Friction (The Frenzy Series Book 4) (14 page)

Elise fell to her knees. “Please, just let us go.” Marta went quiet and the only sound in the hall was Elise’s heavy breaths. “Oh, God,” her lips shook. “She’s behind me, isn’t she?”

Lydia, whose change had been faster than anyone expected, smiled from just over Elise’s shoulder; a chilling smile that revealed tiny fangs. Elise moved her head the slightest bit to get a look at her. “Boo,” Lydia whispered. Elise wailed, scrambling forward toward me, but it was too late. Lydia was fast and hungry.

She sank her fangs into Elise’s shoulder, drawling deeply and groaning from the satisfaction of quenched thirst, of a fire extinguished. Marta backed into me, but I wouldn’t let her escape down the steps. “Please!” she shrieked, turning her head to see Lydia drop Elise’s corpse carelessly on the ground; her neck folded at an unnatural angle as she stared out from behind a loose curl.

Lydia wasted no time in grabbing Marta and draining her, too. This was going to be difficult. She’d be strong, but Frenzy was overwhelming. Her senses would be in overdrive. I would just have to use them against her.

Marta’s fine dress, stained with spurts of blood, fell over Elise’s face as Lydia tossed her aside. I was already walking toward her. She let out a growl and jumped toward me. “Stop,” I told her, looking directly at her and hoping the compulsion worked on frenzied night-walkers.

She clutched her ears. I’d forgotten about the sensitivity. “Are you still hungry?”

“Yes,” she answered, her lips shaking, fists relaxing and then clenching again against her head.

“There’s a human in the bedroom I was sleeping in. Pierce.”

From down the hall, I heard the door slam and then furniture sliding across the floor behind it, followed by Pierce’s shouted curses. Lydia smiled and scampered quickly to the door, barely pushing it. It opened forcefully, shoving everything he’d been sweating to brace it with back along the floor. He was near the window, and that was when I had my chance.

Lydia leaped onto Pierce, gnashing her teeth at his face and throat as he fought in vain to push her away. Moving imperceptibly fast, I caught her by the head as she removed her fangs from his neck. She gasped in surprise. Then I jerked hard.

And Lydia was no more.

The room erupted in a violent burst of crimson.

Pierce, covered in Lydia’s blood, wiped his face and eyes, pushing through the sticky fluid to get away from me. But it was too late. “Not so fast, Pierce. I can’t trust you not to keep causing problems for me.”

Drink.

Gulp.

Drain.

They’d killed one another.

Lydia wanted it.

So did Marta.

Elise did, too.

They Infected Pierce. They fed from him to become human.

The women destroyed The Glen. The people. The elderly. The children. Everything.

The bodies.

The floating bodies.

Corpses.

The scent of fear, of blood, of monsters.

I was a monster.

I killed them all.

Dead.

Death.

Destruction.

That was all I was.

That was all I’d ever be.

I stared down at Pierce. I killed him. Lydia would have killed him.

I stopped him.

My fingers. My muscles. Shaking.

Trembling.

Terrible.

I held them up, watching the blood drip down.

Splatters on the carpet.

I looked to Pierce, a warm, crimson tear falling from my eye. “No. You deserved this,” I told him.

His chest didn’t rise. His heart wasn’t beating. He was gone.

I took a step backward.

I stared out the broken window, stepping over Lydia, over her head and through the crunching broken glass, smeared with her blood. Outside it was late afternoon. The sun shone on the blanched bodies floating below. It shone on the flowers in the field, the daisies and violets. And it shone on the four people running toward The Manor: Tage, Saul, Roman, and my sister.
My sister
.

They can’t see me like this.

They will see what I’ve done.

What I am.

What I’m capable of.

And it will break me.

Or I will break them...

Run.

Running was effortless, like breathing. In. Out. Left. Right. Being a night-walker felt amazing. Roman ran in front of our group. “The Manor is just ahead!” he shouted.

And it was. The flattened land gave way to a small knoll, and on it sat a stone home that was castle-like. The sun burned my eyes, but it didn’t dull my sense of smell, and the stench that hit my nose almost knocked me down. I stopped. Cupping my face, I asked, “What
is
that?”

Mercedes was in the same shape. She eased the collar of her shirt over the bottom half of her face, her eyes squinting in the late afternoon sun. Roman wasn’t affected by the light at all. Was it because he’d been a night-walker before?

He sniffed the rancid air and gagged. “It’s coming from the bridge,” he said, pointing ahead of us. Walking forward, we soon found what the scent was. It was rot and decay, but not from the Infected. There were human corpses littering a large ditch that surrounded the main house. The cloudy dark water had a film across its surface, only broken by the insects that skimmed across it. All shades of skin, all walks of life, all ages were made equal in the cruelty of their deaths and in the manner in which they were discarded. Like garbage tossed out of a house, they lay still in the water.

Mercedes’ eyes began watering, blood flowing from the corners. “I need to get out of here,” she breathed, stumbling across the wooden bridge.

Tage nodded and helped her across. Roman and I ran around them before stopping at the sight of the front door opening. A woman emerged, human and so dirty she didn’t smell human at all.

She screamed, “I did what she said! Let me go!”

“What who said?” Roman asked.

“The night-walker who freed me. She said to let the other humans go.”

“What humans?” I asked, but the answer to my question came before he could voice the words. Covered with anything they could find: curtains, towels, or pillowcases, people began pouring out from around both sides of the house, running on bare feet. Desperation filled the air.

Men, women, and children; old and young, starved and dirty. Mercedes growled, baring her fangs at them. The women pulled their children close and screamed, backing away from her. Tage held her back from them. “We need to get inside and away from them.”

He stared at me. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah.” But was I? I didn’t feel hunger. A sense of sorrow filled me up. Watching the emaciated try to garner the strength to leave this place was too much. They needed help.

Roman opened the main door as Tage pulled Mercedes along. I followed them into The Manor. While Roman and Tage tried to calm Mercedes, I slipped away, walking up the steps. I could smell her.

Her scent was almost masked by the iron scent of blood, but it was there. She was near. At the landing, I stepped over the bodies of two women wearing enormous dresses. Following the trail of blood leading down the hallway, I found her in a bedroom, soaked in blood. The pale dress she’d worn was soaked through, the hem of it dripping and the droplets splashing the floor and the tops of her bare feet.

When she sensed me, she stilled, her eyes wild. I eased my hands up, palms out. “It’s just me.”

She began muttering something unintelligible.

“Porschia? It’s Saul.”

A shrill laugh bubbled up from her stomach. “I’m no better than you now. I killed them all.”

She held her stomach, her teeth covered in blood. “I drained one of them and then threw him out with the others,” she said, pointing out the window.

“Was he human?”

“No. He was a night-walker.”

“What happened to her?” I said, motioning toward the body on the floor, the woman’s head torn from her shoulders.

Porschia shook her head. “She wanted to be cursed. And so she was.”

“Is that Pierce?” I asked, looking over the woman’s prone and bleeding body.

“It is.”

“And the two in the hallway?”

“Drained by the cursed one.”

She backed toward the window and vomited out, blood pouring from her mouth.

“We met a girl outside. She said you freed her.”

She panted, grasping the edge of the stone outside the window. “Did she set them all free?”

“Yes.”

She nodded, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. Her blood-soaked hair hung in wavy, wet strands, dripping onto the earth below her. I eased toward her. “Do you ever wish you had never volunteered for the rotation?” she asked.

“Every damn day.”

Sniffing, she turned abruptly. “You’ve changed.”

I closed in. “It’s okay. I chose this.”

“None of us
chose
this,” she argued.

“I did choose this. For you. I wanted to help free you; to save you.”

“You always try, Saul, but there’s no saving me now.” Her eyes searched mine. A sense of foreboding settled deep in my stomach. I changed so that we could save her from those at The Manor, but I had no idea we would need to save Porschia from herself. “I’m a monster,” she whispered.

“We’re all monsters.”

“Some are worse than others.”

I couldn’t argue with that. Some were worse than others. And some were worse at certain times in their lives, in a heated moment where they made the wrong choice.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered to her, reaching out to stroke her hair. “I was wrong. I see that now.”

Her short inhalation said more than if she’d spoken for days, but I didn’t need words or forgiveness, I just had to speak those words to her. Now she knew. Now, nothing else hung unresolved between us.

“Thank you,” she whispered back, staring at my mouth. “Will you turn back now?”

“Soon. I think we should all wait to turn back until we get everyone out there to safety, maybe back to Blackwater.”

“We have to stop at Mountainside and offer them the same shelter. Will the new council object?” she asked.

“I don’t think so.”

She turned to the window, watching the steady flow of human beings stumble away from this cursed place.

Tage burst into the room. “Hey,” he said slowly, looking between the two of us. “There was an Infected downstairs. Mercedes elected to change back. If you want to, his blood will still probably work on you.”

I shook my head. “No. I’ll wait until everyone’s safely in the Colony.” Namely Porschia. Because as much as she could deny it, she had a wild look in her eyes and I wondered if she was going to run as far away from all of this as she could, the first chance she got.

Tage rushed to her side, whispering to her how he was so scared she would be hurt or worse. I went to look for water and a change of clothes for her before I was sick or decided to take my Frenzy out on Tage. He was an asshole. Roman told me about what he did to Porschia in the city, back when she was in the rotation. He was going to feed from her femoral artery, or so he suggested. Would he have tried something worse? He said Tage knew he was around, but did he? Was he goading Roman or was he going to hurt her? Feed from the vein in her leg? Assault her? The thoughts spun in my head like a top; around and around, teetering and wobbling until they might topple me over.

As much as the plant curbed the intensity of the emotion I was feeling, it was still there. I just had the option of thinking before acting now. And even though I was in Frenzy and even though I could snap, I wouldn’t hurt her. I knew that, deep inside me. I would never hurt Porschia on purpose. Tage? I wasn’t so sure of that, or of him. And what would he do if she decided he wasn’t what she wanted? Would he let her go easily? Or would he tear her apart?

There was something in his eyes that said he would never let her go. I didn’t know if he really loved her or if he only loved that he’d won her, that he’d taken her from me. Because as much as Roman thought he would have her, she wanted no part of him. And as much as Tage hated it, she cared about me. She still did.