Blood Run – The Complete Trilogy – First Promise, Two Riders, Last Chance

by Dougherty, Christine

She looked up, and he was nodding. “I like you a lot too,” he said and cautious relief calmed her jangling nerves. “Let’s do this: let’s be friends, okay? Let’s just get to know each other better. We’ll put the other stuff aside for now. Okay?”

  She nodded, not trusting herself to speak, and he opened his arms to her. She stepped into them, laid her head on his shoulder, and basked in the warmth their bodies generated. She could feel the strength in his arms as they closed around her shoulders, and she encircled his waist with her arms, her hands encountering the deep valley of his spine. Even his back felt strong, the muscles and tendons hard but very warm. She traced a hand up his back, and he shivered and stepped back, his hands gripping her upper arms. His eyes had darkened to slate gray, and Promise felt the butterflies stir below her bellybutton.

  His hands squeezed her arms. “Friends? Just friends for now?”

  She swallowed and nodded, wondering how long they would be able to stay ‘just’ friends.

  “Okay, listen, about your brother,” he said and took her hand, leading her from the room and into the hall. He kept his voice low. “I don’t think we should say anything while we’re in the school; someone might hear us. I don’t know what it’s like in Wereburg, but in the other outposts where I’ve been, the vampire suspicion is high. Real high. There were times I didn’t even let on about myself. People are afraid of someone like me…I’m a big unknown.”

  He didn’t say anything more as they passed people in the hallway and then they turned into 508. Lea was alone, shoving clothes into a backpack. She smiled when they came in.

  “Mark went to get his gear. We figured we might be gone for a few days since it would be easier to stay in one of the safe houses in Willow’s End while we’re doing this.”

  “I want to talk to Mr. West, too. I want someone here to know what we’re doing,” Promise said. “I think he’ll understand.”

  Peter looked skeptical. “Maybe, but will he approve?” he asked.

  “It’s not like he can stop us,” Promise said. “He’s not the police.”

  “No, but in reality,” Lea said, “you know we’d be sunk if he didn’t want us to do it.”

  Promise dropped her head and sighed. “You’re right. Maybe we should keep it from him for now. Is there something else we can tell him? About why we’ll be gone? He’ll want to know.”

  Lea shrugged. “I don’t know. We can’t say we’re camping.”

  Mark walked in, backpack on and coat in hand. “What’s up? You guys ready to go?”

  “We were just talking about Mr. West and what we should tell him,” Lea said.

  “I told him we were going to stay in Willow’s End for a few days to mark trails until we found the cabin the vampires are using.” He raised his eyebrows at them. “Cool?”

  “That’s cool, yeah,” Promise said, laughing. “Okay, let me get some stuff together, and then we can take off.”

  In the hallway, Deidre stood with her back flush against the wall, her eyes half-lidded, and her mouth twisted in contempt, and listened to every word.

  Chapter 8

  In the front yard of her old house, Promise hesitated, her mind filled with a sudden, warm flood of memories. Foremost among them, she could picture the day her mom and dad had brought Chance home from the hospital. She closed her eyes so she could see it again, almost like a photograph. Her mom holding Chance in a blue blanket, bending down to show nine-year-old Promise her new baby brother. Promise in her favorite gold star T-shirt, mouth open in wonder, eyes shining, one tentative hand reaching for the baby’s foot. Her dad’s hand on her back, warm and solid and comforting, linking them, pulling them together as a unit, complete unto itself.

  A hand rested on her back, and she opened her eyes and turned to find Peter next to her. “Okay?” he asked, and she nodded, looking back to the house.

  “Yeah, I’m okay. It’s just weird being back here. I was remembering when my parents brought Chance home. That was a really good day. The best day. But to see this house…it brings everything back, not just the good memories.”

  “Yes, I know what you mean,” he said. “When I came home, after being away for so long, it was…” He trailed off, and his eyes had become distant and bitter. Promise had again the sense of being in over her head, not knowing what to do in the face of such an overwhelmingly adult situation, but she put her uncertainties aside. If this were Lea standing next to her, drifting off into bad memories, what would she do?

  She grabbed Peter’s hand and squeezed it. He refocused, coming back to her. It was better than that drifting emptiness from before. “Do you want to tell me about it?” she asked. Her gaze was strong and calm and reflected back to him the pain she saw in his eyes.

  “Not today, but maybe someday,” he said and smiled, but she read something else in his shuttered expression: his reluctance to tell her what he’d been thinking. She had a small twist of uneasiness. Was he hiding something? Or did he just think she was too young to understand what he had to say?

  “We’ve got a lot of work to do here,” Mark said, coming around the side of the house with Lea, Lady sniffing behind them in a zigzag pattern all over the side yard. “All the back windows have been busted out. At least the slider is still there. That would have been a bear to replace.” He checked the sun. “We won’t get it all done today. How about if Peter, Lea, and I get started, and Promise, you find the nearest safe house? So we know exactly where we’re going to stay tonight. I don’t want to be floundering when the sun goes down.”

  “I’m pretty sure it’s on the corner of Maple and Pin Oak, but I’ll check and then sweep it,” Promise said. “Give me your packs, and I’ll stow them there.” They handed them over, and Promise draped them from Ash’s pommel and then pulled herself up, swinging a leg over the horse’s back. “See you soon,” she said and squeezed her knees into Ash’s sides and turned him across the front yard. Snow’s head came up, and she took a few steps to follow them, and Peter grabbed her bridle.

  “You’re staying here, girl,” he said and ran a hand down her face. He glanced back at Promise riding away on Ash.

  Promise turned, as if sensing his look, and gave him a short wave. He waved back, and then she kicked Ash into a jog.

  She rode through her old neighborhood, surprised by how run down it had become in less than a year. Of course, she’d been in Willow’s End plenty of times and seen the damage, but it was different being on her own street–you could say it brought it all home.

  Windows broken out, furniture thrown into yards, and without careful tending, many of the bushes, ornamental trees, and plantings had died off. It looked like footage you’d see on the news after some natural disaster. She shivered and was glad to have the solid bulk of Ash beneath her. He was a comfort in many ways.

  She trotted the horse past the bus stop where first just she, and later, she and Chance had waited every day to be taken to the schools in town. She could almost see the handful of children–roughhousing, giggling, dropping books and comparing lunch boxes. In her mind, childish laughter drifted eerily. It was sad almost beyond being bearable. She swallowed and looked away.

  She got to Pin Oak and took a left toward Maple two blocks away. She could see the safe house from here. Fluorescent X’s had been spray-painted and re-spray-painted on windows, siding and doors making it impossible to miss. It looked like it had been tagged for demolition, but in reality, it had been remade as a stronghold against the vampires.

  Just like the house they’d stayed in the other night, this one had no nooks and crannies creating hiding spaces, no basement access, no attic access, windows boarded over and doors reinforced. Even dryer and stove vents had been sealed; it truly was a fortress.

  She dismounted and led Ash to the small front porch. She draped his rein over a handrail and then went through the front door. The inside had been stripped and sealed, too. No kitchen cabinet doors, no closets, no sideboards or dressers. No china cabinets or wardrobes. She checked the fo
od and water stores, and she double-checked the stakes. She went quickly through each room. Everything was in order. She dropped their packs in the living room and went back out to retrieve Ash. She surveyed the empty neighborhood and tried to quell the depression that wanted to leaden her limbs and coat her mind with despair.

  She did no sightseeing on the ride back to her old house and her friends. She’d seen enough.

  Mark had been right–they wouldn’t finish the work today, but when Promise returned, she saw they’d made a good start. There was a small, windowless laundry room off the main family room, and that was where they had decided it would be best to trap and then hold Chance. Until the Guard brought a cure.

  “We figured we’d get this room set up first, then see to the rest of it,” Peter said. “We can stay in the safe house tonight and probably tomorrow night, too, depending on how long it takes.” He and Promise were in the family room, standing near the glass sliders. He considered the room dispassionately, his mind on logistics, but Promise felt her stomach tightening. Here was the chair where Chance had been watching Magnum P.I. in his pj’s. Out back was the tipped over fire pit where her dad had been murdered. Promise kept her back to the glass door, trying to quell her unease at the sight of the shed, now partially covered by the creeping kudzu. Her mother’s body had been found next to her father’s, her skin blackened, and her hair disintegrated around the pink hair tie that had held it back. That scrunchie had made its way back to Promise and held her own hair back now.

  Breath hitched in her chest and her fingers touched the scrunchie. A childish part of her railed and wished everything would just magically go back to normal. There was no way of taking any of it back, though, and being here, in this room, made it harder to snuff that particular wish.

  She sighed and felt that tidal wave of loneliness and depression, distant but ever threatening.

  Peter watched Promise carefully, trying to gauge her level of distraction. He wanted to make sure she was listening and understood everything he told her. It was going to be dangerous, for her more than anyone. If a mistake was made, it might cost her her life, one way or another.

  For his part, he wasn’t sure if it would work at all. Even if they were able to capture her brother alive, what then? How long could they hold him here? If he was fully changed, then he wouldn’t be able to exist on anything except blood, and if he didn’t get blood to fill the need, then he would die a slow, horrible death. Would Promise be able to watch her brother go through that? She was strong, he knew that already, but was anyone that strong?

  Peter understood the need that drove Chance in his new incarnation as a vampire. He felt it stirring within himself. He hadn’t told anyone because he didn’t want to be an outcast, but still it was there, however muted. It came upon him more fully during times of high stress, like someone who has quit smoking will long for a cigarette when the pressure becomes too much. Sometimes the need expressed itself in bloody dreams, and on waking, he’d hold his head in both hands, feeling that something alien had taken him over as he slept. The dreams were so disturbingly vivid that at times it seemed he could almost taste the viscous saltiness filling his throat–except he’d never drunk blood. He vowed he never would.

  “Promise, are you listening?” he asked gently.

  She turned to him, and he was relieved to see that her eyes were clear and determined. She smiled and nodded. “I am,” she said.

  “Okay, so, if we can get him in here, trapped in the laundry room, then the concern becomes the long haul. There are no windows, so light isn’t a problem. The walls themselves will be reinforced with plywood,” he said.

  “We need to put something in the door…a small opening of some kind,” Promise said. “Like a small dog door!” she said, glancing at Lady, who’d nested herself on Lea’s coat in the corner.

  “I don’t think there should be any openings. If he has anything to dig at or try to claw open, he’ll do it. Vampires are desperate, especially when they’re hungry,” Peter said. “Why do you want an opening?”

  “So I can give him my blood,” she said and looked at him, head tilted as though she found the question silly. “He’ll die otherwise.”

  “Promise, that’s gross!” Lea said from the doorway to the laundry room, and Peter felt two things at once–a flood of admiration for Promise but also agreement with Lea. He was glad Lea’d been the one to say it, though. If there was upset, he didn’t want to be the cause of it.

  But Promise only laughed. “No, it’s not gross, or, well…maybe it is, a little,” she said and smiled at Lea. “But it has to be done. It’s no different than eating a venison burger, Lea, and you had one of those yesterday for lunch.”

  Lea raised her eyebrows and said, “Whatever.” With a good-natured shrug, she turned back into the laundry room, where she and Mark were nailing plywood across the walls. “We need more boards in here, you guys.”

  “Can you face the basement?” Peter asked Promise.

  “Yeah, of course,” she said and turned to the door just off the kitchen.

  Promise descended the stairs and went to the plywood leaning against one wall. Peter had cut the large sheets in half. The smell of fresh-cut wood permeated the basement, but under it, Peter could detect the smell of old books and molding board games. He saw that something had caught Promise’s eye, and he followed her gaze to the sight of a rusted pair of roller skates and a spill of little blue people who’d burst from a split in a damp shoebox–Smurfs.

  She put her hand to her stomach, and then with visible effort, she turned her gaze away. She bent to grasp the other side of the boards Peter held and together, they carried them up the stairs.

  ~ ~ ~

  “I’m getting hungry,” Mark said. They were all together in the family room, sitting on the floor, taking a break. The inside of the laundry room was finished and now resembled the inside of a wooden crate. Even the light in the ceiling had been taken out, and the ceiling boarded over with sheets of plywood. They were leaving nothing to chance, as it were.

  It was early afternoon.

  “I’ll go to the safe house and grab some food,” Promise said, starting to stand, but Lea beat her to it.

  “I’ll go. You need to be here for the next part,” Lea said and stood to pull her coat out from under the little dog. “Want to take a run with me, Lady?”

  The next step was to cut a space in the ceiling that Promise could be pulled through after getting Chance to follow her into the laundry room. Then they’d drop a weighted board over the hole, sealing him in. It wasn’t the best plan, Mark thought, there was something too slapstick about it, too possibly comical and therefore potentially disastrous. But Promise said that the true beauty in the plan was that no one was going to be placed in danger beside her. And that’s what she wanted.

  “Take Ash. He’ll get you there quicker,” Promise said.

  Lea seemed to consider and then shook her head. Mark knew she’d only ridden the big horse a handful of times and only when Promise had been nearby. “No, Lady and I’ll just jog over. No problem, see?” She kicked up one puffy-sneakered foot in a mock-cheerleader jump pose, and Promise laughed.

  “I’ll walk you out,” Mark said. While they’d worked together in the laundry room, Lea had let slip some of her past with her foster father. To Mark, who’d had a nice family, it sounded like a quiet kind of nightmare, but she mentioned it without judgment. It reinforced the feeling he’d been getting over the last day that there was more to her than he’d ever imagined.

  “Listen, be careful,” he said as they stood together in the driveway. Lady danced joyfully at their feet, jumping up to tap on their knees with her little paws. Mark noted that Lea was still wearing the flannel he had given her the other night, and he wondered if that had any significance. He reached out to pull her coat closed, snapping the snaps and pulling the collar up to protect her ears.

  She became still under his hands, and the world melted away. She tried to tell herself t
his was standard kindness that people bandied about on a daily basis, but she couldn’t quite convince herself of it. She tilted her head back so she could see into his eyes, and his hand went to her forehead and pushed a blonde tendril of hair up under her knitted hat. He leaned forward (an errant thought–seventeen and never been kissed–flew through her mind), and he kissed her on the lips. It left her breathless. Almost faint with emotion.

  He pulled back, his face a study in caution. Then he smiled. “So, anyway. Be careful, okay?” He reached down to pet Lady, and seemed relieved to break eye contact. “You take good care of her, girl, okay?”

  “We shouldn’t be longer than twenty minutes,” Lea said, and her voice was slight and breathy. She turned and trotted across the yard in the direction Promise had gone earlier, Lady leaping and running at her side. She thought about turning to wave to Mark, but if he’d gone inside, leaving her only the empty and uncaring façade of the house, she wouldn’t have been able to bear it. So she trotted on without glancing back.

  She felt lifted up, light and buoyant with good feeling. She ran her fingers over the snaps he’d snapped, smiled even wider, and broke into a happy, skipping run down the sidewalk. “Come on, Lady!” she cried with abandon. She and the dog ran several blocks in excited joy, Lady leaping and dancing as Lea laughed.

  Deidre stepped onto the sidewalk from behind a U-Haul. “What’s up, Lea? Where you going?”

  Lea stopped dead in her tracks, and Lady barked sharply.

  “Hi, Deidre. What…what are you d-doing out here?” Lea said, fumbling the words. She glanced behind the U-haul and saw the ten-speed Deidre must have ridden to Willow’s End.

  Deidre smiled and reached forward to grip Lea’s arm. “I just wanted to see what you kids were up to. Make sure everything was okay. You all left in such a rush this morning.”

  “Oh, nothing, really, just…I’m going to get some stuff from the safe house, and…” Lea trailed off, glancing over her shoulder. She knew she wasn’t supposed to tell anyone what they were doing. But Deidre was such a grown-up.