by Box Set
“No,” the word slipped from behind my lips, the gasp of fear and disbelief so quiet I prayed it didn’t hear me.
Instead, its face split, its lips spreading into a nefarious smile, the same as the spider girl had. Sharp, pointing teeth cut through the skin as it split so wide its face was more smile than emotionless mask.
Emotionless, colorless … until now.
Blood of the brightest red coated each one of those pointed fangs, the liquid dripping from its lips in a river of color that spread over its chin, dripping down its neck, only to fall to the ground in a glistening drop of crimson. The trickling blood was the only color on the void of white before me.
I couldn’t look away from the color.
“Face me,” it said again. It was all I could do not to scream.
“No,” I repeated through the fear, but this time, my meaning was clearer.
These voices had filled me before, had told me what to do, and I had obeyed. I had let them take my life away, but no more.
I wouldn’t let it anymore.
Not when I could still hear the distorted sounds of my brother working away on the motorcycle. Not when I could still smell the exhaust from his attempted start.
We were almost free, and from what Travis had said, close to Blood Rose. Close to our destination, to safety, to a place that was darkness and danger. I wouldn’t let this thing take that away from me.
“No,” I said the word louder, my determination growing over the fear, only to be dashed by the thing, by the way its smile spread, the way the blood flow increased, the way its eyes blinked. Hollow, white eyes shifted into lenses that were more human, more haunted, eyes of blue and irises of black.
It had been emotionless.
It had been a slate of nothing but fear and blood. However, now it looked at me with anger, hunger, and a desire that horrified me.
A desire I understood because it was my blood they were changing.
It was my blood it wanted.
It was my blood it wanted to drip from its mouth.
That it wanted to spill from mine.
“Fight me.” I twisted its own words around, my voice shaking even as I tried to push my own warning and determination behind them.
Cocking its head to the side, the thing smiled, its eyes narrowing in excitement.
“Have it your way.” Its voice filled me again, but I didn’t even have time to register what it had said before it rushed me, the bell-like sound of its scream filling my head again.
It was loud, forceful.
Its feet were fast, and then the world changed.
I didn’t know what pulled me out of the world beyond the darkness, but with the bang of a drum, it shifted and changed. The world went back into dark, went back to my brother’s frantic screams and the sound of a motorcycle that I had somehow missed, the sounds drowned out by the creature’s familiar scream, by the painful buzzing in my ears.
I tried not to scream with the pain, with the fear that the Tar was only steps away, and the pain was too much to fight it here.
And then I understood what had pulled me out of it—the bang of a gun.
The flash of light moved into the now retreating monster, my brother’s voice as he screamed my name, as he begged for me to run to him.
The Tar was frozen above me, round after round of light moving into him. Beyond the pain, I knew I needed to move. I knew I needed to fight it. Otherwise, I would die here.
My scream of agony echoed around me as I pushed through the discomfort, leaning against the cars as I stumbled toward Travis, running toward the sound of the motorcycle, running toward the open garage door in front of us.
I had barely reached my brother when his arm wrapped around my waist. His strong hold lifted me off the ground as he carried me toward the waiting bike, the rounds still echoing in my head, the scream of the creature growing more distant.
The sound seemed to grow louder as he carried me, as cold wind moved through my hair.
Gun shot.
Were we on the bike now?
Scream.
Was it following us?
Gun shot.
Were we moving? Where were we going?
Scream.
What’s that sound? Why does everything hurt?
Click.
I wasn’t sure where I was or what had happened, but I couldn’t fight the pain anymore.
I only hoped I was passing out instead of letting the darkness devour me.
Chapter Three
I woke up when I felt my own vomit spray against my face. The drops of wet were foul and putrid, smelling of rotten food and the pungent oil smell I had come to relate to Tars’ blood. It pulled me out of my deep sleep so fast that, if Travis hadn’t tied me to the motorcycle, I might have fallen off.
Coughing as I tried not to choke on my own vomit, I attempted to pull myself into a more comfortable position, something that proved to be much harder than necessary, considering the angle the ropes were holding me in and the still moving bike. My heart sped into a fearful thunder at the realization.
I had never been on a motorcycle before, let alone tied to one. The gross reality I had awoken to was sending me into a panic. I was trapped on this piece of twisted metal, the world speeding around me in a dangerous blur.
I tried to move in a frantic attempt to get away from the road that was zooming by below us, only to have the bike shake and shift frighteningly. I froze, my mind screaming at me that balance was required to keep us both upright. I wasn’t about to offset that and send us both into the asphalt. My head was still buzzing from my multiple cement-meet-head impacts, after all, so I really didn’t need another one.
“Travis?” I tried to yell his name over the roar of the bike’s engine, but merely saying that one word ripped through me painfully. I could barely get my voice above a whisper. Instead, I shifted my weight again, pressing myself against the ropes as much as I dared. That seemed to do the trick, and Travis turned to me quickly, his eyes wide.
“You’re awake!” he called, obviously surprised.
Of course I was awake. How did he miss me shifting behind him and the vomit?
Unless I had vomited multiple times during our little excursion.
I didn’t want to think about it. I was already covered with mass amounts of Tar’s blood, so I doubted I would be able to tell what was food chunks and what wasn’t. At this point, new clothing was becoming a necessity.
When my stomach twisted again, I pushed the thought aside.
“Yeah.” I cringed against the growing pain, wishing I could stop talking, turn off the motorcycle, and find some corner of the dark world to hide in or, even better, find a way to get back into the equally creepy, luminescent world.
Creepy or not, at least I didn’t hurt there.
Too bad neither was a very real possibility.
“Can you untie me?” I barely got the words out.
Travis glanced back at me once before looking back to the road and the dimly lit stretch of what obviously used to be highway before us.
“No can do, sis.”
“Excuse me?” It was a little disgusting how quickly my irritation erupted, not that it didn’t have good reason. I was tied to a motorcycle and, apparently, stuck there for who knew how long.
“I can’t untie you.” He didn’t even seem to have remorse for the situation.
Cue further irritation.
“Oh, by all means, keep me prisoner if it floats your boat.” I couldn’t keep the acid out of my voice. Granted, I didn’t really try, either.
“It’s not that … I can’t stop the bike.”
Just like that, my irritation left, my heart rate accelerating with the underlying panic in his voice. I had heard that hidden emotion enough during the last few days that I could have picked it out of a haystack. It didn’t mean it was a good thing, though. After all, needles hurt.
“What are you saying, Travis?” I asked hesitantly, trying to turn my head as much as I co
uld to see him, the tightly wrapped rope, combined with the swelling pain making that much more difficult than it should have been.
Travis said nothing for a minute. He only drove on, his eyes trained on the road in front of us, the joints in his jaw clenching and unclenching in a tedious rhythm.
“Travis?”
He merely tensed more.
“We’re almost out of gas. If I stop, I may not get it restarted. Even if we had gas, I’m not sure I could get it started again.”
It could have been worse. Even though the situation wasn’t as roses and rainbows as I would have liked, it was better than a “the bike is a time bomb” scenario I had originally thought of.
Either way, it didn’t really matter.
The bike was going fast, much faster than I had expected it to when I had first seen what looked like little more than twisted metal to me. The speed at which we were traveling might have been fine if I felt like I was safe on the back of this thing, wearing a helmet, sitting like a normal human being or, you know, not on the bike at all.
“Travis?” I asked again, trying to find the right words to convey the seriousness of my situation. Apparently, I could fillet monsters like a sushi chef, but motorcycles were where I crossed the line. Thankfully, Travis seemed to understand the extent of my problems without me having to say more.
“I’ve got a pretty good hold on this thing, and I’ll slow down a bit so you can get comfy, but you better hurry.”
“The ropes are too tight.”
“Well, try your best, Lex. That’s all I can give you right now.” Without waiting for further answer, the bike began to slow, the speed steadily declining until it reached what I was sure Travis thought was a safe speed.
Not to me.
I guess to me a safe speed would be “toddler on a tricycle.”
I exhaled with a shake, my muscles tensing as I began to move, trying to pull and shift against the ropes in what I could only explain as a drunken wiggle. With my heart pounding in my throat, I managed to move my legs back just enough that I didn’t feel like one left turn was going to send me into skid mark heaven. Better yet, we stayed upright. While still not safe, I could at least get one arm around my brother.
Close enough.
My heart calmed slightly at the increased security, even though my muscles stayed tense, as if they would be able to save us if we crashed. I knew it was the best it was going to get—being on the back of this thing was so much more frightening than I had expected.
“Go.” Without needing another word, Travis kicked the bike into high gear, the engine catching and sputtering a bit at the acceleration.
I felt Travis tense in front of me, my body following suit as I expected the bike to die and strand us in the middle of the road. Thankfully, the sputtering only lasted a moment, and then bike continued racing through the dark like a fearful bullet.
I wished I could relax, knowing we were on our way, knowing we were close. It wasn’t going to happen, though.
I probably wouldn’t relax until we got to Blood Rose, but with everything I had heard about the place, I knew even there wasn’t safe for me anymore.
Light spread from what obviously used to be a headlamp; instead, now there were four little pocket lights that Travis had taped in its place, each one glowing with a different brightness, one not even glowing at all.
I cringed, staring at them from where I sat, half propped up against my brother, half leaning against the seat rest.
He was right; he couldn’t stop, and it wasn’t just the bike that was keeping us from doing so. These were obviously the last of our lights. If he stopped, if the lights ran out, we were as good as sitting ducks. Of course, we were as good as sitting ducks with the light blazing in front of us like a beacon, anyway. It was a light in a dark world, showing our enemies where we were. If only we had a choice...
Doomed with the light and doomed without.
With the light, anyone could find us. Without the light, Travis couldn’t find anything. With my head feeling like someone had taken a hand mixer to it, I wasn’t in any mood to babysit or to fight, let alone magically learn how to drive a motorcycle in ten seconds flat.
We needed to get there before the bike or the lights gave out.
I cringed at the thought, my heart rate thundering loudly through me, the steady beat increasing the swelling pain in my head and neck.
“How far away are we?” I asked as I focused on the makeshift head lamp, one of the dim ones beginning to flicker. Considering the way Travis glared at it, I was convinced it wasn’t the first time it had done it.
“Too far.”
I wasn’t a fan of that answer.
“I thought you said we were almost there.” I couldn’t help the groan that escaped me, the sound seeping from the tight, little knot my stomach had suddenly become.
“I guess that depends on how you look at it,” he said. “We’re too far for this bike. You see those power lines?” He nodded his head to the right, to the lines of ebony that rose and fell like waves against the pitch black sky.
I stared at them as we drove, waiting for him to continue, mesmerized by the movement of the cables. The way they moved pulled at a million memories of a life that seemed more and more like a fantasy.
I would stare out the window of my dad’s truck and watch the lines as we drove to whatever construction site he was working at, to ice cream, or to school. We would talk about life and joke about kids at school. He would prod me about boys in that fun dad way, like he was going to kick some potential boyfriend behind. I would only laugh at him and look out the window at the power lines.
I would never tell him. Not about Cohen. Not about anything.
Part of me wished I had.
“One of those is a phone line,” Travis said after a while, the deep fear in his voice pulling me right out of my memory. “It’s the line that connected Azul with Blood Rose and with everyone else. Abran told everyone years ago that the line was cut by Tar, some even said that Owen himself cut it…”
I cringed at the name of the man who ran Blood Rose. All the warnings Travis had told me about rules and tests and whatever else the mad man was capable of grated on me.
“But you don’t think he did?” I asked, trying to pull something happier from the conversation we’d had earlier, something that didn’t involve me getting stoned again.
“Not after everything Abran has done.” His voice was hard, the anger in it frightening. “My guess is that Owen found out what Abran was doing, and that was why it got cut. I wasn’t in the leadership when everything between us began to fall apart, so I can’t know for sure, but I remember Abran wanted more men for his army, that he was trying to convince Owen to give him a good portion of his population. That was the first time I met Owen. I even went to Blood Rose for a time to train their men. Owen wanted me to stay.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“There was a girl I liked at Azul…”
I couldn’t help smiling at the love struck memory that had taken over his body, the tiny smile that was playing around his mouth.
“So you stayed …”
“And moved up in the ranks, yes. Owen is a good guy. That’s why no one could figure out why he didn’t want to help us … why he didn’t want to protect himself better. And then Abran announced that the Tar had attacked Blood Rose, and Blood Rose was in shambles. He said they were fools for not having listened. All the other colonies around us started sending men to be trained after that.”
“You mean to be changed.” My teeth ground together so hard the words barely made it out. “Every colony. He’s infected every colony.”
Travis tensed in front of me, his jaw tightening again as he pulled the throttle on the bike, jerking us into an anger-fueled speed.
“All except the biggest,” he yelled from above the roar of the engine. “All except the one he wanted the most, the one that could have destroyed us all.”
While it was comforting to know we w
ere going to a colony that could easily defeat Abran and his monsters, it was almost more nerve racking because tied to this back of the bike was an enemy they wanted to destroy.
You know … me.
“So he hates Abran as much as we do?”
“I would assume so after the yelling, after everything …” He didn’t have to finish that statement, and I didn’t expect him to. I could hear all of his speculation. I could almost see the fight between Abran and the unknown man, the ‘falling out,’ so to speak.
When you looked at it that way, it almost made it easier to see Owen as the nice guy and not the Tar hating zealot Travis had described before, the wicked man with a wide smile and a blood stained rock … waiting for me. At least, that was what my dreams had created.
“Is that why you think you can sneak me into Blood Rose?”
“I know Owen pretty well, so I’m hoping it won’t be a problem, especially with what we have come to tell him.”
It wasn’t the answer I wanted, but I was going to have to take it. I knew he couldn’t make promises, after all. I just wished it was enough to calm the mass amount of fear and tension that merely discussing this was giving me.
“Well, as long as it’s not a blood test, I suppose I should be okay …” At least I could hope so. “What am I going to have to do, anyway? You said Owen has lots of rules, right?”
“Yeah,” Travis said as he began to turn, driving us around an old, abandoned car. I jerked a bit at the movement, the change in balance swinging me around uncomfortably.
“Travis!” I yelled in a panic, but he didn’t so much as turn toward me.
“He wrote the charter, remember?” He said it like it was nothing, like I hadn’t almost fallen off the bike.
Of course, I remembered that little tidbit, but that didn’t matter anymore. Me falling off the bike, me seeing in the dark, none of it mattered, not with what Travis had just said, not with what had just clicked in my still painfully pulsing head.
“He wrote the charter?”
Travis only nodded. He had told me before, but then, it hadn’t mattered. Then, it didn’t seem to fit quite as well as it did now. Now, it mattered. Now, I knew the rules were broken. Now, I knew what Jason had really been screaming and what that really meant. What they were trying to tell us.