Fraud (The Frenzy Series Book 5)

by Casey L. Bond

He nodded. “We can make the wall joists here, and if your brother can figure out how to get the bridge in place somehow, he could drive the horse and buggy across. That would make it much easier. I expect you’ll not go too deep into the woods.”

  I couldn’t help but smile. “You’ll help me?”

  “Of course,” he said sincerely. “Look at all you did to help us. If this is what you need, I’ll make it happen.”

  I thanked Brian and ran for home. Ford and I had to figure the bridge out.

  My brother threw his arms around me on the porch, almost knocking me backward down the steps. “It’s good to see you out and about, Porsch!”

  “I need your genius, Ford.”

  “Really? I can go get it,” he said, hitching his thumb back toward the house playfully.

  I punched him lightly and he feigned injury. “So, what are you scheming about?” he asked.

  “Who says I’m scheming?” I teased.

  “It’s in the twinkle of your eyes. You’re up to something.”

  “Nothing,” I told him, “except trying to think of how to get the bridge in place.” I hopped down off the porch and started toward the crossing.

  “You’re kidding, right?” he yelled from behind me.

  “Nope.”

  “Aww, Porsch, that’s impossible now. You know,” he said, catching up with me, “we should’ve left it up, guarded it or something. Now it’s going to rot on the other side of the river.”

  “Not if you’re half as smart as I’m betting you are, little brother.”

  Once we got to the edge of the river, Ford stared at the bridge across the swirling water. After an hour, we sat on the bank. He picked grass and threw it into the river. “It’s steep here,” he finally said.

  That was obvious, so I waited and listened for him to talk the solution out of his mind. “We can’t use horses.” He sighed. “Can’t lift it without a lot of man-power.”

  “Could we place it downstream?” I offered.

  “Maybe if we find a place it’ll fit, but it was built to be used here, at this spot. It would be best if it stayed here.”

  “Can we make something? I asked.

  “To lift it?” he asked with a groan.

  “Yeah, to hoist it over somehow.”

  He picked another long piece of grass. “We’d need a lot of rope, a good pulley, and some strong timber, but I think we could make something to lever it over, Porsch. Then we could have people on this side with ropes to steer it so it didn’t swing around wildly and hurt someone. They could guide it into place.” He jumped up. “I need to talk to Brian. Be right back.”

  His rushed footsteps carried him back toward the houses, and I knew it would be a while before he came back. I made my way upstream along the bank to a place where I could descend, to the calm pool beneath the waterfall where we said farewell to Mercedes after she fell. It was where we played, bathed, and managed to find a sliver of happiness in spite of the dismal situation we were in.

  Kicking off the new tennis shoes Mercedes found for me in the city, I rolled up the legs of my pants until they were too tight to go any farther and the rolled fabric sat right above my knee, gently squeezing my legs. It had been scorching hot over the past week, no rain, and the bank was sandy and dry. I dug my toes into it and closed my eyes, remembering the feel of his skin melded to mine.

  I miss you. I hope you’re at peace now.

  A tear fell from my eyes, joining the water in the pool as I stepped in.

  This is hard. Being without you... I was so angry that you lied, but I understand it at the same time. It’s all such a confusing mess. And it’s surreal, Tage. Part of me wonders if I’ve lost my mind like Mother and only imagined you; created the night-walkers and Infected in some world that only existed to me. But if that’s true, then I’m glad, because you were part of that world. And if it’s not, then I’m so glad your seer saw me and that you were led to me. Because I love you.

  A warm breeze swirled around me and I imagined it was his arms, wrapping around my waist from behind.

  “Hey,” a voice from behind said, pulling me out of my trance. I turned to find Saul walking down the bank along the roots that made little earthen steps.

  “Hey.”

  “I didn’t mean to bother you. I didn’t realize anyone was here.” He slowed his steps. “I can go,” he said, hitching his thumb behind him.

  “It’s fine. I’m just wading.”

  “I just need to cool off for a few minutes.” I noticed his shirt was wringing wet with sweat as he reached down to unlace his boots. “I swear steam just came out,” he said, setting one boot aside and then the other.

  “It wouldn’t surprise me. What have you been doing?” It was just after midday and the sun was already scorching hot. The humidity only made it seem hotter.

  “A crew of us are fixing the roof of Town Hall.”

  That surprised me enough to stop walking through the cool water. “It’s about time. How long have they been using it with a broken roof?”

  “Too long.”

  That was about right. We were both quiet for a few long moments until he finally broke the silence. “How are you holding up?”

  “I’m fine.”

  He shook his head, having finished rolling his pant legs up. “You’re not now, but you will be.”

  I hoped he was right.

  “We aren’t sick or eating our neighbors, so that’s something, right?” I teased, releasing a hollow laugh.

  He grabbed the back of his shirt and pulled it over his head. I looked to the waterfall, knowing he was splashing his head and body. “I’m going in,” he warned, and then took off running to the deeper section just beneath the falling water.

  I couldn’t help but laugh. He looked carefree and different, too young to have gone through what we all did. Too happy for it to have been real.

  He stilled just in front of the water, cocking his head to the side. “Do you hear that?”

  The only thing I heard was water and the locusts.

  “The bugs?”

  “Yeah. They aren’t saying Pharaoh anymore.”

  I bent in to listen, realizing they weren’t. They were screeching, but in no particular rhythm. It’s as if the word had been erased from their biology. I swallowed thickly. Just like him, the word was gone.

  “Aw, shit. I’m sorry, Porschia.” He trudged through the water toward me, but I was already out and putting on my shoes.

  “It’s okay. I have to go.”

  He sighed. “I’m sorry anyway.”

  Everyone who was there knew that Tage had done the right thing. He lied to his sister, knowing his abilities weren’t strong enough to allow them to cheat a death they’d been so long denied. He couldn’t magic away fate. And yet he healed me, and through me, the world was made whole.

  Climbing the bank quickly, I reveled in the feeling of burning muscles. Being part vampire made everything so simple. We were faster and our senses were more acute; the ultimate predators. But being a predator wasn’t fun when it wasn’t really a challenge. Normal was much more difficult. Everyday life was hard. Physically. Mentally. But it was a challenge I’d greatly face and be thankful for each day.

  One day, as soon as the stone in my chest melted, I’d face it a whole lot happier.

  Mercedes laid her head on my shoulders and stared through the open window as the curtains fluttered in the breeze.

  “Every star is shining, just like everything’s right in the world,” she said softly.

  “Isn’t it?” I asked.

  “No. My sister is broken and I still have this sneaking suspicion that you’re glad about it.”

  The fingers that brushed her arm stilled. “I’m not.”

  “You are. I can tell you still haven’t let it go, but I understand. I probably wouldn’t have if I were you either. I really like you, Roman, but I can’t do this if you’re planning to hurt her.”

  She let out a shuddering breath.

  Did
I still resent Porschia for killing Pierce? Yes. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t. Did I want her dead? Not anymore. I’d seen enough blood shed for a thousand lifetimes. Somehow, when the change happened and the curses were finished, I didn’t age like I thought I would, especially after seeing how the women at The Manor shrank and crumbled. I’d been spared. I was young and fit and had Mercedes to spend time with. She and I were friends and lovers now, but maybe one day we would be more.

  The thing of it was that there was possibility. A future. Hope.

  And I didn’t want to lose her. I liked her, too.

  I liked the feel of her skin and how her nose crinkled when she laughed. And her body, my God, it was made for me. I was sure of it.

  “I want to put it behind me. It’s still a fresh wound, Cede. I can’t just snap my fingers and forget I had a brother. I can’t forget what she did.”

  Mercedes shifted to face me. “You don’t have to forget. You don’t even have to forgive her. But I don’t want you to hurt her. If you hurt her, it’ll kill me.”

  “I’d never hurt you.”

  “At one point, you’d have torn my throat out, Roman.”

  I smiled. “You’d have done the same to me. But I promise you now that we’re changed, I won’t hurt your sister… or your brother.”

  Mercedes didn’t cry often. She was tough. As the eldest in that dysfunctional household, she held in a whole lot. So when her tear fell onto my skin, hot and then cooling as it slid down my chest, it almost broke my heart.

  I wasn’t sure I had one left until that moment.

  “I promise.”

  She swallowed and nodded, nuzzling closer against me. And I reveled in the feel of her. The feel of us.

  Roman was waiting near the bridge, as sweaty as Saul. I gave him a slight wave, intending to move away without speaking, but he jogged to catch up with me. Mercedes had spilled the beans about him trying to kill her and Ford to get back at me for killing Pierce. Oops.

  I warily watched Roman approach. He pursed his lips before he began talking. “Can we just start over, Porschia? I did awful things to your family. You did awful things to mine. But we’re human now, and we have a chance at a new start. Plus, it’s harder to kill another person when you aren’t a monster with fangs, thirsty for blood. So I guess I’m asking if we can just start fresh?”

  I could see the tension in his shoulders as he waited for my reply. I gave it to him in the form of a hug. “As long as you promise never to hurt my family, Roman. If you want to hurt someone, come after me.”

  He snorted. “I promise. Though, if we’re truly starting over, I hope we’ll never let it come to that. Besides,” he paused. “I think you’ve been punished enough for a thousand men.”

  I knew he meant losing Tage, and he was right. My heart felt like a thousand arrows had pierced it, shredding it into nothing.

  I walked quickly back to my house, although it wasn’t just mine at the moment. Once we left Roman’s house that first night after the excitement receded, Mercedes and Saul migrated with me. Mercedes slept in the room next to mine and Saul took the couch. I’d only asked him once to be a pillow again since that first night at Roman’s. I counted that as a battle won in this drawn-out war.

  Somehow I fell asleep on the couch and woke with a crick in my neck. Rolling it from side to side, I tried to remind myself that this was one of the things that made me normal, made me human, and I should be thankful for it. And then I heard shouting from upstairs and got worried. One of those voices was Roman. The other was Mercedes. Could he have been bluffing?

  I rushed up the steps and threw her door open. That was a mistake.

  “Porschia?! Don’t you knock?” she shrieked, quickly grabbing a pillow to cover herself with, although Roman just laughed as I jerked the door closed. I felt like melting into a puddle and disappearing altogether. Roman and my sister? When did those feelings turn from death and destruction to love making?

  “I’m leaving. I’ll leave,” I stuttered. Something banged against the door.

  “Knock next time!” Mercedes yelled.

  “I didn’t know you’d be banging our next door neighbor in the middle of the day in my house! And he tried to kill you!”

  “It’s my house, too! And we’ve already kissed and made up!” She was insufferable.

  “Go to Roman’s next time!”

  She growled as I opened the front door and began to walk, and then I realized I had nowhere to go. The river was occupied, my house was... being used, and Father wasn’t home. He was busy helping Brian and the carpenters with something – I didn’t know what and he didn’t elaborate. Ford was working things out and needed to do it on his own.

  My feet carried me down familiar pathways, straight to Maggie’s.

  I sat on her porch, the familiar worn wooden planks beneath me. The sun filtered through the leaves on the tree in her front yard. “You gonna start sewing for her?” someone asked from next door. It was Meg’s mom, and the very fact that she had the ability to wear a smile on her face and carry on a simple conversation after losing her daughter – to my mother, no less – even though it was months ago, astounded me. I hadn’t come that far yet.

  “Does anyone really need it?”

  “They do. Not everyone can fit in the clothes they find in the city. A lot of them are moth-eaten anyway. I’m not saying you should make one style or another, but a lot of people could use some fresh items in their closet.”

  “Why would anyone want me to make them?” She knew why I was asking. People were terrified of me. Would they even want my hands touching the fabric they’d wear?

  She sighed. “I think they would. Besides, it’s time to leave the past where it lies.”

  One thing was certain: if a woman who’d lost her daughter to the cold-blooded hands of my mother could find it within her heart to say anything at all to me, let alone something encouraging, it meant there might be hope for us all. Because if the situation were reversed, I’m not sure I could look into the eyes of someone related to the person who slaughtered everything I loved. “I’ll consider it once the dust settles.”

  She inclined her head and then stepped inside the home next to Maggie’s. I still felt that things needed time. In general, people weren’t willing to change their way of thinking overnight, especially something ingrained from a fear so thick it could be felt.

  I stood and pushed Maggie’s door open. Stepping inside, it smelled like home. Familiar and inviting, like the dried vanilla hanging on nails in each room, and like sunshine on dust. I couldn’t let her home get coated in it, so I grabbed some rags and began to erase it off of everything I could see. I cleaned for hours until I was spent, and then I went upstairs to the bed she’d offered me, curling up into a ball and falling asleep.

  It was almost dark when someone pushed the door open with a loud squeak. I jumped up, startled and still groggy.

  Saul’s silhouette filled the doorway. “There you are.”

  “Yeah. I was tired and must have lost track of the time.” And I felt tired all the time. I wanted nothing more than to sleep this nightmare away.

  He smiled. “Your sister is worried.”

  “She sure wasn’t worried earlier,” I grumbled beneath my breath.

  “She told me everything,” he said with a grin.

  I laughed ruefully. “At least you didn’t have to witness it.”

  “True. Ready to go home?”

  Was I? This was as much home to me as anywhere else. I wondered why someone from Mountainside or The Glen didn’t get placed here. I was glad they weren’t, but wondered why all the same. The house was big. It could easily house a large family, or maybe even two small ones.

  “Yeah, I’m ready. I’m confused as hell about my sister and Roman, but I’m ready to go back if they’re…finished.”

  I laced my tennis shoes and followed him down the hall and stairs. The evening was warm and the sky was only beginning to show the brightest stars. I stared at the famil
iar patterns.

  “You like the stars?” he asked.

  “I always have. I like the sky in general because it varies so much, but it’s always beautiful.”

  He smiled at me. “That’s an interesting way to think about it.”

  I shrugged. “It’s true. Clouds, the coloring of the sky, the patterns; they’re always unique.”

  “The stars are constant, though,” he teased.

  “There’s beauty in their predictability. The stars are reliable.” They’re always there. They don’t leave.

  At the pavilion, I paused near the fountain. Someone had cleaned it out and filled it with fresh, clean water. “Blackwater seems happier now.”

  “People are finally taking care of it,” he replied simply.

  “Why didn’t they before?”

  He sighed. “There wasn’t much hope of a future before, but now people can see the possibility of a long, happy life. They want to be surrounded by things that remind them to live. This place was awfully run down, and it’s good to see people actually caring about it again.”

  “I don’t remember a time when they did,” I said, trying to search my memory.

  “At some point someone did. They wouldn’t have placed this fountain, the benches, or laid these stones in the ground if they didn’t care. Someone created a place of beauty, but because of its use in the rotation, its beauty became tainted. It became a place to fear instead of a place to enjoy.”

  We walked down the sidewalks toward what used to be the night-walker portion of town. Now, children ran around catching the lightning bugs that flared beneath the dark trees in their lawns, careful not to step into the gardens that were flourishing.

  Saul cleared his throat. “Ford told me about the bridge.”

  “Yeah. I think it would be nice to be able to use it.”

  “To get supplies across for your new house?”

  Ford had a big mouth. “Yeah. I just think I would feel more comfortable out there.” He was quiet for a beat. “You know what’s weird?”

  “What?” he asked.

  “I’ve lived here most of my life, and I only spent time in the forest recently. But I was more comfortable there than I ever was in Blackwater. It’s like the forest became a part of me, or me a part of her. Beyond the crossing, I feel like I can breathe. Here, I feel smothered.”