Enough. I’ll not be badgered into given away information it has taken me a lifetime to earn. You’ll get it when you need it or when I’m ready for you to have it, and not a second sooner!”

  Paul, feeling braver than he had in a long time, retreated a step and provided the answer.

  “He can’t join his mother until he’s of age. It’s a law among our kind.”

  Gasps and shock filled the kitchen, and Alexa rose without speaking. As she staggered from the room, she paused long enough to slap Paul.

  The scientist fell into the cabinet, knocking down a stack of pots that thumped into him repeatedly, nearly rendering him unconscious.

  Tabitha wanted to run to Paul, but she hadn’t forgotten and stayed still until Alexa was gone.

  Paul let Tabitha help him up, noticing the fighters hadn’t risen to assist him. Even though they were grateful to know who Brian was, they agreed with Alexa that he should have kept his mouth shut.

  “That’s why I have to stay here,” Paul said lowly, rubbing his shoulder and neck. “I know the rules and our ways, but I …”

  “Can’t follow them,” Edward supplied.

  Paul shrugged. “Maybe I could, but not with you guys. I’ll spend the entire trip doing what I just did to get you to like me. And it won’t work.”

  New guilt rose to suffocate the fighters, and each of them shifted uncomfortably or glanced away.

  Edward sighed. “Yeah, about that… Paul. We were rough on you against her wishes. She didn’t want you abused.”

  “She wanted you trained,” David said.

  “She can’t force that on you, so it backfired. I get it.” Paul’s face was growing red, showing the weak scientist they were used to. “You were jealous and didn’t want me there to take your time with her!”

  None of them could deny it and they didn’t.

  “There are already six of us,” Jacob explained ashamedly.

  “And she told us we were a full group,” David added.

  The senior men stayed quiet, trying to figure out what to do. Alexa was upset, they were upset, and so was Paul. Something had to be done to fix it.

  “Unless we go the other way,” Billy said suddenly. “Paul, the truth is, we know you’re like her, a better choice for a mate, and our dna insists we get rid of you. Its nature, you understand?”

  Paul, who enjoyed studying everything, did. “Sure. All species are territorial.”

  “Exactly,” Billy agreed. “But it was the same when each man here joined. We all wanted to be alone with her. We got over it; saw the benefits of being stronger in number. With you, the balance tipped us back to chaos and therefore took away our strength. If you had tried harder, we would have accepted you in time. I know that because there isn’t anything I won’t do for the men in this room and they feel the same. You broke our harmony somehow.”

  “Because he only cares about getting to Safe Haven,” Alexa said from the rocking chair in the front room. “If you all died tomorrow, he’d celebrate.”

  Paul wanted to deny the accusation, to say if they could be reasonable, he could too, but the hatred had already set into place. He turned toward the stove to start cleaning up.

  Alexa’s men couldn’t take much of the tension after that. They abandoned the kitchen for packing their gear in case Alexa wanted to get rolling.

  As he padded through the front room, Mark spotted her dozing in an armchair and went to place a soft kiss to the top of Alexa’s head. “I’m sorry.”

  Alexa sighed, leaning against his arm. “So am I. This wasn’t what I envisioned when I took you from that place.”

  Mark flashed to the chains and the bit, to the tests and the torture. Instead of fading, it had remained vivid in his mind, often tormenting him in dreams. “You could rip my throat open right here and now lady, and it would still be a kindness compared to Slam.”

  Alexa froze as doors swung open in her mind. Awful, terrible images came to her and she shuddered.

  “Alexa?”

  She looked up at him with dead eyes. “I won’t be able to stop it.”

  Mark understood immediately and felt panic sweep over him. “Keep me by your side! I want that!” he insisted in a near growl. “I don’t care in what form.”

  Alexa hugged him tightly, but didn’t make any promises and Mark wept lightly on her shoulder. He wasn’t ready to die yet, and not because of fear. He couldn’t handle the thought of being away from Alexa.

  “I feel the same,” she stated gruffly. “And no future is set in stone. We’ll guard against it. For now, get me out of here. I can’t stand her stench.”

  Mark helped her when she tried to rise and had to stifle a groan, then kept an arm around her hot skin as they limped up the stairs.

  Thirty minutes later they were all going out the front door and none of them bothered with a goodbye or well wishes for Paul. Guilty of causing it or not, Paul hated them and there was no point in wasting their time with words they didn’t mean.

  “Shouldn’t we get more information from Tabitha?” David remembered. “Paul brought her to help.”

  “No, he didn’t,” Alexa refuted. “He knew if I had an innocent meal, I’d be tainted and no longer able to deny him a place in this group. He betrayed me. And her, but she wants to die anyway, so there was no sacrifice on her end.”

  The men weren’t sure what to say after that and the fighters walked into the corn in silent contemplation of the last two weeks.

  4

  Alexa’s mood was ugly, but the men with her, minus the one following against her wishes, were ecstatic to have succeeded and ditched their noisy burden. Their thoughts were full of misconceptions and assumptions that could be dangerous, but she didn’t have the strength to correct them yet. That would come during her recovery.

  Sensing Alexa wouldn’t berate them right now; the two rear men held a low discussion and managed to clear up a few of the questions for themselves.

  “He said it should be out of her system now. We might get a break from the soldiers for a while.”

  “Good. We need to find an ammo stash. Only four mags between us.”

  “Yeah, none of them were carrying much in the way of supplies.”

  “Neither were those other travelers. I didn’t understand why they were never concerned with water or food. Until we hit Lincoln that last time anyway.”

  “Ghosts don’t need those things. Creepy.”

  “The death dance is still freaking me out. They have to spend eternity dancing out their deaths for entertainment? That’s weird.”

  “Agreed. What about that room with the portal she shut down? Have you ever seen so many?”

  “Only in movies.”

  “This should have been one. Might have become a classic. A ghost wagon train would be awesome if you hadn’t actually been there firsthand.”

  Both men chuckled and fell back into quiet as Edward gave them a sharp look to curb the noise.

  He had been studying Alexa, wondering how long she could travel in the daylight before she collapsed or started to burn. The baby had been sensitive to the light and that meant Alexa would be as well.

  “Do you think he’ll survive?’

  Jacob’s question was muttered, but Alexa heard it and let out a heavy sighed. “Only if he goes to the bunker.”

  Alexa took the weed-dotted road at the first intersection, and all the fighters were glad to be on the cracked pavement again. They’d had enough of this corn.

  5

  Alexa walked until her ribs and lungs were burning, determined to be out of reach of their new enemies here. Until she healed, they were weaker, and she wasn’t going to shelter-in near Lincoln.

  As the day wore on, her straight line became blurred, but the men didn’t speak up. This slower pace wasn’t hard for them, but it had to be mur
der on her and they respected her will to keep going.

  Sunset saw them barely moving as she trudged along and Edward couldn’t take it anymore. He gently scooped her into his arms.

  Mark hurried to take point, relieved.

  Alexa mumbled in his ear, trying to stay conscious, and Edward listened carefully to her instructions.

  Those around them didn’t need to hear it to know what she wanted. She’d walked herself into near-collapse again to be away from here.

  “She needs meat,” Edward stated, voice not betraying his true feelings. “Bloody.”

  “I’ll hunt,” Mark offered. “One hour.”

  Daniel took Point as the convict disappeared into the tall grass with his knife in hand.

  “We need a shelter across the state line,” Edward delivered the next order. “Out of Nebraska.”

  Billy dug for his map, saying, “I’ll do that right now.”

  “We also need the nearest mall and a good plan for scavenging with only half a crew. Ammo, water, and tools this time.”

  David was already thumbing through the telephone book from his kit. He hadn’t understood why Alexa gave it to him, or even when she’d taken it as they reached Nebraska and found a small library. Now, he was thankful and held more respect for his mistress. Every day she proved herself worthy to lead them on this quest.

  With the entire group distracted and night falling over them, danger lurked nearby, but the fighters didn’t concern themselves with what might be. This was the way they lived now and there would always be times when they were unprotected. It was part of the risk.

  “If we keep going up 77, we’ll hit Fremont by morning,” Billy informed them. “We can take 43 and be in Sidney this time tomorrow.

  Alexa muttered again and Edward passed her words on. “She said it doesn’t matter where we want to be, so long as we avoid Kansas completely, especially Leavenworth Penitentiary and the state line towns.”

  “I say we cross into Iowa and find the closest hotel,” Billy joked.

  “Agreed,” Alexa forced out. “Put me down.”