The Blood and Light Series (Six Books Boxed Set)

by Rue Volley

  “That was a dick thing to say, Josh,” she muttered.

  “Oh really...? Well, I feel pretty shitty right now, Sam. How about you?” Josh asked.

  I walked slowly to the bed and looked at Sophia Graph lying there totally fine. I never hated her, but the pain in my stomach now made me want to smash her head in. I mean, she was the reason that Johnathan was dead… her. That perfect girl who never even looked at me in school. I picked up a pillow and gripped it in my hand as I stared at her. I actually considered placing it on her face and choking the life out of her.

  I felt a hand on my shoulder and looked back at Josh. He took the pillow out of my hand and stood there looking at Sophie. I thought for a moment that he was going to choke the life out of her and then we heard Sam behind us.

  “Let me do it,” she said with gritted teeth.

  We turned to look at her, and she looked tired and ready to kill.

  Josh dropped the pillow and turned to face her.

  “Sam… it is the pain that makes you angry. We need to go to our tents and try to sleep it off,” he said.

  Sam shook her head and then she hurled all over the floor.

  I had to turn away because it almost made me do it too.

  “Son of a bitch!” Sam yelled out, as she spit on the ground and Josh stood between her and Sophie.

  “Move,” Sam hissed at him.

  Josh shook his head and grabbed my hand.

  “We are not animals,” Josh said, as he cleared his throat.

  I could feel his hand shaking in mine and just knew that if a fight happened it would not be pretty.

  “Sam… he is right.”

  We all turned to see Kai standing in the doorway looking at all of us.

  He looked sweaty, but not too affected by the virus sweeping through us.

  “Baby… come on,” Kai said, as he held his hand out to her.

  Sam stared at us and then turned to him and bit her lip.

  Kai stepped up to her and placed his hand on her face.

  “Come on,” he whispered, as he put his arm around her and walked her out.

  I was actually impressed. There was my brother, acting like the only mature one here among us. I should be ashamed I guess, but this pain in my throat was killing me. I looked at Josh and shook my head at him.

  “I don’t think I can make it through this,” I said, as I leaned over and held my stomach.

  Josh touched my back and rubbed it.

  He glanced at Sophia and then at Lily on the floor.

  “Let’s put Lily in the bed, maybe she will wake up and eat her,” he whispered.

  I nodded, although I shouldn’t have. Josh picked Lily up and placed her next to Sophie, and I walked to the doorway. I looked back, and Josh walked to me slowly, as his pain increased in his stomach too. I gritted my teeth, and we stumbled out of the tent, hoping that Sophie would die before morning.

  Chapter 5

  Suck Equals Me

  I feel like a junkie. I guess I should rephrase that… I felt like what I think a junkie would feel like, seeing that I have never actually been one. I sat there in the corner of the tent, rocking back and forth, with my knees pulled up, both arms squeezing my legs. My eyes kept going back and forth, like I was watching a tennis match, because Josh kept pacing… talking to himself like he was insane. I was trying to not get mad about it, but truth was, right at that moment I hated him and everything else too. The burning in my stomach had slowly crept its way up my throat and was spreading out to my arms. It sucked major butt. I mean the dirtiest nastiest butt in the history of butts… one that has not been showered for a month. Yuck.

  I gritted my teeth and watched him pass by me again.

  “I am so not going to do that,” he muttered, as he passed me by.

  He swung his hand in the air like he was batting flies, and I looked up at him and scratched my head, presumably like a junkie would. I mean, it was an aggravated scratching. I pulled my hand away and saw blood on my fingernails. I stuck my fingers in my mouth quickly… I know it’s gross… and Josh stopped and looked at me.

  “Where did you get blood?” he asked me.

  I pulled my fingers out of my mouth and raised my eyebrows at him.

  “It is my blood, you ass,” I said, as I stared him down.

  “Oh, of course it is… that’s okay, really… it is fine, totally fine,” Josh said, as he continued to pace.

  I pushed myself up and watched him pass by me again.

  “I am hungry,” I muttered.

  He continued to pace and mumble to himself.

  “I am hungry, Josh,” I said, as I watched him pace.

  He didn’t stop. I jumped in front of him and hit him in the chest.

  I looked up at him and wiped my sweaty hair out of my face, frowning at him.

  “I AM HUNGRY!” I screamed at him.

  He looked at me and his eyes were black, swirling like water.

  I stood my ground, and he rubbed his hair with about as much irritation as I just had.

  “Always something, right?” he asked me.

  I tilted my head and crossed my arms on my chest.

  “Always something, what?” I asked him.

  He stared at me and shook his head.

  “Nothing… nothing, nothing, nothing,” he said quickly.

  I started to walk towards the opening to our tent, and he flashed up behind me.

  “Where are you going?” he asked.

  “Out,” I said to him.

  He grabbed my arm and I turned and hit him before I realized it.

  He actually growled at me. I mean a full on animal growl. It didn’t faze me though. I didn’t care if he was pissy. In fact, I didn’t care about anything except the fact that I was hungry and I needed to get out of the tent. I now felt like my skin was making me claustrophobic. That is a bad thing by the way, just in case you wondered.

  I stepped out, and he tackled me from behind. I rolled him over me, like I always knew how to do it, which I didn’t. I haven’t spent nearly enough time training combat moves like I should have… seeing that I got rudely interrupted by … oh yea, an abduction and oh… the half a year I spent in an imaginary asylum via Josh… OMG… because of him. I stared at him, as he rolled like a cat to a low position, and I grinned as I crouched down too. I waved my hands at him to let him know that I was totally cool with him taking another crack at me. He grinned; showing all his teeth, as he slowly stood up and took a stance with me that would have made anyone nervous… other than me. All I could hear in my ears was heartbeats… blood moving and calling me to it.

  “Don’t,” I said to him.

  Josh continued to grin at me.

  “Listen… you need to settle down right now,” he said.

  I laughed and spit on the ground.

  Yea… me, I totally spat… like some badass in a movie.

  He watched me and straightened up as he tilted his head.

  “Did you just spit… on the ground?” he asked me.

  I nodded and raised my eyebrows.

  “Yea… why do you care?” I asked him.

  “It’s gross,” he said.

  I shook my head.

  “Why do you feel like you always have to dictate everything? I mean, you are not in charge of me,” I said like a teenager wanting to rebel against everything.

  “Well, somebody has to be… you have no idea how to survive on your own,” he said. Big mistake.

  I placed my hands on my hips and stared him down, like the tool I thought he was right then.

  “Your hair is stupid,” I said, just like that.

  He stepped back from me, like I hit him, and touched his hair.

  “It is not,” he said.

  I nodded all stupid, like I just said something so monumental.

  He shook his head no.

  “Well, you have weird feet,” he said to me.

  I looked down at my feet and then back up to him.

  “That is just stupid… like
you,” I said.

  “Oh...! OH… Okay,” he said, as he nodded just as awkward as me.

  “Well… you are a child, bratty and a pain in my ass,” he said.

  I huffed and took a step towards him, as he took another step back from me.

  “Oh really...? You wanna talk about being a child?” I yelled.

  “Uh huh,” he said, as he nodded. “I do actually!”

  Sam stumbled out of her tent and looked at both of us.

  Kai stepped up behind her and peeked around her.

  “Well… you are a whore!” I said at the top of my lungs.

  He laughed and looked at Sam.

  She nodded, and I raised my hands up and let them drop at my sides.

  “See...? See...? She won’t defend you, nobody would,” I added. “You think that you are the shit! You think that you are so cool with your sarcasm and your light thingy… and your ideas, which suck by the way! I was stuck in an asylum… in my head, for half the year while you hung out sayin ‘oh my god, I am a Lord… what do I do?’” I said with a stupid voice, waving my arms around me.

  “Well… you are the reason Johnathan is dead,” he said.

  I sucked my breath in dramatically, and Kai ‘oh’d’, as he stepped out into the opening between the tents and shook his head at Josh.

  “I wouldn’t suggest you go there, dude,” he said.

  Sam looked at him and gritted her teeth.

  “Don’t talk to my brother that way,” she said to him.

  “This is between me and your crazy sister,” Josh said to him, as he stared at me.

  Kai took a step toward him, and Sam grabbed his arm and swung him around to her.

  “I wouldn’t suggest that YOU go there… dude,” Sam said all sarcastic.

  I stood there with my mouth open and stared him down.

  “What did you say?” I asked him, like I didn’t hear it.

  He rubbed his neck and looked at me.

  “I didn’t… I mean,” he tried to say.

  “Kai?” I yelled out without looking at him.

  Kai turned and looked at me.

  “Grab whatever you need, we are leaving,” I said to him.

  Josh looked at me and shook his head.

  “You cannot leave… that is stupid.”

  I walked towards Josh, and he took one step back from me. I guess I would have too if I was on the receiving end of my glare. I raised my finger to him and waved it in the air.

  “You are no longer welcome,” I said to him.

  He raised his eyebrows and looked at Sam.

  “What the hell does that mean?” he asked me.

  “Just as I said… Joshua Barrington… I hate you,” I said without any regret.

  I really felt it… I did.

  “Any… no you don’t,” he said, as he tilted his head at me.

  I nodded to him.

  “Oh yeah… yeah, you can bet on it. I am leaving here, and Kai is going with me. We lived just fine before any of you, and we will be fine without any of you… In fact, I wish that I had never met you.”

  Josh crinkled his eyebrows at me.

  “Fine!” he yelled.

  “Uh huh… fine,” I said back.

  Kai flashed into his tent and came out with a backpack on.

  I looked at him and stepped back from Josh.

  “I don’t ever want to see you again… I mean it,” I said to him.

  Josh shook his head and raised his hands in the air.

  “You know what...? That is fine, Rue; I am so sick of dealing with your drama,” he said like he meant it.

  I nodded and looked out across the field.

  “The drama all came with you,” I said, as I looked back at him.

  Then I said it… as if everything else wasn’t enough.

  “I wish that we had buried you and not Johnathan,” I said with venom in my voice.

  Sam took a step towards me and shook her head.

  “Leave, both of you… now,” she said.

  Josh walked away from me without saying a word.

  And that was that. I had put the nail in the coffin.

  Shit. I suck… I so suck.

  ***

  Mia raced through the forest at a record speed. Her movements graceful and quick due to her slight build, not to mention the fact that she was so angry she saw red. Bailey was her world and there he was back there, humping on some old nag like he loved it. She scraped her nails against a tree, as she passed by it, and accidentally caught her sleeve on the tree in the process. She rolled about twenty yards before she came to a stop and cried out into the night like a wounded animal.

  She pushed herself up, as she caught her breath, and wiped her nose on her sleeve, looking around the darkness as she sniffled.

  “I hate you Bailey!” she yelled at the sky, knowing that the only ones who would hear her were all the woodland creatures that she preyed on.

  She fell to her knees and cried, as she looked down at her dirty hands. She sighed and tried to relax, and then it hit her. She had to kill that woman. If she did, Caine would be happy, and Bailey wouldn’t have any choice but to be with her…right?

  “I have to kill her,” she whispered to herself.

  Mia pushed herself up quickly and then she remembered, the rogues who rode the train line. She would need help, and she couldn’t think of anyone else who would possibly do it. She would go to them and offer her services to them as a good hunter. Her age and innocent looks made her an excellent trap for any human… female or male, who either wanted to help her or do awful things to her.

  Unfortunately she had met a few men along the way who preferred young girls, and she had used that to her and Bailey’s benefit in times of feeding. She would simply do that and become a vital resource to the rogues, who depended upon humans to feed daily. She grinned and looked in the direction of the train line.

  “Oh, you will regret messin’ with my Bailey,” she muttered to herself, as she flashed in that direction.

  Mia ran almost through the night, and then she heard the train sounding off in the distance. She smiled and flashed in that direction. She just caught a glimpse of it when she was tackled from the side and knocked to the ground with quite a bit of force. She rolled onto her feet and pulled a small knife from her pocket, flipping it open in her hand. She heard a rustling behind her and turned quickly, only to be bagged up in a sack. She fell in the bag and screamed.

  “I am rogue!”

  She felt a hit to the side of her head, and her vision went white.

  “Stop!” she muttered.

  Another hit put her out cold, and she slumped in the bag and started to get dragged across the ground like potatoes in a sack. She could barely make out the laughter before she totally lost consciousness.

  ***

  I flashed, hand and hand with Kai, away from the carnival, away from all the memory… away from Josh. I wanted to know that I was doing the right thing, but I had a bad feeling that I wasn’t. I couldn’t think clearly; I don’t think that any of us could. This whole bonding thingy is just the worst. I mean… why can’t we just be ourselves and not have to feel what the others do? I hate it, I do.

  I am Rue Volley.

  I existed before the Barrington’s showed up, and I will exist without them now. Kai and I had a life before them, before we knew what we were… and now we were on our own once more. I made sure of that… I think. Damn it.

  We flashed across the land until I saw the dull lights of home… or what was still standing of our home. I mean Calvary had been damaged from the fire, some buildings very badly burned before I took the flame and shoved it in the earth. How crazy is that? I mean, come on!

  Anyway, I wanted to go to our house. Not the house that everyone moved into after all the crazy, but the one that Kai and I grew up in. I just hoped that it was still standing… God I hope.

  We reached the outskirts of Calvary, and I stopped as I smelled the air. It smelled a little charred, maybe a left ove
r from the fire… it was annoying. I pressed on my stomach and looked at Kai. He didn’t smile and I didn’t blame him. I mean, Josh and I just had a fight, and next thing I know, Kai is here with me… severed from Sam and I never even asked him. I guess that he just went along with it. I loved him, god I did, so much and I was sorry. No… no, I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t start feeling all sorry about Josh and how I said awful things. I can’t.

  I took off towards the street I knew so well. Hideaway Drive. That was my street, well… the one that our parents hid us on. When I thought about I realized how funny it really was, I mean, way to hide in plain sight! I didn’t know who chose it… my mom or my dad, but it was funny anyway… I had to admit. Maybe the street name was a big ‘screw you’ to the beasts that live in Valon. Who knew?

  I bit my lip as I missed my parents, and then I realized that my internal conversation had distracted me from the fact that I was standing in front of my house.

  I looked up, and Kai already sat on the porch swing, slowly moving. It was dark, but I knew that it was him. I never realized that I could feel him, but I did. I walked slowly towards the house and realized that it looked fine, unlike parts of the town that looked blackened and destroyed beyond repair. I stopped at the bottom step and looked up at him.

  “Do you remember when we were little and Dad would want to pitch a tent in the yard?” Kai asked me.

  I stepped up and walked over to the thick cement railing and popped up on it.

  I turned sideways and leaned against the pole.

  “Yeah… I do.”

  Kai continued to swing, and he looked up at the sky.

  “I asked him every name of every star in the sky… he told me every one of them. I thought that he was the smartest person in the world,” he added.

  I looked up, and the night sky was crystal clear as usual.

  “So that’s what you talked about when I slept?” I said.

  “I asked because you asked me when you were little and I didn’t know. I thought if I could get the answers from dad… I could tell you, but you stopped asking, so I guess that I wasted my time memorizing it when he told me.”

  “No… I just started reading about the sky and didn’t have to ask you,” I said.

  Kai looked at me and grinned.