Unchosen

by Katharyn Blair

  I am almost to the stairs when Richtor appears, leading Dean by the point of a knife. Dean’s eyes are shut, and I keep my eyes cast down, watching in horror through the mirror as Richtor runs his tongue up Dean’s neck.

  “Get out of here, Charlotte! Go!” Dean cries, and I hear the choked fear in his trembling voice. Even though he has his eyes glued shut, he knows I’m there. A figure moves in the edge of my vision.

  Lemmere stalks toward me. Through the reflection, I see her tilt her chin down as a fake pout forms on her lips.

  I back up, stepping into an alcove that overlooks the frothy, whitecapped ocean, and feel the stone railing behind me. Lemmere is a foot away—too close to use the mirror. I lower it and shut my eyes tightly.

  “I had a sister like you once,” Lemmere says lowly. “Such heart. Bravery. Guts.”

  She leans in, and the smell of her invades my nostrils. Rosewater and rust. I fight the gag that rises in the back of my throat. Her breath washes against my temple. “They told me that the strongest ones taste the best. I didn’t believe it until I tasted her.”

  “Let her go,” Dean growls. I can hear the panic in his voice.

  Lemmere clicks her tongue disapprovingly. “Well. That’s cute. True love in the face of the end of the world. And aren’t we in the right place for a good ol’ Greek-style tragedy?”

  “We’re just friends,” I choke out, immediately feeling completely ridiculous. It’s not like it matters. Neither of us is going to get out of here alive. Force of habit, I guess.

  Lemmere chuckles. “Honey, if you were going to walk out of here, I would tell you that you need to work on your lying.”

  “Go to hell,” I hiss, and I feel her fingers around the side of my face. Her hands are like fire, burning my skin.

  She takes in a deep breath before letting out a slow sigh. “Open your eyes, love,” she whispers.

  I hear Dean struggle, and feel Lemmere step closer to me. I wondered what would be worse—to be eaten or turned. Now I’m too scared to think. Her lips brush the shell of my ear.

  “I’m starving, and you smell so good—a campfire mixed with the bite of snow-covered pine trees. But maybe that’s a little shortsighted. Maybe we could use your fire, especially now.”

  I have no idea what she is talking about, but I can’t ask questions even if I were able to think of one—my panic shuts my throat tight.

  “Open your eyes,” she orders again. I squeeze them tighter, my face spasming from the effort.

  Her voice is sharp against my lips. “Open your eyes, or I gut the boy.”

  “Char, don’t,” Dean calls out. His voice falters, and I know he is biting back pain. I know Richtor has probably pressed the knife into his skin.

  “You’ll let him go if I do?” I whisper.

  Her laugh tickles my face. “Of course not. But I won’t spill his intestines on this imported Italian tile and make you watch as he slowly chokes on his own vomit.”

  Bile spikes up the back of my throat, and fear slides through my veins.

  I know Dean is shouting, but I shut it out.

  He would do the same.

  I open my eyes, but can’t bring myself to look at her gaze. I focus on her bright mouth. This close, and I still don’t know if it’s from lipstick or blood.

  “I remember there was a time when I would have lamented snuffing out bravery like this,” she whispers. Her words are laced with the memory of sadness, like she is recalling sadness as one would recall the temperature of any given day. There is no emotion attached to it. I don’t know if it’s what happens to every Vessel, or if they have to kill off their human side in order to feed the way they do.

  She opens her mouth, and a glow lifts from the back of her throat, like she is lit from within.

  I don’t know how this part will work. I just know that I’ll do it to save him, and then Dean will have to do what he’s promised.

  I wonder if it will hurt, and I wonder if wondering that, in the scheme of things, makes me a coward.

  But God, I hope it won’t hurt.

  Chapter 3

  THE DAY THE CRIMSON FINALLY TOUCHED US, WE were at Santa Monica High School for one of Vanessa’s gymnastic meets. I remember the day like I remember a nightmare. The reel is cut in odd places, and I know there were memories left on the cutting room floor. I don’t care, though. I know that there are things that I don’t ever need to see again.

  When the research ship, the Magdelena, went missing, no one really cared. It was one of those “well, this is odd slash tragic” news stories that ran at the end of the hour before they started back up with the important political news and lottery numbers. “Pirate Queen” was even trending on Twitter. It was something for the conspiracy theory YouTube channels and Reddit threads. The footage from the researcher on board was creepy, sure. But probably a hoax.

  There were checkpoints on the off-ramp of the 10 Freeway that day, but no one told us why. Maybe the police manning it didn’t even know themselves yet. Maybe they did, and they didn’t believe it.

  The reel in my mind cuts to the gym meet. To the smell of sweat and chalk, and the hardwood bleachers. The instrumental version of “The Bird and the Worm” playing over the mounted speakers as I watched Vanessa.

  Vanessa, with glitter gel holding even her smallest flyaways in a tight bun. Her velvet and sequined leotard, and the way she looked at me as I sat on the floor next to the mat, as I always did. She sprayed her grips with a water bottle and ran the leather strap along the inside of the chalk bin. She grinned at me, and I nodded. She walked over.

  Help? she asked, holding a hand out. She needed me to tighten the Velcro straps of her grips. I pulled them with a rrrrip and rewrapped them.

  Good? I asked. She nodded. I looked up at my family. Harlow sat in the bleachers, her back against the railing as she read a book.

  You got this, Van! my mom called from next to her, blond hair catching the stadium lights.

  That was the last moment when things were okay. I wish I had memorized it. I wish I’d had the weird sixth sense that told me to keep it close, to burn it into my memory. But even now, the recollection is bleached and faded. I remember the next part, though. How my father clenched his jaw and lowered his phone. He whispered something to my mother.

  What? I saw Harlow ask.

  But my mom never answered. Vanessa jumped onto the springboard. She swung from the lower bar, bringing her legs up to leverage herself up and over.

  Flawless. That’s what she was. A force to be reckoned with.

  She was in the middle of a handstand on the high bar when the first scream rang out. It was bloodcurdling. For half a second, I thought it was an injury. Someone dismounted sideways or under-rotated on their tumbling pass.

  People started running toward the door, but Vanessa had no clue. She never let anything distract her while she was doing a routine. She swung around the bar, executing a release move.

  I glanced up at my family. They were standing, my mom’s eyes wide as she focused on the door.

  Harlow looked down at me then, not waiting for my parents to act.

  Get her! she screamed. Something in her voice told me not to ask questions. It was full of something I wasn’t used to from Harlow: terror, pure and unfiltered.

  I moved, jumping up onto the platform and racing for the bars. And then I saw it.

  People, streaming into the stadium. People. But . . . not.

  It was the first time I ever saw a Vessel.

  Their eyes were red, their steps even and smooth. They poured through the door, grabbing people and pulling them to the ground, their open mouths glowing as they tore into flesh.

  For a second, I froze. Just a second. Whatever survival instinct I had clicked in that moment, just as Vanessa reversed her momentum and swung back around the high bar, readying herself for her dismount.

  A female Vessel walked slowly toward her, those bloodred eyes fixed on Vanessa.

  I don’t know how we survived, k
nowing now how we were always one glance away from death. My mom would’ve said it was divine intervention, had she made it through the night.

  VANESSA! I screamed, launching myself forward. I grabbed her around the waist as she came around, sending both of us careening into the metal-and-wire cable that kept the bars secure to the gym floor. We rolled, and Vanessa landed on top of me.

  Something warm and sticky soaked my shirt, and I turned in time to see a Vessel, leaning over one of the coaches, his fingers digging into the man’s throat. He looked up at the bleachers beyond, his eyes glassy with intoxication as he smiled and bore down. The man stopped moving as the Vessel squeezed tighter and more blood pooled, inching across the wood floor.

  What the hell? Vanessa said as I scrambled to my feet, slipping once in the blood, and pulled her with me.

  Run was all I said, my eyes locked on the female Vessel still slowly walking toward us.

  Vanessa, breathing hard, grabbed my hand as we ran, getting lost in the shrieks and shouts as everyone pushed to the exit.

  I don’t know how we found my parents. Maybe they found us.

  Somehow, we got to the parking lot. Somehow, we got to our car. I got in the back, my hands sticky with chalk and blood. I didn’t move. I could hear the words my parents were speaking, but I couldn’t give them meaning.

  He was dead. That coach was dead.

  Those things killed him.

  They were going to try to kill us. My father weaved in and out of traffic, but when we got to the highway, it was dead stopped. We were trapped. My father whipped the car around. Even in my foggy state, even in the shock, I recognized the streets as he navigated through stopped cars. We were heading to the marina.

  I don’t know, even with years to think about it, how the world ended so fast for us. We went into the gym and the world was one thing. We left it, and it was on fire. In the space of a minute, I went from not believing in monsters to seeing them firsthand. I clenched and unclenched my sticky, blood-soaked hands. The blood dried and cracked.

  There were bodies in the street as the Vessels stalked down the road. The barricades shut off roads, funneling everyone directly into the wave of Vessels that walked down the highway.

  They thought they were protecting us, but they just damned the whole city, my dad said.

  Helicopters and jets sounded overhead, and someone said something about the National Guard.

  It gets fuzzy here. The smoke and the screams and the awareness that we were inches from something cataclysmic.

  We can get to your mother’s by boat, my father’s voice said to my mom. He was right. The roads were too congested—we would never get anywhere.

  We pulled up next to the dock. A man stepped out of the shadows next to us, knocking on my mom’s window.

  Excuse me, he said.

  It was polite. I remember that. It didn’t sound like death.

  And we didn’t know then what we know now. The Crimson had just bled across our city. It wouldn’t be until a couple weeks later that we understood how it was transmitted.

  Sometimes I stall the memory at this point. Sometimes I imagine that I knew then what I know now and screamed at my mother to close her eyes. I tell my father to close his. I tell him to punch the gas.

  We pull away, and no one dies. No one turns. My family is still whole.

  But that’s not what happened.

  I saw it—the moment the man leaned down and looked at my mother. His eyes were the color of a radiant Southern California sunset—the kind that turns the sky all different shades of purple.

  This is where everything in my memory deepens—where the ink is still wet, all these years later.

  For a second, I was relieved. His eyes were violet, not red. I thought the red eyes were the only ones you had to look out for. The man flicked his eyes to my father.

  My mother started screaming. She put her hands to her face, muffling the cries and somehow making them more terrifying.

  My father gasped in pain and leaned over the steering wheel, flooring the gas pedal. The man fell back as we lurched forward, disappearing into the shadows once more.

  He stepped in, ruined our lives, and then disappeared. There was no warning. No follow-up. And sometimes that just happens. A collision—no sense to it, no purpose.

  “Get to the boat!” my father yelled, his eyes shut tight.

  Vanessa tried to lean forward, but Harlow pulled her back, something like understanding slinking across her face. My mother curled up in the passenger seat, sobs racking her shoulders.

  I heard the click as Harlow opened the door. The sounds of the shrill terror wafting over the city rolled into the car like a thunderclap.

  “Mom? Dad? Come on!” Vanessa yelled as Harlow pulled her from the car.

  My parents didn’t move. His eyes still closed, my father reached over and grabbed my mother’s hand. He squeezed once. Harlow reached into the back seat, pulling me, digging her hands into the collar of my jacket and yanking me out of the car.

  I tried to fight back, but she shoved me. I don’t know how she knew, or how she stayed so strong.

  The shuffling of feet sounded on the street beyond, and Harlow and I looked. Hundreds of Vessels walked toward us, filling the marina.

  “Go!” my mother cried from the front seat. She opened the door and stumbled out, her eyes still shut. Then she turned and opened them, keeping her eyes fixed on the Vessels walking down the street.

  My father stepped out of the driver’s side. “We will buy you as much time as we can.”

  I didn’t want to comprehend what was happening.

  “We can get help!” I yelled, reaching for my mother’s hand. She pulled back.

  Vanessa sobbed harder, and the Vessels creeped closer. I knew they were fast when they wanted to be. They could have overcome us by now, if they chose to. But this wasn’t about overcoming us quickly. They were having fun.

  I backed away, following Harlow while still walking backward, but Vanessa refused to move. I heard the boat engine start behind us.

  I pulled Vanessa toward the dock, ignoring how she clawed at my arms. Harlow helped me heave her into the boat, and we jetted away from the dock, the force of the engine knocking us back. None of us said anything then.

  It could have been minutes or hours. I don’t remember.

  “We have to go back,” Vanessa yelled, standing. Harlow didn’t even look back, but kept her eyes on the dark water ahead. Above us, the moon turned inky. The blood moon—a total lunar eclipse that casts the moon in a red shadow. I’d seen one once with my dad, but this one felt different. The dark around us felt thick—alive somehow.

  Harlow turned her head, just slightly, and spat over her shoulder. “There is no back, Vanessa. Mom and Dad are . . .” She didn’t finish, and I was grateful.

  “We can find a way to fix it!” Vanessa yelled.

  “We don’t even know what the hell is happening, Vanessa!” The boat jumped a wave, and Vanessa lost her balance for a moment before steadying herself.

  I shut my eyes, letting the stain of the bloody night wash over me.

  I should have said something. I should have reached for Vanessa when the boat hit another wave and I saw her lose her balance once more. I should have yelled at Harlow to look out as Vanessa lurched forward, knocking Harlow sideways and sending the wheel careening left.

  The world spun.

  And then there was darkness. Cool, all-encompassing darkness as I sank down, and down, and down into the water. The boat had thrown us all at the abrupt turn.

  The water wrapped me up as it had a thousand times before. I waited for the comfort—for the peace. But the hands that once embraced me tightened. And tightened.

  There was no sunlight rippling in a refracted dance above me. No laughter skidding over the waves like a pebble.

  There was only darkness.

  Darkness and death.

  I kicked my feet, but I didn’t know which way was the surface and which was the f
athoms. I didn’t know if I wanted to know. Nothing in the surface world would make me feel any better, and while I knew that—self-preservation took over and I started thrashing as heat bloomed in my lungs. I needed air.

  I needed air.

  I needed the surface, no matter what horrors awaited me.

  But the air didn’t come.

  My lungs screamed, and they felt like the sound Vanessa made when I wrenched her from our mother.

  A current pulled me sideways, yanking my hair out of the elastic band. I kicked harder, and black spots filled my vision.

  They were dead.

  I was dying.

  I scrambled, letting out a scream that sent little bubbles spinning past my face.

  Then, just as the black on the edge of my vision pulled in toward my pupils, I broke through. Sputtering and coughing, I thrashed against the waves.

  “Char!” I heard my name and turned. Harlow was swimming next to the boat, her hand tight around the rope secured to the bow.

  “Where is Vanessa?” she cried.

  A new vise spun tight around my lungs as I twirled, treading water.

  Vanessa. There was no Vanessa.

  “Nessa!” I shrieked.

  “We have to find her!” Harlow yelled before she dove under the surface. She disappeared, and terror spiked through my chest.

  All too soon, Harlow broke the surface again and looked at me.

  “Charlotte! Look! Dive down and look!” Her words hit me like arrows, and I bit down hard, clenching my jaw against the panic that felt like a rampant fire loose in my chest.

  Vanessa. I had to find Vanessa.

  I ducked under the water, but didn’t make it more than a couple of inches before my lungs spasmed, the terror pulsing through them. I sucked in involuntarily, and sputtered as I shoved upward. I heaved as I broke the surface.

  Harlow looked at me as she came up from a deep dive.

  “Charlotte! What the fuck are you doing! We have to find Vanessa!”

  “I’m trying!” I shrieked, raising my arms and sending myself underwater once more.

  And once more, the terror that seized me once I was under was unbearable. My hands shook as I fought to get above the surface, but something stopped me. There was something touching my foot. I opened my eyes, trying to see below in the pitch-black waves. I felt it again. Something touched me.